Photo by Flickr user mamamusings. Used under a Creative Commons license.

First it was the CDC's "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocolypse," a tongue-in-cheek primer on general preparedness. Not to be outdone, just in time for Halloween, here's Planned Parenthood with advice about the hazards of unprotected sex with vampires:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 31, 2011 Contact: PPFA Media Office

Thinking About Having Sex with a Vampire This Halloween? Planned Parenthood Is Here to Help

Let's face it: vampires can rack up a lot of sexual partners over the years. Your vampire might be the same age as you, or she or he might be thousands of years old. But no matter how old you are, if you're going to jump into bed with a vampire, you're going to need more than a clove of garlic to protect your health.

Here are some things to think about before you enter into a sexual relationship with a vampire:

Vampires might be immortal, but you're not. It's important for both vampires and humans to get tested for STDs. Use this tool to find out if you should get tested for STDs.

Ladies, just because a vampire says he can't get you pregnant*, it doesn't mean he can't give you an STD. And guys, just because a vampire says she's on the pill, it doesn't mean that you can't get an STD. Use a condom correctly every time.

Don't wait until you're in the heat of the moment to bring up safer sex. Vampires have been known to "glamour" people to get their way, so play it safe and make it clear that you won't have sex without protection right from the start.

Remember, a vampire who doesn't care about protecting your health is not the kind of vampire that you want to get involved with. Not sure if you're dating the right vampire? We can help you figure it out.

* Let's not forget, Edward got Bella pregnant in the Twilight series, going against hundreds of years of vampire lore. So even if your vampire tells you he can't get you pregnant, why risk it? Condoms are not only a great way to prevent STDs, they're effective at preventing pregnancy. Even better, use a condom along with another birth control method.

Source: Planned Parenthood Media Office

Very cool when institutions like Planned Parenthood are able to hit the right note when attempting humor with a point.

Via Talking Points Memo

Ever notice how sometimes the deeper one digs the more interesting some news tidbits become?

In a news-roundup post, Beth Saunders of RHRealityCheck.org passes along with insufficient comment a tidbit from an anti-choice website that...

Twenty percent of British women used emergency contraception in the past year, according to a survey by the Co-Operative Pharmacy.

Source: RHRealityCheck.org

If you go to the site itself (LifeSiteNews) you get a little more background... but obviously you also get more anti-choice slant (emphasis mine)

A Co-Operative Pharmacy survey of 3000 people found that 20 percent of women aged 18 to 35 took the “emergency contraceptive” pill last year. The same group said they had typically used the drug, which only acts as a genuine contraceptive in some cases, when they had had sex after using drugs and/or alcohol.

The poll further found that up to 250,000 women had used the drug two or more times during the year. One in fifty 18-21 year-olds said they used the MAP as their normal form of contraception. One sixth of the women surveyed said they had contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

Source: LifeSiteNews

And if you go to the actual Co-Operative Pharmacy press release you get the same core information minus (shock, gasp, surprise!) mention of "only acts as a genuine contraceptive in some cases."  Which is good because, of course, that would be factually incorrect.  Here's the straight story from the source.

Thousands of women risk waking up on New Years Day with more than a hangover as over one in five blame partying with drink or drugs for not using contraception with a new partner, figures* reveal today (1 January 2011).

The Co-operative Pharmacy, part of The Co-operative Group, questioned 3,000 people about contraception and found that one in five women aged 18 to 35 years old have used the morning after pill in the last 12 months. One in six women admitted to having had a sexual disease.

The research also revealed that the preferred method of contraception for almost half of all women was the pill and two out of five favoured condoms. 250,000** women have used the emergency contraceptive three times or more and more than one in 50 of those aged 18 to 21 said they preferred to use the morning after pill as a regular form of contraception.

Source Co-Operative Pharmacy

I don't feel qualified to comment on on-the-ground experiences (feel free to chime if you know otherwise) but it sounds like most pharmacists don't agree that EC is all that great on one's system.  From the Co-Operative press release:

Mandeep Mudhar, Head of NHS Development at The Co-operative Pharmacy, said: “Our research shows that some women are taking unnecessary risks with their health. The morning after pill should be a last resort to prevent an unwanted pregnancy after having unprotected sex or if another method of contraception has failed, such as if you have forgotten to take one of your contraceptive pills.

