Tag Archives: abstinence only

Today’s Lady News: More Than Half Of Young Adults Misinformed About Birth Control

Jessica WakemanMay 14, 2012 //
Today's Lady News photo
  • Here’s a depressing statistic: 60 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds may not understand how to properly use birth control to prevent pregnancy, according to a new study of 1,800 young adults by the Guttmacher Institute. Shocker of shocks, abstinence-only sex education — which refuses to teach children how contraception works — is being fingered as a prime reason for the misunderstanding.  [International Business Times]
  • Tennessee’s governor signed into law on Friday a bill that bans teaching students about “gateway sexual behavior,” which includes everything from outercourse to hand-holding and hugging. The bill requires sex ed instructors to teach only abstinence and fines teachers $500 for each violation. Clearly this entire state did not read that Guttmacher study.  [Feminist.org]
  • Arizona Governor Jan Brew signed into law on Friday a bill that allows any employer that identifies as “religiously affiliated” to refuse to cover birth control in the company’s health insurance plan. Thankfully, an even crazier original version of the bill was changed. [Feminist.org] Keep reading »

Tennessee Sex Ed Bill Warns Against Hand-Holding & Other “Gateway Sexual Activity” On The Road To Slutdom

Jessica WakemanMay 1, 2012 //
hand holding photo

There’s a point where abstinence-only sex education becomes not just ineffectual and wasteful, but actually funny.  And that point is in a Tennessee bill that will require teachers to preach abstinence and warn young’uns about “gateway sexual activity” like hand-holding, cuddling, and hugging. You know, the real slutty stuff. Keep reading »

Kids These Days Just Aren’t Getting Pregnant Like They Used To

Jessica WakemanApril 13, 2012 //
Glamorizing Teen Moms?
Is teen pregnancy glamorized by shows like MTV's Teen Mom. Read More »
Pregnant Teens
Teen pregnancy is statistically a Southern thing. Read More »
16 And Pregnant
Jamie Lynn Spears photo
Jamie Lynn Spears says she was too scared to ask for birth control. Read More »
teen pregnancy photo

Kids these days! They just aren’t getting pregnant like they used to. The birth rate for young women ages 15 to 19 fell to its lowest ever recorded in 2010, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. States with the lowest teen birth rates are in the Northeast with Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, while the highest are concentrated in the South/Southwest: Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

It might seem like great news that teen births have been declining over two decades. But the United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world. It’s no surprise that the states “16 & Pregnant” casting agents drool over have the strictest abortion laws and also think abstinence-only sex ed actually works. [NY Times, NY Times (2)]

Today’s Lady News: Utah Governor Vetoes Abstinence Sex Ed Bill

Jessica WakemanMarch 19, 2012 //
  • Utah’s governor Gary Herbert, a Republican, vetoed a bill that would have forced all sexual education classes to only teach abstinence, with no mention of contraception, as well as be “opt-in” instead of “opt-out.” The Utah bill would also have forbidden any discussion of homosexuality. Anyone else scared that this bill passed Utah’s state House and Senate in the first place? [Think Progress]
  • Tennessee’s House Health and Human Resources Committee will take up a bill this week that would require the names of abortion providers, as well as demographic information about women who have abortions, to be listed online. Anti-abortion activists are using the “it’s more information!” smokescreen, while pro-choice activists say this is just another way of trying to intimidate doctors and women. [Feminist.org]
  • Why did a profile of feminist activist Gloria Steinem run in the “Fashion & Style” section of The New York Times? I mean, really, people!  [NY Times]
  • And let’s discuss: do we really need another Gloria Steinem, anyway? [Bitch Magazine]
    Keep reading »

How Bristol Palin Gave Her V-Card To Levi Johnston

Jessica WakemanJune 20, 2011 //

Bristol Palin lost her virginity to Levi Johnston drunk on wine coolers, according to her new memoir. The pro-abstinence advocate first slept with the Playgirl model in a tent while camping at Point MacKenzie in 2006, at age 15 — and she doesn’t remember it. Keep reading »

American Sex Ed Sucks, Says Elton John

Jessica WakemanMarch 2, 2011 //

“The stigma [around HIV/AIDS] hasn’t gone away after 30 years, and young people are still getting infected. We can’t get to the young people in this country because it’s very conservative and you can’t get into schools to teach people about sex. We can in Africa, but we can’t seem to over here. With young people, the infection rates rise and until you inform people and make this disease a non-stigmatized thing, you’re never going to have any change and we’re batting our heads against a brick wall. We need to get into schools.”

— Elton John, blabbing about sex education at his Oscars bash this weekend, makes more sense when he talks than the entire religious right and their “abstinence only” nonsense. Bristol Palin, listen to the crazy gay Brit who wears the silly costumes! [Fox 411] Keep reading »

Girl Talk: I Dated A “True Love Waits” Christian

Rachel Rabbit WhiteFebruary 16, 2011 //
Virginity & Depression
Why do girls get depressed after losing their virginity? Read More »
Losing The V-Card
Losing my virginity was a laugh. Read More »
Dealbreaker
Sorry, but at 26, virginity is a dealbreaker. Read More »

I grew up in a small town. It was in the “heartland”– the middle of the country, yet everyone had twangy Southern accents. The town didn’t have much money or restaurants or people. But we did have churches. Churches in pole-barns, churches whose congregations were made up of only one family, churches in the hills with members who spoke in tongues and fancy churches with stained glass that told you to vote for George Bush.

All through my youth, I probably would have said I was a Christian. It was just the default. My parents did take me to church when I was little, I grabbed from the tin of sugar-cookies and drank dixie cups of watery Kool-Aid, but I had somehow remained a bit feral. Keep reading »