It’s all about education and communication, including abstinence as preventative measures. Voters throughout California were able to view compelling advertisements such as this You Tube video that urged voters to say NO to Prop 4. California has always been a pro-choice state and has been recognized as a national leader in reducing teen pregnancy rates. No on Prop 4 guarantees that all teens, no matter what their circumstances, will be able to access qualified doctors, nurses and counselors when they need them. Kudos to California voters for choosing to protect the health and safety of our teenagers through education and information.
Here are some useful and easy to follow tips on how to clean your sex toys that I have found. Horray for blogger’s em & lo at “Daily Bedpost.” Here’s what’s written on this blog and a link to the rest of the article:“1. First, try to buy toys that come with specific cleaning instructions — if it doesn’t (and no “novelties” do), be sure to ask or email a nice sex-toy salesperson for advice. But keep in mind that cheap novelties are often so poorly designed that they can’t be cleaned properly. For instance, if a toy has seams but can’t be taken apart without it breaking, it’ll never get really clean; those nooks and crannies can harbor bacteria that’s harmful to sensitive vaginal and anal canals.
2. Wash a toy before its first use, immediately after every use (as opposed to just waiting to clean it before the next time), and immediately before each use, too, if you’re not storing it correctly (i.e., if it’s gathering dust bunnies under your bed).”Read the rest.
AdamEve.com has come out with a toy cleaner that works with any adult toy regardless of material! Check it out here. Also, here’s a great intro to the wild and wonderful world of sex toys.
In “What your kiss says about you,” Katy Guest at the Independent UK writes about a recent study on how people relate to each other through kissing. Are you a leaner? Do you lean left or right? Read the article here and find out what your kissing style says about you!
It turns out that the need for contraception-themed sex ed is global…at least South Korea-global:
Professor Shin Kyung-lim from Ewha Womans University said that in her survey of 6,000 students, she found few have any inhibitions left about premarital action between the sheets.
“We found more people are sexually active nowadays,” she remarked to the Korea Times.
Hooray for the libertines! But here’s the bad news:
“But information or precautions regarding such behaviour is very inadequate, often leading to pregnancy and abortion,” the professor added.
This made me laugh out loud. I sent it to all of my friends who have a tendency to freak out about having and STD. I mean, for a while there, trips to the sexual health clinic were like Sunday brunch. This is not to say we were being extra promiscuous, just that sometimes the fear that sex-ed and the wild world of the unknown will one day converge as an STD can be worrying…for minor hypochondriacs and people who pay attention to the 0.01% wild card of condoms. On a more serious note, these anyonymous “i tested positive for an STD” e-cards may just be the slightly odd, but incredibly useful, thing to help make the sexual wilderness a safer place.
Condoms can really make or break any erotic encounter. I can’t tell you how often the thing has slipped, slid, snapped, or just felt weird - and it has really, really put a dent in the warm mood. Headed up by an American prof, European men are giving their anonymous opinions about rubber johnnies, in aid of a better prophylactic. According to Professor Michael Reece from Indiana University’s sexual health center, there are more options for us stateside to find the perfect love glove.
“The fit and feel issues that men report may be among those that contribute to their likelihood of using, or not using, condoms consistently and correctly,” he said. This research may help manufacturers and health care professionals in their mission for safe, fun, care-free sex.
Remember when the big thing was virginity? And the media fussed and fumbled about Britney and fumed about Christina…now it was up in arms about Miley Cyrus baring her shoulder and a few other choice naughty photos of the Disney Dream Brand. Now Jamie Lynn Spears and Sarah Palin’s daughter are the teens whose sex life is in total focus. What’s the deal with that? And by deal, I mean, it’s fairly obvious that sex and sexuality are a big part of ANY adolescent’s life. After all, the adolescent’s body is raging with hormones that are turning the darlings into fertile men and women. Of course sexuality and to have or not to have questions about sex are a big deal. It’s easy (and fun for a tabloid lover like me) to follow the trends in media coverage of the the Britneys and Jamie Lynns of the world, but dichotomies aside, when adolescence “strikes” your child… think very carefully about what position you want to take.
We know that extreme conservatism breeds a very naughty underbelly (the Victorian Era, hello) and that abstinence-only education still results in over a million teen pregnancies a year and 40 percent of girls will become pregnant before they turn 20. As mothers and future mothers (and especially if you are a person who enjoys this blog), it would do you a world of good to figure out your position…and figure one out that is sexually sane.
1. Be realistic about your teen.
2. Give them balanced information, both about abstinence and sexual activity.
3. Talk to them about the different kinds of intimacies between two loving people.
4. Talk to your teen about what sex means to them and discuss how your teen might handle certain scenarios where the question of sex may arise.
An abstinence trend would surely bring a smile to the faces of parents of the young and frisky. Abstinence programs don’t seem to have much of an effect on the teens they’re targeted at: “Study after study has shown that those schooled in abstinence rhetoric are just as sexually active as those who aren’t, leaving the right wing with virtually no credibility on the subject,” reports Alternet.org. So what’s the pro-absitinece corps to do? They’re targeting teen magazines, comedy, and fashion as outlets to get their point across. Read all about it here. Willthey succeed? Is thisa good idea in our libertine age? What do you think?