“However, the emergency contraceptive pill does not protect against sexually transmitted infections. Pharmacists provide free accessible advice about contraception but we would always urge people to use a condom, particularly with a new partner, as it offers the greatest protection.”

That sounds about right.  I'd just add, though, that the key word above would be "particularly with a new partner."

Few young single people have "Jersey Shore" style lifestyles where they're prepared at every moment to be ready to fall into bed with someone new.  Instead, most young single people, women as much as men, tend to go through sexual "boom and bust" relationships.  And for people for whom hormonal contraception is an option (obviously only women so far, darn it) it often doesn't feel worth the hassle and often the discomfort of staying on a medication you may expect to need only a few times a year.

To that extent that most women who report using emergency contraception as their "primary contraceptive" are almost all still using it only once a year we're not necessarily talking about a giant epidemic of "irresponsibility" here.  Nor, I would add, does that suggest epidemics of "promiscuity" either.  Unless by promiscuity you mean "once last year."

The EC/STI connection is a little more problematic.  First of the STI question seems to have been about lifetime experience with STIs whereas the rest of the survey reports about annual experience with contraception.  I mention this only to tidy up the numbers, not to minimize the actual risk.  Second, by focusing on the EC angle the story almost necessarily underplays the story of very large numbers of people using no protection for first-time sex.

Proposal: I know it sounds counterintuitive but I think it occurs to  me it might be a very good idea to encourage manufacturers and/or pharmacists to include a condom in every package of EC.  It's counterintuitive because one tends to view EC as something you take after the fact.  And indeed it is.

EC is not, however, always purchased after the fact.  I expect it's a lot easier to remember that if you've already Backed Up Your Birth Control it might be easier to remember you've also got at least one backup condom.  And even if not?  Well, you've still got a condom for next time.  Even if, as those survey numbers suggest, next time also happens to be next year.  And one way or other, knowing there's a condom in the box "puts the idea into consciousness" as the new-agers say.

Extra credit if the condoms have the retro-20th-Century "for prevention of disease only" motif!

Considering all the liberal, conservative, anti-feminist and, err, occasional backsliding feminist angst about the Assange case in Sweeden doesn't it seem like the Minnesota case against Daniel Rick from back in March of this year seem curiously obscure?   It’s not at all 100% parallel to the Assange allegations but it’s similar enough that one wonders why the MRAs and their fellow travelers who’ve been up in arms about Sweden’s “Saudi Arabia” haven’t been all over the Rick case.

For instance, Rick’s victim chose to accompany him to his home after meeting him in a bar.  The victim chose to pass out drunk in Rick’s home and (after all) that’s practically the same thing as consenting to sex.  And when he did have sex with the victim he evidently didn’t use a condom, which triggered extra charges for knowingly putting the victim’s health at risk.  And in that case, too, when one complaint was filed other “me too” victims came forward, revealing a pattern of behavior on Rick’s part!

It's enough to make you think anti-Wikileak forces aren't the only ones exploiting the Assange case for their own political ends!

Once again, not 100% the same as the accusations against Assange (for instance unlike Assange Rick had related prior arrests on his record) but many of the particulars are close enough that it’s weird that the Assange charges seem to have caught MRAs off guard.

Of course the source of this particular "Saudi Arabianism" is Minneapolis, Minnesota and not Sweden, but... well... here's how their local Fox network station put it:

MINNEAPOLIS - Two additional charges of assault have been filed against an HIV-positive Minneapolis man already charged with raping a man.

Daniel James Rick, 28, was arrested Monday after more alleged sexual assault victims came forward. The victims said they had unprotected sex with Rick, who didn't reveal his HIV-positive status.

Rick was charged Wednesday with two counts of third-degree assault by knowingly transferring a communicable disease. Those charges are on top of charges in February of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and third-degree assault for the alleged rape of a man he left a bar with.

According to the original set of charges, Rick and his victim went to The Saloon in downtown Minneapolis and after to Rick's home. The victim passed out drunk and later awoke to Rick sexually assaulting him.

