marenges big fat blog

Last year, New York City health workers gave out 37.2 million condoms. That works out to an average of 70 condoms every minute of the year. The city got into mass-scale condom distribution to help prevent the spread of debilitating and deadly diseases.

On the other hand, the condoms are also used to mark people for arrest on prostitution charges.

[snip]

One arm of the government is giving people condoms. Another arm is confiscating them from the very people who are most vulnerable to catching bugs and passing them along. How, precisely, does this make sense?

-

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/nyregion/in-new-york-city-giving-away-and-taking-away-condoms.html?_r=1

Good piece in the New York Times about the condoms as evidence issue, with some quotes by me as well as Sienna Baskin from the Sex Workers Project.

Although most boys figure out how to bring themselves to orgasm by age thirteen, half of girls don’t have their first orgasms until their late teens, twenties, or beyond. Teenage girls widely agree that they get the message loud and clear that masturbation is something boys do, but girls don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t. The cultural focus on intercourse tells young women to expect they’ll begin to experience sexual pleasure once they have sex with a man (whether or not they’re even interested in sex with men). Nearly all teen boys, on the other hand, experience sexual pleasure long before they get their hands—or other body parts—into a partner’s pants. Despite the massive advances in women’s equality, young women’s sexuality is stuck in a surprising paradox. Young women are sold provocative clothes but aren’t taught where to find their own clitoris. Many girls give their boyfriends oral sex, but are too uncomfortable with their own bodies to allow the guys to return the favor. It’s still a radical act to say that women need and deserve access to information about their own sexual pleasure—not just about the risks and negative consequences of sex.

- Dorian Solot, I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide (via boybitch)

(Source: lipsredasroses)

One need not like or perform a particular sex act in order to recognize that someone else will, and that this difference does not indicate lack of good taste, mental health, or intelligence in either party. Most people mistake their sexual preferences for a universal system that will or should work for everyone.

- Gayle Rubin (via thesexmyth)