Links Round-Up: Week ending February 25th

[also-warriors.livejournal.com]

Welcome to our new weekly links round-up. This is a compilation of items from the past week that may be of interest to VPers.
As a reminder, in lieu of trigger warnings, I use keywords describing the themes of the piece. Please skim these before deciding to read the excerpt or click through for the full article. Outside sources are not safe spaces, and mainstream source's comments should almost always be avoided. The links I highlight don't necessarily reflect VP's views, or even my own, for that matter. For more on the Round-Up, see CVP.

This week's round-up includes: factors that go into birth control access, teens ask YouTube "am I ugly?", Utah House votes to make sex ed optional and ban discussion of contraception, why do people moan during sex?, easy ways to talk to kids about race, black bears aren't interested in used tampons.

1. Family Planning Isn't a Condom and a Pamphlet at Casaubon's Book (Keywords: forced sterilization, "welfare queens," foster parenting, birth control)
   

   Let's think about what needs to happen for women to control their fertility fully, and to make "good choices." - the choices they are judged so harshly upon.

   
   



2. 'Am I Ugly?' Videos: Young Teens Ask YouTube Users Whether They're Pretty Or Not at Huffington Post via VP on Facebook (Keywords: Internet, pretty, teens)
   

   "People say I’m ugly. So … tell me -- am I?"
   A young girl stares earnestly, and perhaps a bit awkwardly, into the camera asking the world wide web of YouTube users to comment on her appearance.

   
   



3. Utah House passes bill to allow schools to skip sex ed at Salt Lake Tribune (Keywords: United States, sex ed)
   

   the version the House passed would allow school districts to forgo teaching about sex altogether. [...] Wright said the version of the bill that passed Wednesday would prohibit instruction in contraception, although teachers could respond to student questions about the matter.
   It would be a big shift from current law, which prohibits only the advocacy of contraceptive use. Current law requires high schools to teach sex education, allowing them to choose whether to simply stress abstinence or teach abstinence-only.

   
   



4. Our nation of moaners at Salon (Keywords: sex, moaning, hetero)
   

   But why is it always the woman making all the noise? And is it an expression of pleasure, or something else? As it turns out, recent science offers some tantalizing hints.

   
   



5. How To Have Sex With An Aspirin Between Your Knees at Not So Secret (Keywords: United States, sex ed)
   

   As a site dedicated to presenting accurate information in order to help women explore their sexuality in a safe and fulfilling manner, we were appalled when Foster Friess suggested that simply holding an aspirin between your knees would stop you from getting pregnant, presumably by stopping you from having sex.
   This is bad advice, because, well, it’s not only totally possible to have sex with an aspirin between your knees, but it can actually make sex even better. Or at least a little more entertaining. Here’s a quick-start guide, but there are certainly countless other ways to clench your knees while getting it on.

   
   



6. Here Are Easy Ways to Have Tough Talks With Kids About Race at Colorlines (Keywords: United States, education, racism, parenting)
   

   Racism is perpetuated in schools through policies and pedagogies, and also through the ways we speak and don’t speak about race, class and power. Our work at Border Crossers interrupts patterns of racial injustice in schools by helping teachers develop tools for talking about race and providing curriculum for students to explore their lived experience of race and class borders.

   
   



7. Friday Weird Science: Does your menstrual blood attract BEARS?! at Neurotic Physiology (Keywords: menstruation, science!, black bears, camping)
   

   For all of tests, with menstruating women or used tampons...black bears don't care. Regardless of mating season, the sex or heat state of the bear, the freshness of the tampons, or basically anything else. Black bears just don't care about your period problems, apparently. The bears tested with tampons soaked with beef fat found that pretty awesome, but ignored all other tampons.

What have you been reading (or writing!) this week?

If you'd like to see an article included in next week's round-up, send me an e-mail at also_warriors@vaginapagina.com . Non-US and positive links are especially appreciated. (I can't fit all the awesome links people send, but I'll try to post any that I don't include to Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter.) You can also just take matters into your own hands and post in the comments!