I’m a young heteroflexible guy who has been a “sugar baby” for a handful of wealthy older guys. I love it! I get money, I have fun being with them, and the guys seem to like having me around. The problem is that I just got with a new guy who is really great except for one thing: He is HIV positive. I like the fact that he told me, and I am open to being with him sexually even though I am HIV negative and want to stay that way.
He is VERY submissive—he wants to be used and abused sexually, physically, and mentally. My question is, what kinds of sex acts are okay to do with this guy? I read on one site that him rimming me is fine, and on another that him giving me a blowjob with a condom is safe, too. But I can’t find a site that specifically explains which sex acts are safe and which ones aren’t when one person is positive and one person is negative.
Help In Virginia
It’s pretty simple, HIV: Sex acts that expose you to his semen and/or blood are definitely unsafe, and sex acts that expose him to your semen and/or blood are mostly safe. Rimming you, blowing you (even without a condom), getting fucked by you (with a condom)—all very low risk for HIV transmission. If he’s on a drug regimen and his viral load is undetectable, HIV, your already-low risks of being exposed while, say, accepting a blowjob (and a check) are even lower. The risks aren’t nonexistent—all sex acts carry some degree of risk—but if the risks were any closer to nonexistent, they’d be sitting on nonexistent’s lap.
And bear this in mind: Odds are good that some of the other guys you’ve babied for—some of your previous daddies—were HIV positive and either didn’t know or didn’t have the decency to disclose. This guy’s willingness to disclose is evidence not just of his honesty and decency, HIV, but of his respect for you and his commitment to keeping you safe. This guy is less likely to ask you to engage in sex acts that are higher risk or unsafe than a guy who isn’t aware that he’s positive or is actively hiding the fact that he’s positive. And his interest in being “used and abused” creates lots of hot safe-sex-play options—letting him beat off while he licks your boots or jerking him off while he’s tied to the bed with your jock in his mouth are no-risk sexual activities that he’s likely to enjoy immensely.
I’m a 24-year-old straight guy. I’ve been with my girl for three years, and things are great—great sex life, great communication, etc. We have lots of sex—but for the last year or so, she has not been on birth control and we have not been using condoms. We’re not against the idea of a child, but we aren’t currently going for it. I was always told that pulling out was a 100 percent ineffective method of birth control. So my question is, I guess, could there be something wrong with one of us? How could we have unprotected sex for a year without getting her pregnant? We both really want children eventually and are worried it might not happen.
Sent From My iPhone
Withdrawal is a much more effective birth control method than most sex advisers are comfortable acknowledging. But facts are facts: A comprehensive study conducted by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute found that withdrawal was almost as effective a birth control option as condoms. (“Better Than Nothing or Savvy Risk-Reduction Practice? The Importance of Withdrawal,” Contraception, June 2009.)
“If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4% of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year,” the authors of the study wrote. That compares pretty favorably with the 2 percent of straight couples who will become pregnant using condoms perfectly over the course of a year.
In the real world, of course, very few people do anything perfectly. When you take mistakes, leaks, and broken condoms into account, researchers estimate that 17 percent of straight couples who rely on condoms will become pregnant in any given year. Not all withdrawers use withdrawal perfectly, either—amazingly enough, some guys get distracted and forget to pull out as their orgasms approach—but the research shows that just 18 percent of straight couples who use withdrawal will get pregnant in any given year.
So odds are good that you’re not infertile, SFMi, just lucky.
I’m a young lesbian. I recently met a girl who’s cute, and I think we’re on the likely-to-have-sex-soon track. The thing is, she confided in me that she’s participated in needle play in dungeon-party situations. I’m not someone who is turned off by kinkiness just ’cause it’s kinky, but it seems like even “safe” needle play is a recipe for STI transmission unless you’re playing with trained medical professionals. She says she gets tested regularly, but still, would it be really risky for me to sleep with her?
