A Green Response to Green Birth Control

As concerns about ecological sustainability continue to impact the ways in which people think about how their actions affect our planet, some have began to take critical looks at how and to what degree our methods of contraception degrade our natural resources. "Tree-Humper: What's the greenest form of birth control?" by Slate's Nina Shen Rastogi is one such critical inspection, though it has a few lapses of green judgment.

Writing of condom selection for the eco-minded, Rastogi correctly notes that condoms "contain preservatives and hardening agents to make sure the rubber can withstand a fair amount of friction" and that those additives "make it harder for the condoms to break down in the landfill."

Due to these factors, Rastogi recommends switching to lambskin condoms. I totally disagree for two reasons. First, lambskin condoms do not prevent the transmission of STIs like latex and polyurethane condoms do, putting you and your partner(s) at risk for infection. Why don't they protect against STIs? Well, that begets the second reason you shouldn't switch to lambskin condoms, that being that they are cruel and disgusting. Lambskin condoms are actually made of sheep, meaning that sheep are killed and their intestines harvested for the production of lambskin condoms. I don't know about you, but I really don't desire cute, now-dead sheep intestines to be anywhere near my body, much less my genitals. And, returning, why do lambskin condoms unable to protect against STIs? Because they are made of organic tissue, lambskin condoms have pores, and any viral STI is small enough to pass through said pores. Moreover, the fact that lambskin condoms are derived from sheep means that, in order to make a lambskin condom, you must first make a sheep, and that takes a lot of resources. One study by Cornell University finds that that the energy-input to meat-output ratio of sheep husbandry is 50:1. In other words, it takes fifty pounds of grain to make a single pound of sheep; with production inefficiencies like this one, lambskin condoms are hardly a "green" alternative.

Pweez don't kill me and stuff my intestines into your erogenous zones, ok?

But what about the amount of waste actually made by disposing of condoms? Well, according to Rastogi's calculations, about 1,365 tons of condom waste are produced each year in the United States, which makes condom waste less than .001% of the estimated 152 million tons of trash produced by Americans each year. For comparison, if Americans could waste only 1,365 tons of food each year, they could feed the world's hungriest several times over with the leftovers. Condom waste, then, is truly so neglible in the scope of green thinking that I feel we could focus on much more pressing things, such as the environmental effects of meat production or the continued threats of slashing environmental protection dollars.

Rastogi also exposes rising concerns about how estrogens from birth control are affecting our waters. Back in 2007, some EPA scientists found that higher concentrations of birth control hormones seeping into natural waters increased the number of intersex fish. By netting and sexing 123 fish downstream of the Boulder, Colorado water sewage treatment facility, scientists found that ten of the fish were intersex, supposedly a large number. However, this article (and the research that inspired it) fail to mention how many intersex fish are expected to be found naturally in that fish population. Oh, they didn't talk about the part in which all biosexually-dimorphous organisms have naturally-occurring intersex individuals among their populations? Cuz they do. Given that several meta-studies have disproven the myth that estrogens and phytoestrogens cause biological feminization in human males, I am highly skeptical that increased levels of mammalian sex hormones would escalate the numbers of intersex fish. In fact, the sex-determination system of fish isn't even the XX/XY system of mammals, but rather the ZW system in which males are homogametic and females are heterogametic (the opposite is true in mammals), and so any supposed correlation between human sex hormones and the biosexual expression of fish seems highly doubty.

I may not be entirely male or female, but I am ALL FABULOUS (because I'm a rainbow trout)!

Fortunately, Rastogi doesn't get caught up on this feeble argument, and instead offers that better water treatment is the best way to avoid dumping estrogens into our waterways.

So, what is something you can do to make your sex greener? Use contraception! The truth is, no matter the ways you prevent pregnancy, the truth is that the resources used to grow a person will always be greater than those to produce all forms of birth control. To make your sex even greener, you can also switch to an organic lube or stick to the internet forms of pornography to avoid excess paper production! And who said going green wasn't fun?

Being eco-conscious and sexy do mix!

