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No More Menses (A Perspective)

Lybrel is “the first and only FDA-approved low dose combination birth control pill you take 365 days a year without placebos.”
Ignoring the technical jabber, that means Lybrel keeps you from menstruating. Everyone knows somebody who skipped an inconveniently-timed period by taking a regular dose instead of the sugar pills. Now you can do that all the time, without the ill effects! Awesome, right?
Uh, maybe?
I am a little weird about not having my period. Sure, it’s hell of inconvenient. Periods can be messy and unpleasant: sometimes you want to fuck without sitting on a towel, and I’m sure that there are some people whose periods are bad enough that they’d be better off without ‘em. Even so. There’s something a little off-putting about this concept, and it’s not just the animated windblown woman on the website’s splash page. My menstrual cycle is an integral part of my body. The moon, the 28-day cycle, the tides, et cetera. Being on any kind of hormonal contraceptive fucks that up, detaches you from your natural body rhythms. I don’t want pregnant, and you can stay unpregnant with something other than Lybrel. Man, it’s my period, you know?
I, like many other women, use my period to judge my state of not-being-pregnant. If you don’t get your period ever, you can’t be absolutely certain you’re not pregnant. Birth control isn’t one hundred percent. Yeah, sure, you can take a pregnancy test, but you never have a skipped period to let you know that you should. The website helpfully informs me that possible signs of pregnancy are “nausea and breast tenderness”. But wait! Side effects of Lybrel? Nausea and breast tenderness! (and headaches and cramps and vaginal bleeding and for some weird reason upper respiratory infection – like my vag causes bronchitis?)
As an inveterate smoker, a feminist, and a paranoiac, I’m gonna take a pass on Lybrel. That shit can’t be good for you.

By: kat “wheezy vag” b

News Update and a Call to Action

As our illustrious editor is currently in the Netherlands and the remaining staff left in Ohio are up to their eyeballs in schoolwork and various other pursuits, updates to Head will be incredibly sporadic until January when Meredith returns and whips us all back into shape. They'll happen. Just not very often.

That said -- Ladies! I'm sure you've all noticed that the price of birth control on college campuses has gone way up. I know I have, and my wallet is none-too-pleased. Why? Something called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a terribly effective and well-thought-out solution that takes away federal money from this and other such useless institutions such as Medicaid.

So my advice to you is this: write your senators! Email your senators! Call them, visit them, throw notes tied to bricks through their kitchen windows, organize activist parties to do all of the above en mass, in the most annoying way possible so that they pay attention.

I know I will be. My dwindling funds compel me.

(source: msnbc.)

So Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs, Huh?

If gay marriage will bring about the death of the American Family, then maybe its time for it to bite the dust. This outwardly legal battle over 'what marriage really means' feels like a desperate attempt by conservatives to preserve the traditional Norman Rockwell Family. When you're politically conservative, you hold on to tradition, it's what you do, but even conservatives eventually change. Maybe they haven't noticed, but the 2.3 kids, ranch house in the suburbs, meatloaf in the oven family is an endangered species. With rates of divorce, domestic violence, infidelity, co-habitation, single-parent households, and adoption all going up, the 'normal family' is in the minority. No wonder the conservatives are scared.

Let's take a look at marriage for a second. Marriage exists for stability's sake. People who get married do it so they can raise their babies in a stable environment, have their money hang out in a stable bank account, so they can have stable sex in a stable bed, and get old with someone they don't mind being stable with. This used to mean a man and a woman, but things are starting to change.

As of June 14th, the political fisticuffs over gay marriage in Massachusetts is over. Legislators voted 151 to 45 against a proposed amendment that would exclude gay and lesbian couples from the definition of marriage. A good number of legislators who were originally in favor of this bill switched their votes at the eleventh hour, many as a result of talking to their gay constituency.

In Colombia, congress passed a bill that will give full legal rights to gay couples. This includes health insurance, inheritance rights and social security. Colombia's conservative president Alvaro Uribe backs this bill, making Colombia the first Latin American (and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) country to give gay couples all the legal rights as straight ones.

