Konky2000 made the point I was about to make. The levels of physical affection I saw when I lived in Italy were very much based on the assumption that no one was gay, therefore it wasn't a touchy (no pun intended!) issue.

Think about American football players. Lots of physical affection there -- pats on the but, hugs, crying -- and that's hardly a bastion of open, liberated sensuality.

Just a note: The article linked by Pandagon is longer than the version Broadsheet links to.

Don't know why, but you should know that the Pandagon rebuttal is of a longer article.

Cute article, nice idea, but what's with the "We're feminists, but not the bad kind"? Way to stand up for a cause, there.

Cosmic mojo, I've heard just as many horror stories about the new mini pills, at least in terms of emotional/libidinal side effects. It's not just the old-fashioned pills causing problems.

I got a Paraguard because the one time I was on oral contraceptives, they turned me into a raving depressed screaming madwoman.

No one then talked about those types of side effects, at least not around me. I still have female friends who don't understand why they're suddenly depressed, or why they've suddenly lost all interest in sex, after they've been on BCP for a few months.

And it seems right now that very few people are talking about IUDs. The medical info's out there (though sometimes outdated), but it was very difficult getting much anecdotal info. My doctors were pretty gung-ho about it, though, so I didn't have to wave reams of info in their faces to show that women who haven't been pregnant can still use IUDs successfully.

When my boyfriend and I talked about it, the thought of going back on birth control pills had me in tears. After reading so much about American farming practices and books like My Years of Meats, I have worked so hard to avoid putting unnecessary hormones in my body. Then there was the whole debate about HRT. At this point, I simply, for many reasons, don't trust the medical community when it comes to women's health -- not because I think they're malicious, but because I think researchers are necessarily coming out of a biased society that treats women's complaints as automatically minor and dismissable. I simply don't trust the Pill.

Plus there's something nicely witchy about the Paraguard -- no one really knows how it works, but the copper protects you from the evil sperm monsters!

Can your partner feel it?

My gynecologist left the string very long for the first month, in case the device moved around a bit as it settled in. My boyfriend could feel the string during that month, so I asked my doctor to trim the string when I went back in for my one-month check-up. She mentioned at that time that she was known for leaving the strings long. Since she trimmed them, my boyfriend has not been able to feel them. (*I* can barely feel them when I'm looking for them. They've kind of curled back around my cervix, out of the way.)

Will it interfere with sex or sex toys?

See above, I guess. It's pretty out of the way.

Can women who've been pregnant, but not given birth, get an IUD?

The "official" position is that any woman is qualified for an IUD. From the research I've done, it seems that doctors were unwilling to give childness women IUDs mainly because they increase your chances of PID, which can make you infertile, which can make you sue your doctor. I also read a quick entry on Heather Corinna's website (she runs Scarlateen, a teen sex-ed site), mentioning that most IUD studies had conflated "childless" with "never been pregnant." Regardless, most current literatur claims the IUD is appropriate for any woman, regardless of child-bearing status.

Will it interfere with actitivites?

It's teeny. I was amazed when the doctor showed it to me. I do yoga three times a week, do tons of walking and hiking, etc. I have never once felt it inside me. Apparently there are women who have expelled it and not noticed. It's not like a giant Soviet satellite roving in your uterus -- it's a one-inch piece of slender wire. Perforations are rare, and I have no data, but I really can't imagine any coming from physical activity.

I think this entry might have seemed a little less hypocritical had the author not *first* rushed out to make sure Atoosa was thin before blasting her -- what, if your Google searching had turned up images of an overweight short woman, *then* her comments would have been acceptable? What does Atoosa's height or body type have to do with this at all? Focusing on it completely undermines your point: In a piece devoted to exposing the unrealistic standards women are held to, your first concern is this woman's BMI.

The judge recanted, and she won't go to jail.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060301missbrennertrial,1,7979722.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

This is running around the blogosphere now without that update. Can you amend the article, please?

Interesting, I was just thinking much of this while reading Salon's "Mommy Wars" review today. Why on earth does everyone act like it's only women's problem to deal with childcare? Start framing the debate as a worker problem, and get the men involved!

I can't access the People article, but the other article claims that the oldest son is the woman's and another man's, and the two younger sons are the woman's and her fiance's. So, how are these people "three or more people not related by blood?" The two youngest are blood relations of everyone in the house.