The Furry Community

The furry community is a fandom of people who roleplay as anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and physical characteristics online and/or offline. A furry is an individual who identifies with the furry fandom, though the term requires self-identification, and thus who constitutes a furry and who may simply have a passing interest in the community is unclear. Furry behavior seems to differ online as opposed to offline, particularly in respect to the wearing of fursuits, as an online gathering often lacks others to see or appreciate another's fursuit. Many furries do not create fursuits, and instead roleplay their furry identity. Whether online or offline, however, furries adopt their fursona, their anthropomorphic animal character - a portmanteau of "fur" and "persona" - when they participate in furry spaces.

Furry Sairys Wolf, a well-known member of the furry community, in fursuit

The furry community is expansive, consisting of art and literature websites like FurAffinity, furry social media and personal ads sites like FurNation, furry conventions, and even a furry wiki.

The furry community is not necessarily a sexual one, though as 79% of furries report sexual interest in furries, the sexual elements of this community are tangible. Supposedly, furries feel that the media and social researchers are "mainly obsessed" with the sexual aspects of their community, which they feel evokes negative stereotypes about them by non-furries; unfortunately for those people, this blog is sexological in nature, and so I will indeed focus on the sexual aspects of their culture.

 Perhaps one of the things about their depiction that displeases furries is the connection some make between furriness and beastiality. Though furries adopt fursonas and/or may desire to engage in sex with other furries, they are not zoophiles, those with sexual interests in nonhuman animals. (This part's for you, Rick Santorum; I don't want you to get too confused and start saying terrible things about furries like you do about gays and bisexuals, ok, baby?) A central element to the fursona is the human psyche, one that is theoretically capable of consenting to sex. Given this element of furry identity, the furry community does not promote sex with animals.

Furthering a discussion about their sexual identities, there seem to be higher rates of homo- and bisexuality among furries than in the general public, with one study finding that 25.5% of furries identify as homosexual and 37.3% identify as bisexual, way, way higher than modern demographic studies of sexual orientation. The same study found that 32.7% of respondents identified as straight, lower than any research I have ever seen (which the possible exception of the demographics of Cher fans). I am apt to believe that this research is biased in some way, but various other furry sources report similar findings. Inversely, 48.9% of erotic furry art depicts opposite biosex sex while same-sex encounters are depicted 45.6% of the time.

A furry's fursuit may or may not have sexual elements. The aesthetics of fursuits differ greatly from furry to furry, some looking extremely cartoonish or sports mascot-like, others taking the appearance of a human wearing an animale-style outfit (think Catwoman), and others with a much more realistic appearance. Interestingly, very few furries actually own fursuits, as only 18% report owning at least one. (However, fursuits can supposedly be expensive and difficult to make, so the fact that few furries are fursuiters probably has more to do with economics and technical skills than desire or interest.) Of those that do own fursuits, however, many seem to exhibit sexual features, such exaggerated secondary sex characteristics like muscles for males and breasts for females or anatomical holes for penises, vulvae, and/or anuses.

A furry named Rabbit in the Moon in her sexy fursona, Autumn Vixen.
Notice Autumn Vixen's curvy body, makeup, and exaggerated breasts. 

A definitively sexual element of the furry community is well-known neologism, "yiff." The word "yiff" has a complex etymology, but its most common usage seems to be an invitation to engage in sexual activity as one's fursona. Additionally, the continuous aspect of the word - yiffing - is a derived clipping that functions as a community-specific neologism meaning "sex." I suspect that "yiff" was inspired by the bear community's "woof," though no furry sources mention this possible connection.

The cornerstone of furry sexual expression seems to be erotic art. Popular art sites like deviantART and y!Gallery, which are not furry-specific, both include large furry clubs and communities, though FurAffinity (linked earlier) - a furry-specific site - is the largest such hub. The subject matter of such art varies greatly, with furry-on-furry, furry-on-human, and transformation art seemingly to predominate. Transformation, sometimes called shapeshifting, is a genre of furry narrative in which a human morphs into their fursona. Notably, though furries are humoids, artistic depictions of furry genitalia are vastly human, often enlarged or otherwise super-human.

Though visual arts are the center of their erotic products, furry-themed literature also plays a large role in the community; transformation stories are the most common form of furry written erotica. Interestingly, many transformation stories involve nonconsentual change of form, such as when a person is made into an animal/human hybrid against their will by magic or technology. These stories suggest an interesting power dynamic element to the furry community, which I will develop later.

