When I started my idea of an "Awesome Award", it was kind of a lark (and a way to celebrate a pal)... but I've actually kept an eye out for additional posts that meet my own, personalized, criteria for awesome posts that really sum up a particular issue. And I found one! Via Ezra (and a reminder that he tries to be one of the good guys), this, well, awesome post from Jessica at Feministing, taking on the whole idea of a "hookup culture" and pointing out that it's really just more "dirty girl" propaganda from the far right:
And these books are just the latest in a long line of publications and reports - almost all put out by conservative organizations (and I'll explain why that's important in a minute) saying that hooking up is the most dire issue facing young American women today.
A short publication - a little booklet meant for college women - put out by the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, for example, says that the more sexual partners women have, the more depressed they are and that young women who have sex are just going to end up sad, lonely dropouts with HPV.
(I'm paraphrasing obviously, but this is in fact what was written in the publication.)
The booklet hinges so much on scare tactics that it goes as far as to wish STDs on fictional characters.
"It's easy to forget, but the characters on Grey's Anatomy and Sex in the City are not real. In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They'd likely be on Prozac or Zoloft."
Just as an aside, I think it's really telling that a lot of anti-hook up books rely on anecdotes from TV or the movies - characters that are totally fictional - because they often can't find real life examples for their scare tactics.
That's just part of it. Go read the whole thing.
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