Should the pill be available over the counter?

With all the news coverage about the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ recommendation that the pill be sold without a prescription, we thought it’d be a good time to revive our article on the topic.

Just in case you want our two cents;)

Sex on TV: Parks and Rec and “Old People Sex”

These are a few of my favorite things! (Forgive me, Julie Andrews.) Seriously though, on the heels of last week’s “You’re Never Too Old for ‘The Sex Talk’,” what better example of the need for sex education at any age than Parks and Recreation’s most recent episode, “Sex Education”? In her “You’re Never Too Old…” post, Bisi notes that twenty-somethings are due for a refresher on the birds and the bees, since the last time they had a real, clinical rundown of the logistics was probably around the same time they were getting their braces on (a.k.a. the orthodontic approach to abstinence). But now, since the majority of people in their twenties are actually sexually active, and more than half of all unplanned pregnancies are among unmarried women in their twenties, perhaps it’s time for Sex Talk: The Quarter-Life Edition. Even then, are we educated for the duration of our lives, or will we need a booster shot of information later on?

And that brings us to the Parks and Rec episode, or what could also be referred to as Sex Talk: The Geriatric Edition. Councilwoman Leslie Knope takes on the town’s controversial local laws on sexual education when Pawnee’s Senior Center experiences record levels of STIs (sexually transmitted infections). Knope hilariously teaches a room full of elderly folks how to put on a condom using a banana (a demonstration, by the way, I’m advocating should come with some sort of disclaimer, just for show, so as not to disappoint the inexperienced masses). She then comes under fire and is censured for breaking an abstinence-only sexual education law. Knope is forced to emphasize waiting until marriage before having sex, a message that I’m pretty sure doesn’t apply to a room full of grandparents.

This particular generation probably doesn’t have to worry about an unplanned pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean they should let safe sex practices fall to the wayside. Nope, you’re never too old for the sex talk. I don’t care if you have an AARP card, endless supplies of sucking candies in your purse, tissues up your sleeves, and shoes that saw the Taft Administration. I’m all for you putting your new titanium hips to work and doing the horizontal tango (or the Charleston) on the reg; just make sure you’re doing it safely.

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Lauren Mann works in The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Entertainment Media department. She’s been blogging about sex, love and relationships among twenty-somethings since she first joined the Campaign as an intern in 2009. Check out her personal blog at whatjewtalkingbout.tumblr.com.

The Feminist Guide to Hot, Happy, Healthy Sex

Originally published on SexReally.com on October 15, 2010.

When Amanda Hess of The Washington City Paper interviewed Jaclyn Friedman about “fucking while feminist” last spring, the blogosphere exploded with responses, head nods, and sighs of “Oh, Finally!” I’m probably not an impartial observer (full disclosure: Friedman is the executive director of Women, Action, & the Media, an organization I interned for during my senior spring of college), but I’m clearly not the only one who thinks that it’s high time we had a discussion about the impact of feminist beliefs on romantic and sexual relationships.

Last month in New York, I chatted about gender politics, kink, and sex-positive feminism with Zoe Yang, who wrote a sex column at Pomona College as an undergraduate. Yang told me that a lot of people assume BDSM or kinky sex is automatically anti-woman, but Yang doesn’t define feminist sex according to the sexual acts taking place. Rather, she looks at the motivations behind them. She says that there’s a “self-hood” and “authenticity” to feminist sex that’s missing in the Please-Your-Man-style intercourse often prescribed by Cosmo. As a girl who grew up on the likes of Cosmo, I was in complete agreement. It’s hard to take charge of your sexuality as a woman when you’re constantly taught how important it is to land and keep a man. So much of what we do (or don’t do) in the bedroom is decided based on our ideas of what makes us attractive to potential mates. Feminist sex and dating means that we stop being martyrs for men — but that doesn’t mean eschewing fun and pleasure. If anything, it maximizes both!

As Friedman told Hess in their conversation: “A couple of guys were shocked that I like to play various games in bed, because I’m a feminist. That’s always really interesting to me. I’m always like, ‘Are you kidding me? The feminists I know are the craziest women in bed you can find!’” Feminist sex doesn’t have to be vanilla or very PC. But what differentiates it from your run-of-the-mill sexual encounter is that it recognizes the importance of satisfying everyone’s needs. In other words, a gal shouldn’t feel the need to play coquette or vamp because of what she thinks is expected of her. Gender equality in the bedroom also doesn’t mean prioritizing your own pleasure over your partner’s (that wouldn’t be very equal, after all!), but it does mean that we ought to recognize how male sexual experience has historically been privileged while female desire (or lack thereof) has been pathologized. The days of declaring women “frigid” or “hysteric” may be long past, but slut-shaming remains very much a problem.

