photo via Flickr

In response to commenter/contributor Johnny’s questions “Why the hell would anyone wait 5 months to have an abortion?” and “When does abortion cross the line from pretty much safe to realistically hazardous for the mother?” in the Vaginagate discussion, Chingona had these very helpful answers:

This interview with a [Christian] doctor who performs abortions up to 24 weeks gives a candid and compassionate answer to the “why do they wait so long” question.

Typically, the women having second trimester abortions are women who learned of serious fetal anomalies during testing that is only done at 20 weeks, who developed serious health problems that don’t develop until later in pregnancy, are very poor and couldn’t get together the money earlier in the pregnancy, are in abusive relationships, or are so young or ignorant about sex that they didn’t understand that the changes in their bodies meant they were pregnant.

Q. You say women in their second trimester often have the most compelling need for an abortion. Why?

A. They lack access to health care or don’t have an understanding of their body changes, and often figure out later that they’re pregnant. Or they find out early enough that they’re pregnant, but their lack of access to health care or volatile, dysfunctional relationships delay seeking help.

The women most likely to be in those situations are trapped in poverty, often women of color or poor socioeconomic backgrounds, less education, and women and girls at the extremes of reproductive age. Women beyond the age where they think they can become pregnant, or young girls who have infrequent and irregular sexual activity and aren’t conscious of it.

Starting with those women as the ones you’d cut off is kind of ironic, because they have the most compelling reasons to consider abortion in the first place.

As for the danger, even later abortions are safer than giving birth. In the United States, maternal mortality rates are around 1 in 10,000 for vaginal birth in 1 in 2,500 for c-sections.

The death rate for an abortion at 8 weeks or earlier is around 1 in a million. At 16-20 weeks, it’s 1 in 29,000. After 21 weeks, it’s 1 in 11,000.

My source is Guttmacher Institute, which is a pro-choice organization, but their statistics are generally considered sound and respected by both sides. They include citations from the studies that they use to compile these statistics.

Scroll down to “Safety of Abortion.”

– Chingona

photo via flickr

Reader Jane wrote the following in response to our post “10 Reasons Your ‘Ugly Vagina’ Is Normal and Gorgeous.” Will you, our loyal and kind EMandLO.com readers, please set her straight? Will you please reassure her that (a) masturbation and sexual activity do not cause your labia to turn dark and poke out (that’s just plain growing up that does that!); (b) men do not expect things to be “perfect” down there, whether you’re a virgin or more experienced than he is; (c) if a man is into you, he’ll be into your vagina; (d) she will not be single forever! and (e) she needs more girlfriends and fewer asshole guy friends. We could tell her so ourselves (in fact, we just did, and have done so repeatedly on this site), but we figured that a chorus of voices chiming in would be that much more reassuring. Men, especially — good guys, we know you’re out there! — please speak up.

I am in my twenties and have never had sex with a man, but have done so much of everything else (mostly to myself), starting at a very young age, that my inner labia is darker and pokes out. I find it extremely unattractive, and I fear I’ll never be able to be intimate with a man, because when I tell them I’m a virgin… they’ll expect everything to look ‘perfect’ down there and then encounter a big surprise.

I’m an outgoing person and am comfortable with how I look everywhere BUT “down there,” so I meet many men that I’m interested in and have no trouble getting asked out on dates (not saying that to be boastful, I’m just illustrating my life), but I rarely go on more than two dates with the same guy because I’m terrified of what they’ll think of me when we take that next step.

As a result, I have very many guy friends because that takes away the pressure of intimacy, but it also forces me to listen to “guy talk” all the time, only talking about sex and “ugly vaginas” that they’ve encountered.  I join in and laugh, but little do they know… So I’ve come to the conclusion that I may just have to stay single forever. I’m not unhappy about that idea, but at the same time I wouldn’t mind sharing my life with someone either!

I liked reading this and knowing about other people’s experiences. It helped a bit.. however many people are talking about how everything turned “ugly” after having had children, and evidently I have not gone through that, so my anxiousness remains and probably will for a very long time.

photo by robbie_jim

A few days ago, we got this comment in response to the Wise Guy piece “Do Men Care What Labia Look Like?” and all its comments:

Amy Lee Says:
May 19th, 2012 at 4:57 am e

Well,I have large labia and I was hoping to get some assurance from all these men that have commented and I gotta say,I’m even more self concious. I feel as if I will end up alone because of it and I don’t want to have surgery. The only comment that has made me feel a little better was ” If a man loves you,he shouldn’t be put off why what your labia looks like. If he is,he’s obviously not worth your time.” On here it’s all about the ‘perfect’ porn star labias. Which I don’t have,unfortunately…

Say what? Did we miss something? We know our Wise Guys didn’t post anything demoralizing, because we don’t have any Wise Guys who are assholes. Did we somehow miss a slew of comments by a bunch of juvenille trolls? Because the readers of this site are usually pretty cool, like take-home-to-meet-your-parents cool.

