Cock Blocking in the Lonestar State: Julie's History of the Texas Sex Toy Ban!

“Cock Blocking in the Lonestar State: How Texas’s Sex Toy Ban Got Overturned in Court,” by Julie Sunday from Nerd Nite - Austin on Vimeo.

In January I did my second talk for Nerd Nite Austin on the history and ultimate demise of the sex toy ban in Texas. This video, unfortunately, doesn't show all of the *awesome* sign language interpreter's work [I was dying to see 'electronic bull ejaculator' in ASL] but I think it's fun anyway.
Enjoy! 

New Sex Toy Store in Town: Q Toys!

Stephanie, Q Toys Owner and All-Around Badass

It is with great excitement that I'm writing a lil' shout-out for Q Toys, a new, fantastic, gorgeous, inclusive, body safe sex toy store in Austin. This is the store I've been waiting for, the place I've wanted to shop in, the solution I needed when recommending toys and lube to people in Austin!

Q Toys is newly open on Burnet, in the same shopping center as Birds Barbershop, making NoBurn just that much cooler. The store is modern, clean, spacious, and has only high quality toys that are guaranteed to be free of toxic ingredients and to actually work--every product has a least a 1 year warranty. 

Q Toys will recycle toys, too, and give you $5 toward a new, non-toxic product. So if you've been waiting to replace that crappy jelly vibrator you bought in college, bring it in (clean it, please) and pick out something new.

But on to the goods. Stephanie, like Julie Sunday, is opposed to toxic toys so no products in her store contain phthalates. No jelly toys! She has a great selection of condoms and lube, including several that are manufactured in Texas. Shop local, y'all!

Stephanie carries Njoy, Lelo, Fun Factory, JeJoue, Vixskin dildos (which are made in Austin!), some gorgeous glass pieces, leather harnesses, Fleshlights, Tenga eggs, and more.

"My two favorite customers are the old lady coming to buy her first toy and the straight guy wanting to put something up his butt," Stephanie says. We couldn't agree more.

Stay tuned for details on a free G-Spot workshop offered by yours truly at Q Toys in April!

Photos of the space and product selection below.

Only the best lubes!

Obviously!

BEST IDEA EVER

Fun Factory: Fun for Everyone!

Lelo

The full selection of Vixskin Dildos. Trust me: You're worth it!

Butt plugs for cancer! Really!

Between Herpes and a Hard Place

 From the CDC:
Genital Herpes—Initial Visits to Physicians’ Offices, United States, 1966–2010

Note: Valtrex was approved by the FDA in 2003.

The first time one of my friends told me they had herpes I was a total asshole about it. I had been writing for Go Ask Alice!, the Q & A website run by Columbia University, and I'd been assigned a question about when a person should tell potential partners they had herpes. I wrote something like "OMG YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM IMMEDIATELY!!!" because, as someone who didn't have herpes and, at the time, didn't know that I knew anyone who did, the prospect of having a partner with herpes totally freaked me out.

My friend, M, who is my sex-ed-bestie and also has herpes, took me to task. The assumption that people engaging in hookups or sex with partners that they don't ask about STI status are safe from herpes is not, in fact, a safe assumption to make, she told me, and her obligation as someone with herpes was equal to a sexually active person's obligation to ask their partners if they had been tested or if they had any STIs. That kinda blew my mind. Case law in the California tort system bears this out.

One of the two main reasons I see people for individual consultations is herpes diagnosis (the other: erectile dysfunction). Last fall I saw a student who had gotten diagnosed with genital herpes after hooking up with a guy in a prestigious, all-male social organization on campus. She told him about the outbreak, and he never talked to her again. She came to me when she was already having sex with but only "almost dating" someone new, and she started having symptoms again and wanted to know if she should tell him.

I was shocked that this girl had already started fucking this guy and consciously chosen not to tell him about the herp--exactly what the bro she'd had sex with had done to her. But why didn't the guy she was having sex with ask her if she had been tested? She, like many of the students I see, hadn't been using condoms because she was on the pill. Head, meet desk.

Consistent use of condoms, though not perfect, is the best way we have to reduce the risk of skin-to-skin STIs like herpes and HPV. But surveys of college student sexual behavior show that only 35% of students actually use condoms every time they have sex. Fully 30% of college students who report having had vaginal sex say they used "withdrawal" as a contraceptive the last time they had sex. Only .7% of survey respondents say they have were diagnosed or treated for herpes in the past year,* but at my clinic herpes diagnosis is as common as chlamydia, which is the most common STI tracked by the CDC.

