sex and prudes

There are so many little bits of stories i want to bring together here- i hope i can make this coheisive. Last night i said there were so many interesting articles in the utne reader, and the one i read this morning is no exception- it's about teens taking sex ed into their own hands, and some students protested CPS and wrote letters and shit and actually got comprehensive sex education here in chicago. What a concept- sex ed is so wierd because while teens are pilable, stupid, and hormone filled, they are still pretty close to being fully adult human beings. it's not like abortion, where it's easy to talk about this human/fetus/baby/fleshblob. like, did anyone ever think to ask the actual teens involved in having too much sex to early what teaching would be most helpful for them?

I'm trying to think back to my sex ed classes, and i remember them as very comprehensive. i mean, they were certainly hetrosexual focused, very pro-abstinence, pro-marriage, but i remember being glad at the time to be getting all that information about stds and birth control. And i certainly did get good information at home- my mom's calling in life was to give people depoprovera shots. i imagined her going to work and roaming the streets of reading with her syringe, talking up people in spanish so she could stab them. so she provded me with good information in a "women need to know this" sort of way, like the persuit of knowledge is always a good thing, and that way she could suspend her disbelief that it would ever be knowledge i would need to USE, that i could in any way become a woman or a sexual being.

Jump forward to present day: at the beach when we were taking photos on the lifeguard chair my cousin louise and her boyfriend started necking up there, and someone yelled "get a room!" and my aunt (her mother) yelled, "yeah- get a room! - but not in my house!!" and that got my mom going on one of her favorite rants, which she gave to another cousin. "there are some things children need to lie about. children have a RESPONSIBILITY to lie to their parents. Parents don't want to know these things about their children!" and so forth.

i went to the doctor on thursday and mentioned it to mom while we were chatting. i said i was there for my pap and std testing, and she was all taken aback. i explained that i thought it was a good idea to get tested when one gets a new girlfriend, and she was all, well, your risks aren't that high, and i almost said, what, compared with being a gay male bottom? but i decided that was inappropriate to say to one's mother, so instead i said, "i think it's just something that a good citizen just does regularly, like voting or something." and that made her laugh.

two other stories that tie in here: talked to g last night about her upcoming wedding, and i mentioned healthcare, and she talked about how tough she's having it, because she doesnt' have health insurance either, and she wants to get on the pill before the wedding. she's having a hard time finding a good clinic in san francisco, but she says she can't go to planned parenthood becuase it would be so upsetting to both her parents and her fiances. it would be all this lying and sneaking and she doesn't want her healthcare to be like that. i COULD NOT COMPREHEND this. we avoided it after that, actually because it's so touchy. like, she's who they're MADE for. women who want to be responsible and make choices about their family but don't have a lot of financial structure to do it with. they are NOT baby killers! still, who am i to judge. straight sex is so complicated- it's hard for me to comprehend the connection that sex leads to babies.

and of course, while in grand rapids lisa! and i will be staying in separate rooms, which of course is fine becuase i'm all about being respectful of one's parents, but on the other hand is illogical and frustrating not becuase i won't be able to go 36 hrs without having hot hot sex with lisa!, but because it gets FUCKING COLD in michigan at night, and if we were hiking on mt everest we would certainly share a sleeping bag to preserve body heat.

but really, REGARDLESS of whatever title or subject this entry was about, i would need to bring it back there, because I AM SO EXCITED! for my extra little vacation, my last trip of the summer. sure, there's gonna be fall and g's wedding and all that, but this is riding a train! with lisa! and a last chance to wear my handknit bikini! and ah, i'm planning on having the lovliest time.

my thoughts on gay marriage

I've always been so strongly ambivielent about it. It's not a right i want. i feel like it should be a right i can have, but there's something about it that always seemed like the focus is on the wrong place. and then i read this article in the utne reader tonight over my dinner (frozen amy's and TWELVE oz of raspberries!) and now i have my manifesto. i think i may read her whole book. PLEASE click through and read it, because i can't summarize it. and if i did, i wouldn't have her amazing examples. but what i got from it is this. marrieds have rights, so gays say they want to be married, too, so they can have rights, too. but what about all the OTHER people who should have rights? rights should go to ALL families. why does one's significant other have to be one's sexual partner? what about siblings? what about children of complicated setups? why doesn't our country value ALL families? Focus on the family always seemed to me to focus not on the family but on the political agenda, and now i have found someone who is REALLY focused on the family. this makes me happy, i like to find worldview bandwagons i can jump on.

the rest of the article

Ok, i just want to blog about SOMETHING else, so i'm taking care of the rest of this so it will stop haunting me, not because i really have time.

