colfersaurusrex:

okay but an example of why we need better sex education in schools is the story of how I lost my virginity

i’ve included illustrations to further illustrate what im trying to illustrate to u today

Read More

The story is really fucking funny and this person has a great sense of humor about it, but they are not kidding about our schools needing better sex ed.

Like, if I hadn’t had fairly comprehensive sex ed, someone telling me to Google the hell out of everything sex-related, and a basic understanding of what makes a source reliable, this would probably definitely be me.

(Source: rexuality)

"

I’m all for teenagers not having sex until they’re emotionally ready and they’ve talked about safety and consent and expectations—but I don’t think adults should have sex if they don’t meet those conditions either. It’s important that adults don’t sexually exploit teenagers*—but it’s important that adults don’t sexually exploit other adults. I don’t think teenagers should see porn without context and perspective on how it compares to reality—you know how this sentence is going to end.

It’s probably true that it’s harder for teenagers to follow the rules of good sexual conduct, because of their age and inexperience (although having to do everything clandestinely and with no support system can’t help), but the rules aren’t fundamentally different for them.

"

http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/

I have such an activist crush on The Pervocracy

(via geekybombshell)

You’re not the only one.

(via fuckyeahsexpositivity)

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)

So while researching for the last anon, I discovered a really incredible resource:

letsgetrealawkward:

SIECUS

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.

Apparently that’s a thing. That we have. And it is FABULOUS.

Their website is incredibly informative and looks rather surprisingly inclusive.

Explore the site if you want!

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)

early2bed:

Why yes it is a gender neutral how babies are made book and it made me cry. By Cory Silverberg. Swoon. (Taken with Instagram)

Read an interview with the author here. He has great advice for talking to kids about sex, sexuality, and gender.

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)

"Regardless where you stand on immigration issues, a border fence, amnesty, etc., or on same-sex marriage and equal rights for LGBT citizens, how can you be in favor of making it easier to commit violence against LGBT or immigrant women? I cannot believe our national debate has come to this point – where we are singling out parts of the population and making them more vulnerable to violence."

Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) criticized the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act saying the bill passed on Wednesday puts women’s lives in jeopardy because it excludes access to services for immigrant, LGBT and Native American women.  (via nbclatino)

I mean, “singling out parts of the population and making them more vulnerable to violence” is what institutional oppression is - it’s just not always as visible as this. 

But yes, this whole thing is fucking ridiculous. 

(via viviopsis)

(via seriouslyamerica)

"

“It’s important to clarify that sex education that teaches about pleasure doesn’t have to teach about technique (though elective college-level sex education that does this is great). Letting teens know that women usually achieve orgasm through the rubbing of the clitoris, whether fingers, mouth, object, or penis, isn’t the same as screening an instructional video on giving good cunnilingus. It’s not the same as writing down the names of sex-toy shops on the blackboard, or handing out diagrams of cool and exciting coital positions. And teaching that lubricants reduce pain and increase safety and pleasure during many kinds of sex should be thought of not as performance advice, but on par with vital lessons about condom use.

Real sex education is not the same as porn education. Instead, it’s about teaching that pleasure is an important part of any sexual relationship. It’s about teaching that there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel sexual pleasure and seeking it out, so long as it is done safely and responsibly. It’s about teaching comfort with one’s body and a lack of shame over desires, and there is more to sex for all people than sticking penises into vaginas. Real sex education teaches how to go about making intelligent , safe choices, rather than just stating the choices available. I believe there is a big difference. And I believe that teaching teens to make smart choices about sex must involve teaching them that having sex, partnered or alone, can be a smart choice”.

"

Real Sex Education by Cara Kulwicki in Yes Means Yes

(via fem-blog)

(via razingcomplacency)

thisthat-and-liberalstuff:

Things that will help lower abortion rates: 

• Comprehensive sex education in schools. 
• Cheaper/easier access to birth control, condoms, and other preventative methods. 
• Openness and communication between parents and sexually active children.
• Openness within the community regarding Planned Parenthood centers and health departments that provide cheap/free sexual health services. 
• Implementation of sexual and reproductive health services geared toward trans* individuals and their sexual/reproductive health. 
• Networks of support implemented to counsel and assist pregnant persons who will have a hard time paying for prenatal care, hospital delivery bills, and after birth care. 
• Systems set up within schools that help pregnant teens stay in school while also being able to take care of and raise their child(ren.)

