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!

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.

Review: "The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships"

Tonight I attended the world premiere of "The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships" right here in Austin. I was invited by Bob Jensen, UT's resident feminist anti-porn scholar.

The film's title and narration promised an analysis of porn, sexuality, and relationships and it delivered on the first of the three. Obviously anti-porn, the film revealed the normally hidden class conflict of the porn wars by depicting articulate college students as the intelligently anti-porn interviewees and juxtaposed meaty, douchey guys standing in its favor. At least they interviewed Joanna Angel, one of my favorite porn stars who appears in Tristan Taormino's "House of Ass."

Relationships, or, more specifically, what effect (if any) porn has on them wasn't covered, either: I wish it had been. Sexuality wasn't dealt with much, except in that homosexuality and gay porn was noticeably absent.

When I encounter activists who would eliminate porn I [almost] ask aloud the question I'm always asking: "What about the fucking?" The hypothesis is that porn, because of its depiction of violence against women on film, heightens violence against women in real life. Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that no research has ever supported that claim, if violence does increase, doesn't sex go up with it?

If the goal is to eliminate violence against women by eliminating porn, what about the fucking? The judgment of the aggression and violence is clear, but not so on the sex that is portrayed. Should [educated, in the know academic types] eschew both violence and sex? Or at least, certain kinds of sex that the anti-porn crusaders find distasteful? The question of whether or not the sex that porn is portraying is okay when it doesn't appear on film isn't addressed by this debate.

Part of the instrument used by "porn content researchers" depicted in the film revealed the behaviors they deemed "violent and aggressive": spanking and gagging. First of all, spanking is Kink 101--a slap on the ass doth not a violent sex scene make. And gagging--have any of these researchers ever given anyone a blow job? Or eaten a popsicle? Sometimes you gag.

I know people--indeed, some of their questions have been answered right here on Go-To Girl, who enjoy, say, being slapped in the face during sex. Were their desires influenced by porn? Perhaps. But do they not have a right to engage in sex they find exciting, pleasurable, and consensual? Yes, they do.

I have encountered enough educated, sensitive, liberal types who secretly, guiltily long for sex that is aggressive, at times violent, and basically the antithesis of the feminist, peacelove ideology they were raised with.

Sex guilt is bad, no matter whether the source is conservative religion or liberal parenting.

PS--Not to mention that there is a profit motive behind porn control--the Promise Keepers offer filtered internet and an "internet accountability" service for $7.99 a month that lets you have the report of what you've been doing online sent to your wife, kids, or pastor. What better way to get men to sign up for your service than by convincing them that porn is bad and that they're helpless against its powers? I wonder what the Christian Spanking people think of it...

Biostatistics and Journalism 101: The Gloucester Pregnancy "Pact"

Thanks to M, S, and L who all sent me links to this Time article about the alleged "pregnancy boom" at Gloucester High in Massachussetts.

I want everyone to take a deep breath here. Now, let's all do some math.

There are 1200 students at this school. For the sake of argument, let's say that 50% of them are female. So that gives us 17 pregnancies for 600 students. Get out your calculators:

17/600 = 0.0028

To calculate the number of pregnancies per 1000 people, we multiply that 0.0028 by 1000 and, viola, we have a pregnancy rate of 28.33 per 1000 women. Sound high?

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, which publishes statistics on teen sex and pregnancy, 28 per 1000 is 16 prengancies lower than the lowest state prengancy rate in the nation (North Dakota, with 42 per 1000 teen women aged 15-19).

Now I'm no expert, but that doesn't much sound like a "pregnancy outbreak" to me, which is what CNN called it in a news story this morning. And the alleged "pact" the girls made? The school's principal, Joseph Sullivan, claimed on CNN that "nearly half" of the pregnancies were planned.

What's actually fueling this story, I imagine, is revealed in the shots of the Gloucester Daily Times that the CNN story shows: health education funding has been cut at Gloucester High, and the school's board will vote this fall on whether to provide contraception in its school clinic.

