Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Legal Side of Sex By Hannah Davis


There are many important aspects to sex: the emotional side, physical dangers such as diseases, the possibility of pregnancy, your sexual orientation, fetishes, and legal issues. While legal information may not be what you like to talk about when discussing sex, its important to know what consent, confidentiality, and legality mean in regards to sex.

Sexual consent means that you are agreeing to engage in sexual activities or intercourse. Both people must be willing in order for it to be consensual. It's important to get consent because both partners should be able to feel comfortable and ready for what they are doing. This means that you should make sure EVERY time that your partner is willing. In a healthy, open, communication filled relationship it should be easy to ask your partner if they want to engage in these activities. If they say no then you must stop! If you don’t it can be considered sexual assault or rape. And yes, even when in a relationship there can be rape.

If a person has been using alcohol or drugs then they cannot give consent because they aren't in their right mind. It is not okay to get someone drunk in order to sleep with them. This too can be considered rape. And lastly, a person who is asleep or unconscious cannot give consent.

When it comes to confidentiality you have certain legal rights. If you talk to a doctor or go into a clinic to talk about sex you don't have to worry about them telling others what you have talked about. There are only certain times when confidentiality can be broken and that is if you are being physically or sexually abused, thinking about hurting yourself or others, are under 16 and having sex with someone 21 or older, or if you are under 14 having sex with someone older then 14. Other then those specific things, doctors and nurses cannot tell your parent or guardian anything unless you give permission for them to be contacted. California law states that people under 18 have confidentiality when they talk about sex (including testing for STI's, pregnancy, abortions, or birth control), mental health (including counseling, anxiety, depression, stress, or problems at home or school), and drugs and alcohol (including use and getting help). If you want to speak to someone about issues, you don't need to worry that confidentiality will be broken.

In regards to legality, you are a minor in California if you are under 18. Once you reach the age of 18 you are legally of age to engage in sexual activities as long as there is sexual consent. But even when you are legally of age there are still certain actions you cannot participate in. The Statutory Rape Law in California says that if you are over 18 and having sex with a minor it is illegal and rape. If you are over 21 and having sexual encounters with someone under the age of 16 then you could be guilty of a felony. And for those of you under 18, it is illegal for two minors to have sex in California. These are the three main laws to be on the lookout for. This information is meant to help you become aware of what is and isn't legal, as well as help you make careful decisions about sexual activity. Knowing about the legal consequences is important.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A Sex::Tech Experiment by Hannah Davis


I wanted to test Google to see what pops up when people search for information regarding unwanted pregnancies. This little experiment was encouraged by Sex::Tech who wanted to see how much information is correct or helpful when a person is looking for sexual information on the Internet. I typed in my search in several ways to see how that effected the results.


I first tried “unwanted pregnancy” which had a mixture of information. The first post was called How To Get Rid of Unwanted Things. On their site it talked about the types of abortions available and natural methods like pulling out, and contraception forms to keep a person from getting pregnant. Next was Planned Parenthood who looked more positively at pregnancy and advised people think about giving up their child to adoption or keeping it instead of simply aborting. On the first page there where also sites that campaigned against teen pregnancy and tried to involve teens in having safe sex. Overall this search gave adequate and informed information.


So next I tried “I'm pregnant but don’t want it”. This search came up with a lot of sites like answers.com and yahoo answers which is were a person posts a question and has others who are randomly searching the Internet answer them. These websites all had mostly personal experiences for answers that were not necessarily based in fact. Other pages assumed that the people searching were teens or young adults or unmarried which excludes a large portion of the population who could be facing an unwanted pregnancy.


Lastly, I tried to see what would come up if I wrote “oh no, I’m pregnant” and got some interesting results. Again there were a lot of sites where people posted their personal problems and listened to others responses on what to do. Near the bottom of the first page was a website called Tracts on Evangelism, the first website specifically religious I had come across in all my searches. They wanted to use a person's pregnancy as a way to earn money through selling CD's that spoke God's word on the issue. They were against abortions and seemed to state that women should keep a baby even if it was unexpected. Besides this there was nothing new that hadn't popped up in my other searches.


Overall I found multiple reliable sources on the Internet when I typed in my searches. Some where not as useful or more sketchy, but I found a lot of the information to be somewhat helpful. I think this reinforces that you always need to be careful and double check your sources because your results can vary largely based on what you Google.