And of course, feminist sex also means that we keep in mind how fluid sexual identity and experience can be. There isn’t only one way to have sex, nor is there a “best” way. Great sex might include people of the same gender, multiple people, toys, games, etc. A lot of times, even straight, cisgendered couples find that there are other sexual acts more intimate and satisfying than vaginal intercourse. As long as you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, exploring your options is the best way to figure out what you and your partner(s) enjoy(s) the most.

For the next episode of Sex Really with Lena Chen, I invited three women — Chloe Angyal from Feministing, Amelia Parry-McDonell from The Frisky, and Yang — to talk to me about all the ins and outs of feminist dating and sex: What makes the personal political? What constitutes a dealbreaker? And perhaps trickiest of all, how does one “come out” to a date as a feminist? Tune in for their take on these tough questions, and share your opinion in the comments below!

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Lena Chen is a blogger, writer and speaker on sex, gender and feminism. As a Harvard undergrad, she authored the blog Sex and the Ivy and her writing has been featured in The New York Times and Newsweek. She currently blogs at The Chicktionary.

Slut Pride, Slut Song, and Slut Sex (with Birth Control!)

Well. According to Google Trends (see the handy screen capture above), the word “slut” appeared in the news more this month than at any time in the history of the world (since 2004, anyway). This was thanks, presumably, to some ridiculous comments from a certain right-wing radio personality. The gist of the comments, for any who by some stroke of fairy magic managed not to hear/read them, was basically that any woman who has trouble affording birth control—or, debatably, any woman who even uses birth control—is a slut. Whichever way you interpret the comments, they refer to A LOT of women.

So it makes sense that one particularly notable theme to come out of the controversy has been a rallying cry for birth-control-loving folks far and wide to band together over their right (and the right of their loved ones) to access birth control—even if that makes them “sluts” by the (bizarro) standards of some. Sure, “slut” can mean different things to different people (especially on Twitter, as we’ve noted in the past), but regardless of how you feel about the word, we hope you’ll agree that the following three ways it’s been used lately are—for lack of a better word—awesome.

1) Sir Richard’s Condom Company started a “Sluts Unite” campaign, complete with its very own oath (!). The oath is worth reading in its entirety, in our humble opinion:

THE SLUTS UNITE OATH

I believe that sex represents more than just the creation of children.

I believe it is an enjoyable, healthy and a profound part of the human experience.

I also believe that the responsible use of birth control is an essential component of a mature, civilized society.

And if these beliefs make me a slut in some people’s eyes, then so be it.

I will stand united with my fellow sluts, now and always.

If the oath inspires you to show your “slut pride,” you can do so with downloadable slut-positive slogans like this one, courtesy of the Sluts Unite website.

2) Musical comedy duo Reformed Whores made a response video to the controversial comments, in which they proclaimed themselves sluts for using birth control—even though one was using it within her marriage and the other was using it for health benefits.

3) And last, but definitely not least, Not So Secret made the word into an acronym for healthy sex. If “slut” sex—that is sex involving safety, love, understanding, and trust—is wrong, we don’t want to be right.   

Yet another great reason to exercise...

We already knew that good sex and exercise have a beautiful friendship—and the term coregasm has been floating around since at least 2007—but a new study actually puts science behind the rumors of exercise-induced orgasms (which even have an nifty acronym—EIO. Try not to think of Old MacDonald). What, you’re on your way to the gym? Um, us too. 

Birth control and the economy (they get along famously)

Wow. We probably don’t need to tell you that birth control has been in the news a lot lately. And though unfortunately we can’t say the attention has been all positive, we’ve actually seen a whole lot of good publicity coming out of the discussion overall. The latest theme we’ve noticed is media attention to birth control and the economy—and let’s just say birth control comes out looking pretty fantastic (no make-up required). A few favorite points in birth control’s favor:

Women benefit. The New York Times published a piece yesterday (which The Washington Post riffed off of) on how the pill has affected women’s ability to contribute to the economy. A teaser:

A study by Martha J. Bailey, Brad Hershbein and Amalia R. Miller helps assign a dollar value to those tectonic shifts. For instance, they show that young women who won access to the pill in the 1960s ended up earning an 8 percent premium on their hourly wages by age 50.

Such trends have helped narrow the earnings gap between men and women. Indeed, the paper suggests that the pill accounted for 30 percent – 30 percent! – of the convergence of men’s and women’s earnings from 1990 to 2000.