So we decided to reread the post and read through all 50 comments for anything we might have missed. The Wise Guys totally checked out — we review everything that goes up on this site before it goes up and are still as content with the content now as we were on the day it went up. The honest, straightforward consensus of the three guys is basically that porn might be creating an impossible “beauty” standard that only a small minority of idiots who can’t decipher fantasy from reality ignorantly choose to buy into, but that the vast majority of straight men are interested in clean, excited labia attached to hopefully body-confident women who are interested in them.

And out of all the 50 comments, only 2 were offensive, rude and stupid. At least one of them if not both of them should have been deleted, since we expect (and usually get) a certain amount of civility from our commenters — these unfortunately just slipped through the cracks (“The Bachelor” must have been on or something when they came in).

But even so, we’re perplexed as to why anyone would focus on the petty little comments of a few sad, sorry, hateful people when more than 40 others responded with reassurance and sensitivity. There will always be a few sociopathic douchbags in this world who enjoy anonymously shitting on strangers from the comfort of their parents’ basement couch. But we’d encourage Amy and everyone else to refrain from dignifying their online vomiting by giving them any emotional power over you and instead focus on the outpouring of positivity from the massive majority. Here’s a sample:

If a guy is with someone he wants to be with for who she is as a complete person, how her labia look doesn’t really matter — he’s just thrilled to get to be intimate with her, and all her parts.

As long as they work, it doesn’t much matter what they look like.

I think all labias are beautiful.

Genitals are not meant to look pretty, but to be functional and feel good. When everyone is happy and excited they will not worry about genital fashions or fads.

If you are naked in front of a guy, and he sees you have longer inner labia hes not going to say “ew, get dressed and leave. RIGHT NOW” No. He’s going to be glad your naked and hoping you’re not thinking about his extra stomach hair or the way one of his balls is bigger than the other. Big deal. No one cares.

Real women don’t have airbrushed labia.

Ladies, rest assured that the variations of that beautiful flower you’re sporting are not a subject for scrutiny with any but the most inexperienced and juvenile men.

The guys are saying that labias that are clean, fresh, warm, wet, ready and willing to be touched, tasted, celebrated, explored and enjoyed that belong to a welcoming secure, self confident and sexy woman who is right there with them are all beautiful.

As long as they do what they are meant to do, Who Cares!

Confidence and sex drive are far more important to a guy’s positive experience with you than the specifics of whether or not you look like some kind of idealized porn “norm”.

Men love real women and real vaginas. They’re so happy that theyre getting laid and so happy that you are into them, they could care less about the size of your labia.

Labia, smabia. All looks are intriguing to connoisseurs of sensuality.

We could go on.

In an advice column on our site, “I Can Orgasm Easily, What’s Wrong With Me?!” we once made light of the issue of women who climax at the drop of a hat — we told the woman who wrote into us that, basically, she has a gift and should enjoy it. Well, the original post was all the way back in 2009, but for some reason the comments are coming in again. Is three years too long to make a public apology? In response to the commenters: we’re sorry for not seeing both sides of this story. Turns out that, just as there is such a thing as too big when it comes to penises, there is such a thing as too fast and too easy when it comes to female orgasms. Here’s what reader EmJ had to say to us:

I was so upset when I started reading this, and you assumed it was a joke, but with all the other ladies on here with the same issue I feel a lot better.

I wondered for a long time if I was not actually having orgasms, and if there was something else, because of the way people talk about orgasm like it’s a holy grail. However I orgasm very easily for the most part. I find that the fun of it is discovering different kind of orgasms that I have, which is really lovely.

I find I am really not compatible with guys who assume you want to keep coming. They have this massive ego problem of how long they can keep going, how many times they can make you come and I’ll be lying there praying for them to come because the whole situation has become painful. Guys – please don’t so this, it can be really upsetting. Men often just don’t seem to take me seriously at all. As a piece of advice, do tell guys aout this quite quickly, and inform them if things are getting uncomfortable. They may have been holding off because they think you’re loving it, when things may actually have started becoming painful.

Just to be clear, that this does not mean sex has to be fast, I can force sex to be slow. And I don’t mean by thinking of something else, but by enjoying the relaxing sensations you can get if you go very slowly – it can be like a massage, and the slow build up can lead to really great orgasms that I find really help me to connect with my partner.

Also, once you start to take control of your orgasm a wee bit more, you can hold back somewhat. This means you can time coming at the same time as your partner, which is quite intimate.

photo via Flickr

Okay, this isn’t really a thing (unlike our totally legit #3 placement on the Best 100 Dating Blogs that was in no way a marketing gimmick), but we’ll take it! After reading our passionate anti-cheating stance in response to the advice question “What’s So Wrong with Cheating on My Husband?“, Robert D. Moores became our #1 Fan. And we’re going to start the Official Robert D. Moores Fan Club in return. It’s just one big posterior smoke-blowing love-fest around here:

Wow.  I just subscribed by email purely on the merit of this post.

I ended up on Em and Lo searching for a simple answer to a simple question, and then followed a few links to this.  I am inexpressibly impressed with the integrity of your answer, and with the authority with which you offered it!  GREAT.  WORK.

Cheating is not a problem because of sex.  Cheating is a problem because of dishonesty.  Because of cowardice.  Because of laziness.  Because of disrespect.