Enthusiastic Reader
Every time I’ve watched needle play in a dungeon-party situation—watched with my hands clamped over my eyes, peeking through the small spaces between my fingers—no one was being stuck with rusty needles by dirty-handed brutes. All the public needle-play scenes I’ve witnessed were ostentatiously sterile affairs: These kinksters, some of whom were trained medical professionals, made a big show of using alcohol wipes, cotton swabs, latex gloves, and clean sharps. I think it’s fair to ask this girl for more information about her blood and needle experiences, about the safety precautions that her partners took, and about how recently she was tested. But rest assured, ER, that the most effective STI transmission routes involve sticking dicks in people in completely vanilla situations, not clean needles in dungeon-party situations.
Here’s some information for MILK, the man who is aroused by the thought of being sprayed with his wife’s breast milk: It is common for newly lactating women to experience strong “milk ejection reflexes” during sex. This is induced by the hormone oxytocin, which is released during labor and orgasm, and when the milk “lets down” during breast-feeding. In other words: New mothers often spray milk when they get off. Most women are embarrassed when this happens, but at least MILK’s wife will know the first time it happens that her husband isn’t going to freak out about it.
Breast-feeding Educator’s Sex Tips
Thanks for sharing, BEST.
CONFIDENTIAL TO AMERICAN LADIES: Republicans took the House of Representatives after campaigning on jobs, debt, and taxes. But it’s been nonstop assaults on Planned Parenthood and reproductive freedom ever since. The GOP is always going on and on about how they want to shrink the size of government, and now we know why: They want to stuff the government in your vagina.
CONFIDENTIAL TO CANADIAN EVERYBODIES: Please go to www.shitharperdid.com, have a laugh, and then do what you can to send Stephen Harper packing or, failing that, deny him a majority. Pretty please?
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
I think it’s irresponsible to encourage or even support couples who want to attempt to “withdraw” as a form of birth control. I won’t even dignify it by calling it a “method”. There’s only one practice I consider more risky… and that would be the so-called rhythm technique.
@102: There is a whole range of birth control options, ranging from spray-and-pray to sterilization. Each has different advantages and disadvantages; each has its own level of effectiveness. Each couple will choose the method that suits them and their risk tolerance for accidental pregnancy.
For some couples, the advantages of withdrawal (easy; spontaneous; no hormonal issues; etc.) are worth the higher risk of accidental pregnancy. I’ve used it at times when my partner and I weren’t trying to get pregnant, but were willing to accept becoming pregnant.
I’d never use it for a one-nighter or in any situation where pregnancy was not. An. Option. But there are times when it is a reasonable choice.
@ Old Crow
I am not right-wing. However, I can’t stand the fear mongering against Harper. He will not do the terrible things that some claim, and the other parties will not do the good that is attributed to them.
Okay, it’s true that Conservatives are not NEVER elected in Atlantic Canada. I admit that sentence was sloppy. However, they do not hold a majority of seats here. You’ve made a lot of hay about a sentence that was never crucial to my argument. My point stands that no political party is going to take on the issue of better access to abortion in Atlantic Canada. This was my point. The other parties have had the chance to act and have not acted. This is true regardless of the party.
It’s true that the Conservatives have been the most resistant to gay rights. But the history of all the parties has been disgraceful on gay rights over the last 15 years. All parties made comments against gay people that would today be considered unacceptable. That history still matters. This doesn’t make Harper the devil and the other parties saints.
Your final point is really pretty unfair. It is the shitharperdid website that is hyperpartisan. It doesn’t even mention the isotopes or any information that would indicate that there were two sides to the argument. As you would say, it is framed as only a hyper-partisan would frame it.
I pointed out the other side. It does not make me a right-wing partisan to point out the other side of an argument.
Another example of the shrill rhetoric against Harper is that he will stack the Supreme Court with right wing judges. This is pretty laughable in Canada. I’ll go out on a limb and say that we don’t have any right-wing judges in Canada to choose from. Harper appointed Crowmell, who if anything, has been to the left. It doesn’t make me a right-winger to recognize that people are fear-mongering against Harper.
