Isabella Rossellini Wins Hearts Talking about Animal Sex

Green Porno has short mini-series online. Imagine Isabella Rossellini in fantastic costumes while she talks about why animals have the parts they do "down there".

It brings a new interpretation of "sex education"

"Sexy" Education and The Pleasure Principle

One of my big issues with sex education is that the breadth of information on sexuality and sexual physiology outside of the uterus is quite limited.

Parents, educators, and public health professionals want young people to avoid/reduce sexual risk behavior (delay sexual debut, use birth control, etc) and young people want to know the logistics of sex, what is "normal" or average, and what would make their partner feel good.

So let's help young people learn better by pairing the education we want to give them with the education they want to have.

Here's an example of one of the issues that sex ed courses could address (but don't): The ABC's of Female Ejaculation by "The Doctors" television show via Jezebel.com

The Pleasure Project is a group who is trying to influence sex education to respect the need to incorporate the pleasure aspect.

Picture by me

The Lancet Strikes a Major Blow to the Pope's Flawed Argument Against Condom Use for prevention of HIV transmission

The Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world joins the many public health professionals to call the Pope out for his irresponsible statement on condom use with regard to the HIV epidemic.

The Lancet states in an editorial, "When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record."


AFP "Pope 'publicly distorted' condom science: Lancet"

See my previous posts on the Pope's comments here and here .

The Lancet

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Can YOU Save a Rock Star? Naloxone Stops Opiate Overdoses

River Phoenix, John Belushi, Dee Dee Ramone, Jim Morrison, Chris Farley, Janis Joplin all died of drug overdoses that included opiates such as heroin or morphine. Imagine if you were there while they were overdosing and you had something that would very likely save them.

That life saving drug is called Naloxone, usually called by its brand name "Narcan", and it has a very high save rate for those going through opioid overdose. Naloxone works by blocking the receptors in the brain from opioid. It doesn't provide a high and isn't abused- as shown in its success in cities like Chicago and New York.

Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman is revived when she is stabbed in the heart with a needle. Administering Narcan is much easier than that- you don't hit the heart. You can just stick the needle in a thigh and there is even a version of the drug that can be given under the tongue. And, just like Uma Thurman's character, the person wakes up pretty quickly.

Here is a great New Haven Independent article on use of the overdose death prevention drug- Naloxone (brand name- Narcan) in the US.

Here is a fabulous video on Naloxone by CRA

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Update on the Alatech Condom Hullabaloo: Political Pork

After seeing many papers take the Kansas City Star article on Alatech condoms, I'm very pleased to see some solid reporting by Celia Dugger.

My favorite parts:

"Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won federal contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, though Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost.

In recent years, the state's condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and the federal aid agency began buying them from Asia. The use of Asian-made condoms has contributed to layoffs that are coming next month.

But Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, has quietly pressed to maintain the unqualified priority for American-made condoms and is likely to prevail if the past is any guide."
....

"From 2003 to 2005, Alatech and one other company making condoms for Usaid fell behind on their orders, agency officials said. Last year, the other company went bankrupt. "

.....

"Senator Sessions wrote Usaid a letter last year saying it should purchase condoms from foreign producers only after it had bought all the condoms American companies could make, noting it was 'extremely important to jobs in my state'."

Read the full Celia Dugger's International Herald Tribune article

Here's my original post on the Kansas City Star Article on Alatech

And here is Ms. Dugger's article in 2006 about Alatech where my favorite line is:

"Duff Gillespie, a retired senior Usaid official who is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said that over the years officials at Usaid raised the prospect of foreign competition to tamp down what he called 'the greed factor' of Alabama condom manufacturers.

But whenever the staff pushed to buy in Asia, Alabama politicians pushed right back."

The Chicago Sun Times adds to the growing reports on Alatech's performance saying, "The U.S. Agency for International Development says Alatech has had problems filling orders, and there were complaints from the field about the quality of its condoms."

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Contraceptives and Catholics: "Sex and Drugs" goes to Divinity School for a Day

To understand some of the Catholic Church's recent stances on condoms (See my previous post )and abortion of a nine-year old incest survivor in Brazil (Source: Huffingtonpost), I thought it would be useful to review a key document that informs some of the Pope's recent decisions and statements. I'm no expert in religion and it shows- I just have more questions!

Documentation that Guides Catholic Church

Decisions

While the Old and New Testament address adultery and divorce, there is no Bible-based guidance to Christians on use of contraceptives, which came later. The reference most commonly used in Catholicism is the Humanae Vitae- a document attributed to Pope Paul VI in 1968. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Humane Vitae was written in response to the oral contraception becoming available in 1960 and a Catholic Church Commission Report in 1966 which proposed that, "that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the methods to be employed", and a minority report which held that contraception was instrisically evil. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Humanae Vitae prohibits use of artificial contraception, but does not label it as evil and overall is a complicated document which is supposed to reaffirm previous Church positions and embody some of the conflict within the church on contraceptives. (Source: Wikipedia)

Three Catholic Cheers for Sex!