Things that will not lower abortion rates: 

• Banning abortion and implementing laws that make it harder to get abortions. 
• Limiting birth control access, making birth control harder for teens to get, making birth control more expensive, ect. 
• Promoting abstinence only sex education. 
• No communication between parents and sexually active teens. 
• Schools that expel pregnant students. 
• Incomplete/inaccurate sexual and reproductive health services for trans* individuals. 

I know what the OP meant, and that framing the goal as “reducing abortions” is an appeal to anti-choicers. It all depends on how you define goals and objectives in sexual activity. Lowering the abortion rate could be one goal, but you would first have to want to reduce the rate of unintended/unwanted pregnancies. Now, the objectives listed above would achieve that, but even then, they would fall under the larger umbrella of promoting healthy, individual sexuality through education, communication, and increased access to health care, contraception, and safe spaces. Implementing the changes listed above in the education, health care, and political systems would reduce unsafe sex, which would reduce unintended pregnancies and STIs, which would then reduce abortions.

(Source: masenko-your-face, via fuckyeahsexeducation)

North Dakota Religious Freedom Amendment Would Allow Employers To Deny Birth Control →

“Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.”

This amendment, put on the June 12, 2012 ballot by the North Dakota Catholic Conference (NDCC) and the North Dakota Family Alliance (local affiliate of Focus on the Family), will further support people and organizations in violating the human rights of others based on their religious beliefs. North Dakota activist Don Morrison said, “It will legitimize hurtful acts towards people in North Dakota who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and people who are not the  ’correct’ kind of Christian. The people promoting this are people who use fear of others as a tactic to move their agenda, and if this measure passes, it will give some powerful institutions, like hospitals and churches, more power to say it is okay to ostracize people they don’t like.”

It could allow people to break nearly any kind of law, provided their actions are motivated by “a sincerely held religious belief.” This means hiring discrimination, denial of insurance coverage, and discriminatory firing (say, firing an unmarried pregnant person). This means denial of emergency health care, or denial to fill a birth control or emergency contraception prescription.

“North Dakota,” [Steven R.] Morrison noted, “is a large, sparsely populated rural state, and many people may have access to only one pharmacy or one hospital…. The amendment will protect religious practice, but its negative externalities may severely curtail others’ enjoyment of their own constitutional rights.”

Measure 3 will be on the ballot in June, and we’re likely to see similar propositions in other states as well. The religious right and anti-choicers will attack from any angle to bend the country to their will. North Dakotans, please get out there and fight. You can learn more at North Dakotans Against Measure Three, by contacting Sarah Shanks of Feminist Campus at sshanks@feminist.org, or by contacting Emily Krueger, Legislative Assistant of Americans United for Separation of Church and State at action@au.org. You can also donate to NARAL to help them send representatives to North Dakota to fight the measure.

And, to all North Dakotans: VOTE NO ON MEASURE 3

New website for women and girls about sexuality and disability! →

(Source: hellyeahscarleteen, via rabbleprochoice)

HHS Endorses Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage-Curriculum →

pplm:

What’s NOT a good way to recognize the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy? Endorsing abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs. Unfortunately, HHS did just that. We need medically-accurate, age-appropriate, and non-judgmental sexuality education in our schools. Not programs that perpetuate misinformation, ignore condoms and contraception, and ostracize LGBT youth!

What the fuck?

(Source: m-n-mj, via loveisfluid)

trubr0wn:

of-praxis:

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

LOOK

FEMINISTS INCLUDING WOC! \o/

ur doin it RITE!

(via prochoicegeneration)

What is Trans* Repro Justice?

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

prolongedeyecontact:

transreprojustice:

A lot of people when they hear the terms “prochoice”, “reproductive rights” or even “reproductive justice” only think of abortion, but this view is myopic in my opinion. “Reproducing” encompasses many things which includes the right to choose to have children (or give birth and choose adoption), to choose to not have children right now, and to choose to never have children. Reproductive justice frameworks are holistic and look at reproductive rights with the whole person in mind. This means people also have the right to quality and comprehensive sex education, contraception, relevant medical care, the right to be sterilized and the right to not be forcibly sterilized, and a whole host of birthing choices as well (home/natural births, VBACs, the right to refuse c-sections, etc).