The second-most common form of furry sex expression seems to be online roleplaying. In an online roleplaying session, participant(s) will gather on a forum to engage in en-fursona cybersex. Furries rarely seem to meet for over VOIP technology for roleplaying that involves face-to-face elements, which I feel reflects the fact that few furries own fursuits.

Offline, face-to-face sexual contact between furries seems to be the least common furry sexual expression, though it is possible that real-life pairings involving at least one furry choose to keep their sex lives rather private, as is our cultural norm. However, recordings such as this fantastic, typical exampled called "Literal Wolf Action" expose what I think is a foundational underpinning of furry sexuality: power play. In this video, the non-fursuited individual is rather dominated by the wolf fursuited furry. The human doesn't seem to have much say in the experience, while the furry acts as a service top. Power play is also reflected in furry literature and art, particularly in transformation stories, as many involve the transition of a human into a furry against their will. Lastly, power dynamics are seen in the very subject matter of the furry communities, as there is fascinating interplay between humans and animals that manifests themselves in furry art through unconvential ways, such as bulls - domesticated animals of labor - and lions or wolves - capital predators - that penetrate or dominate humans.

Though not specifically a sexual community, sexuality clearly plays a large role in the drawn to and self-identification with the furry community. For me, two major factors of furry identity yet require more research and thought: why do gay and bi-identified furries appear in such greater populations than in the general population and what roles do power dynamics play in the formation of furry identities? If you're a furry reading this post, write me and let me know what you think about my understanding of your community and identity!

Male Oral Contraceptives

Male birth control has received a lot of media attention of late, as scientists have recently succeeded in preventing sperm production in mice. Though various news sources have referred to this developing technology as "male birth control" or "male contraception," in truth, these kind of pills will be called male oral contraceptives. The "oral" part here is important because, at present, males actually have several methods of non-oral contraception, among them condoms, the "pull-out method" (technically called "coitus interruptus"), vascetomy, and castration (no thank you).

Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center have discovered that the drug being tested on mice, BMS-189453, prevents spermatogenesis, the creation of sperm cells by an adult male's body. Previous male oral contraceptive drugs have had mixed results, many of them resulting in permanent sterilization of male mice. BMS-189453, though, does not seem to cause infertility, and allows regular, healthy sperm production soon after stopping the drug, meaning that men will be able to father children if and when their family planning goals change.

I believe wholeheartedly that we should continue to develop these technologies. One reason why we ought to support the creation of male oral contraceptives for humans is for the affective reason: progress is good. The other reason why I feel we should develop these technologies further, though, is much more multifaceted: the male pill will get men more involved in contraception, meaning couples will have more opportunities for discussion and responsibility-sharing, which are the cornerstones of intimacy.

On the other hand, though, with the inevitable production of male oral contraceptives, we must also be careful to avoid the trap of single-partner contrapception responsibility. Single-partner contraception responsibility is a term I coined to expose the erroneous notion among couples that pregnancy and STI prevention is the obligation of only one partner. Unfortunately, Dr. Joseph Alukal, the director of male reproductive health at NYU's Langone Medical Center, caters to this mental pitfall when he says that "there are plenty of men in committed relationships who choose to take onus of reproductive planning on themselves." This kind of mentality supports inequality among sexual partners by suggesting that something that is both their responsibility is the burden of only one, and attitudes like these are what have been the core obstacles to the sexual liberation and equality movements.

In developing these technologies, we must also be wary of toxicity and side effects. Unfortunately, at present, oral contraceptives taken by females have several side effects, among them an increased likelihood of certain kinds of cancer, depression, and pulmonary embolism. In their report about studies of BMS-189453, ABC News notes that the drug has an unusual history: it was originally developed "as a possible treatment for skin and inflammatory diseases," and that the drug's spermatogenesis-stopping side effect was considered "toxic." Painfully, the lead author of Columbia University Medical Center's study seems not to care much about the possible damages that could affect men, saying, "One company's toxin may be another person's contraceptive." The same comment made about women's health would be considered offensive, and sexism works both ways. Men, just like women, are an advantage to family planning, and further development of male oral contraceptives must take their health into serious consideration.

Though I support further development of these technologies, it is important - vital, even - to focus on how male oral contraceptives will not protect men or their partners from sexually-transmitted infections. Hormonal methods of birth control are very effective at preventing unintended pregnancy, but they are 0% effective at warding against potentially life-threatening STIs like HIV, whose fully-developed disease form kills 1.8 million people per year. Thus, consistent, correct condom use will and must remain the preferred choice of pregnancy and infection control, and further discussion of male oral contraceptives must include this fact.

