Recently in Sex Category
First Annual Sex-Positive Journalism Awards Announced
Journalism is not particularly renowned for upholding its central ethical tenets when it comes to reporting sex, especially "deviant" sexual practices: sex among the elderly or teenagers, kinky sex, queer sex, women using toys for masturbation, etc. (I'm serious about the last one.) No, quite often what is portrayed as "balanced" coverage ignores a sex-positive perspective. What's a "sex-positive perspective," you ask? Check out this year's winners of the Sex-Positive Journalism Award to find out.
...more.Sexposition: Go Read a Fucking Book
It would appear that one of the most important social utilities (even before Face Book) that people choose to use is one that most people are the least educated on and also the least inclined to discuss with their partner: sex.
...more."It's Not My Problem If You Can't Get To Another Pharmacy, Slut."
Last Thursday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a suspension of a Washington State law that prevents pharmacies from refusing to dispense medication. Emergency contraception has been at the heart of the law, but pharmacy refusals have happened for other drugs as well: anti-retroviral drugs, for instance, or insulin (because pharmacists though the patients “looked like junkies”). The federal court argued that women who may be denied the medication would not suffer irreparable harm, at least until June 3, when the appeal to the suspension will be heard. So currently a customer may be denied access to emergency contraception for “religious reasons.” 
Translation: if your pharmacist happens to believe, unlike everyone else in the medical profession, that emergency contraception is abortion, s/he can deny you medication that may prevent an unintended pregnancy (and possibly an actual abortion). You must deal with the repercussions of this possibility – the added hassle of going to another pharmacy, the shaming from the pharmacist, loss of precious hours to prevent ovulation – for another year because those potential costs are not, in fact, burdensome (a panel of old men has decided). As long as your pharmacist points the finger at God, you have to give up your right to healthcare because someone else’s expression of faith trumps your right to control your body.
Sexism and Feminism in Battlestar Galactica
Every Friday I eagerly find a television to watch Battlestar Galactica. It’s on Sci-Fi, and it’s one of the best and most politically relevant shows I have ever heard of. It provides nearly up-to-the-minute commentary on hot button ethical issues as well as extended, deeper probing of more fundamental problems. For example, the end of the third season (Crossroads parts one and two, aired March 2007) featured the trial of a former state leader for war crimes – two months after the hanging of Saddam Hussein and in the midst of arrests of former leaders for war crimes in Cambodia, Chile, Argentina and other nations. The episodes also commented more broadly on the nature of justice and the almost guaranteed lack of it for the unpopular. Baltar’s acquittal was portrayed as a lucky accident, possibly caused by nepotism – raising further questions about whether the means matter in pursuing the end of justice.
But aside from the nuanced political and social commentary, Battlestar is amazingly anti-sexist (especially in a genre characterized by the sexualization of hot babes for the viewing pleasure of the socially inept). Until this week’s episode, that is, and for that matter last week’s.
Plot spoilers ahead.
Indiana Shakes Its Finger At Smut Peddlers and Other People Dangerous to Children
Last week Indiana governor Mitch Daniels signed into law House Enrolled Act 1042, which will unconstitutionally attempt to regulate the sale of sexually explicit materials via the shame method. The bill passed through both the state Senate and House with strong bipartisan support. It does not prohibit the sale of explicit items, per se, but anyone who wants to sell anything even vaguely related to smut after June 30 must cough up $250 and register (like the sex offender registry – hey, do you think that’s where they got the idea?) with the state so that it can notify the local authorities. The legislation, like every other piece of morality-driven legislation, is sloppy – it casts an unconstitutionally wide net on what “sexually explicit” means, places an undue burden on businesses to show that what they are selling is (not) explicit, and it presents a conservative standard of community as the indisputable (and undisputed) community standard.
...more.