unusualmusic_lj_archive | What fresh fuckery is this?

I don't even KNOW right now. WHUT?
D.C.'s Murderous Prostitution Policy

This is the stupidest thing

I’ve heard so far this year.

Anti-prostitution policies in D.C. pose serious threats to health and safety of community members identified or otherwise targeted as sex workers. Two policies stand out in particular: first, “move along” polices geared at cleansing certain neighborhoods of sex workers; and second, the use of condoms and safe sex as evidence to arrest or prosecute someone for prosecution and the related practice of confiscating and destroying condoms and other safe sex materials.

...

I hardly know where to begin. For starters, as a former HIV/AIDS prevention educator, I think carrying condoms and having them on hand is a terrific idea for anyone who’s sexually active. Period. When my boys are old enough I plan to tell them “the facts of life,” right down to how to protect themselves and their partners from STD’s, unwanted pregnancies, etc.

Sure, as a parent, I’d prefer that they abstain from having having sex until they are old enough and mature enough to deal with all the potential consequences and outcomes. But at the same time, if they’re going to be sexually active, I’d want them to use condoms. I’d want them to have condoms with them. I’d make sure they know how to use them. I’d even go to the drug store and buy condoms, and give them to my boys myself, to make sure they have them.

(I’d do the exact same thing for a daughter, if I had one, because I’d want her to have her own on hand.)
Because I’m a parent, but I’m also a realist. I don’t imagine that not teaching them about condoms, and not they have them is somehow going to stop them from having sex. They’re people. People have sex. People have sex with or without condoms, birth control, etc. People have sex without regard for the consequences, sometimes. And I don’t think my kids should have their lives unalterably changed by an STD or unplanned pregnancies, just for having sex. I don’t think they should sacrifice their lives for having sex. I don’t think anyone should. People have sex. There’s little you can do to stop them.
FURTHERMORE

The Politics of Being Transgender (Seriously Mr. Letterman? Really?)

Barack Obama made the first transgender political appointments that we know of recently–Amanda Simpson, appointed last week as senior technical adviser in the Bureau of Industry and Security in the Commerce Department, and Dylan Orr, special assistant to Assistant Secretary of Labor Kathleen Martinez in the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the Department of Labor–but even David Letterman couldn’t resist making a crack at Simpson’s expense.

The “T” at the end of LGBT often seems like an afterthought, with transgender rights being excluded even when LGBT rights are approved. Today on GRITtv we talk to Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Naomi Clark of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and blogger at Feministe, and filmmaker Jules Rosskam of Against a Trans Narrative, featured on GRITtv last summer, about being transgender in the U.S. and how far we still have to go.

The Morality of Health Care Reform

The college admissions scam

Faith Leaders To Move Their Money Out Of Bank Of America Unless Demands Are Met HELLS YES. WOOT!!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was on the bus today and saw something caleld 1voice1choice (or maybe 1choice1voice.org) and it was all about 'Blah blah abstinence, blah blah healthy relationships)

And I couldn't help feeling OLD and time-warped, because when I was in highschool the poster on the bus would have said: No glove, no love.

I remember being a freshman and the nurse in one of my highschools giving them out automatically to everyone who came in, for whatever problem. And I realized later that doing it that way meant people who wanted them didn't have to be identified as such. You could go in for a headache, stomach-ache etc, and leave with at least one condom.

Heck, in the Caribbean, my older cousin bought a condom-case for her keychain, with script on it that said 'Break In Case Of Emergency'. When my father asked her why - she said "If someone tries to rape me, I am not going to let them do me further damage. This way I'll always have a condom on me"

And when my father said she might just have the condom for regular sex - her response was 'Do you want to pay for my prenatal care, Uncle?'.

The link IN the article you linked to had the best summary I think - about the conservatives and Catholic Bishops not giving a damn about people who dare have sex outside of marriage.

I remember reading reports about how new HIV infections had stabilized at a low number proving that education worked. And so I didn't initially realize what the conservative swing meant for all that information on self protection.

I am SO SO glad, I went ahead and bought Our Bodies Ourselves for my siblings -years- ago, and have let both of them know I'm open and available for conversation and information.

But to circle back to the article, it was only last year I was reading about African American females being hassled by police on suspicion of being prostitutes based on their fashion choices. It immediately makes me think any black woman in DC unfortunate enough to end up standing still on a sidewalk for 5 minutes, with -ANY- condoms in her purse; now won't just get hassled and mistreated, but booked.

Y'know what this reminds me of? How white folk with ounces of powdered cocaine get slaps on the wrist, but a black person with more crack than can be smoked at a single sitting immediately equal -> intent to sell.

If they can't criminalize being non-white, non-cis and non-het, they'll do the next best thing.

What fresh fuckery is this?

no subject