As you say, Harper can’t get away with pushing a socially conservative agenda, if that’s what he wants, because he would be thrown out of power. He may make grand gestures as a dog-whistle to social conservatives. But unlike in the US, he will not be able to remake Canada (if he wanted to) into some social conservative paradise. In practice it is a non-issue.
If you’re voting in principle, then you shouldn’t vote for any party but the Greens, who had the good fortune of not existing when the other parties were more openly homophobic. All gay politicians are members of parties that were until recently avowedly homophobic (ie. had MPs that said homophobic things)
I doubt you or anyone will listen, but I am an undecided voter. I feel no strong commitment or hostility to any party. I would be willing to vote for any party, depending on the circumstances.
I like that the economy is relatively stable, considering the recent economic crises. I like how Harper has handled our relationship with the US. But I don’t like some other policies, for instance the way that police handled the G-20, and the overspending on the G-20. But I’m not sure that the Liberals wouldn’t have behaved similarly.
But let me guess, “If you are not with us, you must be against us.”
@96 – “every woman is different” Absolutely. But there’s no downside to encouraging a woman to look at her vagina, cervix, and cervical mucus and get to know what’s normal for her body.
@104: ” But the history of all the parties has been disgraceful on gay rights over the last 15 years.”
No. “All the parties”? “Last 15 years”? Just…. no.
If that is your honestly held belief, then you really don’t know a thing about Canadian politics over the last fifteen years.
@106
The information I am basing this on is Tom Warner’s book, Never Going Back, a really good history of gay rights in Canada. He documents and concludes that yes, the Conservatives were the worst, but the Liberals and NDP were bad on gay rights. All the parties had homophobic members. It took real arm twisting to get the parties to back gay rights and it was a product of a long campaign of concerted pressure and court victories. He concludes that political parties in general (all of them) can’t be trusted on gay rights.
The Wikipedia article you link to never refers to his book. In fact, it doesn’t footnote to any books at all.
Double posting to add this:
@104: “As you say, Harper can’t get away with pushing a socially conservative agenda, if that’s what he wants, because he would be thrown out of power.”
No. Harper hasn’t gotten away with it to date because he has only had minority governments. Give him a majority and watch out for more of this sort of thing. (Thanks for the link, Canuck.)
If you want to know what Harper will do with a majority, google Tom Flanagan.
MORE DATA on the risk of getting HIV from oral sex! I hope you’re excited!
This study (which as chicago girl notes, is cited in that table in the Columbia AIDS handbook) uses a modified Bernoulli model to estimate the risk of each single episode of oral sex WITH ejaculation as 0.04%. To put that in perspective, it’s:
– only 6.75 times less risky than being an unprotected bottom for a top whose HIV status you don’t know (0.27%)
– 20 times less risky than being an unprotected bottom for an HIV+ partner (0.8%).
That is, NOT zero. And don’t blow off this number just because it seems low for ONE EPISODE–think of HOW MANY TIMES you’ve swallowed in your whole life! And, you could always get unlucky with your very first blowjob.
[ http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/15… ]
This study shows that the population attributable risk of oral sex WITH ejaculation is about 7%, based on multivariate analysis. To define population attributable risk, if everyone stopped swallowing come, then the incidence of HIV would drop about 7%.
[ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15851… ]
I posted that UCSF roundtable to give people (those who read it, of course) an idea of how difficult it is to tease out one risk factor from another, and how hard it is to get good data. And then, one can always view the data from various perspectives (is twenty times less risky than being the bottom of an HIV+ partner “low,” “very low,” or “exceedingly low”? Or imho, just “lower”?)
That’s the data, folks.
@11: “then you might very well be pissing your vote away on someone who cant win”
Here’s my reason for voting Green in a nutshell:
1. I think all politicians are lying assholes who will do anything for power. Exhibit a: campaign advertising (clearly, these people are assholes, and it’s pretty apparent they’re lying too). Exhibit b: everything they do when they get power; namely, nothing they *said* they would do in their asshole lying campaign advertising.
2. Because of 1, I would feel pretty bad if I voted for a lying asshole who got in, and they turned out to be a complete asshole.
