Hanna, that all sounds like such a sensible approach to sex ed. Get 13-year-olds to role play about how to wait. Tell 15- and 16-year-olds about waiting and also about condoms. Pretty much what I'd want for my kids. Stripped of its anti-birth-control and wait-for-marriage preaching, abstinence education is absolutely nothing to quarrel with. In fact, I can't imagine a decent sex ed curriculum for young teens or for older ones that doesn't talk about the power of sex and the potential value of delaying it.

But the claims being made for this new study are, of course, broader. The abstinence educators don't want to distinguish this curriculum from all the other ones the Bush administration funded. They want to cotton right up to it. That's the point of this quote from Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association in the Washington Post: "For our critics to use marriage as the thing that sets the program in this study apart from federally funded programs is an exaggeration and smacks of an effort to dismiss abstinence education rather than understanding what it is." OK, so if urging teens to save themselves for marriage isn't part of the core abstinence-only message, what is? If everyone who has been skeptical of abstinence-only ed should open their minds to it now, shouldn't the promoters recognize that they have some distance to travel as well?

Tags: abstinence-only, sex education

A confession: Last March, a few weeks after the Grindr app launched, I downloaded it to my iPhone and joined the Grindrs, sans photo. This was an odd thing for a heterosexual thirtysomething woman to do. Very odd. As Lauren explained, Grindr is for gay, bi, and curious men only. I was at a dinner party hosted by a gay couple who happened to be friends with the app’s inventor, Joel Simkhai, and we were talking about the genius of Grindr, the sheer efficiency of it all. I was curious about how Grindr would feel to a woman. Was Grindr the next frontier of heterosexual dating or friendships? (Friendships, too, are cultivated by proximity.)

Within seconds, headshots of fellow Grindrs began appearing on my screen, in order of proximity, and … I screamed "Oh my God, there's a man right here!" There was a man, "at home alone," according to his blurb, located a mere five feet away from our dinner table. Was he next door? Should we text him and invite him over for a martini? It was exciting, titillatingly easy. It also didn't feel dangerous; it felt innocuous and neighborly, since the men listed first are, in fact, your neighbors.

About a week after joining, I came to the conclusion that I would probably never feel comfortable "grinding." I haven't even attempted online dating (not even the innocuous JDate—sorry, bubby). I have yet to post or even responded to a Craigslist ad. But I might be persuaded to join a hetero Grindr if there were levels of intent, perhaps ranging from “just coffee(for now)” to “come over and do X to me.” It's really fun.

Tags: digital dating, Grindr

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Andrew Wakefield. The scientist (I use the word here with a little scoff) partially set off the vaccine/autism panic with a 1998 study, published in the British medical journal the Lancet, that argued that the MMR vaccine was connected to autism and the bowel disorders that some parent believe accompany it. Last week, following two-and-a-half years of hearings, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield “acted “acted ‘dishonestly and irresponsibly’ ” in conducting his research—such as collecting blood samples at his child’s birthday party, with money given to every kid who donated.

And today, the Lancet, which has long been embarrassed by the specter of Wakefield’s MMR research, has officially retracted the study. In 2004, the medical journal investigated the paper’s research methodology—Wakefield is in trouble anew now for his research methods, not the findings per se, which have been picked apart and proven unable to be replicated by others—and said, “We are entirely satisfied that the investigations performed on the children reported in the Lancet paper had been subjected to appropriate and rigorous ethical scrutiny.” But in today’s retraction, team Lancet admits that “the claims in the original paper that children were ‘consecutively referred’ and that investigations were ‘approved’ by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false.”

Ten of the paper’s original 13 authors had already distanced themselves from the work; Wakefield and two colleagues, who were also criticized by the GMC, could have their medical licenses revoked later this year.

