Happy Friday, everyone! We hope you have a great one.
Today, we’re sharing this great commercial made for our partner affiliate, Planned Parenthood of Southern Finger Lakes. It may answer some of your questions about sex, but it’s cute and fun too.
PS: Did you win our giveaway for the Guide to Getting It On? Check out our post to find out!
Oops! So Plan A was:
Plan A didn’t work out so well.
It used to be when unprotected sex happened all you could do was wait, hope, or pray for your period to make an appearance. Now you have Plan B, otherwise know as “the morning after pill” or “emergency contraception.”
Plan B stops pregnancy 89% of the time if taken within 3 days (72 hours) of unprotected sex. It can be taken up to 5 days (120 hours) because sperm can live that long in your body, but works best when taken as soon as possible.
It works by preventing an egg from being released from an ovary and thickens the mucus in the cervix making it harder for sperm to make its way to the egg. There is no evidence that Plan B stops a fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the uterus or causes an abortion by causing an attached fertilized egg to detach.
Plan B is made from a high dose of progestin, one of the main ingredients in birth control pills. Side effects? One out of 4 females feels nausea for a day or so. If you don’t get your period within 3 weeks, take a pregnancy test. It’s only 89% effective at best. So eleven out of 100 people who take it will still become pregnant. That’s one of the reasons it’s called EMERGENCY contraception.
Plan B offers no protection against Sexually Transmitted Infections. You may want to be tested for them also.
If you are male or female 17 years old or older, you can buy Plan B without a prescription. (Yes, men can buy it too!) If you are a female under 17, you will need a prescription, but not the consent of a parent. (However, we here at the Feronia Project believe that there should be no age limit to buying emergency contraception.)
You can find Plan B at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, health clinics or a pharmacy. Prices vary, so check things out before you buy.
It’s nice to know you have a Plan B when Plan A hasn’t worked out so well!
My body is not your political football.
Sincerely,
Mary
I’ve been to the state capitol three times to advocate for women’s rights. I’ve advocated for standards for sex education in the schools, for hospitals to offer Emergency Contraception to rape victims, and against ridiculous and unnecessary abortion restrictions, for which there is no medical justification (like a 24 hour waiting period).
It is a very powerful experience to ride on a bus with like-minded people who are so passionate, that their energy courses through your own veins. All that energy despite the disbelief that we are still trying to prove to law makers that women actually matter.
It is also quite an experience to shake the hands of a Senator who really doesn’t give a hoot about your cause. It makes you want to cry when you go observe what is happening on the “floor.” You have a legislator talking about their bill and only a few of his/her colleagues actually listening. The rest are talking to each other, their aides, on the computer, or on their cell phone. Then they take a vote! How can you vote on something that you barely know anything about? And that’s where we come in. If we take the time to call or visit our legislators, we can educate them on the issue and tell them which way we’d like them to vote. Even the legislators who support us often don’t know what’s in a bill because they might not be in the committees that get to hear it first. They might not hear about it until its time to vote on it. As one Representative’s aide put it, many votes turn into “values” votes because the House is too “intellectually deprived” to make decisions based on science, medicine, and research.
I lobby because I want legislators to hear from real people, not just hired guns who work for some lobbying group with deep pockets. They need to hear that women’s rights are human rights and that her health affects that of her family. I lobby because I believe that education + access to birth control = power. I participate in the process because I can. A democracy depends on the people telling their elected officials how they feel.
Remember, real change happens at the policy level. Have you ever lobbied for an issue that’s important to you?
Did you win one of the copies of the Guide to Getting It On?
Well, Andie and Milo – you did! Send us an e-mail to eleanor [at] feroniaproject [dot] org to claim your prize.
Thank you all so much for entering – and for reading The Feronia Project!
Does anybody remember from U.S. History class the Comstock Laws that Congress passed in 1873, which outlawed importing, mailing, or even disseminating information about contraception? Of course, using contraception was out, and even talking about effective birth control methods was considered “obscene.” Where were the women on the issue? Oh wait, I remember, that was before women had the right to vote. Do you realize that women haven’t even been voting for 100 years? The Titanic sunk before we could mark a ballot. Do you realize what a short time it’s been?