3. Because of 2, I would *never* in a million years hold my nose while I voted for someone who I *knew* was a lying asshole, just so some other lying asshole *wouldn’t* get in. How do I know that one lying asshole is no better than the other lying asshole? See 1.
4. So I started voting Green because I knew they hadn’t a hope in hell. They still had thorough fringe-party status back then.
5. After I started voting Green, I found that they actually fall pretty close to a lot of my dearly-held beliefs, environmentalism aside. Yes, I also consider myself to be an environmentalist too. So I don’t have to hold my nose when I vote. As far as I’m concerned, this is a win-win-win situation. Should some kind of miracle occur and the Greens actually win in my riding, then it will only be a win-win-lose sort of situation, if and only if my MP turned out to be a lying asshole (like *that’s* not possible or something).
So if I’m pissing my vote away, good. Politicians *need* to be pissed on.
@109 interesting, but notice how all your stats are put in the form that makes them sound the worst
Population attributable risk of 7% makes it sound much larger then if you look at the chance per act with an HIV + person, because the number how contract HIV is a relatively small amount compared the the number who have oral sex with an HIV+ person.
Next, using the chance of contraction of being topped by someone of unknown HIV status, is to make it appear much smaller, as the % of HIV + people in the population is small. Thereby you make the oral contraction seem higher when you compare it to it.
Essentially, the statistics you pulled seem to be put in an alarmist fahion, but I agree that it is still greater than zero…
@6: “would make him wear TWO condoms”
are you a 15 y/o virgin?
please tell me you are and aren’t having risky sex without knowing how risky your sex life is, because you’re a horribly dangerous moron.
Thanks Dan for encouraging your readers to oppose Stephen Harper. You have a fantastically loyal readership in Canada. Up here in Canada we often feel too safe concerning our reproductive rights, and look smugly at the US. Your attention is appreciated.
@111
How are the data mentioned in @109 presented in an alarmist fashion? Swallowing come is not a risk-free activity. Yes, @109 states that the population attributable risk is 7%…..that’s what the data show. @109 also states that the risk of contracting HIV from each single episode of oral sex with ejaculation is 0.04%…. how is that alarmist? How is considering all the data together an alarmist argument?
@116
How can you tell? I can tell when *I’m* ovulating; it causes pain and a change in vaginal secretions, but how on earth can you tell by *looking* at someone? However, if you really can tell, it’s more polite not to mention it. On the one hand because you might very well be wrong (and since women often have no idea when they ovulate), and on the other because that’s kind of personal and a lot of women might prefer to keep that to themselves.
@100
You read my whole post, right? I said I don’t like to have sex during that time…
@116
I’m with 118, I’d say it’s akin to saying “hey look, B is on her period!” Even if you were making some sort of educated guess (she looks bloated!) It’s kind of offensive.
Besides, what were you basing it on? She looked extra pretty? She was wearing less clothing?
It’s called “hidden” ovulation for a reason, most of the signs are subtle and anyone who’s not actively fucking the girl is really just taking a shot in the dark.
Unless you know something I don’t…
@116 I’ll disagree here, I don’t think it’s akin to saying someone is on her period, I think it’s funny…but same questions as the others, given that we aren’t chimps who present rather obvious signs of ovulation, how would you know?
And as for jokes, my husband regularly warns people off doing certain things or dressing certain ways, as it will be sure to cause me to ovulate…we both joke about it. But then, we’re Canadian.
@118: He doesn’t know something you don’t know. He’s just a douche.
Dan’s advice to HIV is absolutely perfect. As an HIV+ gay man with a zero viral load, I wish everyone would read it.
It’s not necessarily irresponsible to vote Green. It depends on your riding. For instance, those in the Saanich should definitely vote Green because Elizabeth May has a good chance of defeating her Conservative opponent there. Also, there are some people in ridings where the winner is pretty much decided–many Alberta ridings are staunchly Conservative, so there’s nothing much you can do to oust them. If you live in a Conservative-safe riding, you can consider voting Green just to up their national popular vote.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on the withdrawal method. As effective as it may be, I don’t understand why people keep talking about how “convenient” it is. Doesn’t it bother guys not to get to finish in the hole, as it were?