I'm not saying that it would be best to give up on traditional family all together. It still exists in some places, but it's undeniable that it's in trouble. So why not open up the pool, play the odds in our favor? The ideals of marriage--stability, love, and family--can still exist even if the face of it is different. Gay couples can embody these ideals just as much as straight couples, and allowing gays to marry legally will create more healthy marriages. In order to survive, marriage needs to evolve. Allowing gay marriage gives the ideals and family that are so important to conservatives and liberals alike a fighting chance. Massachusetts and Colombia have set an example that will hopefully be followed by the rest of the world. Charles Darwin would be proud.

Sexual Misadventure: Disappearing Act

Here’s one from the heyday of sexual awkwardness, Middle School I think they called it. About the time that I thought I had every last hairy, sticky detail of puberty figured out.

Warning: sort-of-gross mental images ahead!

So there I was, portly and acne-covered settling in for a little nothing-better-to-do masturbation. Given the time, I’d say I was still under the illusion that silicone-titted platinum blondes with airbrushed bodies and visible-woman ribs stretched out over hay bails and vintage cars were actually good masturbation fodder. Now that you’re good and creeped out, thinking about me spending a little alone time with Hef’s “beauties”, here comes the weird part.

Things were going as planned a few minutes (right, more like seconds) and I’d chalked up another wad to boredom. Aright, I thought, a little quick clean-up and I can get back to downloading Fastball songs on Napster. I’ll just grab this towel and wipe of my dick and…ball? I felt again. Okay, one more time. Roll call: L. B. Johnson, here. John Left Kennedy, present. Right D. Eisenhower…. Right D. Eisenhower…. Ike? And just like that it had happened. No hairy palms, 20:20 vision, but I had jerked one of my testicles completely out of existence! Panic set in. How many more sessions before the remaining one vanishes? I broke into a cold sweat. As I was making a mental schedule for my remaining orgasms (senior prom, wedding night, 12 oz Mouse season finales, etc.) the MIA nut reappeared, sliding gently into place like it had been there the whole time.

Relieved but confused, I tried to reproduce this missing man formation. A little pushing, twisting and moderate pain and voila! It happened again. With a little finesse I could slip the other up there too. Turns out that while whacking I had inadvertently pushed my testicle back up into the inguinal canal, the little cavity where my boys chilled before they dropped. Apparently, this is how sumo wrestlers guard their jewels. Boys, if you’re feeling playful give this tuck-away a try (if you aren’t already familiar). There are few sights stranger than a completely vacant scrotum, truly a delight. In fact, since prehistory human males have used this display to ward off unwanted sexual partners.

Epilogue:

Also worth mentioning is an event that took place some time later. A few friends and I were kicking it, watching CKY2K and lighting farts on fire. Maybe it was because I had a couple of Mountain Dews in me or maybe I felt that, since we were already bare-assed and holding Bics in our cracks, the situation wasn’t at risk of getting any more awkward, I decided to retell this mishap to my buddies. Keep in mind that I still wasn’t sure if this was something that everyone could do. So I gave them a play-by-play and was received with puzzled looks from everyone in the room except my friend Carl (fake name). Carl’s eyes lit up. He explained with a smile and a hail of “dudes” that he could not only perform the same testicular feat, but that his balls had punk’d him in the exact same way. What followed was to be the single greatest high-five of my entire life.


NOTE: my genitals are not actually named after the 34th, 35th, and 36th presidents of the United States of America…. yet.

Head will be taking a short hiatus so all the wonderful writers can pass their finals. More sexy stuff (including the results of The Great Condom Roadtest) next week. Stay tuned!
love,
Meredith

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

There's no reason we need to stay all hetero
with this impossible sex thing.

The Moon Cup Diaries by Meredith Wilson

DAY 1: Yay! My thirty-five dollar Moon Cup is here! All the way from Cincinnati! Aww, it comes with its own little convenient carrying pouch..whoah..it looks so...sciency...like a nozzle in a space station. Huh, it's the preferred menstrual collection method for some lady scientists in Biosphere 2. neat-o.

DAY 2 (first day of period): OW OW OW SON OF A BITCH OW OW FUCK OW...SHIT! It slipped out. Ok, fold in half, then insert...OW OW OW MOTHERFUCKER...ok.. It's in. Now, time to pull up the ol' pants and take this baby for a test drive...hmm, that's chafing a little bit, maybe I put it to far in...ooo that's chafing a lot. I definitely put it too far in. Good thing the package says easy removal...(25 minutes later) Oh Christ, this mooncup has vacuum-sealed itself to my cervix and it's not coming out!! This is what I get for trying to save the fucking planet! Fuck you, planet!! If I ever get this goddamn cup out of my vagina, im going to throw it right in the ocean and hope a dolph--oh, you just pinch the end and slide it out.