Women’s ability to control their fertility has been met with historical barriers, as men in America held patriarchal power, legitimized by religious doctrine used to justify inequality. In truth, women’s history has been essentially wiped from the books, because as they say, “the winner writes the history.”
So, when I came across the photo of the Republicans’ “witness birth control panel” I was totally taken aback. Where the hell are the women? Are our voices somehow irrelevant?
They say we can look to the past to predict the future. If this is the case, I assert that women’s “stronghold” in exercising their power and autonomy is only a blip in our timeline that can be easily wiped away by legislation riddled with “traditional” values. The FDA only approved the first birth control pill in 1957, around the time my grandmother was getting married. There are women around us who remember what it was like before we had the reproductive freedoms we do now. Just last week, in 2012, Rep. Issa’s hearing on birth control was like a childhood boy’s club: no girls allowed! They’ve oppressed us before, they’re trying to do it again.
Ninety-six years after Margaret Sanger was arrested for opening the nation’s first contraceptive clinic, I have an IUD that allows me to enjoy intimacy and intercourse without pregnancy and I think it scares the hell out of those old patriarchal cronies. Think about it – they’re losing their power to control women. Historically, when women were unable to control their fertility, they were burdened to an existence of constant pregnancy and child-rearing. While I’m in no way blanketing all pregnancies to be burdensome, I’m really terrified of the notion that my uterus could one day become an unwilling conveyor belt.
If I’m left without contraception, how can I plan my pregnancies? If I can’t plan my pregnancies, how can I plan my life? If I can’t plan my life, how can I own my life? If I don’t own my life, who does? Riddle me that one, Newt, Rick, Mitt.
But my speculation is that these anti-women’s health extremists realize exactly what they’re doing. We are in a war over power and autonomy, and of women’s roles and value within our society (i.e., get back in the kitchen, have some babies and listen to/serve your husband).
Yeah, I’m not going to stand for that.
Our “traditional” patriarchal model shames the pleasure of sex, especially women’s pleasure: male has intercourse = pleasure/sport/assertion of masculine dominance/orgasm (for example, Catholic bishops and insurance companies cover Viagra). Female has intercourse = slut/shame/pregnancy and the “natural” role of motherhood (for example, Catholic bishops reject contraception and insurance companies don’t cover contraception). Not exactly equal outcomes.
So, I’m a sex-positive individual. I love having sex, and I have the luxury of thinking about it independently from pregnancy or motherhood because I use an effective birth control method. Because I’ve been using contraception consistently since I became sexually
active, I’ve been able to have an infinite amount of pleasurable intercourse AND obtain a formal education AND travel the world AND have a career AND my freedom! I’ve been able to live the life that many men on the “Birth Control Witness Panel” would be proud of their sons for. But since I have a uterus, I must give up my freedoms to serve my one and only purpose in life: being a caretaker to my husband and children?
Grrls and bois, friends and foes, they’re calling it a “war on religion,” and I’m calling it a “war on women.” As history repeats itself, we must remain vigilant in this fight.
We as a nation are prone to moral panics where one social group—perhaps a more religious, conservative one—decries a social trend that threatens a traditional aspect of our society. If something is considered a threat to a conventional social order, especially a relationship model where monogamy and celibacy prior to marriage is the norm, we are often treated to multiple news stories and editorials and petitions expressing outrage. Most of the more recent issues that inspire such fear and ire are related to women’s sexuality—birth control access, abortion access, whether it’s appropriate for Komen to fund breast exams at Planned Parenthood, and “hook up culture.”
The issue of hook up culture is not a new one, but it’s still an ongoing source of contention and fear, especially among older adults who look at new types of relationships emerging on college campuses and feel afraid for what these changes mean.