Research tells us that the # 1 reason young people use condoms is to prevent pregnancy and usually only with new partners, and once another birth control method is being used people are significantly less likely to continue using condoms. But condom use has never been that high and, among certain groups, it is on the decline.

In its 2012 National Health Statistics Report on contraceptive use in the US, the CDC found that between 2006 and 2010, 30% of people with private insurance used the pill while only 17% of those with public insurance (i.e., Medicaid) and 14% of those with no insurance used it. The pill is more effective at preventing pregnancy, sure, but it provides zero protection from STIs. Conversely, 19.6% of women with no insurance used condoms compared to 16.3% of those with private coverage.

Those rates changed significantly between 1995 and 2006. In 1995, 22% of women between 0 and 149% of the poverty level used the pill; 27.5% of women 400% or higher used it. In the 2006-2010 cohort, 39.2% of women at 400% or greater used the pill while only 19% of women at the lowest tier did. Condom use declined among women in the top tier from 23.5% in 1995 to 17.7% in 2006; use among women in the lowest tier stayed basically the same.

As pill use increases, condom use decreases, both in individual relationships and at the population level. Decreasing use of condoms and increasing sexual contact with more partners--including oral sex--increases the exposure young people have to STIs and people who use the pill only are setting themselves up for infection. 

In my own experience, young people tell me the conversations they have about STIs (if they have them at all) go something like this: "Do you have anything?" or "Have you been tested?" To which the only acceptable answers, regardless of the truth,  are "No" and "Yes." Birth control, similarly, is often discussed in the same way: "Are you on the pill?" and if the person says yes sex goes forward with no concern for condoms. If the person says no...well, 1/3 of young people are using withdrawal.

I guess, for most people, talking about STI testing and condoms is a boner-killer; but I know people who have herpes and have casual sex and make this work. Here is what I've learned:

• You are not, as a person with herpes, obligated to disclose immediately upon meeting (or, say, in your OkCupid profile) that you have herpes. 
• People who are out and about having sex with other people have an obligation--both legally and in terms of common fucking sense--to ASK about STIs rather than assume that a conversation not had by either partner means nobody is infected. This means three things:
• People should ask about STI status. 
• People should get tested so they know how to answer the STI status question.
• If one or both partner hasn't been tested since their last partner, people should use condoms until both partners have been tested.
• Finding out you have herpes is sort of like becoming a member of a secret society: you don't know who else is in the club until you're in. The absolute best thing you can do if you find out you have herpes is get connected with a local HELP group, peer-led groups of people with herpes that are anonymous and provide support with diagnosis.

Getting diagnosed with herpes sucks, but the infection is not fatal, doesn't cause problems with later fertility, and never progresses to anything worse: the shame totally outweighs the seriousness of the infection. But the stigma is huge and there is no 'ribbon' for herpes; there is no 'walk' for herpes; there are no celebrity concerts for herpes. So if someone you know and love tells you they have herpes, don't be an asshole--chances are really good you've been exposed, too.

Why Vote Against Prop 1?

Among the many arguments for a medical school in Austin, the most compelling is the expansion of access to care for uninsured people. In Texas, according to State Health Facts, 24% of all people are uninsured. Texas has among the narrowest Medicaid eligibility in the nation, leaving a full quarter of our population without the ability to access simple preventive services like flu shots and wound care. That means far too many people come to emergency rooms for care that is either totally preventable or could be cheaply provided by a primary healthcare provider, if only the person had one.

But another population of Texans is uninsured at even higher rates--women.  Seventeen percent of non-elderly women nationwide are uninsured but, in Texas, 26% of women have no health insurance, an issue not addressed anywhere in Prop 1's slick mailers or on its website.

The issue of women's health in Texas is not some Summer's Eve commercial--Medicaid funded births represent a huge proportion of state healthcare costs, and Texas is in court again for trying to exclude Planned Parenthood from the Women's Health Program, which decreases Medicaid funded births by providing contraceptives to women in need. If the state succeeds in excluding the #1 provider of family planning services to poor women, 45,000 women will be left with NO healthcare provider and potentially increasing the costs to the state by billions of dollars.

Austin's medical school can't solve a statewide problem but Prop 1, as written, won't even solve the problem locally. Prop 1's website claims that it would fund clinics where uninsured people in Travis County--many of whom are women of childbearing age--could get care. But Prop 1 would also fund, in part, a teaching hospital to be run by Seton, the Catholic operator of Brackenridge/University Medical Center, Austin's safety net hospital. The consultants Austin paid to tell us that the place is on its last legs decreed, in April, that the building has got to go and Seton has committed $250 million to build a new facility that it will operate.