But really, all of this comes far too late. Wakefield is a hero among anti-vaccine activists who think that he is a victim of the mainstream media and Big Pharma’s attempts to coax the public into accepting harmful substances. (As a member of said mainstream media, as Slate is a part of the Washington Post Co., I can assure you that I have never attended or even been invited to any evil planning meeting.) His supporters will become even more rabid now. Their outrage—and I understand it, as they think they are on a crusade to save millions from death and suffering, even if I think, know, that they are so utterly wrong and dangerous—has taken them far beyond the point of comprehend the wrongs Wakefield committed. MMR isn’t the vaccine boogeyman these days, and nor is thimerosal; the Jenny McCarthy army focuses instead on “toxins” that it can’t demonstrate are actually, you know, toxic in that form. As each proposed link between vaccination and autism (and food allergies, etc.) gets shot down, the anti-vaccine crew settles on another inoculation component to blame. (For a lengthy and fascinating post dissecting some vaccine toxin myths, visit the Science-Based Medicine blog.) Wakefield’s damage has been done—and it was done long ago. It’s a shame that he’s only now getting penalized.

Tags: Andrew Wakefield, autism, MMR, vaccination

Clark Harding's essay in the Daily Beast today calls attention to a most wondrous and entirely inevitable development in the world of virtual dating: a GPS based hook-up service. Grindr, as the smartphone app is called, is for gay men only (as of now, at least). Gone are the often-messy complications of Craigslist posts or dating sites: You download the app, create a profile, and upon login up pop the profiles of men seeking men, their distance away listed in feet. My friend has the app, and just by logging in at work once or twice he's discovered there are at least two other gay men in his office. Just from using the app with him, I've seen more abdominal "situations" in a 15-minute span then I have over the last five years.

The upside: It makes everything so easy. But as Harding points out, there's a potential downside to always being seen, and water-cooler awkwardness is the least of it:

The problem with casual sex with people in close proximity is that they never really go away. And though Grindr allows you to block profiles for various reasons (check out GuysIBlockedOnGrindr.com), it doesn't change the fact that they are still 30 feet from you. It sounds shallow, but as I was quickly learning, being a few feet from someone isn't always a good thing.

If the virtual world has been good for anything besides the spread of grammatically disabled cat photos, it's been forging a new utilitarianism for sexual relations. There are already Web sites for casual hookups and forums for finding someone to play out your sexual fantasies. You don't have to take off your wedding ring at a hotel bar Don Draper-style to have an affair—you can just log on to AshleyMadison.com and find another, no-strings-attached, willing adulterer. When I was 16, a girl in my math class asked me what "blue balls" were. I thought it was an ice-cream brand. (I was thinking of Blue Bell, obvs.) Now teenagers outfitted with iPhones are hardly misinformed about anything anymore. This isn't wholly good, but it's definitely not wholly bad, either. There's going to be a Grindr-esque app for everyone sooner or later, and it's going to rock boatfuls of social-moral milieus. It's just inevitable.

Tags: daily beast, Grindr, hook-up culture, iphone apps

Starting from the assumption that it is impossible to have a rational discussion about abstinence education, let us do our best. The study reported yesterday that shows a certain abstinence curriculum to be effective was, in fact, an excellent study. Unlike previous studies, it looked at the most updated curriculum. It randomly divided students into several groups. The kids in the abstinence-focused curriculum were measurably less likely to have sex after two years. No fudging with that result.

Now for the caveats, and the contrary conclusion. First, this was an updated curriculum. It did not talk about delaying sex until marriage and it did not disparage condom use. It asked students to delay sex until they were ready, and then had them role-play strategies to resist pressure. This is different from the moralistic tone that tends to accompany some abstinence-only programs.

Second, these kids were very young—12 and 13. At this age, they tend to be less likely to have sex, anyway, and more open to such messages. “I'm not surprised that—especially among this younger group of teens—an apparently empowering message of saying no is working out OK,” says Mark Regnerus, author of Forbidden Fruit. “Not sure I'd advise a simple say-no answer when kids are 17 or 18. The developmental trajectory for sex is steep.”

Now, reorient yourself, Regnerus adds. In national studies, only 10 percent of 13-year-olds say they’ve had sex. This is study of African-Americans, who tend to have sex earlier. But still—even in the abstinence-focused group, a third of the kids reported having sex (as opposed to about half in the other group).

