Video: Walt Disney Presents: 'The Story Of Menstruation'

Yes, the same Disney that makes 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Tangled' today.  In 1946, they produced a 10 minute animated short, that explained what happened to a young woman's body, every 28 days or so.  For 65 years old, the information is surprisingly practical and informative.



Who would have thought that our grandmothers were given more of a comprehensive education about puberty than our own daughters, 65 years later.  Today, schools focus so much attention on "abstinence only education", that menstruation is rarely, if at all, discussed.

As a result, young women are often wondering why they're bleeding "down there", while, at the same time doing anal, so that they don't violate the terms of their "purity rings".

My Friends Are Having A Sale On "Toys" Saturday

Hey everyone.  Thought I would just drop a quick line, and let my readers know of an online sale going on Saturday.  If you have been in the market for a couple of bedroom items to use with your partner, but don't like going to your local adult store (who can blame you), listen up.

My friends Molly and Matie own an adult sex toy retail store and sex education center in Albuquerque.  The shop goes by the name of Self Serve.  They've had the same location for, wow, four years now.  It is really a unique shopping experience.

Self Serve is not your typical sex toy store.  You won't find any creepy guys working there.  There aren't shelves of porn with hundreds of exploitative pictures on them.  They're both female and LGBT owned and operated.  Their purpose in the industry is to make sure their customers have a healthy sex life.  They only stock products that are body safe.  It sounds weird saying "body safe" when talking about a sex toy, but you would be surprised how many products on the market have chemicals and additives in them that are dangerous with extended use.  The only items in store are ones that are safe to use, and work the way that they're advertised to.

Just look at the inside of their store.  Does this look like your typical adult oriented business?

They are a huge resource to the community.  They offer sexuality workshops to their customers.  They provide meeting space for community groups.  And, they're dedicated to supporting women's health, sexual wellness and LGBT rights.  I can't say enough positive things about Molly and Matie and what they have accomplished.  Meeting them truly affected my life for the better.

Show your support for a locally owned business that is making a difference in their community.  This Saturday, July 23, 2011, Self Serve is having a one day sale from Noon till 10PM.  They are offering 20% off everything in the entire store!

Go to their website, www.selfservetoys.com, and enter the code: 20today at checkout.  All orders over $100 receive free shipping.  You can't beat that.  It's a good thing I got paid today.  :)

"Viva La Vibrator!"

Ashton Kutcher Proves Himself Surprisingly Intelligent And Understanding Of Women

I know what you're thinking.  "He couldn't possibly have typed the name Ashton Kutcher on purpose."  I'm having to check my sources a third time and make sure they're correct.  Yes, it's Ashton Kutcher.  OK, moving on.

This story is about a month old, but I thought I would still share it.  While doing a press junket for the movie 'Friends With Benefits', Natalie Portman and Ashton were talking to a writer for Movieline.com, they started talking about how they were using fake condoms during fake sex scenes.  Then out of nowhere, Ashton said the following:

"I think there’s so much that’s not said about sex in our country, even from an educational level.(snip) Sometimes we get to make films that open things up that people can talk about, and one of the interesting things (snip) is that, especially for women in the sex education process in schools, the one thing they teach about is how to get pregnant or how to not get pregnant, but they don't really talk about sex as a point of pleasure for women.
The male orgasm is actually right there and readily available to learn about because it's actually part of the reproductive cycle, but the female orgasm isn't really talked about in the education system. Part of that creates a place where women aren't empowered around their own sexuality and their own sexual selves, and from a purely entertainment point of view, to create a movie with a female lead that's empowered with her own sexuality is a powerful thing.

And if we can give teenage people something to think about from a sex perspective, I would say it would be to open a conversation where women are empowered with their own sexual experiences from an educational level as well as an entertainment level."

Wow.  I'm impressed.  To see a message like that come from someone that just a few years ago was doing 'Dude, Where's My Car?' is quite shocking to see.  Actually, to see it from any male celebrity is somewhat shocking.  He was taking a bit of a risk by putting that out there.  But he makes a valid point.

