No, That's Not What Happened
The Misleading Headlines Edition
There’s never a shortage of stories about sex in the news. To make sure that I know about them, I share a news “clipping” service with a friend. It’s great but scrolling through it can be tedious as the search parameters aren’t perfect—I get info on any study that collects demographics on “sex, education;” read about every new role given to someone who is/was in Netflix’s show Sex Education; and learn about any drug that requires those who take it to also be on birth control. The service doesn’t screen for duplicates which means some days all 100 headlines are the same. And, lately I’ve noticed an increase in the number of clearly far right publications that make it onto my list with stories about unborn babies, Biden’s latest atrocity, and the horrors of sex education. Some of these headlines are so far exaggerated that I find myself screaming “that’s not how it f**king works” before I even click the link and others are clearly just clickbait. This week, some of the more outrageous headlines were about the controversy in NYC private schools that I mentioned in an earlier issue. Fox News ran this beauty: “NY Times blasted for defending 'pornography literacy' for first graders: 'These people are sick.’” The subhead suggested that NYT reporters should be institutionalized. Faithwire went with “Sex Ed Teacher Resigns After Teaching 6-Year-Old Students ‘It Feels Good’ to Touch Your Genitals,” as if it was obvious that saying such a thing would end anyone’s career. As I said a few weeks ago, I don’t know enough about what was said in the classes to comment on this controversy, but these headlines are certainly pushing it for the sake of outrage. The educator in question taught porn literacy to high school students, not first graders, and six-year-olds already know it feels good to touch their genitals because they’ve all, you know, touched their genitals. In honor of this absurdity, I decided to devote this issue to the true stories behind some of the headlines I’ve read this week.
No, the Beds in the Olympic Village Are Not Anti-Sex
It is true, the organizers of the Tokyo Olympic games, which start on Friday, would prefer that the athletes not go back to each other’s rooms after they win the gold, but that’s not why the beds are made out of cardboard. Much has already been written (some of it by me) about sex and the athletes’ village. The media focused on the seeming hypocrisy of asking competitors not to hang out in close quarters (naked or not) because of the risk of spreading Covid-19 and then handing out 160,000 condoms. Organizers later referred to the condoms as souvenirs for athletes to take home.
Last week the New York Post reported that the single beds provided to athletes were purposely made out of cardboard so that they would break if anyone tried to have sex on them. True to form, the paper seems to have gotten that information from a tweet sent by U.S. long-distance runner Paul Chelimo who wrote: “Beds to be installed in Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard, this is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes. Beds will be able to withstand the weight of a single person to avoid situations beyond sports.” In subsequent tweets, the runner warned athletes not to pee on their bed because it could collapse once it got wet and said he was practicing sleeping on the floor just in case.
Chelimo was clearly joking but the Post ran the story with the headline: “Athletes to sleep on ‘anti-sex’ cardboard beds at Olympic Games amid COVID.” Organizers were quick to respond that this was not the reasoning, an Irish gymnast filmed himself jumping on the bed to prove it would not collapse even under the pressure of acrobatic sex, and every media outlet in the country not owned by Rupert Murdoch ran articles refuting the Post.
The truth is the beds were ordered long before Covid when organizers were picturing a normal Olympics complete with horny athletes in the best shape of their lives happily canoodling wherever they pleased. The beds were chosen to furnish the temporary housing because they were made out of sustainable material and had modular mattresses that could accommodate athletes of many sizes and body types.
Organizers are, however, discouraging sex and socializing by banning the sale of alcohol as keeping athletes safe from Covid is becoming more difficult with the highly contagious Delta variant spreading through Asia. Already, U.S. tennis player Coco Gaugh has dropped out because of a positive test result and an alternate on the women’s gymnastics team, who is fully vaccinated, has tested positive as well.
If they want to make it through the games without Covid, competitors may have to take those condoms home after all.
No, Condoms Won’t Corrupt Chicago’s Fifth Graders
If you read to outlets like Christianity Today, Fox News, Black Christian News, and CBN you might be worried about the indoctrination of very young children in Chicago who are clearly going to be corrupted by the very presence of condoms in their schools. Headlines on this one include:
Parents Outraged As Chicago Schools Grant Fifth Graders Access To Condoms
Chicago Public Schools To Give Students Over 10-Years-Old Access To Condoms
Chicago schools to offer condoms to fifth graders: ‘Society has changed’
Chicago Schools Claim Dishing Out Condoms To 5th Graders Is Needed Because Racism
Here we go: This is what happens when you elect a lesbian married-to-a-woman as mayor: ‘What is happening to this country?’ Outrage erupts as Chicago announces it will provide free condoms to all public school children ages 10 and up
Though I applaud the attempt to blame the lesbian mayor (lesbians, as we all know, are known to be big condom users), thefederalist.com article that links this to the fake hubbub over critical race theory provides the best example of stirring up controversy where there isn’t one without printing anything that’s downright false.
