Sex and Relationships

AlterNet's "Sex and Relationships" coverage includes stories about sexuality, love and relationships.

Sex for World Series Tickets?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on October 28, 2009 at 6:46 PM.

Let’s say that you’re a woman, and you’re a die hard fan of the home team. And let’s further stipulate that you’re not a season ticket holder, and you don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a pair of tickets for yourself and your spouse, even for the cheap seats at the local stadium. What to do, what to do? How about placing an advertisement on Craig’s List, and hope that a sympathetic person who has a couple of spare tickets will help you out?

So, you’re writing the ad. After all, you’re the assistant director of communications at a local medical facility, and like any good ad copy writer, you know one thing for sure: “sexy” sells, and gets attention (particularly on Craig’s List). You settle on the following, and hit the submit button:

DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX!
Diehard Phillies fan - gorgeous tall buxom blonde - in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable. I’m the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!

Flirtatious? Perhaps. Solicitation? Hardly. But that’s what a vice cop in Bensalem, Pa. apparently thought when he read Susan Finkelstein’s advertisement in the ticket section of Philadelphia Craig’s List.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Word to the Wise: Never Date a Guy Who Reads Details Magazine
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 28, 2009 at 3:19 PM.

Shorter Details: Tricky bitches will get themselves pregnant and then make you pay for it.

Imagine for a moment this perfectly plausible scenario: You’ve had a steady girlfriend for a year or so and everything’s going great. You still hold hands at the movies. Friends tell you you’re good together. You’re both around 30 years old and making plenty of money, maybe living together, but you’re nowhere near considering fatherhood. And though you occasionally get the feeling that her biological clock is set far ahead of yours, she tells you she’s “safe,” so you don’t worry. Why would you? It’s not as if you’d just picked her up on Dollar Margarita Night at Senor Frog’s. But one morning she tells you something has gone wrong. Unlikely as it sounds, she’s pregnant-and she wants to keep it. What she doesn’t tell you, though, is this: She wasn’t being safe all along. She wanted to have that baby— and the way she saw it, this was the only way to make it happen.

You know where this is going, right?

A few experts discuss the “trend” of women tricking men into impregnating them, without offering any hard information or statistics. A few odd people are interviewed, and they confirm that they’ve heard that other odd people are getting pregant accidently-on-purpose. And then we get to “Roe v. Wade for men”:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservative Doctor Valiantly Keeps Women From Becoming Sluts
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 4:59 PM.

Who says anti-choice extremists don't care about women? A USA Today article on conscience clauses -- legislation that lets health providers deny patients contraception -- quotes a doctor who obviously has only the best interests of women -- stupid, stupid women -- in mind: 

Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Dr. Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the answer.

“I’m not going to give any kind of medication I see as harmful,” said Phillips of San Antonio. The drugs would not protect her patient from “emotional trauma from multiple partners,” Phillips reasoned, or sexually transmitted diseases. “I could not ethically give that type of medication to a single woman.”

Unwanted babies, of course, do heal STDs and emotional trauma. 

Via Feminists for Choice (an Feministing)

"Freakonomics" Authors Tell You How to be a Good Prostitute
Posted by Sady Doyle, Comment Is Free on October 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM.

Good news, ladies. You, too, can make millions by charging for sex! And you'll just have a slam-bang, gee-golly splendiferous time doing it, too -- at least if you absolutely adore the sort of men who pay for it. Be warned, however: Disliking those men will consign you to the minimum-wage ranks of sex professionals, forever longing for the big bucks you could be earning, had you only an appropriately chipper attitude.

Such is the advice of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, of Freakonomics fame. They are back with a new book, Superfreakonomics, and recently they unveiled a bit of it in the form of an excerpt about how to succeed as a prostitute.

Freakonomics, of course, is the science of choosing an appropriately wacky or controversial subject (sumo wrestlers, abortion), applying a little economic analysis to it and coming up with a shocking conclusion that will make people blog about you. In that respect, the how-to-charge-for-sex piece was a no-brainer. Expressing any opinion about prostitution will bring on outrage (and attention) from one corner or another, no matter what your opinion turns out to be. Of course, if you are aiming for maximum impact, it helps to be -- as Levitt and Dubner are -- really, stunningly, remarkably wrong.

