Dan Savage On Birth Control

Dan Savage On Sex & Sexuality

TENNESSEE: Approves Abstinence-Only Bill - “Gateway Sexual Activity” Leads To Evil

Joe.My.God. reports:

The Tennessee state legislature has approved a bill that restricts all sexual education to lessons on abstinence-only. Because any mention of “gateway sexual activity” will result in an explosion of teen-fucking.

The bill defines “gateway sexual activity” as: “sexual conduct encouraging an individual to engage in a non-abstinent behavior.” The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Jim Gotto, said the bill wouldn’t address things as innocuous as holding hands, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. But critics of the legislation say the offending behavior is not clearly defined. Gotto did not immediately return TPM’s request for comment. According to the News Sentinel, groups like Planned Parenthood and others who provide sex education information in schools could face a $500 fine.

Teen pregnancy rates have consistently been the highest in states that only allow abstinence education. Get ready for a flood of teen abortions and baby mamas, Tennessee. Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the bill.

Dan Savage On The Bible 

Savage U Premiers Tomorrow Night At 11pm on MTV

Savage U Launches April 3rd

The Wrap reports:

“Savage U” will air twelve episodes, each focused on a particular campus and its culture. The schools include the University of Maryland, Ohio State University, East Carolina University, Auburn University, the University of Illinois Chicago, Cornell University, the University of Oregon, the University of Central Florida, Rhodes College, the University of California Irvine, Texas Tech University and Tulane University. The April 3 premiere episode takes place at the University of Maryland. Savage will be joined on his visits to college campuses by producer Lauren Hurchinson, who will offer a female perspective on sex and relationships and, according to MTV, “rein Dan in and keep him in check.”

KENYA: Homophobes Storm Safer Sex Conference Held By Gay Activists

Straight Ally & Militant Atheist Daniel Radcliffe On GOP Presidential Candidates, His Man “Talent” Crush

Towleroad reports:

Once again, Daniel Radcliffe demonstrates that he’s one of the smartest actors out there, and best advocates for LGBT rights. In an Attitude magazine cover story which I picked up on the iPad, Radcliffe talks at length about anti-gay bullying and why straight kids should show their support. He also has good taste in men.
Says Radcliffe:

• “Don’t define yourself by your sexuality, don’t define as straight or gay, define yourself as people and help another person if they’re in trouble. The ultimate reason gay marriage should be legalized everywhere is because, as a kid, you look to your mum and dad and they’re married, then you look at the gay couple who’ve been together for the same amount of time, but because they can’t get married their relationship doesn’t seem the same. Yes, gay marriage is about symbolically blessing a relationship, but the larger issue is about transmitting a fundamental message about equality. Gay people should have equality in law everywhere. If you grow up as a young gay man knowing you dont’ have the same opportuniteies as everyone else, you’re going to feel victimised and massive prejudice towards you.”

Radcliffe slammed religion’s influence on schools and the religious Right’s efforts to affect legislation affecting LGBT people:

• “I’m not religious, I’m an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation. We need sex education in schools. Schools have to talk to kids from a young age about relationships, gay and straight.”

The article notes that Radcliffe has been “disgusted, amazed, stunned” by GOP candidates like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, and their open hostility to gay rights. But he has a special dislike of one in particular:
“…they disgusted me less than candidates like Rick Perry, who made that ridiculous advert wearing ‘the Brokeback jacket’, and I think pretend to be homophobic just to win votes.”
Radcliffe also says he wishes Obama could come out for marriage equality but understands the political underpinnings behind his position:

• “Yes, I do, but can he really? Of course he’s in favour of it, but he has to be careful about saying so. I’d rather have someone like him in the White House than the alternative.”

Finally, has Radcliffe ever considered that he might be gay? Yes. Is he?

• “No. I can quite happily say someone is handsome, good-looking, and I can see why someone would want to f**k them, but I’ve never felt that way about a man myself. There is that moment in your late teens when you ask yourself the question, ‘Am I?’ but I wasn’t…Well, this year I have a talent crush on Ryan Gosling. I think he’s fantastic and…(ahem) you know he’d be nice afterwards. He seems smart. If I was gay, I would go for a smart man.”

Oral Cancer Virus More Common In Men

Joe.My.God. reports:

Compared to women, more than twice as many men are infected with oral HPV. Prevalence of the cancer-causing virus increases with the number of sexual partners.

Oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is more common among men than women, leading to an increased risk for men of head and neck cancers, a US study suggests. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study assessed around 5,500 people aged 14 to 69. Around 10% of men had oral HPV, compared with 3.6% of women. HPV causes the majority of cervical cancers, as well as genital and anal - and head and neck cancers. Smoking and drinking are significant known risk factors for head and neck cancers. But oral HPV infection increases cancer risk by around 50%, according to the research team from Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

It’s not yet known whether the existing HPV vaccination also guards against oral HPV.

Canada: Gay-Straight Alliances Roil Ontario

Dan Savage: Is Bisexuality Real In Men?

Dan Savage: Universal HPV Vaccination, Please

Dan Savage posts:

This just in:

• A vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease HPV, which can cause cervical cancer in women, has also been shown to prevent most anal cancers in gay men, an international study said Wednesday. Men who were vaccinated against human papillomavirus developed 75 percent fewer anal lesions that lead to cancer than their counterparts who were given a placebo, said the study in The New England Journal of Medicine. The findings were released one day after a US advisory panel urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend routine vaccinations for boys age 11-12 against HPV.

But Tony Perkins thinks the HPV vaccine sends the wrong message. The right message? Die, buttfuckers.

Religious Conservatives Hate HPV Vaccines Because They Want Women To Die

Dan Savage comments:

In the midst of the shitstorm over Michele Bachmann’s comments about the HPV vaccine—her false statements, a.k.a “lies”—let’s pause to remember why religious conservatives like Bachmann hate the HPV vaccine so much.
HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. HPV is easily transmitted by skin-to-skin contact; condoms provide some protection, but not much. Most people who have been exposed to the human papilloma virus don’t know they’ve been exposed. Most are asymptomatic. An asymptomatic person can still pass the virus on. A small percentage of women who have HPV go on to develop cervical cancer and some of those women wind up dead. Religious conservatives loved the HPV virus because it killed women. Here was a potentially fatal STI that condoms couldn’t protect you from. Abstinence educators pointed to HPV and jumped up and down—they loved to overstate HPV’s seriousness and its deadliness—in their efforts to scare kids into saving themselves for marriage. And they fought the introduction of the HPV vaccine tooth-and-nail because vaccinating women against HPV would “undermine” the abstinence message. Given a choice between your wife, daughter, sister, or mom dying of cervical cancer or no longer being to scream “HPV IS GOING TO KILL YOU!” at classrooms full of terrified teenagers, socially conservative abstinence “educators” preferred the former.
Bachmann and her ilk believe that woman who have sex—along with men who fail to purchase health insurance—deserve to die horrible deaths. That’s why they hate the HPV vaccine, that’s why they fought its introduction, that’s why they tell lies about it now. Because they want women to die.
The party of life, ladies and gentlemen.