A Wider Look at Kirsten Moore's "Why We Need Contraception Innovation"

The Huffington Post's Kirsten Moore argues that people ought to be as passionate about contraception as they are their iPhones. In one brilliant line, she writes, "As a reproductive health advocate, I can't help but wonder: What if we were as devoted, critical and insistent when it comes to contraceptive technologies as we are when it comes to cell phones?" The crowning glory of her positions is, however: "OK, maybe birth control isn't as sexy as a smart phone, but shouldn't it be? Actually, shouldn't it be sexier?"

She's right. While an astounding 93% of iPhone owners are satisfied with their cell phone, only 57% of women are satisfied with their pill regimen.

This idea is mind-boggling to me. The other day, I had a heated discusssion with a dear friend about a similar topic: she feels passionately that the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP)'s side effects outweigh its benefits, while I feel that the pill remains a highly-effective method of family planning on the part of women. In truth, we're both right: COCPs have a tragically-long laundry list of potential side effects, and yet they are great at preventing pregnancy. Now, far be it from me to tell my friend that she ought to begin a pill regimen - after all, I believe that men do not deserve the ability to dictate what women should do with their bodies - but I was particularly surprised when my friend stated that one of her objections to the pill is its requirement that she take a pill daily and regularly.

Yes, that's right - she told me that taking one pill at the same time each day was just too damn hard! I couldn't believe it. If one cannot trust another to care enough about their reproductive health to take one single pill each day, how can one trust them to do much else? For instance, if a cisgender man chooses not to have his gonorrhea treated by a medical professional, how can his partner trust him to have their health and wellness in mind? And also, how could my friend forget what a huge, historic lifestyle change COCPs have been for women?

I think modern women are forgetting what a radical, incredible change the invention of the pill was. There's a reason why we call it The Pill - it's the biggie that changed everything! I know why women are undereducated about the significance and importance of the pill: abstience-only sex education proponents pressure the American government to spend $50 million annually towards abstience-only sex education through Title V. That money corners states into adopting AOSE programs, meaning that young women never learn the history of the pill. And how can a person know what they have never been taught?

Moore's article continues with examples of consumer complaints and desires regarding their COCPs. Among her examples are male oral contraception, green birth control, and "multipurpose prevention technologies." What are multipurpose prevention technologies? Multipurpose prevention technologies are innovations that simultaneously prevent pregnancy and STIs. Writes she, "Remember when we had digital cameras, phones and MP3 players crowding our purses? Now we have one multipurpose device that does it all -- and fits neatly into the pocket of those skinny jeans. Why not ask for the same from birth control? Multipurpose prevention technologies would do just that: combining pregnancy prevention with STI or HIV prevention. Like a condom, these innovations would do 'double duty' and may come in [many forms]...." Well, guess what, Kirsten Moore? We already have those, and they're called condoms!

Her thoughts about multipurpose prevention technologies in relation to women's dissatisifaction with their pill reigmens is where her argument becomes a little, well, silly, for the truth is that condoms will always be a preferable method of unintended pregnancy prevention because they, unlike hormonal methods of contraception, also protect against sexually-transmitted infections like syphilis and HIV. While there are many ways of managing an unintended pregnancy - abortion, adoption, and raising the resulting child among them - modern medicine is greatly lacking in the ability to cure the most detrimental STIs. Strangely, Moore doesn't touch on this subject. Perhaps she imagines that her audience is made entirely of monogamous opposite-sex couples who tested STI-negative prior to their sexual relationship together and thus the worry of infection or disease is not present, but as a single gay man who reads her works, I prove that her audience isn't that specific.

Moore's argument that people ought to be more invested in their family planning than they are in their possessions made by Apple isn't wrong, it's simply myopic. Instead of focusing on how women are unhappy when they have to take a single pill each day, we should focus on how proper condom use bypasses said problem by making it possible for women to forgo hormonal birth control if they so choose and has the more-than-nifty added bonus of keeping them safe from STIs.