What’s referred to as hook up culture is a cultural standard among young adults where sexual activity usually occurs outside the context of a relationship, often without the promise of a relationship occurring afterwards, and the absence of traditional dates. This is opposed to an older model in which a boy called a girl days in advance, a date was planned, he picked her up and met her parents, brought her home by 10, etc. While premarital sex or sexual activity outside of a relationship are new things, it does seem true that they are becoming more accepted.
Most of the fear surrounding so called hook up culture is based upon an evolutionary model of male and female sex differences that insist women are designed to become attached to a partner after sex and thus cannot really enjoy casual sex. The other side of the argument states that this model is outdated and both men and women are capable of enjoying casual sex or desiring monogamy, depending on the individual and the situation.
Sociologist Paula England has studied hook up culture extensively, and gave a lecture on the subject discussing her findings. (It’s a quick and really interesting 6-minute video.) In her research, she has discovered that in many areas, traditional pre-arranged one-on-one dating practically doesn’t exist, but that most sexual partners are found while socializing in groups of friends. Hooking up does not necessarily mean sexual intercourse, but may mean anything from making out to intercourse. Most hookups do not lead to relationships, but most relationships she studied did start out with hooking up. It took a “define the relationship talk” to transition between a repeated hook-up situation into a relationship situation.
Now, what interests me is not just the anatomy of hook up culture, but how does it actually affect women? According to England, the double standard of the slut vs. stud dichotomy has not gone anywhere, sadly; women were more likely to experience slurs and judgment due to their sexual behavior. Also, more men have orgasms than women in these hookups. However, in repeat hookups or ones that turned into relationships, the gap in orgasm rate between men and women diminished over time. More men than women initiated sexual contact but that does not mean the women did not want it; it may be a reflection of traditional sex roles where men are supposed to be the aggressor. England concludes that it is unclear whether a hook up culture is better or worse for women than the more traditional courtship rituals.
What seems clear to me is that our society still has much to work on when it comes to sexual equality. Even though the types of relationships, and the way they transition into relationships has changed for young adults, not enough has changed. It is not important whether young adults find sexual relationships through dating or through hooking up; I’m more concerned with a shift from a society that upholds sexist priorities to one that insists on mutual consent, sexual pleasure, and emotional honesty.
Happy Friday! We hope you have a fantastic weekend.
To end our love and sex week here on Feronia, we’re going to hold a fantastic giveaway. Ever heard of The Guide to Getting It On? Well, it is awesome. 600 pages of sex tips just for you.
Here’s some reviews:
We’re giving away two copies – leave a comment by midnight on Sunday, February 19 on this entry to win!
#1: I love Etsy. #2: I love this hat. #3: This topic lights my fire. You’ve been warned.
If you’ve ever breast fed your baby in public, you know how people can’t help but stare, sometimes with a look of disgust that a mother DARE feed her hungry kid the best food that ever existed in a public place. I’ve been that mom before and I’ll be that mom again. To me, this hat says: F YOU, you judgmental, insecure, insensitive, nosy a-hole! Don’t want to see my boob? Well here, now you can really feast your eyes on a boob, and a big one at that. Go ahead and look, I want you to, jerk. And you want to know what really chaps my ass? When it’s women casting the dirty looks! (Do you sense how angry this makes me?)
It also says I’m a mom with a sense of humor and do not feel ashamed for breast feeding in public. Here’s the thing: at the time of this writing, there were more 7 billion people in the world. (If you want to see how many there are right now, go here. It’s impressive.) So if roughly 50% of the world’s population is female, that means about 3.5 billion people are female. And since the overwhelming majority has two boobies, there are about 7 billion milk-makers on the planet! (14 billion if you count male boobs.) Why is getting a glimpse of side boob such a big freaking deal??!!
And while I’m on the topic of breastfeeding, I just read this piece about a Texas judge who ruled that breastfeeding is not covered under discrimination laws. He writes, “Lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition,” after a mom was fired for requesting to pump upon her return to work. Really? Lactation is not related to pregnancy? Or childbirth? Well then, I better get to the hospital fast because there must be something terribly wrong with me. The Huffington Post article notes that, “President Barack Obama’s health care law addresses breast feeding and requires employers to give new mothers a break to nurse, but it doesn’t specifically protect women from being fired if they ask to do so,” and in this case it wouldn’t apply anyway because it happened a few years before the health care law became official. Employers need to recognize that allowing women to pump on the job is a benefit to the baby, the mom, AND the company.
