divinedebris

Dr Jen Gunter

Of course I clicked when this tweet from Glamour came across my timeline.

The article mentions the following four products: washable period underwear, washable pads, menstrual cups, and sea sponges. The first three are great, but menstrual sponges are not.

This is what Glamour said about sponges:

Yup, you can stop your period before it exits the premises by putting a sponge up there. Menstrual sponges like those that Jade & Pearl and Jam Sponge offer actually look a lot like bath sponges, and they work the same way. The only disadvantage is that they may be a bit cumbersome and messy to get out. But they are good for the environment and your wallet, since you only have to change them every six to 12 months.

This is dangerous advice.

Sea sponges aren’t “like” bath sponges they ARE bath sponges. Some people promote them as “natural” alternatives to menstrual tampons, except they are untested and potentially very unsafe. Oh yeah, they are also filled with dirt.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, twelve “menstrual sponges” were tested at the University of Iowa in the 1980s and they and contained sand, grit, bacteria, and “various other materials.” Another batch was tested by the Baltimore district laboratory and in addition to the sand, grit and bacteria they also found yeast and mold. One sample contained Staphylococcus aureus (the bacteria that causes toxic shock syndrome). As the FDA notes there is least one case of toxic shock syndrome associated with the sea sponge and another possible one.

The grossness of a debris and “various other materials” containing vaginal sponge aside there are real potential safety concerns. Bits could break off and become a nidus for bacteria, the sponge itself could have harmful bacteria, sponges may change the vaginal ecosystem promoting the growth of good bacteria, the inability to clean them adequately between uses may reintroduce potentially harmful bacteria that was breeding in the wet sponge sat drying beside the sink, and the sponge may cause abrasions during insertion and/or removal.

Menstrual products, sea sponges included, are regarded by the FDA as “significant risk devices requiring premarket approval under Section 515.” Basically, you have to study any products that is new and prove it is safe.The concerns about sponges were so significant the FDA contacted the manufacturers of menstrual sponges to warn them of the risks and to require they stop marketing and selling the products. Some closed down, others relabeled their products for “cosmetic” use. By they way there weren’t just a few businesses selling sponges, the FDA visited forty-one businesses that packaged sponges as well as 500 retail establishments.

One of the companies suggested as a source of menstrual sponges by Glamour is Jade & Pearl who received a warning letter from the FDA in 2014 about marketing menstrual sponges (if you read the full letter you’ll see that Jade & Pearl actually had a whole list of FDA violations).

This is how Jade & Pearl advertises their sponges right now, but it’s pretty genius marketing to get Glamour to  tell everyone that your product is potentially not just for cosmetic uses! See FDA, it’s “just a sponge.”

Sea sponges are potentially very unsafe.

Really, I can’t emphasize that enough. There are lots of very biologically plausible ways they could harm women andGlamour magazine should be ashamed for including them without the most basic of research. It makes you wonder if Google was just not working the day the piece was written or if it was sourced only from press releases.

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

As male geeks, a great deal of our identity is built on the notion that male geeks are, in some sense, gender-nonconformant, insofar as we’re unwilling or unable to live up to certain physical ideals about what a man “should” be. Indeed, many of us take pride in how putatively unmanly we are.

Viewed from an historical perspective, however, the virtues of the ideal geek are essentially those of the ideal aristocrat: a cultured polymath with expertise in a vast array of subjects; rarefied or eccentric taste in food, clothing, music, etc.; identity politics that revolve around one’s hobbies or pastimes; open disdain for physical labour and those who perform it; a sense of natural entitlement to positions of authority (“you should be flipping my burgers!”); and so forth.

And the thing about that aristocratic ideal? It’s intensely masculine. It may seem more welcoming to women on the surface, but - as recent events will readily illustrate - this is a facade: we pretend to be egalitarian because it suits our refined self-image, but that affectation falls away in a heartbeat when challenged.

Hello all! This is a reformatted version of this post originally compiled by randymusprime​.

On Preparing for Arguments… Identifying and Avoiding Logical Fallacies

On White Privilege & Systemic Racism… 7 Facts That Prove White Privilege Exists On Racism and White Privilege The New Jim Crow Where White Privilege Came From White Privilege from Taking Action Against Racism Denying White Privilege White Privilege: An Insidious Virus 1 in 3 Black Males Will Go to Prison in Their Lifetime What is a ‘System of Privilege’? White Privilege 101 Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack 14 Examples of Systemic Racism in the US Criminal Justice System Black Student Graduation Rates Young Black Men and Gun Violence Operation Ghetto Storm Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color in the US Racial Profiling in Vermont DoJ Stats Show Clear Pattern of Racial Profiling OK, fine. Let’s talk about ‘black-on-black’ violence. Why Police So Often See Unarmed Black Men as Threats

On the Difference Between Racism and Prejudice… Toward an Understanding of Prejudice and Racism Ferguson Cops More Inept Than Strategic 10 Simple Ways White People Can Fight Everyday Racism Ferguson’s Massive Cover-Up How Moral Leaders like MLK Approach Neutrality Why It’s So Hard for Victims to See Justice America’s Stop-And-Frisk Policies Proof of Racism Examples of Institutional Racism in the US On Why White People/Americans Are Afraid to Admit Racism Exists… The Racism That Still Plagues America Why We’re Still Unwilling to Admit to Systemic Racism in America Why American Racism is Impossible to Defeat

On Reverse Racism… A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism Why Reverse Racism Isn’t Real Why There’s No Such Thing as ‘Reverse Racism’ Enjoy my lovelies, and feel free to add to this post or to the original!

trans women using the bathroom with me

trans men who feel uncomfortable or unsafe in the men’s room using the bathroom with me

nonbinary people who want to use the women’s room using the bathroom with me

Things that I am not fine with:

ALRIGHT AMERICANS TODAY WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT A THING.