6. Accept genetic engineering. I tend to be against it for other reasons. Again, at what cost to what makes life livable are we willing to cut carbon emmissions? the crazy rules for the corn my grandfather grows for monsanto- it's a scary world out there. i'm not a scientist, so i don't know exactly where i draw the line- somewhere between hybridization and genetic engineering- but i definately have a line. And the examples they give are pointless, I think. in 3 they were anti organic, but now they're all,"fertilizer is the biggest cause of greenhouse gasses in farming." hmmm. and the other things genetic engineering may discover seems like a poor use of energy. instead of genetically modifying crops for ethanol, why not use the technology to try and get all that energy out of switchgrass? why not try using less? and of course, lab-grown animal flesh is not something i think we should be investing any sort of energy into at all.

7. Carbon trading doesn't work. on a global scale, no. i mean, bush was right about the problems with kyoto, but that still doesn't make for a good reason not to sign it. it's certainly something that can be easily abused. but i don't think that makes it bad in and of itself. i mean, i feel like i'm a "meat trading" vegetarian. americans need to eat less meat. they won't. so since it's an easy thing for me to do, i won't eat ANY so i'll balance out the guy who has it for every meal. i feel like i'm doing as much as i can in my lifestyle to curb my emmissions. but it's nice to be able to do something about the 3 or 4 tons i do relase per year.

8. embrace nuclear power. yeah, it's better than coal. no one will argue with that. but come on. you can't do it without nuclear waste. you just can't. and it's a dangerous job for poor homer simpson. and there is no place to put the waste. no one wants it. we are constantly creating more of it. again, why save the world from global warming just to destroy it by nuclear irradiation? i didn't realize that it produces less carbon than renewable sources. i'm not sure how that can be, but it must have to do with manufacturing.

9. used cars, not hybrids. this seems to be a "well, duh" one for me. public transit? anyone? it also speaks to the consumer culture, however, and how to be green one needs to buy things these days. save the planet by buying the right cleaning supplies, makeup, hybrid car. my mom's husband has been searching for a new used car, because the suv gets such bad gas milage. they need to keep the suv to haul the boat. and my mom won't let marty drive her car- plus he doesn't do stick. so they bought a convertable. two people. three cars. ANYWAY, there's the great fact in this one that a 1994 Geo Metro XFi gets the same average gas milage as a prius. so the carbon gap from the expense of manufacturing it would never close. it doesn't say anything about buying HYBRID cars used, though.

i promise that will be the most i ever write about used cars. i can't believe i wrote that much. anyway,

10. prepare for the worst. i don't need to hear this. first, i want to have faith that things will get better. i don't think that change being inevitable is a good enough reason to not make any changes. i think instead of preparing for the worst, we should work like crazy to make the worst not happen, and then deal with the consequences of what comes when it does.

so there it is. cut carbon, kiddos. just be reasonable about it, please.

in which yet another episode of "this american life" makes this blogger weepy

at the laundrymat today (which i'm sorry, it IS spelled that way, it doesn't make sense to spell it any other) was knitting and listening to podcasts. specifically this american life #84, harold. which is all about harold washington, the first black mayor of chicago, in between the daleys. i thought he was awesome before, i mean, hello, look at the LIBRARY named after him, but now i like him even more. and they interviewed people on the street on the southwest and northwest sides, who said of course they didn't vote for harold then, but times have changed, and they'd vote for a black man now- maybe even obama. although, obama sounds like a politician, and harold washington sounded like a real person. which i always like in a politician. i am glad the illinois primary is after the canidate is mostly decided, because i'm still not sure if i should vote obama or clinton. and i don't know if you know or care about all the hooplah going on down in springfield, but the last time i was feeling wishy-washy i made the wrong choice. i voted for the democrat over the woman, and boy to i wish i had made the other decision. they've been MONTHS trying to balance the budget, and it costs them $40,000 a day that they stall- it's nicknamed the "teacher-a-day" plan- and they won't do anything about giving funding to public transportation. they keep giving the cta cash advances on next year's budget, and don't understand why no one's happy with that. there has been doomsday after doomsday, and everything's in permanent flux, and now there's gonna be a strike if SOMETHING doesn't happen by the first of the year.

fun times, here in chicago. i think i'll just ride my bike to the library.