Word of the Day: Passing

passing (n): it's a lot easier to accept myself if you accept me first

Responce to "List of Cisgender Privileges"

The other day, a friend and transgender activist posted a "List of Cisgender Privilages" that she had found online. This list, a notable transgender meme, was supposedly inspired by "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," a shortened form of feminist and anti-racist scholar and activist Peggy McIntosh's 1988 essay "White Privilege and Male Privilege: a Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies." This latter work, though at present a tad dated, is a serious player in Gender Studies circles, and McIntosh is a well-respected figure.

This list inspired by her work, though, isn't as brilliant. To the positive, the list - which I will post here and to which I will respond line-by-line - makes some solid and impactful assessments; to the negative, though, it makes just as many half-baked ones, which neither further the movement for social equality and justice for transgender people nor paints a totally-accurate account of their realities.

The author of this particular list is unknown. Additionally, what I like about said list is that it looks upon cisgender people as the subject. Too often, non-heteronormative people are studied and scrutinized as the "other," meaning that almost all research fails to look back and study the majority. This list attempts to undo this problem by studying the majority, something expertly suggested by Toni Morrison in her 1992 piece Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.

Word of the Day: Refractory Period

refractory period (n): the timespan, usually in a male, after orgasm in which a person is incapable of achieving another orgasm

After a male orgams, his penis becomes flaccid and he cannot orgasm for some time; this is the refractory period. The vast, vast majority of males experience a refractory period, and it lasts about thirty minutes on average. It is normal for a man's refractory period to grow longer as he ages; some studies find that 18-year-old men have a refractory period of about fifteen minutes and 70-year-olds have one that last about two hours. A few males do not have a refractory period, or at least one that is only a few seconds, although they are a very small minority.

Unlike males, females do not usually have a refractory period, and thus they are able to acheive multiple orgams through continued stimulation. Pro Tip, men into women: your refractory period is a great time to focus on your partner, maybe through oral sex or another beloved activity that doesn't require your genitals. She'll definately appreciate this time, gentlemen!

Trannygirl15 on "Why Men Like Transsexuals"

In her vlog “Why Men Like Transsexuals,” trannygirl15 offers her opinions on how and why heterosexual and bisexual men may be attracted to transsexual women. Unfortunately, she gets it all really, really wrong. Now, Maxine does state that she offers her own opinions in her vlog, and you and I can take solace in the fact that her opinions aren’t based on any empirical evidence!

Trannygirl15 begins her video with a pseudo-factoid that really interests me: she claims that men interested in trans women outnumber the latter 20-plus:1. She cites the prevalence of “shemale” pornography as proof of this assertion. Herein begin the fundamental complications with this position. Firstly, in citing pornography, Maxine suggests that porn reflects real-world sexualities. I have major reservations against this assertion, for pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry that utilizes fantasy and compensated models to titillate; real-world sexualities, on the other hand, are intimate and personal, multifaceted and innumerable totalities of sexual experiences that are far too grand and special to capture in a mass-produced product. Just in terms of scale, there’s simply no way that pornography accurately depicts any individual’s whole sexuality, so Maxine’s suggestion falls to inherent fallacy. Secondly, in her insinuation that trans admirers are attracted to “shemale” porn, Maxine forgets that that are plenty of people who are attracted to trans people regardless of their trans identity! That is, Maxine, when someone is attracted to you, who happens to be a transsexual woman, that does not mean that they are interested in you specifically because you are trans; you are a tall, slender, large-breasted woman with an attractive face, and so it’s really not too strange to imagine that strangers might be attracted to you!

Trannygirl15 also recounts a personal anecdote that I find to exhibit a high degree of internalized transphobia. She relates that she has been approached by men at bars several times and, wanting to escape their advances, she decides “to tell them that I am a transsexual… and that will hopefully freak them out a little.” Her underlying argument here, tragically, is that transsexual people are innately undesirable partners; after all, they must be unfashionable partners if revealing one’s trans identity is presumably enough to end unwarranted advances, right? This suggestion proliferates the discourse that transgender and transsexual people are “defective” members of their desired biosex. I find this kind of thinking extremely offensive. I also find it to be counterproductive to the goals of the complete trans equality and integration that Maxine supposedly hopes to inspire through vlogging.

