Public Information

Why Should Men Control Women’s Sexual Health? It’s Time for Women and Girls to “Take Control”

The Philadelphia Health Department launches a safe sex campaign called “She Takes Control” that promotes female empowerment and responsibility by encouraging female youth to carry condoms. Pennsylvania is one of the many states in the U.S. that suffers from high rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among teenagers -- they are as much as five times the national average. STDs are increasingly prevalent in Philadelphia and Philadelphia County, with 1 out of 3 youth getting an STD during their teen years. In fact, PA ranked seventh highest among the 50 states in 2008 for AIDS cases. While many states ...

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in Campaigns / Key Issues / Public Information / Sex Education  by Alifa Watkins 0 comments

Net Neutrality and Internet Freedom: A voice for the voiceless

In preserving all human rights, especially those having to do with privacy of person and sexual freedom, free access to the unfettered communications of the Internet is crucial. The Internet is the circulatory system of the body politic, and the world's only hope for true pluralism. Any and all attempts to restrict or dismember the Internet and its uses must be met by an army of us willing to lay down our lives to make sure these attempts fail. Think of young Bradley Manning, who thought that transparency to bring alleged government corruption to the attention of a whistleblower was something ...

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in Campaigns / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Lesbian and Gay Rights in the World—Geography of Bigotry and Oppression

This amazing map, developed by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Organization, portrays, as of May 2012, the status of critical LGBT protections and persecutions world wide. We hope all people interested in international issues will examine it and understand where progress is being made and where horrible persecution and enforced neglect endure. It is encouraging to see signs of great progress in areas of South America and most of Western Europe, where a modicum of equality is emerging, in spite of entrenched religious opposition by atheistic religionists deeply embedded in the ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Religion: Real and Fake

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom... Society suffers from a severe misunderstanding of the nature and role of religion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ongoing arguments about the “separation of church and state.” Blame the Puritans. The basic idea in the U.S. Constitution is one of freedom FROM religion, expressed as “freedom of religion.” The tenets of any religion may not be imposed on its citizens who disagree. This concept is fundamental to the unalienable human right to absolute privacy of person, and pillar of sexual freedom and the bedrock of all other freedoms. The pilgrims who came to Plymouth imagined ...

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in Cosmic Citizenship / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / Public Information / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Sacred Sex and Erotic Joy

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For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom... Editor's note: This is one of a series of position papers Dan Massey and I are creating and will soon index on our home page. They briefly explore the evolution of our points of view about a range of issues related to sex, gender, and racial freedom. Your feedback is always welcome. The world’s secret history is strewn with tales of visionaries and pioneers who have advocated for the primacy of erotic joy in connecting each person with the universe at large and endowing each of us with supreme power to shape our own destiny (however ...

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in Cosmic Citizenship / Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / Op-Ed / Public Information / The Sexual Freedom Project / Transhuman Erotic Freedom  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

“Femicidios”: Unsolved Murders Against Women in Mexico and the Caribbean (Part I)

También en español ”Death to the b**ches, I'm back” read a sign found next to the body of one of the nearly 1,700 Guatemalan women who have been murdered in the past five years. Since 1993, some 500 women of limited means have been killed or disappeared from the streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The authorities have not resolved these female murders. “Women of all ages, educational levels, social-economic backgrounds, races, ethnicities and sexual orientations may be the eventual victim of this extreme form of gender-based violence”, explains the scholar Diana Russell. While femicide is committed around the world, ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 1 comments

Going Live: espanol.venusplusx.org and venusmasx.org

También en español Having been a bilingual site since last fall, VenusPlusX is now gradually rolling out its new all-Spanish site, espanol.venusplusx.org (o, en español, venusmasx.org) — our continuing gift to the worldwide Spanish-speaking community, side by side with our now all-English site, venusplusx.org. Our round seal, in English and Spanish, portrays "Columbia," The Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol. The original sculptor chose a two-spirit (transgender) First People model to create his ideal of freedom. In both English (Sexual Freedom  . . . You Are Born With It) and now on our Spanish site, ...

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in Grassroots / News of Note / Public Information / The Sexual Freedom Project  by Alison Gardner 1 comments

Follow up: Adolescent Sexual Health: To Improve or Not to Improve? That is the Question…

También en español After initially postponing the decision to adopt either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex education curriculum, the Natchez-Adams School Board in Jackson, Mississippi chooses “both.” The Board voted to adopt the abstinence-only program, but also voted to require all 12 modules of the “Rise to Your Dreams” curriculum . . . the same curriculum mandatory in abstinence-plus. We wanted to know why. For one, Board Member David Troutman thought that the topics covered in abstinence-plus were too explicit for sixth graders, believing incorrectly that middle-schoolers don’t have sex until high school. Second, Board President Wayne Barnett believes that the ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / News of Note / Public Information / Sex Education / The Sexual Freedom Project  by Alifa Watkins 0 comments

Adolescent Sexual Health: To Improve or Not to Improve? That is the Question…

(También en Español) The Natchez-Adams School Board in Jackson, Mississippi, is currently deciding whether to adopt abstinence-only or abstinence-plus curriculum. This decision for Mississippi schools, to implement either abstinence-only or abstinence-plus curriculum, is the same as deciding whether or not to improve adolescent sexual health. The former, abstinence-only education, will be laden with religious ideologies, teach students about the importance of abstinence as the expected standard, and only mention contraceptives in terms of failure rates that are wrong and unscientific. The latter will teach the benefits of abstinence, but also will give comprehensive information about condoms, contraception, and the prevention of sexually transmitted ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / News of Note / Public Information / Sex Education  by Alifa Watkins 2 comments

Part 2: Proclamation of Masturbation: Joycelyn Elders Gives Masturbation a Thumbs Up

(También en Español) "We must know that if we want to have a sexually healthy society, it's about education, education, education," says Joycelyn Elders, MD. With 9.5 million teens obtaining a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and 750,000 becoming pregnant per year in the United States, it is no wonder why Elders asserts that comprehensive sexuality education is the key to a sexually healthy world. In order to help remedy this, Elders teamed up with the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Program in Human Sexuality (PHS) to advance sexual health education not only in America, but globally. Together, Elders and PHS established ...

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Public Information / Sex Education  by Alifa Watkins 1 comments