Levitt and Dubner build their piece around a comparison of two prostitutes: Allie, who works from her bedroom and makes between $350 and $500 an hour, depending on the client, and LaSheena, who works on the streets and probably makes about $350 a week, based on statistics (some information -- any information -- as to LaSheena's specific circumstances and earnings probably would have helped the comparison, but Levitt and Dubner seem, in this instance as in many others, not to have bothered learning about their subject).

LaSheena and Allie are the Goofus and Gallant of sex work, at least in the warped little scenario laid forth in the Superfreakonomics excerpt. Arising, as Levitt and Dubner seem to assume they do, from absolutely no context whatsoever (the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed, for example; neither is the personal history of LaSheena explored in any detail, though we hear about Allie at excruciating length) they are not actual women so much as they are flattened-out, hollow caricatures of Success and Failure. Allie is a good prostitute; she has succeeded. LaSheena is a bad prostitute; she has failed.

What has LaSheena done wrong, you ask? Simple: She doesn't like being a prostitute. "I don't really like men," she is quoted as saying. This is an interesting statement, which the authors fail to follow up. Why doesn't LaSheena like men? Has she been beaten? Has she been raped? Is there a man taking a cut of her money? Was she forced into this job as a child by a man, by a boyfriend she loved, by sheer poverty? And has she seen the ugly side of men too often in this job to trust any?

Hey, here's an interesting thought: Maybe LaSheena doesn't like men because she's trapped in a cycle of poverty, and one of the only ways for her to stay alive is to have sex with men, whether or not she really wants to. Maybe that's enough to make LaSheena dislike men. We'll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don't ask. They don't care to humanise her. She's the Goofus in the scenario. Her poverty -- which is assumed to be entirely her fault -- is only there to provide a counterpoint to Allie's shining example.

Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute! Why, do you know that she just went ahead and did it on a whim, as a sexy adventure, and not because of any nasty old compelling factors like poverty or addiction or a man literally arranging for her to be raped over and over again and taking money from her rapists or anything like that? Well, it's true. The Freakonomics gentlemen said so!

They make a point of letting us know that Allie "liked men, and she liked sex." And do you know what men she especially likes? Why, her clients, of course. Allie "is the kind of person who sees something good in everyone". Isn't that nice? She credits this for the fact that she is so successful -- and so do Levitt and Dubner.

Say, here's another nicety that Levitt and Dubner genuinely thought was a sane and intelligent thing to write down and publish: Allie's clients "treat her, in many ways, as men are expected to treat their wives but often don't". And Allie, in return, is like the "ideal wife", who "is happy to see you every time you show up at her door. Your favorite music is already playing, and your favourite drink is on ice. She will never ask you to take out the rubbish."

How this qualifies as wifely behavior, outside of reruns of "Father Knows Best," is unclear. But Levitt and Dubner seem genuinely convinced that this one-sided scenario of happy subjugation and infantile, pampered narcissism is good for everyone involved. Allie gets a MacBook! Doesn't that prove that it's working?

Levitt and Dubner seem, at some point along the line, to have missed out on the fact that women have inner lives, lives which do not revolve entirely around servicing men and which may in fact require some servicing by men along the way. It's evident in the way they extol Allie for getting such unmitigated joy out of subjugating herself to her clients.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Should a Woman Change Her Name When She Marries? 70 Percent of Americans Think So
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 26, 2009 at 10:45 AM.

Apparently 70 percent of Americans believe that a woman should change her name when she marries, and 50 percent believe it should be required by law. While I would expect most Americans to favor name-changing, I didn't expect that it was that high, and I certainly didn't think that so many people believe it should be legally mandated. I was also suprised that only 5-10 percent of women keep their own names.

I'm not married and so I recognize that this is an easier calculus for me to make now, but I have never even considered changing my last name. I don't think I ever would consider it. My mom, like many women of her generation, took my father's name -- it's just what everyone did, and it was easier. My best friend, who was raised in a pretty religious home, took her husband's name when she got married -- I don't know that she really gave a lot of thought to the whole process. It was just what you did.

