As former a sexual health educator and current sexuality studies professor, I meet students whose ideas about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have been shaped by the ‘scary slideshow’: that series of full-color, close-up shots of the worst infections.

(Not safe for work–explicit images of STDs)

Are these images representative?

However cute “Warty” may be, I’m not sure that the University of Bath students are any more likely to understand their real risks of contracting HPV.

The ‘scary slideshow,’ though, prevails as the dominant series of educational images.  But, as horrified as students are by these images of disfiguring diseases, they are also reassured by them.  After all, it must be easy to avoid contracting a STD — just avoid having sex with people who have ‘cauliflowers’ of warts sprouting from their genitalia.  The truth about these epidemics is far scarier: most of us who are infected are undiagnosed, diagnosed but unclear about risks of transmission, asymptomatic and believing our lack of symptom equals being cured, or in denial about the reality of our symptoms (e.g., “Isn’t that just a pimple?”).

If we want to accurately strike fear into the hearts of sexually-active individuals, then we might want to develop a STD awareness campaign that visually speaks the truth.  Imagine a series of tasteful nude images of beautiful, sexy men and women whose genitals are clearly devoid of sores, lesions, and warts: tag lines below each photo might read “I don’t know that I’m infected with genital herpes” or “I know I have cervical HPV but my doctor never told me I’m contagious.”

A few websites post PG-13 versions of these types of images to accompany posts about sexually transmitted infections:

But, it may take more explicit images to drive home the point that no matter how ‘healthy’ a potential partner’s external genitalia appear to be, s/he might still be infected.

(Images found here, here, here, and here.)

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Adina Nack is an associate professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University specializing in medical sociology with a focus on gender inequality and sexual health.  Her book, Damaged Goods?  Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases came out in 2008.  For STD resources and information about how to have a happy and healthy sex life after becoming infected, please visit Adina online at www.adinanack.com.

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Strawberry Shortcake socializes girls into a man-crazy, materialistic, mid-life disguised as liberation:

Via Jezebel.

Wandering through the junior section of the Palo Alto mall after Christmas this year, my stepsister Holly noticed the suggestive nature of some of the brands.  We took pictures:

Considering the graph below comparing the percent of GDP spent for economic stimulus during The Great Depression (1940s) and today (from the Tax Policy Center), Ezra Klein concludes:

We’re spending a lot right now, but this is hardly the most aggressive fiscal experiment in history.

Contrast that summation with this ad from the American Issues Project:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ_Chroi4oc[/youtube]

This is what sociologists call a framing war.  Is the economic stimulus big or small?  You can make arguments either way, and people will.  The question is: Which frame will resonate more with (which members of) the American public?  We’ll have to wait and see.

(Via Alas A Blog.)

Much of the discourse around the benefits of being thin revolves around the assumption that extra pounds are harmful to health.  Ampersand at Alas A Blog posted about a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (citation below) that shows that  those who are overweight (according to the BMI scale) are not at a higher risk of premature death than those who are deemed of “normal” weight.   The boxes in red are categories in which the risk for premature death is equal to or less than the reference group (normal weight people).

This is Ampersand’s conclusion (and his table, too).

The authors of the study, as commenter A.C. pointed out,  come to the opposite conclusion.  They argue, after looking at the data in different ways, say that overweight persons are at a higher risk for death.

Ampersand doesn’t buy it.  He offers a critique here where, among other things, he points out:

In order to produce the finding that “overweight” is less healthy than “normal weight,” Dr. Adams did a very dishonest statistical manipulation – he compared just one “normal” BMI range, representing the heaviest people in the “normal” range, to the entire “overweight” range. This is because the majority of people in the “normal weight” categories had a greater risk of death than the majority of people in the “overweight” category.

This might be a great way to discuss how methods and statistics never speak for themselves.

Relatedly, this post offers a really great visual critique of the BMI scale.

Citation:  Adams, K., et al., “Overweight, Obesity, and Mortality in a Large Prospective Cohort of Persons 50 to 71 Years Old.” New England Journal of Medicine, 2006. 355(8): p. 763-8.  Here if you have a subscription to ProQuest.

I’ve previously blogged about how, during World War II, Americans were expected to sacrifice in ways that we simply do not expect Americans to sacrifice today.  Specifically, my post addresses how people were encouraged to save gas and carpool (“Hitler rides in the empty seat!”), but people made all sorts of sacrifices: from going to work, to victory gardens, to eschewing panty hose.

Penny R. sent in another example that I found really interesting, staying off of phone lines during the hours when soldiers were likely to call home.  These government-sponsored ads were found in a 1944 Southern California Telephone Company phone books for West Los Angeles (found at This Book Is for You):

Text:  “Night-time is about the best time a service man has to call home.  That’s a good point to remember when you feel the urge to make a Long Distance call between 7 and 10 P.M.  If it isn’t important, we hope you won’t make it.   Let the men in service have first call on the wires.”

