Monday, April 04, 2005

What do kids know about safer sex, and how do they use that knowlege?

At this point, I've only got personal and anecdotal evidence from my short stints doing safer sex ed at the DiFrank Center in San Jose, and from teachers. I'm looking for reputable statistics on what kids know about safer sex and how they use that knowledge. I'm also looking for statistics on myths and mis perceptions kids and adults have about safer sex. This includes concepts like the "virgin cure" that's popular in talk about AIDS in Africa and Asia. I have no idea if the "virgin cure" myth is it's self a myth, though..

Some quick statistics: One in five ninth graders in this CA study has had oral sex. Why? They think it's less risky than vaginal sex, and that it does not 'count' in terms of virginity.

America has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates worldwide

Sweden has one of the lowest rates worldwide

Effective, safe, free and anonymous emergency contraception is available in most areas of Europe. In America, it's been held up for ideological reasons

I think we know what works. I think kids in America know about the existence of condoms just as well as kids in Europe do. So what's the difference? Why are European teens, who as far as I can tell, have sex just as much as American teens, getting pregnant or infected with STDs at such a dramatically lower rate?

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Urban myths about liberals that conservatives would like to think are true

Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy talks about an urban myth about a liberal college professor who assigns a liberal assignment, and flunks a stutent for a conservative response.

I find myself wondering where this got started, and how many pundits and media outlets were snookered into claiming it was real. Sounds like something Fox News would get a hard-on for.

Friday, March 11, 2005

potentialy getting the hang of this

I'm much more familiar with posting in my livejournal which can be found here. but I think I'm getting the hang of this blogger thing. I've updated my profile and all that, so we'll see how that goes. Eventualy I'll put something more interesting than a monty python quote in the audio section, but whatever. No rush.

I've totaly abandoned the "gay patriot" blog. The people there were utter assholes, and finaly, someone suggested I leave. Fine by me. I don't enjoy being where I'm not welcome, and it was made pretty clear to me that I wasn't welcome there, nor were any liberals. Of course, I'm hardly a liberal. I do loathe Bush, and I guess that means I'm some sort of traitor.

I should probably figure out how to create a "blogroll" of blogs I read regularly.

In other news, Google news has created custom newsfeeds. I have one set up for "gay" and one set up for "abstinence only sex education". We'll see how well those go. Will I post here daily? Probably if I get some comments on occasion. I'm not sure how likley that is, as I'm not exactly advertizing. *shrug*

Monday, February 28, 2005

Side by side