Next, Maxine agrees that “some” admirers of transsexual women may simply be gay men who are subverting their homosexual desires by partnering with the next-best thing. Essentially, the argument here is, “Well, she’s really a man, but she looks feminine enough that no one will think I’m a homo.” The lines of thought behind this assertion are feeble. For one thing, if trans admirers were really just highly-closeted homosexuals, they’d simply just sleep with members of their own sex. Why would they go through this supposed charade of heteronormativity with transsexual women if they were interested in sexing other men all along? If you’ve ever checked any Craigslist personal ad, you’d know that there is a whole world of underground, closeted homo- and bisexual people who are looking to connect with  other closeted people; trans people don’t really fit anywhere into that equation, so it’s confusing (and troublesome) that “guru” Maxine suggests they do. As a gay man myself, I can freely say that we’re not interested in trans women. Why? Because they’re women! We’re hoping for strapping David with overdeveloped arms, a beard, and a chocolaty baritone voice, not beautiful Sarah with curvy hips!

Gay 101

Her next reason why some men might like transsexual women is that these men have a “penis fetish.” Here, trannygirl15 gets the technical definition of a “fetish” wrong. Per the word’s true definition, a fetish is something that a person must have in order to feel sexually satisfied. Thus, there are two issues with Maxine’s thinking: one, most male admirers of trans women already have their own penises (Imagine that!); and two, if they truly require their partner to have a penis in order to feel sexually fulfilled, they would thus have to be exclusively attracted to pre-op or non-op transsexual women or cisgender men so that they could interact with another penis. These logical assumptions, though, don’t stand up to real-world scenarios, for trans admirers are seemingly heterosexual and likely not attracted exclusively to trans women, and thus trannygirl15’s assessment is wrong.

Lastly, she muses that a lack of anatomy education for children might leave some young males with the impression that females have penises, creating a lasting sexual desire for women with penises. For the record, I agree with Maxine’s first argument that there is a serious lack of sex education, which leaves a serious gap in information for young people. The second part of this theory, though, is really far-fetched. By the time puberty begins, word has definitely gotten around that genital sexual dimorphism exists, and I highly doubt that there are many pubescent males masturbating to the image of their friend’s older sister’s penis. Additionally, this argument Maxine makes contradicts her earlier assessment that trans admirers are extremely more numerous than trans women, which creates an impassable paradox.

Dear readers, I think it is important to reflect on why this topic is meaningful at all. After all, the topic, boiled down to its foundation, amounts to “Why do hetero- and bisexual men like women?” as if that’s the most complicated or unfathomable question of the millennium. In her video, I think trannygirl15 unwillingly offers a look into the intellectualizations of transsexual women, a minoritized group of individuals who struggle with overcoming the fallacious stereotypes pushed upon them by pornography. (That’s for another blog.) But, in reality, why is it so important to “figure out” why men might be attracted to trans women. Imagine if you constantly needed to ask and question your partner about why s/he likes you; eventually you’d drive yourself crazy and annoy the hell out of your partner. Instead, there is a degree of mutual suspension of intellectualization that is inherent in pairbonding, and unfortunately, trans people are not yet permitted to experience that suspension due to outside cultural pressures.

Out Magazine's Disrespectful Power 50 List

Today, Out Magazine released their fifth annual Power 50, a list they compile of the fifty most-“power[ful] and talent[ed].” Having the largest monthly circulation of any LGBT periodical with 203,000 copies per month, Out is arguably a major player in LGBT news, identity, and community. It is both disappointing and hurtful, then, that four of the top ten featured individuals are not outly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

Placed this year at number three, Anderson Cooper. Cooper’s place on the list is not in question – after all, he headed the late-2010 national media coverage on the series of suicides by young LGBT people due to bullying; he closelined anti-gay, totally-delusional bigot Andrew Shirvell on stalking and bullying the gay Student-body President of the University of Michigan; and he’s obviously gay. (Thanks, Kathy Griffin!) What is in question, though, is Out’s decision to place him on the top ten, for though he may be very influential and attractive, Anderson Cooper is not out. Unbelievably, Cooper beat out Rachel Maddow, an equally-influential political commentator who is actually brave enough to be open about her lesbianism. (Maddow came in at number four, one spot behind Cooper.)

At number six is Shepard Smith, the longstanding Fox News host of Fox Report with Shepard Smith. Smith’s position on the list is utterly, completely baffling. None of Smith’s official bios note that he is gay or bi; said bios do, however, note that he was once married to a college classmate (a woman) and that the pair divorced in 1993! To add insult to injury, Smith’s show frequently features anti-gay zealots such as Mike Huckabee and Maggie Gallagher. But there are a lot of internet rumors about Smith’s sexuality, aren’t there, Out? So that totally makes his inclusion logical!