I'm all for health education (as long as it's not abstinence-based) and school-provided contraception, but shame on CNN for being total navel-gazers on this story and not, say, checking around for real pregnancy statistics. This is not, in fact, an outbreak. And the "pact"? Here's a quote from the original Gloucester Daily Times story:

To get to the bottom of the problem, Sullivan investigated and came up with a startling revelation: According to his conversations with upperclassmen, some younger students may be becoming pregnant on purpose.

Kim Daly, nurse practitioner for the high school, was unable to confirm specifics but did say that the majority of students reporting pregnancies this school year were in the younger grades.

Let's get this straight: nobody, not the principal or the nurse practitioner (who, I assume, actually did those pregnancy tests), has spoken to a single girl who has participated in this "pregnancy pact." The only information that even suggests a pact are the principal's conversations with upperclassmen--who, last time I checked, were not "in the younger grades."

Way to go, CNN. This is some of the clumsiest journalism I've ever seen. I don't believe this "pact" bullshit for a second.

R. Kelly Acquitted!!!

From CNN.com:

A Chicago jury has acquitted R. Kelly on all counts at his child pornography trial.

R. Kelly is accused of making a home sex video with an underage girl at his child pornography trial.

1 of 2 The verdict came six years after the R&B superstar was first charged with videotaping himself having sex with a young girl. Prosecutors had said she was as young as 13 at the time.

The Grammy award-winning singer dabbed his face with a handkerchief and hugged each of his four attorneys after the verdict was read. The singer had faced 15 years in prison if convicted.

Both Kelly and the now 23-year-old alleged victim had denied they were the ones appearing on the tape, which was played for the jury at the beginning and end of the trial.

P.S.: The Jury's Out on Kells

The jury has officially adjourned to deliberate in R. Kelly's child pornography trial, which means they finally get to watch the sex tape. I promise to let you know as soon as I hear about a verdict.

Happy Loving Day!

Happy Loving Day!

Today marks the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the court case that made interracial marriage legal in 1967. South Carolina and Alabama took their sweet time removing anti-mixed marriage laws from the books; they weren't taken out until 1998 and 2000, respectively.

Why not send someone a Happy Loving Day e-card? So much more meaningful than Valentine's Day.

Midnight Train to Swingtown

(By way of M & K in Florida)

For those of you who, like me, mourned the loss of the uber-hot, quiet but sensitive Jake the Bartender at the dramatic end of "Melrose Place," CBS has got a brand new bag: "Swingtown."

"Swingtown" tells the story of three couples, the Deckers, the Thompsons, and the main characters, the Millers. Susan and Bruce Miller are in transition from an old (read: conservative) neighborhood outside of Chicago to a new (read: 1970s) life in a bigger, more glamorous house.

The show opens with what looks like sexy, mustachioed pilot Tim (Grant Show) getting a blowjob in the cockpit; but, alas, the stewardess has just spilled coffee on his pants and is cleaning it up.

"Swingtown" follows these couples through the neighborhood manifestation of the wet and wild 1970s. The music is great, Grant Show is hot as all get out, and we have the first-ever primetime portrayal of swingers.

Watch the full episode at CBS.com.

As a totally kick-ass bonus, the website features full-length episodes of "Melrose Place" that are Jake-centric.

"Red Alert!" Teen Sex on the Rise

From the Washington Post (Thanks, T):
According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the (completely imagined) decline in teen sex has "leveled off." More alarming, condom use has also started to decline. The teen pregnancy prevention world is in a tizzy about this report.

Here's my grad school advisor on abstinence and condoms:

"Since we've started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity," said John Santelli, chairman of the department of population and family health at Columbia University. "The other piece of it is: Abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it's not surprising, if that's the message young people are getting, that we're seeing condom use start to decrease."