@85 – it is possible to ovulate more than once in a cycle. I know I do sometimes. Fun, right?
Given the number of people that comment on these articles, do we have a statistical sample of withdrawal method stories yet?
Are ~10% getting pregnant per year, (within simple counting errors)?
SOMEBODY COUNT!
@13, yes we do!
Over three years and one child as a result of him intentionally cumming inside me when we decided to have a child (yes, it only took one time and we got pregnant – he has a high sperm count and I’m quite fertile). So I know the pull out method works, our daughter is two and a half years old and we’ve never used any other form of birth control.
@20/21 listedasmygun
Thank you for those comments. It wasn’t a surprise to me either as I’ve been using the pull-out method for years. And I agree with your second comment completely as well.
@125 – women sometimes release 2 eggs in the same 24 hour period; and women sometimes have short (15-day) cycles. But ovulating once and then again a few days later? That’s exceedingly rare.
@48 WTF? Just a hint to you: the sensation of needle play and enjoying that and the desire to get high are two vastly different things. I LOVE needle play, I’ve had dozens of needles in my back (and elsewhere) and have no desire to EVER use intravenous drugs. People get high for a lot of reasons but I really doubt anyone has started using drugs because they like needle sticks.
As for safety: there are risks to needle play but everyone I know who does it is extremely careful, using brand new sterile needles that aren’t opened until right before insertion, gloves, cleaning the skin thoroughly before and after play, immediately placing used needles in a sharps container, etc. However I would put the risk of properly done needle play as very low, not as safe as a blood draw in a hospital but few things are. Now if you aren’t fluid bonded to your partner you probably don’t want to play with the blood the way me and my partner do but that’s private play, at parties we are extra careful about safety.
There is one case where I would have sexual contact with someone that is HIV+, and that is if I’m committed to spending the rest of my life with them.
I don’t think it’s very responsible to tell someone that openly admits that they have sex with random people for money that it’s “safe” to introduce HIV into the equation.
It’s not, it kills, and it will continue to kill as long as people that have HIV are sexually active with those that do not have HIV.
@104, You sound *very* naive about Harper. The guy doesn’t care if the country goes to hell, he just wants power — and will do anything to get it. Check this out.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorial…
@124: “Doesn’t it bother guys not to get to finish in the hole, as it were?”
As long as I get to finish, I’m happy. Sure, it’s nice to come inside, but it can be just as good outside. And there is something very hot about pulling out and coming all over her stomach, or ass, or tits.*
*(Cue someone who is going to post that this increases the risk of accidental pregnancy, as sperm can survive on the skin and make their way into the vagina and to use withdrawal correctly I need to immediately stick my dick in a Zip-Loc bag and make sure no little wigglers get away. Absolutely true. Which is why I only ever used withdrawal in situations where I was comfortable with an elevated risk of accidental pregnancy. And let me say again… hot.)
(And, I agree re voting Green in cases where the Tory is a runaway favourite to help raise their popular vote and profile. I’ve done it myself a few times.)
“Doesn’t it bother guys not to get to finish in the hole, as it were?”
Hell, I’m a girl and it’d bother me – feeling those little spasms inside me is one of my favourite parts of sex.
(We always use condoms, btw. Always.)
And others have said this in response to comment #6, but I feel the need to repeat it, louder, to make absolutely sure the message gets through:
***DO NOT WEAR MORE THAN ONE CONDOM AT A TIME BECAUSE THERE IS A MUCH HIGHER LIKELIHOOD OF BREAKAGE***. The layers will rub together and weaken each other. They taught us this in sex ed when I was twelve years old. I wonder how old #6 is?
I applaud the letter from and your response to Heteroflexible. I love how he called himself a “sugar baby.” Personally, I prefer the term “sugar chicken”!
@102 – because we assume that others are adults and responsible for their own choices.