Most teenage girls learn safe sex in school, but not how to make themselves feel good.  Boys figure that out by the time they're 11.  From what I've seen, (again, from what I've seen) teenage girls learn techniques on giving blowjobs, not sexual empowerment, from their best friends.  They don't discuss masturbation or orgasms very often.  Most wouldn't have an enough of an open relationship with their mother to talk about sex or sexual pleasure.

As you go through high school, you date Johnny Football Quarterback, who comes in two minutes, and could care shit less if you come or not.  Then college comes and you're dating some douchey fratboy that sees you more as a trophy piece than as a girlfriend.

Before you know it, you're 25 and you've never had an orgasm, whether it has been by yourself or with another person.  Some people, unfortunately,are just not wired to be orgasmic.  Sadly, the majority of women that experience the 25 and "O"-less scenario are because, over the course of their sexual lives, they have been treated as objects instead of women.

They have been inundated in entertainment and social media with a lack of strong, sexually empowered women.  They have gotten used to terms like "slut, ho, and whore" being used to describe someone.  These words were originally used to degrade a woman, now some women use them to greet each other.

What Ashton said may have come out a little clumsy, but I got his point.  Things need to change in this world. It's time for a educational revolution of sorts.

Birth Control Lessons Withheld From Sex Ed Classes

A new study released today by the CDC finds that as many as one third of students do not receive birth control information during sex education classes.  While 97 percent of high school students have received some form of formal sex education class, 62 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls report being taught about condoms and other forms of birth control.  Interestingly, 92 percent of students were taught about STDs, and 87 percent of boys and 81 percent of girls were taught how to say no or abstain from sex.

The study found the main reason for this misinformation was because the Bush Administration had a thing for funding religious based, abstinence only programs to educate our children.  These programs have been proven to be ineffective at best.  Since the Obama Administration has been in place, funds have been redirected toward programs that teach both abstinence and how to use birth control.   

Studies show that after years of steady declines, the birth rate among teens rose between 2005 and 2007, only to dip in 2008, after new comprehensive based sex education programs came into existence.

A Personal Coming Out Story

With today being National Coming Out Day, I thought I would give the story of the day someone very close to myself and my family came out of the closet. That day is today, and that individual is me. I am bisexual. My story starts out confusingly enough, many years ago....

My mother's way of teaching sex education was almost encyclopedic. Her methods of explaining "the birds and the bees" were so technical and used so many "appropriate" words, that, until the age of 14, I actually thought that a vagina was the female word for the butt. I remember asking my mom what was wrong about being gay. Her response was, "They do it up the butt". I thought, "Well, doesn't everyone"?

I remember being fascinated with breasts at an early age. It didn't matter how big or small, how perky or round, count me in. But again, it wasn't until the age of 14 that I found out what made a woman...well, a woman. I was taking the trash out to the alley dumpster. The next door neighbor kid had thrown away part of his porno stash, and, on the top of the pile, was a copy of Penthouse Genesis. Genesis was the magazine Penthouse released at the time that showed the things that Penthouse couldn't get away with.

I opened the magazine up and was disgusted. "Oh my god. This girl is deformed. She has two asses. So does this one.....and this one. Oh. My. God....These. Are. VAGINAS? I'm supposed to put mine in THERE? NO WAY. NO THANK YOU." But I hid the magazine anyway. I was a "straight" kid. That's what I was supposed to do.

Throughout my teens, I fantasized about every girl I knew. Boys weren't even an option. Masturbated like a rabid wolverine. Sex education class was offered in high school health class. Of course, my mom refused to let me stay in class to participate. She felt that it did nothing but "encourage young people to have sex". I was hoping it would explain to me how sex worked. I remember seeing the pictures on the doctor's office wall of the male and female bodies split in half with everything labeled, and I still couldn't find most of the parts ON MY OWN BODY.

My health teacher was a little, old, Native American woman, who loved to inflict punishment on the two or three Jehovah's Witness kids that refused to take sex ed in her class every year. She had us go to the library every day for that period. Our alternative assignment was a 60 page, hand written, single spaced report on the health topic of our choosing. Just to be a smart ass, I chose to write my paper on sex. Most of my source material came from a Witness book called 'Questions Young People Ask: Answers That Work', which supposedly dealt with the moral and ethical issues involving sex and dating, but was mostly the perspective of a bunch of 80 year old men on the current teenage sex and dating scene. Got an A.