How to make sure our pal Bernie Sanders wins the primaries so he can be our president: 

1. First of all, what are primaries? 

Well friends, it’s a preliminary election that decides the presidential candidates for each political party. If Bernie loses the primaries, he will NOT be able to become our next president. So for that reason it’s INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT that we all get our butts to those polls when the time comes. Here are the known or expected dates for the 2016 Democratic Party Primaries:

February

Monday, February 1: Iowa

Tuesday, February 9: New Hampshire

Saturday, February 20: Nevada

Saturday, February 27: South Carolina

March

Tuesday, March 1: Alabama; Arkansas; Colorado; Georgia; Massachusetts; Minnesota; North Carolina; Oklahoma; Tennessee; Texas; Vermont; Virginia

Saturday, March 5: Louisiana; Nebraska; Kansas

Tuesday, March 8: Mississippi; Michigan

Tuesday, March 15: Florida; Illinois; Missouri; Ohio

Tuesday, March 22: Arizona; Utah

Saturday, March 26: Alaska caucuses; Hawaii; Washington

April

Tuesday, April 5: Wisconsin

Tuesday, April 19: New York

Tuesday, April 26: Maryland; Connecticut; Delaware; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island

May

Tuesday, May 3: Indiana

Tuesday, May 10: West Virginia

Tuesday, May 17: Kentucky; Oregon

June

Sunday, June 5: Puerto Rico

Tuesday, June 7: California; Montana; New Jersey; New Mexico; South Dakota

Tuesday, June 14: Washington, DC

2. Okay cool, now I know when I need to vote!

But do you know in some states you can ONLY vote for Bernie if you are a registered Democrat?

STATES THAT ARE OPEN PRIMARIES (you do NOT need to be a registered Democrat to vote for Bernie):

Alabama

Michigan

North Dakota

Arkansas

Minnesota

Vermont

Georgia

Missouri

Wisconsin

Hawaii

Montana

STATES THAT ARE CLOSED PRIMARIES (you MUST be a registered Democrat to vote for Bernie):

Delaware

Maine

New York

Florida

Nevada

Pennsylvania

Kansas

New Jersey

Wyoming

Kentucky

New Mexico

STATES THAT ARE TOP-TWO PRIMARIES (you vote on candidates regardless of their party affiliation so you do NOT need to be a registered Democrat to vote for Bernie):

California

Nebraska

Louisiana

Washington

STATES THAT ARE HYBRID PRIMARIES (these vary between open and closed, and often depend on the current party, so if you live in one of these states you WILL need to find out the protocol for the 2016 presidential primaries):

Alaska

Maryland

Rhode Island

Arizona

Massachusetts

South Carolina

Colorado

Mississippi

South Dakota

Connecticut

New Hampshire

Tennessee

Idaho

North Carolina

Texas

Illinois

Ohio

Utah

Indiana

Oklahoma

Virginia

Iowa

Oregon

West Virginia

3. Okay, so how do I register to vote/as a Democrat?

Worried because your state has closed primaries or you’ve never used your constitutional rights to vote before and you think registering will be a terrible, vigorous, process?

DON’T WORRY FRIENDS.

Registering to vote is so easy, let me walk you through it.

Here is an online form you can mail in (available in multiple languages) that also gives you step by step instructions depending on your state. If you live in New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands, unfortunately you can NOT use this method.

For any state, you can check the following places to register in person:

State or local voter registration and/or election offices

The department of motor vehicles

Public assistance agencies

Armed services recruitment centers

State-funded programs that serve people with disabilities

Any public facility that a state has designated as a voter registration agency

Here is another link of states where you can register online, if you’re an anxious nugget like me.

EACH STATE HAS A SPECIFIC DEADLINE TO REGISTER IN TIME FOR PRIMARIES. IF YOU NEED TO REGISTER, MAKE SURE YOU FIND OUT WHEN THAT IS AND REGISTER BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

If you do end up having to register in person, do not be afraid friends! You are doing a very important and brave thing.

4. Alright, so I know when I have to vote, I am registered to vote, and if my state has closed primaries, I registered as a Democrat! I’m done now, right?

Nope, there’s one last thing! If you’re like me and unable to get to a voting poll, whether or not it’s due to school, work, your health, or being out of your state/country, you need to fill out an ABSENTEE BALLOT FORM!

This link contains not only the absentee ballot forms of every state, but some even have more voter registration forms as well!

DON’T FORGET. DEADLINES EXIST.

Write it in your planner, your calendar. Post it on your ceiling. Write it in ketchup on your burger. Tattoo it to your arm. Whatever helps!

AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, WHATEVER YOU DO:

Do not brush this off. Do not assume, well I’m just one person, what is one vote going to do? Bernie can win without little old me.

That’s wrong. You and your vote is so incredibly important. Bernie cannot win without you. Without us.

So please. Read this. Spread this. Register. Get ready to vote. Bernie promises to do his best to better America. Let’s do our best to get him there.

The Daily Show, February 8, 2016

Are you saying that you can’t talk about race issues to Middle America? Are they so delicate and unaware and maybe so white that Beyoncé is too much for them?

You know what’s right in the middle of America? Ferguson, Missouri.