Text:  “We appreciate the help you are giving us in keeping the Long Distance lines open for war calls.  The production of munitions . . . the movement of troops . . . the building of ships and bombers . . . have put the Long Distance lines squarely up against their biggest task.  Materials for building telephone lines are no longer available — they are needed on the fighting fronts.  That is why we ask that only really necessary calls be made to war-busy centers.  Thank you for your fine co-operation.”

Text: “This year, war is on the wires.  And the Long Distance lines to war-busy centers must be kept open for calls that help to build planes and ships and move supplies and troops.  We cannot add to the lines–that would require the use of materials needed by our armed forces.  That is why we ask that only really necessary calls be made to war-busy centers.  Your co-operation means that we can do a better war job for you and for the Nation. Thank you.”

Text:  “The trained eyes and fingers of telephone operators are needed, these days, at the switchboards that are heavily loaded with war calls.  Telephone equipment of every kind is deep in the war task.  Will you help us to make every bit of equipment count?  Here is one way: Please look in the Directory for any number you are not sure of.  Please look there first before you call ‘Information.’  Thousands of calls daily, in which ‘Information’ is asked to help, are for numbers that are IN the Directory.  Our foremost job is the war job. It just is not feasible to do all the things for our customers that we were able to do in peace time.  We appreciate your understanding and your friendly cooperation.”

Can you imagine being asked to stay off the internet every evening?  Impossible!!!

I’ve always found it troubling when I hear people use the word “Nazi” metaphorically.  Terms like “fashion nazi,” “food nazi,” even Seinfeld’s famous “soup nazi” episode, seem to trivialize the Holocaust.  Of course, we often recognize the hyperbole and that’s part of what is supposed to make it funny.  But do we really want to make fun with such an idea?   Lots of people didn’t like it when PETA did it.

In any case, I was thinking about similar uses of the word “rape.”  The word “rape” seems to be everywhere.  People use it not just for its literal meaning, but to describe all manner of unpleasant experiences.  For example, in this story at bestweekever:

Do other societies use words like rape and murder metaphorically?  Have we always done so?  Must we?  Or are there alternatives that may be more sensitive to people who lost loved ones in the Holocaust, were raped, or knew someone who was murdered?

Sport is socially constructed.  What counts as a “real” sport is determined by social convention, as any hard core cheerleader will tell you.  Sports are also gendered and the degree to which an athletic activity is feminized correlates pretty closely with whether or not we feel it is a “real” sport.  This translates into an interesting phenomenon in which excelling at athletic activities deemed feminine and not-really-sport includes obscuring the athleticism involved.  That is, part of what it means to be a good athlete in that sport is to be able to hide exactly how athletic you are.

Feder makes this point in her excellent article, “A Radiant Smile From A Lovely Lady.”  She explains that female figure skaters are required to perform femininity and hide their athleticism with costume, make-up, feminine gestures, and softened movements.   One coach was quoted as saying, “I always tell my girls: think like a man, but act and look like a woman.”

At the time her article was published (1995), the U.S. and International Skating Union still called them “ladies” and required them to wear skirts (after Debi Thomas wore a unitard at the Olympics, horror of horrors).  Women were only allowed to do one triple jump (while men were required to do at least two) and they were disqualified if they did a back flip.

Further, media coverage of women skaters tends to focus not on their physical prowess, but on their dreams, how beautiful they are, and their relationships… all drenched in soft lighting and pretty music.  Feder quoted commentators saying that when women jump they “float like a leaf”; their jumps are “less like stunts than whitecaps bubbling out of waves.”

What does Sasha Cohen have?  “Unstoppable” strength?  Oh.  No.  “Unstoppable charm.”

Because of ice skating’s reputation as a feminine not-sport, men who choose to figure skate are often subject to a lot of policing.  Their masculinity is fundamentally called into question by their proximity to so much femininity.  And, don’t forget, this is a bad thing… or so we are led to believe.

This, of course, is sexist, homophobic, and illogical (tell me again why the guy with his hands all over the girl is gay?).

I go over all of this because of a new campaign by Skate Canada to change ice skating’s image in response to the low participation of boys men in the sport.  Instead of, however, challenging the misogyny, rigid masculinity, and irrationality of the “male ice skaters are gay” attack, they have decided to endorse the attack and simply re-frame ice skating as hypermasculine.

In this clip from CBC sports, representatives of Skate Canada explain how they’ve been policed for their participation, and then explain how “tough” ice skating is and how they’re the ones “dealing with all the… pretty ladies.”  So ice skating is redeemed by reframing the  sport as (athletically and sexually) hypermasculine, instead of calling into question hypermasculinity itself.

Of course, it’s much easier to re-frame your object to fit cultural norms than it is to change cultural norms.  I get it.  It’s practical.  And that’s exactly the point.  When it comes down to it, most people will re-frame rather than fight and this is why social change is so difficult.