Where I actually felt the shock of the name-change was seeing a list of female names I didn't recognize on Facebook, then clicking through and realizing, oh, that’s someone I've known since the 5th grade. Except not really, because I always knew Jane Jones and now she’s Jane Brown. Or maybe she’s Jane “Jones” Brown with her former name in quotes -- because, I dunno, it's a joke? I suppose I'm sheltered, but I assumed that the majority of my female friends (and especially college friends and acquaintences) would keep their own names. I was stunned at how many women I knew changed their names when they married.

What throws me off even more is when I see feminist-minded or liberal women take their husband’s name, and then defend it with "Well it's my choice" or "My last name was my father's anyway" or "I don't care about my name." I can understand the name-change part, even if I don't like it -- it can almost be more of a hassle to keep your own name than to take your husband’s once you're married, especially if you have kids. People may criticize you for keeping your own name. In a lot of communities, it is what everyone does. Your husband may even be upset if you don't want to take his name (although I'd say that's a pretty good indicator that he's kind of self-centered and you probably shouldn't marry him).

What confuses me (and gets under my skin) is the justification -- or at least, the justification based on things other than the very real, tangible sexist reactions that married women face when they keep their own names. Things like, "Well, it was my father's name." Well, sure, but what does that mean? That no woman ever has her own name, unless she was born into a culture where naming is matrilineal? Or, "I like his name better." Ok, but do men regularly change their names just because their partner as a "better" name? I’ve come across maybe one man in my whole life who has done that -- I somehow doubt that it just so happens that 99 percent of people with the “better” name are male. Or, "I want our whole family to have the same name." Again, understandable, but how come he didn’t change his name? Or you can both change your names.

I wish we could have a more honest conversation about name-changing. Instead, women like me who find name changing really, really problematic are cast as simply mean and judgmental, and women who do change their names are just exercising their "choice." I'll cop to being judgmental here -- this isn't one of those situations where I think every choice is equally good and it's a simple matter of preference. That said, there are very real reasons why married women may change their names, and I can certainly understand and empathize with making certain compromises and just not having the desire or energy to fight every feminist battle. I don't think it calls your feminist creds into question if you change your name. But I admittedly do wish that more women would keep their names. I wish more women felt like it was a valid and accessible option.

Names and naming matters. It is bigger than just an individual, personal choice. While I certainly respect the rights of people to make their own choices when it comes to their names, and while I can’t fault women who decide that keeping their own name is not a battle they want to fight, let’s not pretend like these choices exist in a vaccum, or like they don’t have a wider impact when it comes to normalizing sexist cultural practices.

I've been to a couple of weddings in the past few months, some where the bride changed her name and some where she didn’t. I'll admit, on a very basic level, that I felt a little gut-punched when the name-changing couples were announced as "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith." The woman was totally erased; she entered into what I would like to think of as a partnership, and instead she was just absorbed into her partner.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

An 83-Year-Old Republican Vet Talks About the Need for Equal Rights for Gays
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 22, 2009 at 2:00 AM.

Schwarzenegger Creates Harvey Milk Day While Rejecting Trans Rights
Posted by Cara, Feministe on October 16, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

You may have heard that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed into law a bill that will create a Harvey Milk Day, honoring the slain gay politician and icon. It’s the first time that any LGBT person has been honored in such a way, so obviously people are excited about the symbolism.

What has been receiving some blog coverage but little mainstream media attention, however, is the fact that at the same time Schwarzenegger signed this bill, he vetoed a couple of others -- one which would have made it easier for transgender people born in California to correct their birth certificates to the proper gender and name, and another which would have helped to combat sexual violence against LGBT prisoners.

With regards to the former, a birth certificate is probably the most important piece of identification that any of us have. While it's not used on a daily basis, it's often the document on which our other pieces of identification are based, though most of us who are cis have the privilege and luxury of not thinking about it. When a trans person's identification does not match their identity, it sets them up for being outed against their will -- and subsequently creates a large risk of them being accused of fraud, harassed, denied basic services and care, and/or violently attacked. The bill would have made the difficult process of correcting the document just a tiny bit easier -- and by the way, wouldn’t have cost taxpayers anything.

