Dear Anti Sex Ed Crowd: Greetings and salutations! I bet you’re surprised to hear from me. After all, you’ve spent some time lately calling me a terrible mother (on television no less) because I advocate for a much-needed update to Nevada’s sex education standards — originally passed at the height of the AIDS-panic-1980s — that [...]
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Marriage Is on the Decline — But Single Still Feels Weird
Even dry British economists are talking about it. It feels like it’s been everywhere lately — even the Supreme Court. Marriage rates: just in a slump, or do we need to talk? The Economist reported earlier this year that marriage rates are continuing to decline in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world. [...]
Power and Sex: Presumed Consent is Killing Equality.
IN Swaziland, teenage girls are taught about sexually transmitted diseases, condoms and HIV testing information handed out at will as they learn that sex is dangerous and mostly for men. In India, The Justice Verma Committee’s recommendation on recognizing marital rape as an offence under criminal law was hastily swept aside by the Standing Committee [...]
#HealthyLove Tweetchat on 2/11!
What makes a relationship healthy? What are the warning signs of abuse? How can you help someone you know is in an abusive relationship? If you’d like to start these conversations with yourself or someone you know, now’s the time because February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. The stats show that 33% of teens in [...]
Singularly Stupid
For a country that built its reputation on the storied rugged individualist, its laws sure as hell don’t match the rhetoric. Are single people discriminated against? According to evidence out there, American singles take a financial hit on income taxes, health care costs, social security, and IRA choices to name a few. And it goes [...]
Is It The End of Courtship? Or The End Of Unequal, Unhealthy, And Unfulfilling Relationships?
The New York Times wants us to believe the End of Courtship is a disaster for young people, especially women. But new types of relationships—in which men and women are equal partners—inevitably require new ways of seeking them out, says Abigail Collazo.
The Phenomenal Women Who Inspire Us
When my editor sent out a request for us to ponder which woman inspire us, I posted the question on Facebook. I was curious if there would be a consensus (there wasn’t). And I was curious to know what kind of woman it was that invoked such an awesome emotion. After all, to inspire someone [...]
“Special” Protections for “Special” Women: Why the Violence Against Women Act Expired
Nobody warned me. When I started to “come out” as a feminist activist – not just talking with friends, but sharing articles on Facebook, writing extensively about women’s rights, and participating in advocacy movements – nobody warned me. Nobody warned me that friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, and sometimes total strangers who’d come across my [...]
Fawlty Deflowerings: UK Lawmakers Trying To Define Gay Sex
Consummation is traditionally defined as the first sexual intercourse between a man and a woman following their marriage. It has roots in the basic heterosexist idea that the purpose of marriage is to have reproductive sex, which is why in some places (Britain, for example), if a marriage has not been consummated with intercourse, it’s [...]
We Must Keep Fighting: Post World AIDS Day
I was born in 1989, while the AIDS epidemic in the US was in full force. I’ve never lived in a world where learning about HIV/AIDS wasn’t a part of my school health classes. I know that I’m lucky to have been taught an unbigoted view of how HIV/AIDS could happen to anyone, no matter [...]