So, lady who got fired: I think you should go sit in front of your old employer’s office while breastfeeding your baby who’s wearing the Boobie Beanie.
I really could go on and on about this topic but, instead, I want to hear what you have to say. What are your thoughts about the Boobie Beanie and breast feeding? Would you have nursed longer if your company were more supportive? Have any zingers to share for those rude people who stare? Leave a comment!
Update: If you want to hear more about the laws in question and how they affect you, Kevin Sanderson, an employment lawyer who is an expert in discrimination, will be writing a guest post for us next week all about it. Check back to find more about about these laws!
I’m a huge proponent of sex toys, as they can help you learn your own body, don’t require a willing participant, and can make you C-O-M-E!! I think there aren’t enough women willing to plunge into the arena of toys, as they’ve been tabooed as vulgar or unladylike. I could give a damn about being ladylike, pass me the freakin’ orgasms!!
Our team on Tumblr asked for your favorite toys and I’ve picked 6 show-stoppers to review below:
Toy: We-Vibe
Description: This toy was created for couples or solo play, is made of flexible medical grade silicone, is shaped like a “U,” has bullets at each end to stimulate clitoris and G-spot, and has three vibration settings.
Ooh La La Reviews:
● Enhances already great sex life
● Is comfortable size for both hitting clit and G-spot
● Made to accommodate penis and toy at the same time
● We-Vibe III has remote control
● Gives powerful orgasms
● Male partner claims he did not feel inferior to toy (good news if you or your partner are sensitive to “toy envy”)
Ooh no no reviews:
● Often slips out of place
● Has to charge for 24 hours before use
● Vibration is not strong enough
● Toy not big enough/small enough/flexible enough
OoOoH-verall: Overall you’ll love it or hate it. From what I can gather, those who hated it had high expectations and when they weren’t quickly met, they gave up. Positive reviews seemed to come from couples who kept using the toy until they found the right “vibe.”
OoOorder up! Get it for $89.99 here
Toy: Fleshlight
Description: Tube shaped toy made to imitate vaginal, oral, or anal opening and canal or throat, made of patented super soft “realistic” material, for penis penetration.
Ooh La La Reviews:
● Best male masturbation device
● Very life-like
● Can induce powerful orgasms
● Warming toy with water before use makes for more pleasurable experience
● Ability to control “tightness” of “vaginal canal” was a commonly cited plus
● Kinky options like vampire mouths available
Ooh no no reviews:
Some reviews cited tearing of the “vulva” and canal. Some reviews claim counterfeit toys are marketed as the “Fleshlight,” so be careful where you purchase from.
OoOoH-verall: The vast majority of reviewers found the toy to be as close to vaginal penetration as possible. A screwable cap at the bottom of the shaft or “canal” can be adjusted to make the toy “tighter” or “looser.”
OoOorder up! Get it for $50.99 here
Toy: Hitachi magic wand
Description: Hand held clitoral vibrator, looks the shape of microphone, plugs into wall (it’s that powerful).
Ooh La La Reviews:
● Does the trick!
● Comfortable to hold
● Appearance looks less like a “sex toy” and more like a regular body massager
Ooh no no reviews:
Some reviewers reported that the intensity of the massager made they feel less able to orgasm without it. Some suggest abstaining for a few days from using it, and you will feel “good as new” again.
OoOoH-verall: If you’re looking for clitoral stimulation, the magic wand should do the trick. Multiple vibration settings make it ideal for different sensitivities. Attachments can be added to the device also!