I have tried damn near every birth control method under the sun – the patch, the ring, the pill, the shot, the copper iud, the hormonal iud, condoms and withdrawal. I can’t use the copper (allergies) or the hormonal (egg donor) iud, and all the other hormonal methods make me really moody, fat, tired, hungry and kill my libido. My partner is untrained in using condoms and they make him limp. They make me dry. And, we just plain don’t like them. So, after a bunch of research and discussion with my partner, I chose withdrawal. These combination of factors make that choice make sense to me:
There is no sperm in precum (see citation)
My cycle is very regular
The number of days it’s even possible to get pregnant are few
The number of women my age who get pregnant at all even when trying is not high
At least half of pregnancies end in miscarriage
My partner is incredibly skilled at withdrawal
My partner is incredibly honest
I keep the morning after pill in my nightstand in case of screwups
So, if after all this, I still get pregnant – it’s the Messiah and I’ll have to keep it anyway.
No sperm present in precum: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12286…
I would absolutely not recommend it for anyone who is not in a monogamous LTR, whose partner isn’t awesome, who can use other methods just fine, and who absolutely would not be prepared to choose abortion or raise a child.
Oh yeah, and you should both pee and wash if you’re going for round 2 or 3 or 412.
Here’s the thing SFMi: Those statistics aren’t going to mean a goddamned thing when you’re faced with an unwanted pregnancy. When your partner misses her period and you realize you can’t get away with this lame, almost cruelly fatalistic ‘Well we don’t want a kid, really, but aren’t stopping it’ approach forever – and maybe you freak and realize you don’t want to be a dad, or she freaks and realizes this is not the right time for her, and suddenly abortion and your relationship are on the line – you aren’t going to come back to this page and tell her ‘But there’s no way you’re pregnant! Look how low the statistics are, according to Dan Savage!’
In short, you both need to grow up and take some responsibility. Either you are trying for a kid (including taking supplements, avoiding narcotics, saving money, investigating daycare and housing options, etc.) or you’re not.
Hey Dan, thanks for commenting on Canadian politics. I didn’t know that being an American columnist,provided you with such insight to our political situation.
We’ll vote out Harper when you silence Sarah Palin, quit your love affair with the Gitmo landlord Obama, and stop your media from speaking about Reagan like he was a saint. Deal?…
@141: Oh fuck off. Dan’s right. Harper is a douchebag and needs to be voted out of office. I reserve the right to comment on American politics, and Dan (and anyone else) is welcome to comment on Canadian politics.
right on 136. and to hell with all the dogmatic assholes wagging their fingers at anyone who doesn’t adhere to the pc white noise. there’s no “one” solution for everyone.
To small gov.: could you email me please? roadtrip614@yahoo.com
@48 truly wth?
That to me would signal someone who may have abused – or may want to abuse – needles in connection with drugs, and therefore has serious risks of being or becoming HIV+.
…..or anyone with a nice, balanced, sharp, well-made kitchen knife is at risk for becoming a mugger.
bdsm needle play is about…..bdsm needle play, otherwise known as risk-aware consensual kink sharps play. the needles are a means to an end, not the, er, point. not everyone who plays with a wartenberg wheel is a medical professional, either.
I don’t blame sex educators for not advocating withdrawal as an effective method of birth control. I’m happily married and I’d never depend on withdrawal unless, like previous posters have said, I was “willing to accept” getting pregnant, which doesn’t seem like the greatest way to approach pregnancy.
There’s only a brief, magical window each month when women can get pregnant, but all 6 billion people in the world are products of couples hitting that window, most of them unexpectedly.
@109 thankyou for posting the links and revealing your sources.
The article is indeed very revealing. As is the selective conclusion you decide to take from it.
Note for starters that the study lost a significant number of participants without gaining data from them. the consequences of that might skew the results. Also most of the analysis between potential infection points has been established through models and by comparing model results with the actual results. Thiss is highly speculative.
Most pertinent to the LWs concern addressed by Dan, a person who knows they have HIV is more likely to be on HART treatments and therefore less likely to infect than a person who belkieves they are negative or does not disclose, but who is positive and highly infectious. This study does not cover that distinction even in the cases of the (quite low) number of seroconverters with a known HIV pos partner.