The latter piece of vetoed legislation, Schwarzenegger called "unnecessary." But unnecessary to whom? It's really rather well known that LGBT prisoners face hugely disproportionate sexual violence in prisons, a place where rape already runs rampant. This is especially so for cis gay and bisexual men, who are regularly targeted for prison rape, and for trans women, who are often placed wrongly in men's prisons and thus put at extreme risk for sexual violence from cis inmates. The only way the governor does not know this is if he's willfully ignorant on matters over which he's supposed to be governing. And so to say that it's unnecessary for sexual orientation and gender identity to be taken into account when deciding how to safely house prisoners is outrageously callous, and a massive slap across the face to those LGBT inmates who have been or will be sexually assaulted by assailants targeting them for their identities.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bill O'Reilly Takes on Sexy Dancing High School Girls
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 14, 2009 at 2:19 PM.

Bill O'Reilly, who hasn't been sued for obscenely propositioning a coworker in over 5 years (5 years and a day), often bemoans our 'anything goes' sexual culture. On a recent show, O'Reilly and "culture warriors" Gretchen Carlson and Margaret Hoover took on the latest harbingers of America's moral decline: sexy dancing high school girls.

The segment singled out a song team from a Sacramento high school. "At Rio Americano High School in Sacramento California, a song team displayed their talent ... for the student body" says O'Reilly pointedly. That really clever double entendre is followed by an overly long segment of footage from the performance, ensuring Fox viewers have time to truly appreciate how gross the young, pretty girls really are. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

NYers Want Sex Ed in Schools - And it Looks Like They Need It
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 8, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

A few numbers for you: One in three New York City high school students are sexually active. One in five have had sex with four or more partners. Only two-thirds of high schoolers report using condoms at all. One in five sexually active high school girls report not using birth control the last time they had sex.

Seventy-seven percent of parents believe that sex education is required in New York schools.

They’re wrong. Sexual health education is not mandated in New York City or New York State, despite the fact that 85% of parents want it.

Thankfully, Planned Parenthood is trying to bridge that gap with a campaign to make sure that NYC students receive sexual health education. Head over there, check out their plan and help where you can.

Letterman Admits Extortion Plot; Sexual Liaisons With Staffers
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on October 2, 2009 at 12:22 PM.

[Trigger warning.]

Last night on his show, David Letterman took ten minutes to share with his audience the story of an extortion plot—including the writing of a fake $2 million check, his testimony in front of a grand jury, and the arrest yesterday afternoon of the extortionist—and also confessed, without details like when or why, to having had sex with female employees of the show.

Despite the idiotic headline, this piece very accurately summarizes the segment, which I found to be profoundly uncomfortable to watch, even knowing the content of what he was going to say. Throughout the story, he refers obliquely to the "creepy stuff" he'd done, over which he was being extorted, and the moment where he at last reveals what the "creepy stuff" was (at 7:40), the reaction from the studio audience is, well, rather creepy itself—even given all the relevant excuses for nervous responses, etc.

[The video's in the window to your right. Starting at 7:40]

 

Now, of course, we get to: What was it, what was all the creepy stuff [audience laughs] that he was going to put into the screenplay and the [book], and, uh, the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. [audience murmurs] Now, my response to that is: Yes, I have. [audience laughs] I have had sex with women who worked on this show. [audience applauds] And, and would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. Perhaps it would. [audience laughs] Especially for the women! [audience laughs and applauds]

Part of the reaction is discernibly "Way to go, Dave!" from people who think it's great he's had loads of HOT SEXXX WITH CHICKS, but part of the reaction is palpable relief that the "creepy stuff" wasn't worse:

At least he's no Polanski.

No. Not according to him, anyway. According to him, it was just some consensual sex with some ladies who happen to work for him—as if that's incidental and not a major ethical problem, even if they weren't coerced by virtue of their employment.

I suppose such questions are easily drowned out by laughter at self-deprecating jokes about "Lutheran Midwestern guilt" and how embarrassing it would be for his conquests for people to know they had sex with him. Har har.

Jesus. I'm so done with this fucking week.