OoOorder up! Get it for $47.95 here
Toy: Wild G Stimulator (“Rabbit”)
Description: Works just like the “rabbit” but cheaper! California Exotics brand, with a “fin” instead of rabbit head to stimulate clit, and a shaft with rotating beads to engage your G spot. Three speeds of vibration, made of silicone, waterproof.
Ooh La La Reviews:
● G-spot orgasms
● Clitoral orgasms
● Clit-G combo orgasms
Ooh no no reviews:
Some reviewers felt the shaft was larger than expected. I actually felt the same way when I received it in the mail. With a little silicone lube it went in without a hitch.
OoOoH-verall: My favorite toy!! This toy was the first object to ever give me orgasms within my vaginal canal. I’m telling you, it revolutionized my lust life!!
OoOorder up! Get it for $34.66 here
Toy: Don Wand Glass Pleasure Wand
Description: Glass dildo with “nubs” around it for added stimulation. Comes in beautiful rainbow colors.
Ooh La La Reviews:
● Reviewers liked the size of the toy
● Kudos for the added “nubs”
● Heating and cooling options are a must
● The most aesthetically pleasing toy
Ooh no no reviews:
The toy is made of glass – meaning it does not bend, and is super-hard. If you prefer soft or flexible, this might not be for you.
OoOoH-verall: If you are a fan of hard vaginal stimulation, this toy can be the one for you. Lube is necessary. Easy to wash, can be heated up or put in freezer for different sensations. Clean up is super easy, you can even throw it in the dishwasher!
OoOorder up! Get it for $23.75 here
Toy: Turbo 8 Bullet
Description: Eight speed “bullet” shaped vibrator with attached remote control for easy speed adjustment. Can be purchased with either one or two bullets, depending on model.
Ooh La La Reviews:
● Really enjoy speed and pulse options
● Remote control makes it comfortable for use
● Very powerful clitoral stimulator
Ooh no no reviews:
● Cord from bullet to remote can get in the way if used with partner
● Devices burn out easily if rechargable batteries are used
● Different models make different vibration frequencies, bought similar products but their pulse was more of a “buzzing” – which felt more like a bee-sting than the smooth low and deep pulse of the original
OoOoH-verall: This is the mother of bullet toys. Eight speeds with different pulse options create an array of stimulation options. Bullet has soft removable caps with “tickle” bumps for added stimulation. Great for the novice to the expert.
OoOorder up! Get it for $12.99 here
In conclusion, always remember that sharing toys can spread sexually transmitted infections, so if you share toys, use them with condoms. Always wash your toys before and after use, and store in cool dry place. Most toys that require batteries suggest you remove them between uses to prevent the toy motors from burning out.
~In case you haven’t heard, Prop 8, the law banning gay marriage in California, was ruled unconstitutional this week. Approved by a slim margin in 2008, Prop 8 made gay marriage illegal only 5 months after the state began to acknowledge them. In the ruling, the court said that the ban was unconstitutional “because it singled out a minority group for disparate treatment for no compelling reason.” One judge did dissent on the grounds preventing gay marriage “could help ensure that children are raised by married, opposite-sex parents,” because in his fantasy world procreation never happens outside of marriage and half of marriages don’t end in divorce, I suppose. Gay marriages may not resume immediately, as opponents have been given time to appeal, but all in all this is excellent news.
~In response to Oklahoma’s proposed personhood amendment, Democratic Senator Constance Johnson submitted an action to amend the bill to state that “any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.” She did it as more of a satirical act than a serious attempt at an amendment; in her words:
“My amendment seeks to draw attention to the absurdity, duplicity and lack of balance inherent in the policies of this state in regard to women…[and] to draw humorous attention to the hypocrisy and inconsistency of this proposal – from the Republican perspective of down-sized government and less government intrusion into people’s private affairs.”
Joke or no, Johnson managed to succinctly point out the poor logic and inherent sexism behind personhood amendments. Good job. As a side note, another democratic Senator, Jim Wilson, proposed a more serious amendment that would have made “the father of an unborn child financially responsible for its mother’s health care, housing, transportation and nourishment while she is pregnant.” It failed, which I am totally shocked about (not really).