Anyway....moving on. As I was finishing high school and becoming an adult, all of my "worldly" (non JW) friends were saying "Come on, man. Just come out already." But I felt that I was firmly 100% straight. I had known other people in the church that were flamboyantly gay that had families and felt sorry for them. But me, no sir, straight as can be. At the time, I was still very homophobic, and had a hatred for gays and lesbians. I was brought up to hate them. My parents even taught me, "Don't call them Gay...that's their word. Call them homosexuals. That's what God calls them".

I started working at Chase Bank in '98. They were a very diverse company. At the time I worked there, I believe 38% of the employees on the campus were LGBT. That really opened my eyes. When all 3 of my supervisors, my Director, and two of my cubical mates were gay men, you can't help but break down that wall. You start to realize, "What is everyone so scared of. Why are these people a threat"? That was just the beginning of my experience with the gay community.

I answered a personal ad around the same time(I had stopped practicing as a Witness in 1996), and met a girl for lunch. Her name was Angel. We met at a sub shop. She walked in with steel toe boots, a tank top, shaved head and a pierced nose. It was love at first sight. At the end of our meal, she said, "Just to let you know, I'm lesbian."

"I sorta figured".

"My girlfriend cheated on me with some dude and I thought I would get back at her by doing the same. I can't go through with it though".

"That's cool".

We were best friends from that moment on. She took me to her favorite hang out, Ain't Nobody's Biz, a lesbian bar in Central Phoenix. We would go for karaoke every Monday night. Angel eventually started telling me, "Dude, you need to come out". This is when it got really confusing.

I placed an application at a local gay book store and gift shop, the Obelisk, as a cashier/stock person. I figured the best way to know if I'm gay is to immerse myself in the community. During the interview, the owner asked me how long I had been out to my parents. I told him I was straight. He said, "You realize, this is a GAY book store. You're going to have days where all you'll do is alphabetize the GAY PORN or GAY EROTICA". I explained to him my confusion and my dilemma. I told him, that to me, this was the most logical way to figure things out. He hired me on the spot.

My god, what an experience. First, to realize that gay people just weren't Puerto Ricans in pink feather boas...but old committed couples, gentlemen that reminded you of your grandpa, businessmen, the girliest of men, and the most embarrassed manly high school football players coming in after school to pick something up for their boyfriends.

The owner taught me so much. He was never to busy to answer a question. "What's Stonewall? Who's Harvey Milk? What's the deal with the rainbow? Why are the fat, hairy guys into me?" One thing he said to me, something I'll never forget, is this: "Adam, so many people classify themselves based upon who they're fucking. Being gay, or straight, or bi, is a lifestyle. It's in here(points to heart) and here(head). To base your whole life upon who you're sticking your dick into...that's just sad". I really took that to heart. I realized that I was physically attracted to women but I thought like a gay man.

Around that same time, Angel took me to my first gay club. I walked in and looked around. I then sat down on a couch and started crying. It was the first time I had been somewhere where I felt like I belonged, like I fit in, like I wasn't going to be judged or looked at funny. Angel leaned over and said, "I know honey. It's ok. Welcome home".

That night, I must have had a dozen guys come up to me. Poor Angel would step in and say, "Sorry, he's one of us, but he's not one of us just yet". Over the years, with Angel by my side, I made out with a couple of guys. I enjoyed it. But nothing much has happened other than that.

Since Angel and I had parted ways, I kept the secret to myself. Then came my wife. We got to a point in our relationship where I knew I could completely be myself and nothing I could say or do would scare her away. We would talk about our fantasies, and I would test the waters. We would be watching TV and I would test the waters and say something like, "Damn Taye Diggs looks hot", and she would be cool. Then we got to talking.

She wants me to be myself, just like I want her to be herself. I know she's not the country girl she was sort of pretending to be the night that I met her. She's told me she loves the fact that she has someone that can love her and be romantic with her and still have those times where she feels like she has that gay best friend.

I've been involved, in some way or another, supporting the LGBT community for a number of years now. In Albuquerque, I DJ-ed at Pride two years in a row. I'm proud to say today that I an now officially part of that community, that they are my brothers and sisters, and that together we will fight for the rights we all deserve.