It starts with a dated picture of a child who looks younger than 10 sitting next to an older woman. The child is holding a female condom (I have to wonder if the photo editor realized that) and on the table in front of him is a bunch of bananas, two dolls, and some spermicidal vaginal suppositories. (If I’d know it was that kind of party….)
The article says that a new policy is “dishing out contraception to minors who have largely yet to undergo puberty, suggests schools will receive “thousands of condoms” and can ask “the government” for more, and argues that “many of the students receiving prophylactics are just in 5th grade.” It goes on to include an accurate quote from the district’s doctor, Kenneth Fox, who says that without these resources: “…bad stuff happens to young people. You have elevated risks of sexually transmitted infections, of unintended pregnancies, and that’s very preventable stuff.” But then scoffs at his reasoning and suggests it’s all guided by “critical race theory dogma.”
All of that is almost right. Chicago Public Schools will be starting a new condom availability and period supplies program. Any school that has 5th grade students or above will be part of that. There will be thousands of condoms handed out overall. And this is part of an effort to make access to health information and supplies more equitable. That’s about where the truth ends.
Elementary schools will only be given 250 condoms each (not thousands), if a school wants more condoms they have to as the district (not some secret government cabal), no kid will be given a condom unless they ask for one, and this is not tied to critical race theory (though supporters of the program believe equity is important).
Unspoken in all of this outrage is that providing condoms to students, especially young ones, will somehow make kids who were otherwise uninterested in sex go out and get busy whether by putting ideas in their heads or subtly giving them permission. Nope, that’s not how it f**king works, and we have almost 30 years of research on this one.
Kids in schools with condom availability programs do not have sex sooner or more often but they are more likely to use condoms when they do become sexually active. Research has also shown that the “license to be promiscuous argument”—which we’ve hear about access to condoms, birth control, emergency contraception, and the HPV vaccine—has been proven false countless times. (If you want to read more about this argument, it’s Myth #32 in 50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality by Pepper Schwartz and Martha Kempner.)
My favorite bit about the federalist article is the quote from the outraged parent, Maria Serrano, who says: “My question is, ‘Oh my G-d, how is it that CPS wants to give condoms to kids?' They are 10 years old, 11, 12. They are kids. So why is CPS thinking about providing condoms?” That quote is accurately lifted from a piece in the Chicago Sun Times, but what the federalist article doesn’t explain is that Serrano is upset because CPS doesn’t offer enough sex education.
The next part of her quote explains: “Why not provide them information, and at the end give them the resource of a condom when they are prepared to use those resources they want to provide. For me, this isn’t the best option. They are doing things backwards.”
She sure sounds outraged to me.
No, A Kid Was Not Born Holding His Mother’s IUD
Okay, this one wasn’t a problem with the headline but with the person reading it (me). The headline said: “Newborn Holds Mom's IUD in First Baby Pictures” which I read to mean he was born with the IUD in his hand. It struck me as unlikely at best, but I could picture it because during my amnio the fetus then known as Sprocket grabbed the needle. The OB told me it happened all the time.
What doesn’t happen all the time, of course, is pregnancy with an IUD which is considered more than 99% effective—the copper IUD has a 0.8 failure rate and IUDs like Mirena that release hormones have a failure rate between 0.01 and 0.04%. Women who do get pregnant with an IUD face a higher risk of ectopic pregnancy—when a fertilized egg starts to grow somewhere other than the uterus, most often the fallopian tube. They also face a higher pregnancy loss, pre-term birth, low birth weight, and bacterial infections. Research suggests some of these risks can be lowered by removing the IUD before delivery.
In the case of Paula dos Santos Escudero Alvarez, however, that wasn’t possible because of the string of the IUD was not visible. So, it was left in place until after delivery. Paula and the hospital’s newborn photographer both seem to have a sense of humor, which is impressive right after labor, and took a few pictures right after birth with the baby holding the IUD.