Sarah Brown, Chief of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, offered this explanation:

"The truth is that, as a field, we really don't know what the answer is," Brown said. "There are lots of theories: the economy, classroom education, the messages kids are getting in the digital world where they spend their time. They probably all play a role."

The thing that nobody seems to realize or is afraid to admit to the Washington Post is that sex is fun. Teenagers can't even shop at K-Mart without being bombarded with the tired abstinence message; just look at these sweatpants.(Thanks, C)*

Let's hear from one of the abstinence pushers:

"Contraceptive sex education does not provide practical skills for maintaining or regaining abstinence but typically gives teens a green light to activity that puts them at great risk for acquiring STDs or which serve as gateway-to-intercourse activities," said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.

Valerie, you're goddamn right that comprehensive sex education doesn't give kids "practical skills for maintaining abstinence." And those "gateways to intercourse"? Normal people refer to those as "foreplay."

If I've said it once I've said it a million times: Kids aren't having sex because of abstinence education or comprehensive education; they're having sex because sex is fun. The end.

*After seeing a 12 year old girl here in Orlando wearing a pair of booty shorts that said, "Girls Make Boys Cry," I can understand the appeal of a pair of ass-message pants that say something not totally sexual, but come on.

Dum-Dum Alert: New Abstinence Group

Want a big mug of "WTF?!?" with your breakfast?
Watch this video, courtesy of the brand-spanking-new abstinence group Parents for Truth. They're a front group for the National Abstinence Education Association. Make sure you put on your critical reading glasses; everything they say on their website is a lie.

Happy Monday!

Kelly Trial Update: Anal is the New Threesome

Lest you believe the R. Kelly trial would be "speedy," in concordance with our dear Constitution, I'm sorry to report that the trial has been delayed, again. The prosecution's "star witness," who will reportedly testify that she had a threesome with Kelly and the allegedly underaged alleged victim on the tape, has been rescheduled for Monday.

First of all, who cares if they had a threesome? This supports my theory that this trial is not about child pornography or statutory rape but about dangling the sexual peccadilloes of an extremely forthcomingly sexual (and, by the way, black) star. White stars never seem to have trials in which their sexual tastes are paraded around to sway public opinion and juries. I don't recall the canon of sex tapes of white famous people (Paris, Pamela, Kim Kardashian, etc.) ever leading to charges, in spite of actually illegal activities like, say, drug use happening on the tape.

The prosecution is so mired in the past that they're mistaken if they think a threesome will convince the jury that, through whatever convoluted logic they'll use, R. Kelly was actually the guy on the tape. Threesomes are passe and, duh, there are only two people on the tape.

As it happens, the defense's "surprise" witness, the ex-boyfriend and baby daddy of the prosecution's star, will testify next week and looks an awful lot like R. Kelly. I'll venture to guess that he's going to testify that it's him on the tape, not Kells.

And, by the way, anal is the new threesome.

Q: How did you know it was Kells' body on the tape? A: "His head was attached to it"

No, really. The prosecutor asked witness Simha Jamison, whose task was to identify the girl in the video as her friend who was, allegedly, age 13 at the time of the taping, how she knew Kelly's body was that in the video. She responded:

"His head was attached to it."

Something, generally, is amiss in this trial, beyond the usual amiss-ness.
From the Chicago Tribune:

Upon viewing the tape, [police investigator Dan] Everett said he recognized the female on the tape because he had interviewed her as part of another investigation in 2000.He said he had been a part of an alleged investigation interview dating back to December 2000, at which point Judge Vincent Gaughan immediately stopped his testimony and asked the jury to leave.

Gaughan then erupted over the use of the word "investigation," having previously issued an order forbidding its use. Gaughan chastised the witness and the prosecution, reminding them that he had promised to grant a mistrial if that word were uttered during testimony.

"If they do it again, I certainly am going to grant a mistrial," Gaughan said. The issue was settled by the witness going on the record saying he was mistaken when characterizing the interview as an investigation.

