Economic Meltdown Special: Don't Get Pregnant

Don't let this be you.

Okay, readers. Time to get serious. The economy is in total fucking crisis and soon the financial system will join health care on our list of Systems? We don't need no stinkin' systems! Social Security, welfare, and education may also soon be added.

So since there may very soon be no money, insurance, or oxygen, it's time to get serious about preventing unintended pregnancy until, at least, 2012.

For guys, that means condoms. All the time. I know, I know, they make sex "feel different." And you really find the "Magnum more comfortable." I got it. But $1 per condom < child support for 18 years. And considering that we may all very soon be moving to China to harvest crops, having a kid to deal with (or send money back home to) would be a disaster.

For gals, several options. I've written before about how I'm wildly in favor of the IUD, and I think the the method's long-term (5, 7, or 10 years) use makes it a great depression-weathering investment.

The Pill, the Nuva Ring, the Patch, and the rest of those monthly methods are great, but they're going to seem financially out of reach when we're all standing in bread lines and wearing barrels.



So if you've got a couple hundred bucks in your savings account (assuming your bank hasn't folded yet), take it out and stock the hell up on condoms. Considering that sex is one of the few comforts available in economic depressions, we're gonna need 'em. And since the majority of condoms (except for Trojans) are manufactured overseas, with our new trade deficit and worthless currency there might not be any condoms left before too long. And then you can sell 'em at a markup. Goooo, free market!

The War's Still On

From Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, more depressingly poignant photos from soldiers' wives awaiting their return from Iraq.



Not sure what she means by "Y"...maybe "YMCA"?



Let's not forget the 4174 soldiers who will never come home, not to mention the 605 who have died in Afghanistan, and the 444 contractors who died in Iraq.

Photos courtesy of Quaker House.

Q: How do I give a better handjob? A: Buy this book. I did.

dear go-to-girl,
how do I give a good hand job?
thanks!
(anonymous)

Dear (anonymous),

I've written about handjobs before, so presumably you have a question that goes beyond my last article on the HJ. So I asked your boyfriend and here's what he told me: hand jobs, when done well, are a totally hot addition to your repetoire. But you've gotta figure out how to do them right. That means knowing the when, where, and how of HJs.

When: Handjobs are best implemented, in my opinion, away from home. There's something really hot about handjobs when they're given in circumstances that just wouldn't allow for sex, like on a bus or train or underneath a table or counter when there are other people around who don't know what's going on.

Where: In his pants, obviously. I'm not in favor of the in-the-bedroom handjob, because if you're in bed, you might as well have sex. But as to where specifically your hands should be, according to The Handjob Handbook (which I have been dying to purchase and, thanks to this question, could do so and write it off on my taxes), your hands should be both on his penis and his balls (and taint, if he's down with that).

How: As I wrote the last time, you need lube. You also need to create a consistent rhythm, which might make your arm tired. Keep working on it. Beyond that, borrowed from The Handjob Handbook, here is "The OK," a basic HJ:

• Make an OK sign with your thumb and foreinger.
• Place the O that you've formed around the penis.
• Move your hand up and down the shaft.
• Now angle the O diagonally so the tips of your fingers point downward.
• As the O slides over the ridge of the head, put a little elbow grease into it and shift your forearm downward.
  
• Twist your hand back and forth, but just a little bit in each direction.
  

It's Friday! Ice Penis Time

I thought that the United States was abstaining from believing in global warming, so I don't know how to explain this giant ice penis. But if there's one thing I know for sure, this expected standard of behavior for this penis is limited to heterosexual marriage. Cover up, friend.
Thanks, T.

Sex Education for Kindergartners?!?

Yes. Not only is this good policy--the younger kids are when they learn about sex, the less interested they are in having it--it's about goddamn time someone put sex education in the campaign discourse. Sex ed matters. Just as Bristol Palin.

Vasectomy. Seriously.

We here at Go-To Girl Headquarters have covered vasectomy before but thanks to J for this new tip. CNN writes about young(ish) men who have chosen to go under the knife (or microsurgical cauterization, more likely) because they were really, really sure they didn't want to have children.

What we love about the vasectomy discourse in this culture is that the teeniest threat of not returning to immediate virility (oops, we mean fertility) makes physicians incredibly reluctant to offer vasectomy to men who don't already have children.

But as Dr. Lawrence Ross of the University of Illinois-Chicago says:

Within 10 years of having a vasectomy, there's a 90 to 95 percent success rate for reversal surgery. Beyond that, the success rate drops to 75 to 80 percent.

For the record, that's a great reversal rate. Women do not universally return to fertility after discontinuing a birth control method, but our notions of masculinity are so tied to sperm production that we just can't seem to offer men a birth control method that lets them have up to 10 years of baby-free sex and provides a 90-95% chance that they'll be able to have children if and when they decide to reverse the vasectomy.

A growing pro-vasectomy sentiment among men's health physicians will, hopefully, allow men to have easier access to vasectomy as a long term--but temporary--method of birth control.

And no, vasectomy doesn't reduce testosterone or make you into a girl.

Don't Tell R. Kelly: There's a New Game in Town

This Saturday. Emo's. Foot Patrol, Austin's own "foot fetish funk band." Don't tell Kells--he might break up with me--but I'm super excited about this show. Review to come.

Vote for Go-To Girl for Best of Austin!

Today is the final day of voting for the Austin Chronicle's "Best of Austin" and if you'd cast your vote for Go-To Girl for Best Blogger, I'd sure 'preciate it!

You can vote here.

Just enter "Go-To Girl" for "Best Blogger" and "ThisIsGoToGirl.com" for "Best Blog."

Thanks a mil!

GTG

Sex 1, Abstinence 0: Sarah Palin's Daughter Knocked Up

Bristol Palin and her son--oops, I mean brother--Trig. Is that short for "trigonometry"? As in, the class she skipped to go and get fucking pregnant?

Okay, seriously. I wasn't going to write since it's LABOR DAY and all, but thanks to L, S, S, S, and Mom for disrupting my day at Barton Springs Pool with the latest proof that abstinence education is a fucking joke: Sarah Palin, who has been the Republican vice-presidential nominee for approximately 5 minutes, has a daughter in the family way.

Knocked up. A bun in the oven. Expecting. With child. Sperminated (thanks, S, for that one). Preggers. Too dumb to use a motherfucking condom.



The best part? Palin, apparently, advocates abstinence education. Which is great and all, except when your teenage fucking daughter starts to fuck and she never learned about condoms and goes and gets herself fucking pregnant.

Am I the only one taking crazy pills here? I haven't even had to write about how ridiculous the Republican nominee is in the first place and then, Surprise! She's got a pregnant daughter.

Look, I'm happy the Republicans decided (nearly 3 decades after the Democrats) to nominate a woman to graciously lose on the national stage. But this candidate just had a baby with Down's Syndrome, her daughter is knocked up, her stepmother in law (or whatever) ran against her and is her enemy back in Alaska--really, Republicans? I didn't realize the Jerry Springer demographic was so up for grabs this election season.

I hope this puts abstinence education in the election discourse. I can't fucking wait for it. If we needed further proof that sex is, in fact, better than abstinence, this is clearly the pudding. As it were.

I hope somebody has told Bristol that there is no condom for the heart.