That really stupid fucking thing McCain said at the debate about 'women's health'

CosmoGIRL! RIP

I'm sad and angry to hear CosmoGIRL! magazine is folding (it lost the teen mag war to fellow Hearst magazine Seventeen)

It's is a real shame because although CosmoGIRL! had its share of 'get sexy hair' articles and too-thin teen models, what set them apart from the pack was this:

They were a consistent source of intelligent sexual health information for its teen girl readers. Nothing like big sister Cosmo, the magazine wrote about sex, virginity, lesbianism, pregnancy, abortion and our very own lovely vaginas in a totally age-appropriate and comfortable way.

Here's a quote from tech diva - and our occasional collaborator - Ellen Ko (stay tuned for her full appreciation of the mag):

Too bad about CosmoGirl! I thought it was the closest thing to Sassy (besides Bust, of course, but that's for a slightly different generation). Perhaps teaching girls to be smart and confident diminishes their ability to be mindless consumers, which means less effective advertising. Sigh.

We interviewed the magazine's awesome Editor-in-Chief Susan Schulz for the documentary The American Virgin. Here's part of her interview mixed in with the thoughts of other notables such as Dr Joycelyn Elders. I'll post some more of Susan in the next couple of days.

72 Virigns, by Steve Martin

A little virgin humor: Here's the beginning of an essay Steve Martin did for the New Yorker a while back...click on the link to get all 72 of them:

Virgin No. 1: Yuck.

Virgin No. 2: Ick.

Virgin No. 3: Ew.

Virgin No. 4: Ow.

Virgin No. 5: Do you like cats? I have fourteen!

Virgin No. 6: I’m Becky. I’ll be legal in two years.

Virgin No. 7: Here, I’ll just pull down your zipper. Oh, sorry!

Virgin No. 8: Can we cuddle first?

Virgin No. 9: It was a garlic-and-onion pizza. Why?

Virgin No. 10: … so I see Heath, and he goes, “Like, what are you doing here?,” and I go, “I’m hangin’ out,” so he goes, “Like, what?” …

UK discovers Purity Balls. And guess what?They think they're creepy.

BBC4 just broadcast a documentary called "The Virgin Daughters" about America's very own purity ball phenomenon. From the show's website:

This week Cutting Edge explores the controversial purity movement currently sweeping across the United States. One-in-six American girls now pledges to remain a virgin – and some even to save their first kiss – until their wedding day. But is this their decision, or their fathers'?

Providing a fascinating insight into America's heartland, award-winning documentary maker Jane Treays follows a group of fathers and daughters as they prepare to attend a Purity Ball in Colorado Springs.

Wait, one in six girls pledge to remain virgins? It's the first time I've heard that number. Anyone know where it came from?

I haven't seen the film yet, but I hope it's not all "look at those wacky bible-thumping Americans." This is still a fringe movement, folks, despite the fact that it's been reported to death in the US. Most of the American articles have had this inexplicable and maddening sympathy for these loving dads. Thankfully, in the UK they're as totally creeped out by it as I and others are. Here's a quote from the film:

"It sounds unrealistic in our day and age, it's not the exact path I went down personally, but if it can work, how cool would it be to say I've been kissed by one man in my life? How special, how cherished, how set apart? Why not shoot for the fairytale?" Ken, father of 11-year-old Hannah.

You've heard this before but I can't help myself, so here we go:

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!! "It's not the exact path I went down personally..." No. Why hold yourself to the same standards as your daughter? "How cool would it be to say I've been kissed by one man in my life?" Uh, no dad, it's not cool. It's sad and repressed. "Why not shoot for the fairytale?" Right, because those fairy tales are so empowering, like the one where the girl is locked up in a tower forever? Or maybe comatose in a glass coffin?

Calling All Bloggers:Let's Talk Virgins

Bloggers Honey and Lance have issued a call for virginity stories, so I'm submitting our whole damn blog! Yee haw! Check out their own virginity-related post here.

There's further reading at:

The Quest for T: Virginity: A Girl and Mom’s Perspective

Evil Woobie: Why Is Virginity a Big Deal Among Filipinos?

Holly Hoffman: How My Mom Helped Me Lose My V-Card

Hot Alpha Female: Lets Talk About Sex… Baby

Dad’s House: Virginity, It’s So Overrated

Thoughts on these shortly...

"My First Time," part 1?

We've been collecting "My First Time" stories from a bunch of people and I'm thinking we should post some of them. I'm totally inspired by this video. Not sure if this is a series, but here's the text:

“My First Time” by Nick Douglas.
The first time I had sex, we watched Vanilla Sky and then we did it on dinosaur sheets.

Diablo Cody Hearts Judy Blume. Don't We All!

Even though author Judy Blume has been maddeningly difficult to interview for The American Virgin, I still love her books, especially virginity-loss classic Forever. And although she keeps weasling out of interview requests, she did autograph my copy of Are You There God? It's Me Margaret for me. I didn't tell her that it, along with Letters to Penthouse Forum, constituted much of my early sex ed studies.

Juno screenwriter (and self-proclaimed radical feminist), Diablo Cody just wrote a sweet appreciation of her for EW. Here are some excerpts of Cody's piece:

A couple of years later, I began reading Blume's more controversial works, addictively squeamish stuff like the devastatingly titled Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. If Picasso had his Blue Period, then Judy Blume had her Period Period. Man, did I learn a lot about menstruation from these books. Margaret was the one that got passed around feverishly in school. Not only did it teach us a (futile) breast enhancement exercise, it introduced us to ''Two Minutes in the Closet,'' a game we played at many parties thereafter. But underneath all that hormonally charged madness lurked an affecting story about Margaret choosing between her mother's Christianity and her father's Judaism. I lived in a town where ''interfaith marriage'' meant a Polish Catholic marrying an Irish Catholic — Blume had widened my horizons yet again...

You have to wonder why no one's made a big-screen adaptation of Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself — a bracingly vivid story of a Jewish girl in postwar Florida — or Forever, an oft-banned tale of love and (virginity) loss. I imagine it's because these stories belong to young women. Real young women, not singing Disney cheerleaders, hair-flipping pop stars, or cartoonish socialites. ''Judy's girls'' are imperfect and unsure; they tend to vacillate maddeningly between outspokenness and passivity. Even physically beautiful characters (like the protagonist in Deenie) are outcasts somehow, stymied by the expectations of others. It's definitely not the stuff of Hollywood.

Thanks Melissa at Women & Hollywood for the heads-up!