Given that money changes hands--twice--during the tape, and that the cop has fessed to recognizing the girl from a "previous investigation," I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this tape is a fake, the girl is a prostitute, the cop recognizes her and the prosecution knows the whole thing is a sham.

Oh, and the Kelly defense rests on the fact that he has, apparently, a body-ful of moles and scars that don't match the dude on the tape. Too bad Johnnie Cochran is dead.

Early Father's Day Treat

Even though Father's Day isn't until June 15th, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my Dad for not dragging me through the bullshit charade that is the father-daughter Purity Ball.

I'm on the record about abstinence, purity, pledging, and all of its assorted nonsense. But the "ownership" of a daughter's "honor" and "virginity" and "purity" is so revolting I can't stand it. It's merely a few steps away from honor killings for when she (almost) inevitably breaks the pledge.

The idea that a father would encourage his daughter to consider herself property, an object to be and in need of protection makes me want to hurl. Even worse is the way some of the fathers set up this drama to create accountability for their own purity. Don't sacrifice your daughters on the altar of "purity" because you can't stop watching internet porn.

I'm all for father-daughter bonding, but can't they go to a baseball game or get ice cream or something like regular people?

Again, thanks Dad!

State of California v. The Porn Industry

According to CNN, California is again trying to penalize the use of pornography, this time by levying a 25% tax on strip clubs, videos, and websites. Yawn.

The talking head in the CNN segment rattles on and on about porn being bad, claims that "some divorce lawyers" attribute more than 50% of their divorce cases to pornography use. Pornography is also "killing our families and our society!!!" he shrieks.

The bill, AB 2914, was introduced by Assemblyman Charles Calderon. The bill also calls for an 8% tax, not a 25% tax as the CNN guy erroneously states.

Calling for the creation of the Adult Entertainment Venue Impact Fund, which the tax would pay for, the bill plans to use its monies to ameliorate the "Secondary effects" of adult venues. That means property taxes, law enforcement, and funding to address "mental health" and "disease transmission." The bill doesn't specify whether that money would go to people who work in the industry or those poor, poor divorcees who wouldn't tolerate their husband's porn habit.

Maybe they could compromise on some wife spanking.

Breaking News: R. Kelly Asks for Another Trial Delay!

My, how time flies! It seems just days ago that we here at GTG HQ started obsessively listening to "Double Up" and watching the new chapters of "Trapped in the Closet."

Last summer as I sweated out my last days in Brooklyn nearly every car that drove by had "I'm A Flirt" playing. I listened to Kells on the subway, at the beach, doing pushups, and sitting at that un-air conditioned coffee shop in Crown Heights, writing about HIV for BET.com. And yet here we are mere days away from jury selection in R. Kelly's child pornography trial.

But don't count your VIP chicks before they hatch: the trial of the century might be delayed--again! Kells' attorneys have filed a motion to delay the trial, for which jury selection was slated to begin this Friday.

From CNN.com:

When the trial gets under way, prosecutors will have a unique challenge: The alleged victim, now 23, says it wasn't her. And Kelly's attorneys -- including Ed Genson, who often represents the rich and famous -- haven't admitted it's Kelly in the video.

I admit to not having seen the video, and a quick Google Video search didn't turn up any results. Can anyone direct me to this sex tape that allegedly features R. Kelly allegedly peeing on a girl who is allegedly as young as 13? I feel like I oughta watch it.

Till then, here's the Chappelle's Show parody.

World's Least Desirable Men "Not Interested In Sex"

Middle-aged British men are, I'm sorry to say, among the most undesirable men on the planet so I'm not sorry that, according to UK counseling and sex therapy organization Relate, they're "just not interested in sex" once they hit middle age. I'm not ever interested in Brits (except you, A) so it's no loss for me, but I think this indicates the veracity of what the Christian Coalition has been saying for decades: there is a crisis in traditional marriage. And that crisis, my friends, is that marriage is fucking boring.