Even though it is a publicly-funded, safety net hospital, because Brackenridge is operated by Seton, it does not provide family planning services of any kind, emergency contraception to rape victims, or tubal ligation to women who have delivered babies and prefer not to have more. Women seeking these services must go to the "hospital within the hospital," otherwise known as the 5th floor, and see different doctors. For tubal ligation, this increases both risks to the patient and costs. There is no reason to believe these services would be provided in the new facility and, indeed, Prop 1's website does not mention women's health or family planning at all.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas has endorsed Prop 1, but they haven't explained why. Even if Planned Parenthood would somehow benefit from Prop 1 (though it is not clear from the proposition that they would) no Planned Parenthood clinic operates an emergency room to see rape victims or performs tubal ligations. Twenty seven percent of American women choose tubal sterilization at some point, and to refuse women this option when they have chosen to have no more children is not acceptable for a hospital paid for with public funds.

I fully support the right of Seton and its parent company, Ascension Health, to operate their hospital according to their values, which prohibit the practice of women's healthcare as actually needed by women patients. But I do not support Austin taxpayers and Austin residents paying to operate a religious hospital, literally under direction from the Vatican, that refuses to provide the care actually needed by uninsured Texans.

Austin's residents need access to health care. But Travis County's health needs include care for women, full stop. Kirk Watson, the patron of this proposal, is a veteran advocate of women's health in Texas but Prop 1 just doesn't deliver. I'm voting no.

How to Have Sex in College, Part 1 Trust Me on This: Condoms

No, really.

It's the most wonderful time of the year: back to school! College students have been on campus for a few weeks now and, for most, orientation with all its helpful advice is a distant memory. Most students immediately forget about the location of campus buildings; how to call the police in an emergency; what a blue book is; and where on campus to get free condoms.

Let's face it: college is different, especially if you're going for the first time. In addition to the other new things to try in college, like veganism and reading Ayn Rand novels, people will be trying new things like getting drunk. A lot. People will be getting hammered at parties, in dorms, on campus, at football games, kind of everywhere.

They will also be having sex. You might get kicked out of your dorm room so some hammered people can have sex, a rite of passage for everyone living in dorms that is in no way addressed by the OMG BACK TO COLLEGE!!! display at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  

I want people in college to have more of what they want and less of what they don't want. So consider this occasional series a guide to solving those problems they didn't mention at orientation, your parents didn't tell you about, and you're just not going to ask your perky RA.

The first thing I want to cover in this series is condoms. If you either have a penis or would like one in your immediate vicinity at some point during college, you need to have some. "But Julie," you might be thinking, "I've never had sex and I'm waiting for the right person." Great! You'll be well prepared and your friends who are having sex will totally raid your stash.

Condoms might seem like a weird, awkward thing to buy and that awkwardness might be harder to overcome if you're not having sex in the first place but, believe me, when it's 2:30 in the morning and you decide you want to have sex, you are not going to want to get up and go knock on your RA's door, dig through your roommate's stuff, or walk out to 7-11 to get some.  Research backs me up here: a study of college men's condom use errors showed that the #2 reason college men fail to use condoms consistently and correctly is that they wanted to use a condom but didn't have one available.

What a great guy!

Trust me on this: buy some condoms and put them no further than one arm's length away from where you imagine you'd like to have sex. That means bedside table, under the mattress, or on the floor are vastly better locations than the medicine cabinet or under the sink. Unless you plan on having sex in the bathroom, of course.

Another reason people don't use condoms is because using condoms can be intimidating. Not that putting a condom on is hard--it isn't--but because saying "Do you have a condom?" or "Should I get a condom?" is a way of saying, "I'm ready to fuck!" Some people are worried that having condoms will make their partners think they're slutty or don't trust them, but some people also apparently don't think it's cool to wear seatbelts.

Women, in particular, are taught that they should never explicitly express that kind of desire and so may be too afraid to insist on condom use even when they really want to use condoms. Guys, similarly, might be nervous about stopping the action based on fears that they'll lose their erection if they have to walk to the bathroom to get the condoms stashed there (see why it's better to have them under the bed?).

In fact, the number 1 condom use error among college men is the failure to discuss condom use with a partner before sex. This suggests that people are too scared to just fucking say that they want to fuck already.

