Links Round Up: Week Ending 23 August 2014

[frolicnaked.livejournal.com]

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of our Links Round Up!

For folks who don't know, the LRU is a compilation of items from the past week that may be of interest to VPers and is intended to broaden the kinds of conversations we have here.

To submit articles for next week's round-up, e-mail vpteam@vaginapagina.com. If you have additional articles you'd like folks to know about this week, feel free to comment directly to this post.

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 sources' comments should almost always be avoided. The links I highlight don't necessarily reflect VP's views, or even my own, for that matter.

This week's round-up includes: Cosmo's lesbian sex tips, misinformation regarding abortion, and how US insurers are still avoiding covering contraception.

1. I Tried Cosmo’s Lesbian Sex Tips and They Were Terrible by Samantha Allen at The Daily Beast (Keywords: sex, LGBTQ, heteronormativity, Cosmopolitan magazine, humor)
   

   We asked ourselves: Would Cosmo’s lesbian sex tips be just as terrible as Cosmo’s straight sex tips? Probably! But with two vaginas and plenty of time on our hands, we had nothing to lose. Our experiment would either end in laughter or arousal, we told ourselves, and we’d have fun either way. Pants were removed, chairs were put in place, laptops were strategically positioned on the edge of the bed, and we got to work.

   
   


2. Nearly 20 percent of Americans don’t know that first trimester abortion is legal by Maya Dusenbery at Feministing (Keywords: US, abortion, research, misinformation)
   

   According to a new study from the University of Cincinnati, residents of blue and red states are pretty much equally, scarily uninformed about abortion’s legality, risks, and prevalence. Here are the questions from the survey, followed by the percentage of respondents who answered correctly.

   
   


3. How Some Insurers Still Avoid Covering Contraception by Michelle Andrews / Kaiser Health news at Time.com (Keywords: US, Affordable Care Act, birth control)
   

   In one of those messages recently, a woman said her insurer denied free coverage for the NuvaRing. This small plastic device, which is inserted into the vagina, works for three weeks at a time by releasing hormones similar to those used by birth control pills. She said her insurer told her she would be responsible for her contraceptive expenses unless she chooses an oral generic birth control pill.

   
   

As always, feel free to share your thoughts on any of these stories -- along with whatever you've been reading or writing this week!