Choke Your Chicken, But Please Don't Kiss Them
The CDC Warns Chicken Owners Against Kissing
Since we’ve all gotten in the habit of taking relationship advice from the CDC, I feel it is my duty to tell you that the Atlanta-based public health agency would like you to stop canoodling with your backyard chickens. Owning chickens has become increasingly popular in suburban areas in recent years. While it might make for great omelets, it is also making people sick. In guidance released last week, the CDC explained that there have been 163 cases of salmonella linked to backyard birds and specifically told chicken owners: “Don't kiss or snuggle backyard poultry, and don't eat or drink around them. This can spread Salmonella germs to your mouth and make you sick." I admit I can’t imagine hugging a chicken. When it comes to pets, I am a dog person and only a dog person. I’m allergic to cats and their aloof nature. The rodents I have had in my house on occasion have all be unwelcomed guests, and my kids’ pleas for guinea pigs, hamsters, or gerbils have been met with resounding “hells no.” All attempts at owning fish have ended badly (for the fish). But I have spent a great deal of time in my life cuddling poodles. Gus, the current poodle, doesn’t give kisses, but he likes to get close to your face and sniff and I let him, knowing full well where that snout has been. Years ago, a dog trainer told me not to hug my puppy for a week. I lasted an hour. So I get it and I feel a little bad for chicken owners (and owners of turtles, bearded dragons, and hedgehogs all of whom got similar warnings). Perhaps you need a poodle?
Condom Scandal Rocks Zambia
Zambia’s government is embroiled in a scandal over a national contract to import condoms and a four-month lag between learning that the condoms were defective and the decision to recall them. Audrey Natsai Simango wrote a piece for TheBody (an outlet that is near and dear to me) that explains both the timeline of the scandal and the damage it has caused.
Like many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia has been severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic but has made some progress in recent years. As of 2018, there were 1.2 million people living with HIV in Zambia, the prevalence of HIV among adults 15-49 was 11.3%, and about 48,000 new adult infections and 17,000 deaths occur each year. On the positive side, as of 2019, 87% of people living with HIV were aware of their status, 89% were on treatment, and 75% were virally suppressed.
In August of 2020, Zambia’s health ministry awarded a $17 million contract to a Honeybee Pharmacy to import condoms, latex gloves, and pregnancy tests for distribution to the public and use in hospitals. Simango describes Honeybee as a little-known, walk-in pharmacy “with no discernable website.” The products were imported from India, and distribution began the following month.
On September 22, 2020 the health ministry brought samples of the condoms to Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) for testing. The lab conducted burst tests (to see how much air a condom can hold before it bursts) and water tests (to see if there are holes in the condom that water leaks through). The condoms failed the tests. At that point, the lab was supposed to contact the health ministry, and the health ministry should have recalled the faulty products.
Why this didn’t happen is not entirely clear, but after the failed tests became public in January 2021, one spokesperson for the Zambia Medicines and Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) told lawmakers that they were waiting to have the results confirmed at a World Health Organization (WHO) lab in Zimbabwe. Obviously, they needed to recall the faulty condoms first and get a second opinion, well, second. Instead, the condoms were not pulled from the market until the public revelation of these failures in January.
Now, many people in the country are reeling from the repercussions of using faulty products. In TheBody article, a mother of a 19-year-old says her son contracted HIV from his first sexual experience despite using Honeybee condoms, and a doctor explained: “I have three patients who say they fell pregnant whilst their partners were wearing Honeybee condoms. I told them, ‘I, as your doctor, am sleepless too because I don’t know if latex gloves I wore in theatre are safe.’”
In addition to personal fears of HIV and pregnancy, experts in the country are worried that condom use, which is already low, will suffer moving forward. One scientist explained it this way: “This is such a disastrous scandal. Expect less condom use in the communities. Stigmas associated with condoms are already significant in Zambia. Studies say about 35% of women and 54% of men used condoms in their last intercourse with a non-marital partner, which is already a low number. This saga will feed further conspiracy theories against condoms.”
Just to make sure this Sex on Wednesday article doesn’t contribute to any conspiracy theories, please remember that in the U.S. condoms are a Class II medical device. The manufacturing process (which I’ve gotten to see, twice) is thoroughly regulated. In addition to testing some of each batch using water and air, every condom is electronically tested to ensure it doesn’t have holes.
Thank You to Two Brands Celebrating Female Sexuality
For decades, advertising has been (rightfully) blamed for helping to trap women in a cycle of body image issues by using heavily photoshopped pictures of “perfect” women to sell us the clothes, soaps, cosmetics, and diet products that can make us, if not perfect, at least better than we are now. It’s a brilliant strategy, really:make us feel insufficient and then sell us the solution.
We have had some advertisers use their powers for good over the years. The Dove Real Beauty campaign for example, uses women of all shapes, sizes, and skin tones with promises that the photos are not retouched. And, when it launched almost 20 years ago, it gave us some of the first looks at how photoshop worked and showed a generation of young women that even the models in most print ads don’t look as “good” in person as they did on the page. In the years since, we’ve had some brands take on positive sexuality as well and this week, I’ve noticed two new campaigns that keep this theme going.
K-Y jelly, which has been trying to change its image from the lube of rectal exams to something slightly sexier, is celebrating May as Masturbation Month (yes that’s a thing) with hand-painted signs on buildings in Brooklyn. With blue letters on a pink background one simply says “Hand up if you masturbate.” Another reads, “Let’s give ourselves a hand, it’s masturbation month.” My favorite though is in the picture below—I don’t think I’ve used the phrase menage a moi nearly enough in my life.
A new campaign by razor giant Gillette is asking us to reclaim the word pubic and is using a singing, dancing, short, and curly character to do it. According to a survey the company conducted, women agree that using anatomical words for the areas they are shaving would be preferable but only 18% actually use them. Instead, we rely on euphemisms like bikini area or just “down there.” The campaign would like us to #SayPubic and its dancing spokeshair would like us to know that “there’s nothing diabolical about this little follicle.”
It’s not lost on me that the company that is asking us to take pity on this animated pubic hair for being unloved is perpetuating and profiting from current grooming standards which favor far less pubic hair than mother nature intended. Still, the message that our pubes and the body parts they grow on are not gross or dirty remains a welcome one, as are messages reminding us that masturbation isn’t just for people with chickens to choke.