That’s a whole lot of young kids having sex. So does it hurt to give them strategies to resist pressure? Even if they hold out only two more years? Of course not, especially if those strategies are proven to work. But as I argued yesterday, there is no need to hone in on a single, and very obviously politically motivated, strategy. Maybe for younger kids, try an abstinence focus. Then shift to more traditional sex education as they get older. I’m not sure of the specifics here, but the general idea is to be flexible and open to what the evidence says works.

“Different things need to be emphasized at different times,” argues Regnerus. “Some kids need to know that they can say no, and will respond accordingly. Others are in relational and cultural contexts where they need to be equipped with information. And in a media-intense, sexualized environment like ours, to punt on sex ed is just dangerous.”

Tags: abstinence education, new study on abstinence education

Consumer Reports reports that it found "bacteria that are common indicators of fecal contamination" in 39 percent of a small sample of greens purchased in New York area stores. Some of the coliforms (and enterococcus, found in a smaller percentage of packages) can cause nausea and other "gastro-intestinal symptoms." Their effects depend both on the type of bacteria present, which varies, and on your own immune system. As with most food-borne illnesses, pregnant women, children, and people with compromised immunity are most at risk. CR didn't find any of the biggies (E. coli O157:H7, listeria, or salmonella), but what they did find suggests that you shouldn't rely on those "pre-washed" and "triple-washed" promises. The more deadly bacteria are simply rarer than what CR did find. The presence of such high levels of any undesirable bacteria suggests failures in the green-cleaning machine somewhere along the line.

Three years after a major outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, pre-sale testing of salad greens for contamination is still purely voluntary. Produce safety remains one of the many areas where the FDA is hampered by being largely toothless—it can encourage, but rarely enforce, many safety initiatives that seem obvious. S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Bill, would help, but looks to be on a busy Senate's back burner. Meanwhile, I'd tell you what to do about the salad greens, if I knew—but one source (CR) says to wash them again, and the other (ABC News) says don't. I guess we're left with either cook them, don't eat them, or try to forget you ever even saw this story. Just think of this as yet another reminder of the true golden rule of food safety—worth keeping in mind whether you're eating at McDonalds or Nobu—nobody cares as much about what you put in your mouth as you.

Photograph of salad by Photodisc/Getty Images.

Tags: consumer reports, fecal matter, salad

On Slate today, Joe Keohane has an amusing video slideshow about "how Hollywood makes beautiful actresses look working class" in order to secure Oscar nods. Keohane illustrates some of the sneakiest tropes of the "slumming actress subgenre"—fugly sweaters, messy hair, bad posture, a slack-jawed stare—with clips from films like The Good Girl and Monster's Ball.

Of course, it's no secret that frumping up is one of the easiest shortcuts to gaining Serious Acting Cred. (It's almost as good as a mental disability.) It can make viewers feel virtuous, which in turn casts a halo of nobility around the whole artistic project. But as Keohane's slideshow proves, it's a risky move; a badly-calibrated performance can easily turn ridiculous and be exposed as a grade-grubbing sham.

For me, these kinds of performances always make my brain a little itchy. Maybe there's an uncanny valley when it comes to lovely lady actresses going blue-collar? Keohane suggests that Charlize Theron in Monster and Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl manage to clear this hurdle; their strong performances "ultimately do credit to their parts." Do you agree? What's your favorite "slumming actress" role—either because it's so successful, or because it's so utterly unbelievable?

Tags: actresses, beauty, charlize theron, jennifer aniston, joe keohane, movies, oscars, Slate

Yesterday’s New York Times piece suggested that the adminstration might revisit the way what’s called Title 1 money is allocated under No Child Left Behind. If you’ve seen how those funds are currently distributed, and sometimes squandered, you know this is a good idea in principle. But I am uneasy about what the Obama administration might substitute for the status quo.