I only know one side of this story: I’ve been faithfully married to an incredible wife for almost 11 years, and we communicate.  But for all you cheaters who are quick to point out that I only know one side of this story: SO DO YOU.

Honesty and communication work.  You just have to have the courage to try them, instead of pitying yourself and trying to find an easier way to deal with your issues.

I am not famous, but if I were, I would create an institution solely to be able to present Em and Lo with the Robert D. Moores Institute Integrity Award, 2012.

In a recent poll on our site, we asked you guys, “Is there a ‘War on Women’?” Admittedly, we didn’t give you the chance to say flat-out not — because that would be flat-out wrong! (Hey, we never said this site was a democracy.) Rather, we were asking what you thought about the terminology “War on Women” — is it justified, or too strong, etc. Anyway, reader Ella said that no one ever talks about men’s rights, and argued that this kind of conversation only serves to divide us more, to which reader Dannie responded:

A war on women doesn’t mean that only women are the victims. Far from it! Anything that discriminates between the sexes like that ultimately hurts everyone. That’s the whole point! Much of the legislation that is going on–or is trying to go on–is not only specifically written about things typically seen to only concern women, but it is increasing in viciousness and frequency, and women have little say in it at all. Is it harmful to constantly see the world as divided? Yes, but until it -isn’t- divided, we have no choice. Women still make 77 cents to a man’s dollar. Women pay more on health care then men, and are at risk for having their choices taken away every time they go into a doctor’s office. If a man want’s to buy Viagara, chances are his insurance will not only cover it, but he won’t be fired for wanting to use it or be labeled as a “slut” for seeking it out; the same is not true for birth control, and the legislation going up against it just keeps coming back, more in the recent years than in the past twenty. There is a trend. It is growing. And to pretend it doesn’t exist doesn’t help anyone. Do men have infringements on their rights? YES! But in the political world, those are usual just phrased as “rights,” and not “men’s rights.” Legislation that hurts one sex always hurts the other, but you can’t ignore the fact that there’s a lot more political and legal contention happening over the pills that go into a woman’s mouth than what’s going into a man’s.

photo via Flickr

Jen, in response to the recent post “5 Reasons to Have Sex with the Lights On”

I really don’t know what this whole “sex in the dark” thing is about. The only time I have sex with my boyfriend in the dark is when we’re in a room with other people who are not supposed to notice! Neither of us has a perfect body, and in fact my boyfriend has a history of beeing very overweight and is still quite chubby. But I know he loves me all the more because I still wolf-whistle when he gets naked, simply because I love him and I love his body because its HIS body!

photo via flickr

Figleaf does it again this week, dropping his wise words on the topic of sexual fantasies. This was in response to a post titled, “Question of the Week: Do You Fantasize About Other People During Sex?”

Pretty much ever since I first heard an “expert” mention sexual fantasies, I’ve heard that it’s not only common but “perfectly natural” to fantasize about someone else during sex. I never have.

Actually, technically that’s not true. At one point I deliberately tried to, but it didn’t work and wasn’t very interesting anyway. And who knows, maybe it’s just that I do fantasize about sex with other people often enough to get it out of my system or something. But… sex with the person I’m with has always been interesting enough for me.

I dunno. When I’m at the beach I don’t fantasize about going skiing. When I’m eating I don’t fantasize about drinking tea. When I’m reading Em & Lo I don’t fantasize about reading Dan Savage. Call me short-sighted or uncreative but it’s the same thing with sex.

Finally, I wouldn’t mind if a partner fantasized about someone else while she was having sex with me. It’s not like it’s a value judgment. Just because I’m not wired for it, doesn’t mean nobody else should be either.

photo via flickr

Do you ever fantasize about other people during sex with your partner? Does it depend on the relationship (casual vs. long-term)? How often do you think it is acceptable to do this? Do you ever tell your partner that you do this, or is it better to keep this sort of fantasy private? And what sort of people do you fantasize about? (Exes, celebrities, acquaintances, etc.)

Leave your response in the comments section below (feel free to share your age, gender, relationship status, etc., if it’s relevant to your answer).

photo via Flickr

We feel privileged and proud to have the most reasonable readers of any sex-related site out there:

Well, let’s say for the sake of argument, that [a woman would] prefer [her partner] had a bigger penis. Is that a dealbreaker? Is it worth throwing an otherwise good marriage away over? I would say, continue working on your sex life, as we all should be at all times, be responsive to your partner’s needs, enjoy each other.

Who among us is the perfect sex partner? Frankly, if you’re in your 50′s, you probably have physical imperfections at least as important as a small penis. I bet you’re not as strong or fit or generally attractive as you once were. I’m sure your wife has insecurities about her body, and misses her younger body as well. If you’re married, you have probably had days when one of you felt like it and the other didn’t. You’ve probably had things go embarrassingly wrong a few times. Life is not porn. We enjoy what we have, and in the long run it’s better because of the emotional connection we have to our partners.

– Jillian, in response to the post “Your Call: Why Did My Wife Tell a Mean Joke About My Penis?”