Source: MyFox9.com

Oh... wait!  Whawazat?  Did... did you see that?  Oh wait a minute, Daniel Rick is gay! His victims were all men! Doh!  Cancel the Operation Payback attacks on the Minneapolis Star-Trubune!

No feminist angle on the case for miles and miles. False alarm. Never mind!

For all MRA protestations that “but men can be raped too,” and for all the MRA protestations that accusations of rape are invariably false, it doesn’t count when the victims, or the accused, are gay.

Must be why nobody’s Tweeting about how Sweden’s a “feminist Minnesota.”

Image from Italian website Bioetica.
Original source unknown.

Geoffrey K. Pullum of Language Log dispenses with one evident miscommunication… but raises another. First, the big news policy-wise.

The Pope has changed his mind about condoms: they can be used after all!

That’s what the world’s media has decided to splash over the front pages this weekend. (“Pope Benedict’s condom U-turn” said the headline over Andrew Brown’s blog piece at The Guardian.) They are being scandalously irresponsible as usual: the Pope has said nothing of the kind. Rather, he grudgingly acknowledged, in one answer during a book-length interview, that perhaps in some cases perhaps the use of a condom by a prostitute (una prostituta) might be “a first step toward a moralization… Absolutely no sign of a Catholic Church volte face on contraception there.

Source: Language Log

Pullum points out that the issue appears to be a mistranslation of gender in the term “una prostituta” in Vatican’s official Italian-language edition. The Pope, however, is a native speaker of German, as was his interviewer, and there’s considerable evidence that he was talking about condom use for male prostitutes. The Italian version strongly suggests he meant prostitutes who are women. Thus the misunderstanding that the Church might somehow be moderating its opposition to contraception. No such luck there.

But if the ambiguous gendering of una prostituta has been reduced to a problem of mistranslation. Or possibly a problem of euphemism if, say, some of the target languages are culturally less tolerant and/or more prim about the possibility of male prostitution, Pullum introduces another language speed bump when he says (emphasis mine)

[S]ome of the odd things about the foggy passage just quoted might be relevant to my linguistic puzzle. One is the fact that using a condom generally means putting one on one’s own penis, and if that is to count as an assumption of responsibility, Pope Benedict must be envisaging an infected male prostitute whose service consists of active penetration and ejaculation of a passively participating client. I know very little about the world of prostitution, but it is my understanding that it is much more typical for it to be the other way round, in which case the prostitute would not be using the condom, but asking the client to use it, and the motivation would be the selfish one of protecting the prostitute’s own health, hence not an assumption of responsibility at all.

In which case, as Language Log commenters such as John, Aaron Toivo,and other have hinted, we can still delve into the function of the word “use” in “the prostitute would not be using the condom, but asking the client to use it.”

I am so not a linguist, nor do I claim competency with language tools. And I don’t think Google page counts qualify as reliable for statistical purposes. That said, a quick check suggests “he used a condom,” “we used a condom,” and “she used a condom” are all used with some frequency.

Also, considering that just as it wouldn’t be unusual for a restaurateur to say “I used plastic wrap to cover the customer’s leftovers” it wouldn’t seem unusual for a prostitute to say he or she uses a condom to cover a customer’s penis. Thus while getting a condom on to a customer may be a problematic element for at least some sex workers, it’s not necessary to say “receptive sex workers don’t use condoms, their customers do.”

There are other instances where receptive partners are presumed to be condom users but the most glaring would probably be the controversial ordinance in New York Washington, D.C., that allows police to detain a woman on suspicion of prostitution if she has more than a certain number of condoms in her purse.

Final note: if I was a linguist I’d probably write a post about how the assumption that being the penetrating partner makes one the active agent conditions the way we employ the word “use” in “the prostitute would not be using the condom, but asking the client to use it.”

-=

p.s. you learn something new every day at Language Log, and in this case the commenters really came through. Even though I’ve been a fairly active sex blogger for years I hadn’t known that more same-sex customers seek penetration than seek to penetrate. Several commenters, including at least one former male sex-worker, set the record straight. Knowing that makes sense of a number of differences in rates of condom acceptance between those who are straight and those who are not.