First, the problem. Here is a typical scene in the exhibit hall at a principals’ convention. The vendor, selling some sort of educational (or “educational”) material, asks an approaching administrator, “Are you a Title I school?” If told yes, cartoon dollar signs flash in his eyeballs. As part of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Title I schools—so designated because they have a certain share of students living in poverty—get lots of extra money. I once watched teachers at a Title I school urgently page through catalogs the day of the deadline to spend their money—the mariachi band would count for parent involvement requirements; Dr. Seuss hats were for a reading event. I felt bad for schools nearby with a few too few poor kids to share in these riches—not because of hats and bands, but because the bulk of this money funds teachers, enabling small-group interventions and collaboration time that might help students excel.

In the Times piece, analysts suggest the White House wants to stop allocating Title I money simply based on the number of poor children. OK, that seems sensible. But a quote from a think-tank director caught my eye: “They want to upend that scheme by making states and districts pledge to take actions the administration considers reform, before they get the money.” Now “the administration considers reform” a small set of approaches, which it is pushing via a $4 billion grant program called Race to the Top. Forty-one states and D.C. have applied for the money by vowing to take certain required steps: welcoming charter schools, creating systems to track student data, adopting common standards, and recasting teacher evaluation systems, in part by factoring student test scores into decisions such as tenure or pay.

You may like some of these ideas, you may not like others. The question is whether they will help children, and the answer is that we don’t know. In the State of the Union, President Obama said he would only invest in “reform that raises student achievement.” But while the reforms required for these grants may be promising, they are not proven to raise student achievement. (See more about this on my blog.) I like the idea of paying good teachers more, for example, but there is no comprehensive research showing that it improves learning, and the charter research is mixed. It’s one thing to encourage pet programs in a grant competition for a one-time pot of money; it’s another to write them into a law that could last a decade.

“We only reward success,” Obama said last week. The problem is, when it comes to our classrooms, we have done a terrible job at identifying the ingredients for success, and we shouldn’t pretend that we have done otherwise.

Tags: no child left behind, Title 1

Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for an Oscar for directing the Iraq War film The Hurt Locker this morning. She is only the fourth woman ever to be nominated in the directing category, joining Lina Wertmüller, Sofia Coppola, and Jane Campion. Bigelow talked at length to DoubleX contributor Willa Paskin last year. Here's what she had to say about being a woman directing action movies:

The fact that I’m a woman and I made it, well, that’s not first and foremost in the matrix or the lens with which I look at any particular endeavor. But, if it could be a model to ignite and incite other filmmakers, be they men or women, then, I think that’s something valuable and exciting ... I think of a person as a filmmaker, not a male or female filmmaker. Or I think of them as a painter, not a male or female painter. I don’t view the world like that. Yes, we’re informed by who we are, and perhaps we’re even defined by that, but yet, the work has to speak for itself.

Bigelow also went on the Today Show this morning to talk about her nomination and addressed all the chatter about her competition in the best director category—namely, her ex-husband, Avatar director James Cameron. When asked about the alleged rivalry between her and Cameron, Kathryn said graciously, "I'm rooting for him." Clip below.

Photograph of Kathryn Bigelow by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Tags: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker, the oscars

If you read only one deep-think review of a Thomas Kinkade biopic this morning, make it this one. A.S. Hamrah stares deep into Kinkade’s empire and descries the core of our own destruction: shady economics (the painter has awkward relationships with investors), real estate (care to check out a Kinkade-inspired housing development?), and, well, fire. Lots of fire:

He says that as the son of a single mother who worked late, he often came home to a house that was dark and cold, especially in winter. The “Kinkade glow” represents what he wished was there instead. He tells the story more than once, which raises a question or two: Didn’t he maybe just want to burn the place down? Is his art really a form of arson?

Hamrah maintains that trying to invest in "these reproductions, gobbed with points of light" is a lot like trying to get rich flipping overpriced McMansions. There's another relationship between Kinkade and economic implosion. I once watched the painter, who was wearing a black beret at the time (because he is an artist), explain at great length how desperately God wants you to be rich. It was my first encounter with the prosperity gospel. Hanna can tell you how that's worked out.

Tags: Baffler, prosperity gospel, Thomas Kinkade