Peter Theil, American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, and Libertarian (aka Ron Paul enthusiast), is number seven. Like Anderson Cooper, Thiel’s inclusion on the list isn’t a complete mystery, for he has supported the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GoProud. However, like the previous two entries, Theil is not out, and may not even be LGBT.

Finally, Barry Diller is number 8. Diller is a very wealthy media executive; indeed, as the list focuses on power, Diller has plenty to go around. His inclusion on Out’s list though, is built entirely on gay rumors began by Andy Warhol, who you can totally believe because he is well-known for telling the truth. Apparently, lots of people assumed that Diller is gay, and ergo he deserves to be on Out’s list. That’s some integrity-filled compiling, Out Magazine!

What upsets me most about Out’s list if the lack of respect for LGBT people found within it. By placing four individuals who are not out, maybe not even LGBT, and not specifically straight allies of the community within the top ten, Out asserts that out LGBT people aren’t worthy of being on a list specifically-designed to celebrate them. Instead, the message that Out’s line-up sends is, “Yeah, confident and brave out LGBT activist, you might be working hard to achieve equality, but you’re not as good as these two closet cases, a really rich guy who some crazy artist wanted to be gay, and a Fox News commentator. They’re the REAL LGBT powerhouses.” Put simply, Out, fuck you.

Out’s actions continue the meme that LGBT people are unworthy, that they deserve to be second-class citizens, that they don’t deserve self-respect and community pride. As an LGBT periodical, Out’s very purpose should be to fight this kind if ideology; Out, however, seemingly disagrees, human dignity be damned.

Ask Sexpertesse: Is my Post-Orgasm Depression Normal?

Dear Sexpertesse,

I am a nineteen-year-old male, and am a healthy person. However, I have this problem: I feel really sad and lonely after masturbating. This problem is so big that it prevents me from even trying most of the time, although I have no problems feeling horny or getting hard or anything like that. Is this normal? Can I do anything to prevent it?

Dear reader,

Take a deep breath, for what you are experiencing is a real thing and you can overcome it!

What you describe is called Post-Coital Tristesse, or PCT. Post-Coital Tristesse means “after-sex” (from Latin) “sadness” (from French), and it is characterized by intense sadness, depression, melancholy, and/or anxiety after orgasm. PCT usually lasts between thirty minutes and two hours. Additionally, PCT supposedly affects more men than women.

Post-Coital Tristesse is caused by a very-predictable flux in hormones that occurs in all humans after orgasm. After orgasm, levels of dopamine – a hormone heavily associated with sexual pleasure – plummet in the brain. At the same time, dopamine is also responsible for regulating the hormone prolactin, which is secreted continuously by the lactotrope cells in the absence of dopamine. With the lack of dopamine, prolactin levels rise, which retards the sexual arousal cycle (causing the refractory period) and, more importantly to the topic, induces the unwanted feelings of negativity. In other words, once a person orgasms, their levels of prolactin increase, which causes the depressive feelings of PCT. PCT, then, is a condition in which a person’s body does not reach hormonal equilibrium quickly enough after orgasm. Fortunately, there is some evidence that suggests that a person can overcome this imbalance in a refreshingly-simple way!

Interesting, some clinical studies have found that as many as 86% of people experiencing PCT are able to overcome it by simply reminding themselves that PCT is nothing more than a chemical imbalance that will soon right itself. Thus, what I recommend to you, dear reader, is this: when next you experience these negative feelings after orgasm, say aloud, “These feelings are not my fault. They are PCT, they will go away as my hormones regularize, and I will feel normal and content again soon!” This method isn’t quirky or unscientific; after all, thinking itself is a neurochemical and –electrical process, just like the unconscious thoughts through which the brain regulates hormone levels. Talk about the power of positive thinking, huh?!

Supposedly, most people will experience Post-Coital Tristesse a few times during their lifetime, but only a few will experience it serially or regularly. For this latter, smaller group, 86% of them will rid of these feelings through education about PCT and the way it works within two years. For those other 14%, though, they may want to consult with an endocrinologist and/or a therapist or sex therapist in their area for different help.