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.

A Head Magazine Original: The Spooning Series part II

All photos by: Izabella Redzisz

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

The Knot:


To think it all started as an innocent game of Twister...

Nobody Wants Babies AND Pneumonia

Hypothetical situation: let's say that you're on the Pill. You take it regularly and never skip. You would be the poster child of good family planning if there were such a thing. One day, you pick up the wrong cup at a party and BOOM, you've got strep throat. Being the responsible, body-conscious lady that you are, you go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. Fast forward a month. The infection is cleared up, but you're still not feeling up to par. It turns out that you're hosting something else: a baby

How can this happen? Well, certain common antibiotics have been shown to interact with the Pill and make it less effective. This list includes: rifampin (brand name Rifadin), penicillin (Veetids), amoxicillin (Amoxil), ampicillin (Omnipen), sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (Septra or Bactrim), tetracycline (Sumycin), minocycline (Minocin), metronidazole (Flagyl), and nitrofurantoin (Macrobid or Macrodantin).

If you start taking any antibiotics while using birth control pills, ask your doctor if the two interact. Then buy a bunch of condoms, even if your doctor says you won't need them. A lot of studies about birth control and antibiotics have yet to be confirmed or even done. The jury is still out on other types of hormonal birthcontrol, like the Nuvaring, so use a back-up method when taking antibiotics on those too.

A Head Magazine Original: The Spooning Series part I

KINK 101: An Introduction to BDSM in Layman's Terms for the Frightened, Bewildered and Repulsed

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Fetishistic Mind by Denis Hart

Of all the cranks you've ever had to turn
you'll find that mine's no struggle to engage
provided that you know a couple tricks
and understand the fetishistic mind.
It isn't something easy like a smell
which triggers my instinctive urge to breed.
It's not a need for leather, latex, food
or fauna which impedes my chances for
a normal love. No, all those classics fare
just fine (I'm open-minded, keep in mind)
but what I need to bring the heat and take
you with me through the undiscovered, nay
the unimagined regions of the mind
and body's sense of pleasure doesn't have
to do as much with my bizarre, perverse
obsessions as it has to do with yours.
I'll only feel desire if I'm with one
who finds desire in something others might
deem sick, obscene, unnatural or not
of GOD, or otherwise embarrassing.

News: So You Don’t Sound Like a Dumbass

Although the former assistant secretary of the Health and Human Services Department is still as virulently anti-contraceptive and as much of a dumbass as he was before, Eric Keroack has resigned from his post. Despite campaigns by the Feminist Majority Foundation, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and plenty of other pro-woman and pro-reproductive rights groups to get Keroack fired from his position, the real reason for his resignation was legal issues with his pregnancy care clinics in Massachusetts. Although the reasons behind Medicaid’s legal action are not known, we’re all glad to hear that he’s gone.

Sources:
Feminist Daily News 3/30/2007
MSNBC

Impossible Sex Position of the Day

For the first series of Impossible Sex Positions of the Day, we will take a look at sex in zero gravity. With the aid of the hard-working men and women of NASA, we give you...