Taxpayers benefit.On Sunday, The Times published a piece on “Pregnancy Prevention and the Taxpayer.” The article highlighted a recent study that found that there are a few things the government can pay for that will save taxpayers many, many dollars over the long haul. According to the study, “[t]he biggest savings would come from increasing the amount of subsidized birth control available to poor women. At a cost of $235 million a year, such programs could save $1.32 billion annually.” Sounds like a good deal to us…

Consumers benefit (from more information about their birth control options). Okay, maybe that heading’s a stretch, but we wanted to include an article from U.S. News Money on “The Real Cost of Birth Control,” which sought to be “a guide for people who want to consider the health of their bank account when making their birth control decision.” We love that they wanted to make the cost of different methods easier to understand, though it doesn’t look like they fully accounted for health insurance coverage (or health reform, which will eliminate co-pays on birth control, or other programs to make birth control cheaper or even free…) They also seem to have used slightly outdated effectiveness numbers for the different methods.

Must also note that their conclusion that the diaphragm is the most cost-effective method rings a bit hollow considering that with normal use of it, 12 in 100 women will get pregnant within a year of relying on it—U.S. News quotes that proportion as 15 in 100, which would be even more of a reason not to recommend it for folks who are watching their finances. As the article itself notes, an accidental pregnancy can be harder on a bank account than any method on the market. No offense to the diaphragm intended, but considering that the IUD, for example, is often quite affordable with insurance and also incredibly effective (same story for the implant, which didn’t even get a mention, as well as sterilization), we definitely would’ve picked a different winner.

Insurance providers and their customers benefit. And last but not least, way back in February, TIME published an excellent explanation of “Why Free Birth Control Will Not Hike the Cost of Your Insurance,” complete with illustrative anecdotes:

Think of it this way: If my married daughter lays out a $15 co-pay for birth control pills, she doesn’t save a dime. True, she protects herself against the emotional cost of an unwanted pregnancy, along with the hefty costs of raising a child. But in terms of the costs to give birth to the child, she is not much better off, because if she does become pregnant, her insurer, like many, would pay the bills above and beyond the co-pay.

By contrast, if an insurer makes birth control totally free for all of its customers, it avoids having to reimburse them for countless unplanned pregnancies and births. Overall, then, it’s cheaper for the insurer to pay a little upfront to save a ton down the line.

Who do you talk to about your sexual health? This video is one of the many reasons we’re rather taken with Beforeplay.org. Osocio has a nice summary of what the campaign is doing to get Coloradans talking about birth control, pregnancy, and STIs, or you can always go straight to the source.

Sex on TV: Longing stares at Downton Abbey

If any of you are like me, you’ve jumped on the Downton Abbey train. And I mean train in the steam locomotion sense, as commercial air travel wouldn’t enter the picture for another decade or so. But you know what I mean. Never did I think I’d see the day when I’d gleefully hop onto my couch with a glass of wine in hand to tune into my favorite program of the week on – wait for it—PBS. At least not until I was 80 or so. But there I am on Sunday nights (or on PBS’s website for mid-week catch up sessions), watching the tail end of Grannies on Safari or This Old House as I wait for Laura Linney to beckon me to early 20th century England.

So we’re there, biting our nails when poor Cousin Matthew is missing in war, rolling our eyes when naïve Sybil rebukes the adorable Branson’s declaration of love…again, and cackling with delight when crotchety Grandma Violet (a.k.a. Minerva McGonagall 4 Life) sends a zinger right into gullible Cousin Isobel’s girdle.

Sure, there’s a war and drama among the house staff and an impossibly cute dog, but the bulk of the storyline boils down to the ‘will they, won’t they’ love between Lady Mary and Cousin Matthew. And for a television show about love, there sure isn’t a ton of lovin’ going on. Aside from the insinuated, though never seen, heart stopping (literally) consummation of Mary and the now-deceased Turk in the first season and a single scene of maid-on-invalid debauchery during the second season, there’s practically zero bed-shaking at Downton Abbey. At least on screen. So why do I still feel the need to describe it as a sexy show?

Folks, Downton Abbey has perfected what is known as the longing glance. A piercing stare characterized by hankering, intensity, probable ujjayi breathing, robust with notes of yearning, aching, and just a touch of cardamom. And boy does Mary give good glance. She could probably get pregnant solely by the lusting in her stares at Cousin Matthew. As for Matthew, although his loins aren’t burning for anyone or anything post-war spinal injury, I’m not giving up hope for a Crawley-Crawley heir. Sybil’s too fickle and while I think it’s obvious that Ethel would miraculously heal from that nasty case of prickly bitch she’s been sporting if she just got laid, I’m not holding out for her to carry on the family genes.