DAY 3 Ok, I've got this figured out. I slide it in so the stem hangs pretty low, then when I need to take it out, I just push like I'm gonna poop and then pinch the bottom of the cup part and pull. Ok, yeah, mooncup! Woo! Ok, going to insert it now..ok..on three..one..two..three *cringe*....that wasn't nearly as bad as last time. Huh, this is kinda comfy. Not as comfy as my soft, lovely tampons, but mooncups won't give you toxic shock syndrome

DAY 4: This mooncup business isn't so bad. I thought I was betraying my chain-smoking, wouldn't-know-flax-seed-if-it-bit-me-in-the-ass self by buying this earth-mother hippy thing. But first and foremost, I'm a cheap bastard and thirty-five dollars now is way better than 200 dollars over 10 years on tampons. Yeah, my fingers get bloody when I empty it out and wipe it off, but that's more time I spend in the bathroom and less time I spend at work. Plus, periods never really grossed me out, which is probably a pre-requisite to getting one of these things.

DAY 5: Good morning, mooncup! Isn't it a lovely morning? Look at you, all ergonomic and hypo-allergenic, what a darling you are! Oh, how nice! I can leave you in all night on my heavy flow day, and you dont leak all over my sheets! You're too kind. Oh mooncup, I'm so glad I bought you, lets be friends forever. Or at least for the duration of your ten year warranty.

www.mooncup.co.uk
www.thekeeper.com

News: So You don't Sound like a Dumbass

by: Molly Lehman

As though we needed reminding about the political-party breakdown in the Supreme Court, the Court recently ruled 5-4 to uphold a ban on partial-birth abortions.

The decision, which was effectively split (surprise, surprise) between liberals and conservatives, will maintain the law Dubya signed into effect in 2003.

The ban has, essentially, politicians playing quack physician: rather than determining whether or not abortion should be performed, it regulates how it is done. This law is the first abortion-related piece of legislature to attempt to standardize the method of the procedure itself.

The ban, unsurprisingly, is on some seriously shaky medical ground. Partial-birth is much less common than other forms, making up only 10 percent of abortions performed. In the cases in which it is performed, however, it is usually a woman’s safest option. Currently no exception is in place within the law to allow it to be performed if a woman’s health is threatened.

So let’s back up and recap that: Essentially, the law does nothing but endanger women. Because there are other methods of completing the procedure, the ban will not actually prevent any abortions. However, it will deny some women access to the safest procedure available.

And why?

“Ethical and moral concerns,” say the judges voting to uphold it.

The conservatives were perturbed, they said, by graphic descriptions of the method. Of course, legislation really shouldn’t be passed according to what’s on a right-to-lifer’s bumper. Aside from that, of course, there are about seven other ways of performing abortions, and judges seem to have overlooked the fact that the exact same procedure is still legal if done in utero.

But then, medical “technicalities” aren’t really of interest here. This is much less about the actual law itself and much more about political preening. Abortion has been one of the hottest political debate topics since Clinton got a blow job, and it’s one of Bush’s specialties. It was Bush who signed the ban into law originally; it was also he who appointed two of the current conservative judges who voted to uphold it now.

Beyond all of this is a hard, abiding sexism on the Supreme Court. The majority opinion maintains that the ban was upheld in part because women receiving partial-birth abortions did not know what the procedure entailed. But rather than passing legislation requiring physicians to inform women of these procedures, they passed a ban on the entire business.

This decision, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, writing the minority opinion, “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court—and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”

In an effort, ostensibly, to protect women, the Court has belittled them. Justice Kennedy claimed to only be protecting a woman from “grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she did not know,” but he seems uninterested in actually informing her.

Regardless of opinions on abortion itself, the upholding of the ban is only perpetuating weak laws and strengthening poor medical ethics. Let’s hope that the next time it comes around, the judges will do their homework.

Impossible Sex Position of The Day

Not entirely impossible,
but this takes one-with-the-universe in a different direction.