Trust me on this: saying that you want to have sex will result in one of two positive outcomes. Either your partner will totally want to have sex too and you'll have sex; or your partner will tell you that they don't want to have sex and you won't accidentally have nonconsensual sex with them! Winning!

By not asking, you're gambling that the person you'd like to have sex with isn't totally intimidated by you, afraid you'll think they're slutty, too drunk to say no, or otherwise unable to meaningfully consent. And there is only one word to describe people who willingly have sex without consent: rapists.

Assuming that you have condoms and are capable of forming the words "Hey, you wanna get a condom?" with your mouth, you're ready to learn how to put a condom on.

People who have received sex education that actually covered how to use condoms, a terrifyingly small and decreasing proportion of our population, often get an insanely long series of instructions. But there are really only three steps to condom use after you have condoms in your possession and have gotten consent from your partner.

1. put the condom on the dick in question. 
2. have sex. 
3. repeat as necessary

Of course, condom use is something people routinely fuck up, but once you learn how to do it correctly it's like putting in a tampon--not exactly rocket science.

Trust me on this: Having a bad experience with one type of condom doesn't mean "condoms don't work" for you, and that isn't an acceptable excuse for not using one. Every penis is different, and condoms should not feel uncomfortable or painful. They should be snug, but not so tight that they cut off your circulation and interfere with erection. If this happens, you can try a bigger condom like the Magnum or Kyng. Keep trying different kinds until you find one that works.

If you need help picking out what type of condom to use, I highly recommend Condomania, which lets you search for condoms based on different characteristics like size, length, and features like textures and special lubes. You can also check out our reviews of different condoms here.

To review: Buy some condoms. Put them where you sleep. And good luck!

It's Not A Choice; It is a Gallbladder

What If Every Medical Procedure Were Politicized? - watch more funny videos

Stop what you're doing. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not try to get a perfectly legal abortion. Watch this video! 

This is literally what women in Texas have to endure when trying to get an abortion--a totally legal medical procedure that women are really, by state and federal law, allowed to choose to have.

Have a uterus? Pissed off? Don't have a uterus but can't fucking believe that people without uteruses pass bullshit laws like this when there are some fucking big problems facing our state and nation that are in fact totally unrelated to women's ability to be pregnant or not pregnant? 

You can tangibly help a woman who needs an abortion in Texas by Lilith Fund. Plus it will really, really piss of Rick Perry and Todd Akin if you do. 

Trojan Gives Away Vibrators in NYC But Won't Sell Them in Texas

Mmm...New York Cart Vibrators are the Tastiest

Big news yesterday about Trojan Vibrations' giant vibrator-cum-hot dog cart giveaway in New York: the company generously decided to give away 10,000 vibrators (hello, don't they know there are 149,219 more single women than men in New York?). The bonanza was shut down briefly but opened again later in the day and the toys were successfully distributed.

Some herald the public giveaway as an indicator of the growing acceptance of women's sexuality and maybe it is; but in Texas, Trojan's toys are still not for sale despite the sex toy ban having been struck down in 2008. The boner-killing message below came up when I put an item in my shopping cart on TrojanVibrations.com:

I reviewed the Triphoria almost a year ago and the device wasn't for sale in Texas then (I got mine courtesy of Babeland); what's the holdup? Perhaps we should all write to our state legislators and suggest that Texas women are just trying to comply with the forced transvaginal ultrasound law and maybe that'll do the trick?

In non-cart related news, Trojan's VP of Marketing had this to say in a press release about the event:

Research from The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University found that 53 percent of women and 45 percent men have used a vibrator in their lifetime, indicating that vibrators have officially entered the mainstream," said Bruce Weiss, Vice President of Marketing, Trojan™ Sexual Health. "We're always looking for ways to advance this effort by fostering an open dialogue about sexual health and creating unique moments that get people 'buzzing' about sex and pleasure."
PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1kqRe)

 The study to which he refers was part of a series of articles published in 2009 by The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and paid for by Pure Romance, the Cincinnati-based pyramid scheme sex toy party company, and Church and Dwight, Trojan's manufacturer. In this summer of concern among those outside of academe about sources of funding for scholarly pursuit, it's worth noting that funds for research--even fun research like the frequency with which American women use vibrators and how good in-home sex toy party consultants are at doing sex education--comes from somewhere.  

In the case of corporate sponsorship of transparently PR-driven research, my question is whether the funding of such projects is tax deductible, since the "contribution" is to a not-for-profit educational institution. Considering that both the Pure Romance and Trojan studies have been used by the companies to expand business, that sounds like a shady way to write off PR expenditures, which are not tax deductible.