Written for the Sex::Tech 2011 Blog Carnival. Sex::Tech, the leading conference on youth, sexuality, and technology, is April 1-2, 2011 in San Francisco.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

We Are Speaking! By Hannah Davis


Have you heard the exciting news? We are going to present at the Sex::Tech Conference held in San Francisco on April 1st and 2nd. What is Sex::Tech you may ask? The event is a two day annual conference hosted by ISIS, Inc and brings together people who are technology experts, educators, researchers, social entrepreneurs, community leaders and youth and parent advocates. Each day people will be presenting on fascinating topics such as understanding the youth perspective, building your own ipod/ipad/iphone application, sexuality, gender and feminism in the age of technology and being a sex-positive educator.


Our group of volunteers, including Vanessa Lopez, Jesus Guzman, Marcos Garcilazo, and myself, Hannah Davis, along with our group facilitator Shana Friedman, will be speaking in an outbreak session the first day. During our presentation we will be discussing our program here at SCPOC, the value of peer-led social media, how holistic health approaches looks at mental health and its impact on sexual health, and the strategies we have tried using to reach the most people during our campaign. All of us are extremely excited to get the word out about our hard work and desire to teach teens about mental health and wellness.


This event is highly encouraged for teens and young adults to attend. If you are interested in going you should check out the Sex::Tech's website at sextech.org. If you are already attending this fabulous event we at SCPOC hope you will come listen to us and enjoy the experience.

Monday, March 7, 2011

How An Addiction Can Take Over Your Life By Hannah Davis



There are many types of addiction out there just waiting to tempt us. It could be food for one person, cigarettes for another, video games for someone else, or even pornography. No matter what type of addiction you have, it is a problem. When many people hear “addiction,” they think “drug addiction”, which is what we will talk about today.

Addiction is defined by dictionary.com as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma”. This means not only is what you are doing harming you mentally, physically, or both, you can’t stop.

At the point of addiction you have lost the ability to control your desires. Your body will go through withdrawal if you don’t get your fix. Have you ever tried to have a day with no coffee even though you normally have two or three cups? You may have gotten a headache or some other symptoms of withdrawal because your body is trying to adjust to the change. These symptoms differ with whatever drug you are addicted to and can be very painful.

In addition to being hooked, people who are addicted will need more and more of the substance they are addicted to as they build a tolerance. Once you have a tolerance it becomes necessary to take more in order to get the same effects.

Psychologically, a person on drugs may start to lie and steal in order to obtain their drugs. Their personality most likely will change as the drug takes over their life. Their drug use may be their misguided attempt to suppress their feelings or deal with problems that are occurring in their lives. No matter how bad things seem to be you should never resort to using drugs! Once you start it is all too easy to get addicted.

Trying to get over an addiction is a very hard thing to do. Quitting is most likely the hardest thing people will ever have to do. For instance, imagine your favorite food. What if you could never eat it again? It’s hard to let go of something that makes you feel good, right? Now imagine trying to stop taking something that is addicting, which you seem to need in order to survive.

There are many ways to quit drugs. Cold turkey is when you simply stop using the drug. While it sounds like a reasonable way, it isn’t always the best. The sudden stop can be very hard if you are dealing with a serious addiction. It may be easier and you may be more successful if the drug is slowly taken away. This can include cutting back on the number of drinks you are allowed to have in a night. If every week you take one away, you may be able to slowly adjust your body to the change.

Another great way is to talk to someone. Getting help and advice from your doctor is a good start. Most likely they will have dealt with others who have struggled just like you. They may have tips on how to quit and be able to explain what you may encounter on your journey to quitting, such as withdrawal symptoms and cravings you may experience. You can also talk to a psychologist who will help you discover why you started abusing drugs in the first place. This may help keep you from ever doing drugs again.

Try changing who you hang out with. If your friends are still smoking pot and you were addicted to smoking pot, don’t hang out with them! The temptation will be too much and may lead you to using again. Find new people and places to go that don’t involve those situations. By removing the temptation and starting over you will remove the chances of falling back into your addiction.

So what if you have finally overcome your addiction? Is it all over now? Sadly the answer is no. You will always have some temptation or thoughts that could lead you away from staying clean. If you do relapse you must try again to get your addiction back under control. Joining a support group may help keep you clean and be a friendly and open place to discuss your experiences and feelings as well as hear others.

If you want to see more tips for recovery check out Teens Health at http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/problems/addictions.html# to see how you can get better or help a friend through this rough time.