In a nutshell, it sounds ludicrous to say that I get my jollies from an hour-long drama on PBS where STIs are less of a concern than the Spanish Flu, longing glances outnumber steamy sex scenes 100 to 0, and the female characters show less skin than a Barbara Walter’s 20/20. But I do. It just goes to show that television can be well-written, entertaining, and sexy without any vulgarity. So, you hear that, Barbara? Stop skanking it up.

“Downton-Abbey-Episode-7” image by Evian Tsai.

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Lauren Mann works in The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s Entertainment Media department. She’s been blogging about sex, love and relationships among twenty-somethings since she first joined the Campaign as an intern in 2009. Check out her personal blog at whatjewtalkingbout.tumblr.com.

Why Victoria’s Secret Should Be Your Secret Too

Originally published on SexReally.com on December 4, 2009.

“I’m kinda in between boyfriends right now, so I don’t need anything sexy.” – Pam Beesly, while visiting Victoria’s Secret

Victoria’s Secret was prominently featured in a Season 3 episode of The Office entitled “Women’s Appreciation.” Fans of the show may remember Michael Scott’s misguided attempt to show his appreciation for his female employees when he took them to a Victoria’s Secret store and allowed each person to pick out one item as a present. Pam Beesly’s character, played by the lovely Jenna Fisher, chose a robe because, being single, she saw no need to purchase a pair of lacey panties or a push-up bra.

Pam’s quote continually ran through my head while viewing this season’s Victoria’s Secret Holiday Fashion Show. The event has become a staple of the holiday season, signaling the start of gift-giving and fulfilling men’s and women’s fantasies of tiny undergarments wrapped in pink paper under the Christmas tree. Let’s face it: the fantasy is hot. The products are hot. So why have they been relegated to the back of closets, only to be broken out when there is an audience present?

As a wardrobe consultant and stylist I see a practical disconnect between the sex that is on the runway and what is found in the depths of women’s boudoirs. Many people do own variations of the boustiers, slips, sheer nighties, and g-strings that are featured in glossy catalogues. The catch? These items are always, ALWAYS stuck in the furthest corners of the closet or underwear drawer.

Viewing this same situation time and time again has led me to conclude that women need to break those suckers out and make the fancy stuff a part of their everyday wardrobe. Our sexuality shouldn’t be turned on and off, or stuffed to the back of the drawer. Who we are sexually is part of who we are as people and we should acknowledge it regardless of our relationship status.

On a very practical note, the pretty underwear isn’t always comfortable. However, there are more options than ever on the market regarding style, shape, and material. Here are some realistic steps you can take to make sure your booty is both comfy and stylish during the day:

  • Can’t think of wearing thongs? Clients routinely pick the wrong size. Go a size up or down for the correct fit. If you’re entirely convinced a thong isn’t for you, boy shorts can be a comfy and cute alternative…or if you’re feeling daring, you can always eliminate panty lines by going without!
  • When is the last time you had your bra size measured? Statistics report that up to 80% are currently wearing the wrong size. Weight gain, weight loss, and hormone fluctuation can alter your size. Getting measured takes all of 5 minutes and can provide a world of comfort to women who feel as though they are being pinched, pushed, and otherwise fighting with their bra all day.
  • Take your pretty undergarments out of their drawers and hang them up in your closet. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” even applies to underwear; if you see them on a regular basis you are more likely to wear them and incorporate them into your life.

The notion of having “good undies” used for “fancy occasions” is about as useful and fun as only using your favorite dishes when guests come to visit. Sure, people will be thrilled by the presentation, but don’t you want to delight yourself as well? Isn’t your life occasion enough to celebrate?

You deserve these small pleasures – with or without a partner. This isn’t about spending loads of money or buying into society’s ideal of what is sexy. Rather, it is about conscious decision-making regarding your style and your sexuality. The choice to pick up black lace verses Granny Panties isn’t going to change the world. But, it may change the framework of your day. It is a small choice that can be for you and you alone.

If I were to rewrite Pam’s quote it would go something like this: “I’m kinda in between boyfriends right now, but I have this nightie in 4 different colors and wear them all the time. I want another one, but this time in satin.”

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Kaarin Moore is the owner of Closet Caucus, a fashion consulting company located in Washington, DC. Her goal is to help clients express who they are through the medium of clothing. You can reach her at www.closetcaucus.com or on twitter (@closetcaucus).