In case you missed it, I sent out a special audio version of Sex on Wednesday on, well, Tuesday. (To those who reached out with concern, I was aware that it was only Tuesday even thought it’s already been quite a week.) It’s a real podcast episode in which I got to sit down with Jaclyn Freidman, an author and advocate who started EducateUS. EducateUS is a nonprofit organization that wants to “build a movement of informed, tenacious sex ed voters.” They recently conducted a survey that found overwhelming support for sex education. It found that 75% of Americans want “schools to teach sex education that includes age-appropriate lessons on healthy relationships, anti-bullying, self-esteem and body image, and consent and boundaries.” Not surprisingly that support is higher among certain groups like Harris voters (90%), MSNBC/MSNOW viewers (89%), and Democrats (89%). But there’s impressive support for sex ed even in those groups you’d expect to oppose it, like Republicans (59%), Fox News viewers (56%), and those who identify as Born Again Christians (60%). Another piece of good news— 72% of Americans say they support trans-inclusive sex education and 75% say that schools should be safe and welcoming to trans students. Jaclyn explains why these numbers are important and how the mere act of telling everyone we know about them can help advance sex education (spoiler alert on her explanation because I found it fascinating: people like to root for the winning team). As someone who has worked in sex ed for almost 30 years, my big question for Jaclyn was how we get people to care about this issue now when it feels like everything is on fire and the very core of our democracy may be crumbling. She had a good answer, but no spoilers on this one. Go and listen. Calm Down, The Penis Doc is In ChargeThe U.S. currently does not have a permanent director of the CDC, a Surgeon General, or a head of the FDA (Makary quit recently over the administration’s decision to allow for fruit-flavored vapes), and we’re also no longer members of the World Health Organization. What we do have—as we watch the hantavirus outbreak unfold around the world—is a penis doctor, and he’s in charge. That’s right, Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Brian Christine has been assigned to reassure all of us that the government has got this under control and hantavirus will not become the next Covid-19. Experts that I trust—like Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist—are saying the same thing, which is good because Christine’s word does not inspire confidence in me. Christine, a 62-year-old urologist from Alabama, built a successful practice focused on erectile dysfunction and male genital aesthetic surgery, meaning he made penises longer, thicker, and harder. At one point he hosted a YouTube show called Erection Connection. According to CNN and Rolling Stone, he used to cover topics such as “revising a mis-shapen penile implant” and “getting the right cuff size during artificial sphincter surgery.” As we have discussed many times, I’m skeptical of penis enhancement surgery and the providers who profit off it. I feel strongly that an extra inch or so isn’t worth the potential loss of function and pleasure, and that we should instead concentrate on helping men love the dick they have. Still, there is a role for doctors who can reconstruct damaged members or provide gender affirming care to trans men. That role, however, should not include being put in charge of our pandemic response. Not only does Dr. Christine not have the public health or infectious disease background we would want in our hantavirus expert, he was also on the wrong side of every debate during the last pandemic. Christine was opposed to vaccine mandates and argued that the vaccine “ultimately was proved not to prevent the disease and not to prevent the spread of the disease.” When questioned by Congress, he refused to say whether he’d recommend the vaccine to his own patients. On a 2022 podcast, he compared the Biden Administration’s pandemic response to Nazi Germany:
He also suggested that the pandemic itself might have been organized by billionaires like George Soros to take out small businesses. (That statement is full of irony and hypocrisy, and screams “every accusation is a confession,” given what the Trump Administration and the billionaire class have done in the last year and a half. It’s almost hard to do anything but laugh at its absurdity—or start weeping.) Christine also thinks that the government used the pandemic to influence the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, perhaps having forgotten that Trump was the one in charge of the government during that election. As I said earlier, I do not expect hantavirus to be the next big public health threat in this country. It’s been around for a long time. We know that it doesn’t spread nearly as easily as Covid-19 and that it doesn’t evolve nearly as fast. But Ebola is making a comeback, Mpox is still circulating, and a couple of cruise ships have been hit hard by norovirus recently (why anyone voluntarily spends time on those floating petri dish eludes me). There will undoubtedly be other outbreaks. If any of them become widespread threats, I don’t want a penis doctor in charge. Strippers On StrikeMontreal strippers have declared a strike for this Saturday, May 23rd. It’s the night before F1’s Canadian Grand Prix, which historically has been a very busy time for bars and clubs in the city. The strippers are hoping to call attention to unfair labor practices and poor working conditions. The strike has been called by the Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC) which describes itself as an “organizational space in which all sex workers are welcome, regardless of their workplace, whether it’s a massage parlour, strip club, the street, OnlyFans, etc.” (The informal union’s name sounds far cooler in French— le Comité autonome du travail du sexe or CATS.) The committee’s primary complaint has to do with the bar fees that dancers are required to pay club owners each night. Bar fees were implemented in the early 2000s. In theory, they’re a way for a dancer to assert independence—you pay to work and in exchange you get the freedom to create your own schedule and keep the money you make. In practice, however, the strippers have none of the freedoms of independent contractors in other industries. The committee explains:
If they are beholden to employers in this way, the committee argues, they should be given the rights of employees such as an hourly wage, guaranteed safe and sanitary working conditions, and time off when they’re sick. SWAC says the fees are arbitrary and keep going up and that the system allows the clubs to profit off of dancers:
Not surprisingly, the clubs charge dancers more during the Canadian Grand Prix and book more dancers for the weekend. While this can be an opportunity for the dancers to make money, it’s also very lucrative for the clubs who can bring in as much as $33,000 in bar fees from dancers alone. The strike is inspired by the dancers who unionized at San Francisco’s famous (and now-defunct) Lusty Lady, as well as Uber drivers in the U.S. who fought to be considered employees. The timing is designed not just to hit clubs during a potentially extra-profitable week but also to get some media attention, which is clearly working. It was covered by the New York Times, Fox News sports, Reuters, People Magazine, and every blog written by or for car racing enthusiasts. SWAC acknowledges that striking can be risky but urges sex workers in Montreal to stand strong:
By striking this weekend, the dancers will also be thwarting the annual protests of SWERFs—or sex worker exclusionary radical feminists—who often use Grand Prix weekend to draw attention to their argument that by participating in any kind of prostitution or porn, sex workers themselves are perpetuating objectification, exploitation, and violence. This argument wraps around itself many times and requires us to know exactly which wave of feminism we were/are in at any given moment. None of us have the time or energy to do that right now. I will just say that I prefer to fight the unequal capitalist systems behind porn, prostitution, and strip clubs than to fight the often already marginalized people who find themselves working in that system. I guess that means I’m not a SWERF. But if I were, I’d want to be SWERFETTE. I’d have great hair, get to live in a pink mushroom, and have HEFTYSWERF and HANDYSWERF competing for my affection. Sex on Wednesday is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Sex on Wednesday that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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