In all seriousness though, depression among men is the "silent epidemic" and anyone who's dated anyone with depression can tell you about how it obliterates sex drive. In men, alcohol or drug use often "hide" depression, and also contribute to a loss of sex drive. (And so, incidentally, does the medication to treat it)

My heart goes out to these guys--wanting to want to have sex has got to be the most depressing feeling of all.

PS--Is David Beckham middle-aged?

Dry Humping is the New Anal

Even though dry humping is, for the most part, relegated to the boarding school memory vortex, we'd sure do it to Jon Stewart if we had the chance. Meet me in the last piano practice room after collection!

And check out this new website, The Frisky.

No Bikini this Season? Take a Nakation!

Go-To Girl has tussled with nudists before, and she cannot tell a lie: GTG is not comfortable being naked around people she is not imminently going to have sex with. Particularly men. Boxers or briefs, she doesn't care which--guys are so much more appealing in underwear than naked.

So imagine our surprise that the New York Times covered the rise in "nudist vacations," or, cleverly, "Nakations." Now we here at Go-To HQ are pro-rights and whatnot; a swinger vacay? Go for it! But a "nonsexual" naked vacation? Not so sure. Perhaps we're more prudish than we thought.

Activities included in these upscale nudie vacays:

Clothing-optional flights to a clothing-optional resort in the Baltics

Nude mountain biking (!)

Nude transcending of social class

Want to plan a nekkid vacation? Check out the American Association for Nude Recreation. And send us a postcard.

BREAKING NEWS: New R. Kelly Album to Drop this Summer

Chi-Town, People

For those of you (and/or me) for whom 2007's "Double Up" was not nearly enough R. Kelly to last 14 calendar months, fear not: Kels' new album, "12 Play: Fourth Quarter" will drop this summer.

According to Billboard, the first single, "Hair Braider," will debut at #1 on this week's Hot R & B/Hip Hop chart.

Considering Kels' increasingly complicated hair braids over the years, I can only imagine that he has a lot to say about his intimate relationship with the lady(ies) who do his hair. It looks as though he's gone platinum for this new album.

I promise to listen to this song as soon as possible so you don't have to.

What I'm Reading

It's been a while since I've done one of these and Go-To Girl's got two great books on her bedside table.



First up: Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers, by GTG's new pal Mark Regnerus. This book is so popular that GTG had to be put on the wait list for it at the library and only got to check it out for a week. So Mark graciously gave me a signed copy. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't tell you how it ends but chapters 1-4 are un-put-downable. At least, for me and the 5 other people in America who care about sex and religion in the lives of American teenagers (Tiffany, I'm looking at you). But really, it's fascinating. Not mind-numbingly scholarly at all.

The good news for sex is that religion doesn't really seem to make much difference for the vast majority of teenagers; there's a small number of the "truly devout" who actually--gasp--wait til marriage and, I assume, each other. I think the number of people I've ever met in my life who actually waited til marriage (or intend to) is exactly two.

Here's the big question: does God reward those who wait until marriage by making the ordinarily brief and awkward First Time not weird and painful but instead long, hot, and...well, worth waiting for?

Hopefully that'll be in the next book.



Secondly: Couples, by John Updike. I don't remember where I read about this book; perhaps somewhere in the Eliot Spitzer scandal. Couples details the lives of suburban swinger couples and was published in 1968. It's not about the freaky deaky free love sixties, but the "it's practically still the fifties" early sixties. Not a one-handed read or anything, but it sure is interesting to think about this book being traded around amongst housewives in Brookline.

Though Updike's portrayal isn't all sex and roses, the inclusion of swinging does make suburban mom-and-dad-plus-two life sound slightly more tolerable. I wonder if the couples in the book waited until marriage.

That's all for now.
Happy reading!
Love,
GTG