The Humanae Vitae does take a tremendous step and call, "sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is...noble and worthy.''

Hurrah for the Catholic Church's appreciation of sex!

Asserting an Inseparable Connection and then Severing it?

The Vatican's Humanae Vitae "is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act" yet "the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles."

Now this point confuses me. The overall point of this document is to say that the benefit the couples gets from sex relating to couple unity and intimacy should never be separate from the other benefit of sex- procreation. Yet then the document goes on to say that it is allowable for couples to time when they have sex to reduce the potential that the sex act will result in a pregnancy.

All is supposed to be "cleared up" when the documents says that "neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception".

Oh thanks- all clear now.

My biggest issue with the Humane Vitae is that it states "an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. "

This is in conflict with my limited understanding of the Catholic interpretation of the power of God. As I understand, God is all powerful and miracles are possible. Couples who were previously thought to be infertile have been able to conceive and this miracle is attributed to God's will. How can we be so arrogant to belive that these small steps could override God's will?

As the religious right has brought up many times, there is no contraception that is 100%- not condoms, oral contraceptives, even sterilization. "In the United States, most studies of breakage caused by fault in the condom itself have shown breakage rate is less than 2 condoms out of every 100 condoms. Studies also indicate that condoms slip off the penis in about 1-5% of acts of vaginal intercourse and slip down (but not off) about 3-13% of the time." Avert.Org Condom Effectiveness If condoms work only 87-97% of the time, there is room for divine action.

The % chance for divine intervention for condoms is not too far off with perfect practice of contraception by following natural cycles. Chances of pregnancy in a typical ovulation calendar varies by day from 0-20%.

Why must a fertile 20-something be held to a higher standard of self-discipline than an infertile peer or the post menopausal generation? Chances of conceiving post menopause are extremely low per "Ask Our Expert" at drspock.com. Why do the baby boomers get to have all of the fun?

Limiting contraception to "infertile methods" puts the moral burden unevenly on the most fertile part of the population. If we were to truly hold ourselves to not separating the procreative and couple-intimacy benefits, wouldn't those populations who were less fertile be expected to abstain from sex full stop?

Understanding Why the Church Accepts Natural Cycle Contraception, but Not Artificial Contraception- Unpacking the Concept

Why is natural cycle contraception considered ok while artificial contraception (oral contraception, injectables, condoms, etc.) is not? I'll paraphrase the HV's section on this using two couple examples- Couple A live within the church rules of maintaining intimacy while avoiding a pregnancy while Couple B are avoiding a pregnancy using artificial birth control.

There seem to be two major arguments:

(1) Couple A's abstinence during the most fertile times of the ovulation cycle is self control that demonstrates their true love for each other, so they may have sex during infertile times with the intention of avoiding pregnancy within the rules of the church. Couple B is not practicing a method that is time-restrictive and are therefore not sacrificing anything to demonstrate their true love.

(2) Couple A is taking advantage, "of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles", while Couple B obstructs, "the natural development of the generative process".

Is this the Catholic Church's Feminist Manifesto? If So Can I Get an Upgrade?

This document also asserts that that "a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection."

It is odd to me that the same document which praises self-discipline could expect such a severe swing to depravity with the simple use of contraceptives. Cases of men's lack of reverence of women, unfortunately, predates contraceptive devices. Regulating use of contraceptives will not change this- though perhaps if men were able to become pregnant this would change. The HV is supposed to be a statement with the Church's, "new understanding of the dignity of woman and her place in society"- but to me, limiting a woman's access to birth control seems to impair her ability to have her dignity.

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What interventions can reduce HIV among IDUs

Way back when I was working in Central Asia, I served as a "country expert" in a joint WHO-UNODC process to set some sort of global standard targets in HIV prevention with injecting drug users (IDUs).

For those interested in HIV prevention interventions for IDUs, I recommend reading it. Not just because I was a part of this process. You get a basic idea of a comprehensive "package" to reduce incidence of HIV among IDUs and some of the definitions of standards indicators for coverage and quality- down to a definition of who should be considered an IDU. If your site does not include one of the elements of the "package"- perhaps that is the gap you should try to fill.

I found that other "HIV prevention comprehensive packages" are a bit of tripe and bs, but this is something that has potential (if only folks pay attention).

So read it!

WHO and UNODC
Technical guide for countries to set targets for universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care for injecting drug users

Picture via Flickr