Not only that but reproductive rights activists are also concerned with advocating for the personhood/bodily integrity/and autonomy of pregnant people, advocating for reproductive health care as a human right, eradicating obstetric fistula and illegal/unsafe abortion in the developing world, lowering the incidence of teen pregnancy and STIs, lowering the mortality and morbidity rates of pregnant people, improving access to quality healthcare especially for people in poverty. The list goes on and on. Further, we must remember that race, class, disability status, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, etc all intersect and all have an effect on how we can or cannot utilize our reproductive rights, and therefore all of those issues must be addressed for reproductive justice to be successful in upholding the rights of all people not just those who are white, wealthy, able-bodied, straight, cis, male citizens. 

So what does this have to do with trans* people?

Well, perhaps not everyone within the movement believes “prochoice” should be a holistic philosophy, but I for one, do. We concentrate on abortion rights because that’s the issue so often under attack, but to be actually “prochoice” is much more expansive than that. It’s about bodily integrity and the importance of keeping personal bodily decisions just that, personal. It’s about birthing choices as much as it is abortion. It’s about how the reproductive rights of different segments of society have been effected differently and what that means to all of us as a whole. Intersectionality matters because poc, poor people, disabled people, trans* people, people of various sexual orientations have been targeted differently and yet it’s all part of a larger system that denies those seen as the “other” the freedom to make basic choices in regards to how their bodies are viewed and how they are utilized. Therefore it’s important to remember that the sexist and cissexist system that seeks to control the sexuality, bodies, and reproduction of those it perceives to be women is the same system that actively targets the identities, bodies, reproduction, and sexualities of trans* people. Reproductive rights aren’t about abortion, they’re about the profound and fundamental right to bodily integrity.

So what is trans* repro justice?

It’s the radical notion that:

• Our bodies belong to us and our right to bodily integrity doesn’t dissipate when society becomes aware of our trans*ness.
• Our bodies and identities are valid, no matter how “uncommon” they may be.
• Language matters and so does inclusivity. When your rhetoric excludes us so do your actions, and that sometimes literally kills us.
• We don’t need to be pathologized or “explained” within a cissexist paradigm. 
• You don’t need to understand us to respect us.
• Sex and gender are not neat binaries.
• We deserve to have our needs met and our boundaries respected just as much as anyone else.
• Medical care should be easily accessible to every one that needs and wants it.
• Parenthood and reproduction are basic human rights and no person should be sterilized without their consent or knowledge. In the other direction, all people that seek sterilization should be able to do so without jumping through hoops for paternalistic doctors.
• All of us have the right to information about our bodies, that doesn’t exclude or denigrate our identities or misgender us, to ensure we can maintain our health.
• All of us have a right to maintain our humanity, dignity, and health. This doesn’t change with citizen status or prisoner status.
• Intersectionality is important. Trans* activism must be cognizant of it, and willing to acknowledge the power hierarchies and systems of privilege within our own community.
• We all have the right to control our fertility how we see fit (whether through pregnancy, adoption, single parenthood, harvesting eggs, sperm banking, etc), and those services should be accessible and affordable.
• We are perfectly capable of being wonderful parents and raising amazing, well-adjusted children.
• Men can and do give birth. Not all those that give birth are mothers.
• Women can and do impregnate people. Not all those that impregnate are fathers.
• “Mothers” and “fathers” aren’t the only type of parents that exist.
• We have a right to obtain government issued identification documents that acknowledge our identities (even nonbinary ones!) without having to undergo costly surgery we may not even want.
• We shouldn’t have to conform to a coercive, gendered script for the comfort of cis people nor should we be expected to live or perform a typical trans* narrative to be taken seriously.
• We should be able to use public restrooms without being attacked, mocked, or arrested.
• Our identities and bodies shouldn’t be caricatured for the amusement of society.
• We are people. We are valid. We are here to stay.

This is a work in progress. Any additions are welcome!

Reblogging here so more people will see this and also to plug my new trans*-centered repro justice blog.

WONDERFUL!

(via keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

Why Are Republicans Fighting the Violence Against Women Act? →

Summary: Because they are awful people.

(Source: notsexistbut, via stfueverything)