But it does note there were no seroconversions among men in monogamour relationship with HIV pos partners. That might be a hint. But entirely my speculation.
This is a very interesting study but please avoid abusing its conclusions in an alarmist way.
@109 (Further to above 147)
Refer in particular to the qualifications laid out in the Discussions section of the paper about the failure/inability to make distinction in risk regarding the infectiousness of partners.
Sadly, just being the “green” party is giving the Green party countless votes from a few politically uninvolved groups:
1) the “Hey, we should save the environment!” people, who don’t bother looking at the NDP’s pro-environment vision that’s been there for decades
and
2) the “Hey, I like weed. Weed is green. I’m voting for weed… maaaan.” There are more of these than you think. Hopefully these idiots read a little further on the ballot and realize they can actually vote for the Marijuana party and make their voice (or cough) heard.
So that’s that.
Re: strategic voting. I think it’s bullshit. If we just keep voting strategically for the rest of our lives, it’ll just be a Lib vs. Con battle – forever. The surge in the NDP has been caused be a lot of people refusing to just vote for the lesser evil, anad vote for what they believe in. Even if the results in a Con majority for the next few years, once we get through that hell, we’ll have realized the true terror of the Conservatives (I hyperbolize, slightly). So vote for what you believe in. Strategic voting is bullshit.
@Hunter
I’m perfectly aware of that study, but just because a woman is looking fine on a particular night is not a legit sign she’s ovulating. (Hint: there isn’t one – from afar anyway) If you want to make a guess, that’s fine, but expressing it is pretty creepy/innapropriate. Many of the (female) posters have tried expressing this to you – as well as your friends. It seems you’re uninterested in any other opinions so I’m going to go ahead you were positing that as an amirite?? And assuming we were all going to agree that your friends are prudes.
You might think it’s flattering, but we’re trying to explain that commenting on the inner personal workings of a woman’s reproductive system (no matter in how positive a way) is not really kosher. We don’t like it. But eh, you’ve made up your mind.
For the record, I work at a bar and I’ve seen/been on the recieving end of a LOT of invasive behaviour and have a pretty high tolerance. But just because I accept it as an occupational hazard doesn’t mean that I think it’s okay. And no I wouldn’t take “excuse me miss, you look extra attractive today, are you ovulating?” as a compliment.
First of all, to those looking for information on birth control, sexual health, etc, I strongly recommend scarleteen.com.
Next, I know this is a long way back, but I would like to second EricaP @74. I have dysmenorrhea, and I have to take the Pill, or I experience simply awful cramps and a cycle that is unfair in that I go a week on my period, two weeks off, and then begin my period again.
However, my libido is just hunky dory on the pill. I know it isn’t true for everyone, but still.
Since I’m allergic to both latex and glycerin and generally am sensitive to chemicals, condoms are basically off the table. Our backup method is withdrawal; this is despite me being absolutely perfect about taking my pill. In three years on the pill, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been more than half an hour off and list where and when it happened.
But I still do all of this with the understanding that nothing is foolproof. If I were to get pregnant, I know what I’d do, and I’ve discussed it with my boyfriend.
No wonder there seem to be so few bisexuals – they keep inventing stupid words like “hetero-flexible” to describe themselves.
Hey 142, ” Backyard Bombardier”, go fuck yourself.
Sorry my French-Canadian brother. But this is the problem with the US. They want to crap in our backyard, but make no attempt to clean up their own.
@149
I don’t think it’s insulting to publicly speculate that a woman might be ovulating, just a bit rude. If someone talked about me that way, I wouldn’t be insulted, just annoyed.
@154: Yes, it’s entirely Dan’s responsibility to make sure no one in the US is doing anything objectionable before he comments on politics outside the US.
Dick.
For those of you who remember PATH’s woes (no sex with wife for 2 years, since he stopped initiating) from the “I Want My MTV” Savage Love two weeks ago– he just posted an update in that thread.