Pull out and pray : Chron column

Image by patre35. I recommend pulling out immediately.

This is last week’s column, which I’d better get to you here before this week’s column is live. Have I been busy? Yes, and in the best ways possible. I have been doing things like modeling and spending time with loving friends offline, and chasing down the Mayor for interviews, writing for SF Appeal, and starting to enjoy the effects of Spring, which is making me deliciously interested in… trouble. I haven’t been this happy in at least six months. And I have fully bounced back from my breakup; I’m dancing again, even. Anyway, my column Pull Out And Pray was one of my best pieces this year, and it’s full of passion. I got emails and tweets saying it was superb. It was so cool to see the photo gallery added; my editor definitely has a rad sense of humor. I hope you think so, too, and do click through for all the chilling links:

It was when Bristol Palin’s babydaddy Levi Johnston told Tyra Banks on her Monday show that he and Bristol practiced “safe sex” that I truly doubted the new Cal State Fullerton research findings stating that sexual precociousness and the age at which we lose our virginity might be determined by genetics — and not necessarily social factors. Because when the Palin camp countered that Bristol still advocates abstinence, I had to wonder if social factors — like generational ignorance — didn’t actually play a stronger role than genes.

Then I fantasized that scientists came up with a virus that made being stupid actually cause physical pain. I mean, even Tyra wasn’t buying it.

But that still didn’t explain exactly what kind of “safe sex” the underage Palin allegedly practiced, or what it means when a teen mother claimed to practice abstinence. Maybe you have to keep practicing until you can actually do it.

Or maybe we’re just still living the waking nightmare of abstinence education in public schools. I found myself at a tech party last weekend chatting with a group of people, half of whom were not from the US, asking me what sex ed was like in the US. “Abysmal,” I replied. Explaining the eight years America suffered from the strong-arm tactics of the Bush administration to enforce so-called abstinence education as a form of sex ed in public schools, I told the group that we still have a long, long way to go to undo the harm abstinence programs have done.

“It’s like everyone teaching kids to ‘just say no’ to sex instead of telling them practical information forgot that teenagers are totally freaking out about sex all the time and thanks to the hormones in their bodies are actually chemically insane.” And then I added, which is pretty much why America currently has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the western industrialized world, costing taxpayers $9.1 billion per year. New numbers show teen births are on a steady rise, with abstinence education at the heart of the issue. And I told the group that sadly, it was a trend many front-line sex educators saw headed our way a long time ago.

One woman asked, “When did you see it trending?” (…read more, sfgate.com)

* Mildly concerned that the cat just ran full speed through my line of sight while writing this after he made a lot of noise in the living room. Now there is a lot of noise in the bathroom and he is *not* responding to my calls. Uh oh. I just hope it’s not messy; I’ve got Eon McKai and Pixie Pearl as house guests tonight at the Bungalow… Shit, he just flew by again. Eeep :/