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This post, 10 Year Old, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 04/08/2011. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: 10 Year Old. Thanks for visiting!
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This post, National Sexual Freedom Day, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 09/23/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: National Sexual Freedom Day. Thanks for visiting!
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A: For those who do not know, VCF is Vaginal Contraceptive Film. It is a small, thin, transluscent square that a woman inserts inside of her vagina. After about 15 minutes the sheet melts and coats the cervix with spermicide. It’s kind of like those mint strips you put in your mouth to freshen your breath, but for your vag to keep you from getting pregnant. It is not effective against STIs, and may actually increase your risk, which I will get into later.

The efficacy rates for pregnancy prevention are about 74% for normal use, 94% for perfect use. When paired with condoms the efficacy rate gets up to about 97%. When I say normal use vs. perfect use what I mean is that people screw shit up and don’t always do it right. In general, the more often you use something the better you get at it. So that 74% tends to be for the first year that you use a new method and your efficacy goes up from there. When I say 94% for perfect use that means how effective it is if you use it the correct way every time

You say that it sounds like it might be better because you won’t have to stop to put on a condom. However, you still have to stop to put in the VCF and then wait 15 minutes to make sure it is effective. So unless you plan ahead you will still be stopping and possibly stopping and waiting. And you may not want to plan ahead in this case unless you’re absolutely positive that you’ll be having sex later and this is why …

Nonoxynol-9

VCF is made from Nonoxynol-9 which is a spermicide. It is a very effective spermicide as it immobilizes sperm on contact. However, in such a delicate ecosystem as the vagina you might imagine that there could be some issues. If you use Nonoxynol-9 sparingly there shouldn’t be much of an issue if you’re in a monogamous disease-free relationship unless you are prone to infection. However, the more often you use it the more your vagina is exposed to this harsh chemical. And the more it is exposed to it the more likely you are to actually get vaginal lesions. For people who are not in monogamous disease-free relationships, this means an increased likelihood of contracting an STI especially HIV and HPV.

Like I said, it’s relatively safe if you’re not using it often, which is why you shouldn’t use it unless you are 99.9% sure that you’re about to get it on.

But there’s also the issue of oral sex. Say you and your partner have been having a grand old time fucking away and you just feel this need to have his cock in your mouth. Well now his cock is probably covered in spermicide and will taste not so good and will quite possibly numb your mouth a bit. Or maybe he’s been finger fucking you and rubbing your clit and then he just has to taste you … same thing. Genitals don’t taste so good with nonoxynol-9 all over them and they’ll also make your lips go numb and possibly your tongue.

This is precisely why I said 15 minutes of waiting. Sure you can makeout and feel each other up, but finger fucking and oral sex may make things less pleasant.

Conclusion

So VCF is decent at preventing pregnancy, especially when combined with other birth control methods, but it should be used sparingly and you may not want to put your mouths anywhere near anything that’s been put in your vagina. It’s a great options for some, and not so great for others.

Here is a how-to video provided from the makers of a VCF:

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This post, Vaginal Contraceptive Film, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 08/29/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Vaginal Contraceptive Film. Thanks for visiting!
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I’m extremely intrigued by this and not totally sure how I feel about it. I mean at what point does it help to keep these people safe and at what point does it actually increase the likelihood of them acting these things out in real life? At what point does it become so objectionable that the products are actually illegal to sell? For example, I can’t imagine that it would be legal to sell a child stroker for pedophiles.

What do you think? Please discuss.

(via Early to Bed)

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This post, Topco Fucked Line, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 07/20/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Topco Fucked Line. Thanks for visiting!
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This is what I wrote:

First of all, no one’s dick should be going in anyone’s ass without a condom. Even if you are both disease free and monogamous the guy can get some pretty nasty infections from barebacking. We’re talking urinary, bladder, and kidney infections here. So always wear a condom for ass sex please.

And if you’re wearing a condom for ass sex then ATM should never make a difference because you can just pull the condom off or switch condoms to blow him. Simple as pie.

If for some reason you decide to not follow my earlier advice and decide that a burning feeling while you piss might be a fun thing to try, then I would highly recommend that you do not stick your dick in anyone’s mouth after it’s been in an ass. You can get e-coli or hepatitis. Hell you can just get e-coli from rimming so what do you think it’s like if you’re basically licking 6 inches inside of someone’s ass?

Please have more respect for your sexual partners as well as sex workers. Sex workers are people too and the more you promote their safety (ie no ATM, safer sex practices, autonomy, etc.) the longer they’ll work and the happier they’ll be. I personally think it’s way hotter to watch pornstars who like fucking and enjoy every second of it instead of ones who are coerced into practices that are unsafe.

I understand that accidents happen and sometimes you’re in the moment and forget what you’re doing. But once you realize it, please stop and go wash up real quick before you keep going. It’s better to be happy, healthy, and safe.

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This post, Ass to Mouth, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 07/05/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Ass to Mouth. Thanks for visiting!
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Read her story and donate.

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This post, Help a Sex Worker Out, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 07/01/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Help a Sex Worker Out. Thanks for visiting!
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But since there was the buzz today I decided to do a little bit of research. Both AAG and Essin’Em have written about their experiences with the company and that enlightened me quite a bit.

But all I can think about is how EF is so much like Suicide Girls (you’ll notice I won’t link to either of the sites because I dont’ want to give them traffic). I have a lot more experience in the alt porn community than I do in the sex blogging community. Or at least I did at the height of alt porn. So this is the connection I instantly drew.

Both sites are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are both pretending they are something they are not, but even worse is that they are pretending to be good, but they really have other intentions. They pretend to be the good people who have worked hard to create a good, ethical product or service and then they exploit it in order to make lots of money.

Suicide Girls pretended to be a typical alt porn site that just happened to rake in tons of dough. They even pretended to be run by a woman so that they could put a softer feminist touch on the whole porn thing. They weren’t out to exploit women! They were women! Bullshit. The bigger they got, the more difficult it was to keep the sheep’s wool in place. Their real goals and intentions started to show through more and more as models were made to sign ridiculous contracts while other models were banned from the website and yet their content still remained and was often sold off to the highest bidder. The community members and newer models refused to believe what was going on. They tried to discuss it in the community only to find threads deleted and them banned as well. SG fooled a lot of people, but a lot of us in the alt industry saw them for what they were pretty quickly. I was a part of a site that helped them into existence and then got stabbed in the back once they were doing well enough on their own. These good companies then changed their contracts to show the models that they would protect them and their images; to show that they were the real deal.

There are similarities here to EF. EF has made money by pretending to be an ethical honest sex shop like the feminist sex shops out there who have worked their asses off to spread the word about healthy sexuality and dangerous products. But see there’s an obvious difference right away. When confronted with the fact that anal-eze is dangerous they continued to sell it until it no longer fit in what they wanted their image to be. They didn’t stop selling it on principal. They sold it because people bought it and that makes them money. Only once they felt that it truly conflicted with the image they were trying to portray did they stop selling it.

EF is not a feminist sex shop. They have not worked hard to make the world a better place. They work hard to make money. And you know what, that’s fine. It’s a business which is supposed to make money. The problem is when they pretend that they are all the things that the feminist sex shops of the world have tried so hard to attain, but aren’t actually that at all.

And just along the same lines of SG, EF is now censoring and banning community members. I predict the next move they will make is to insist that all reviewers only review for them.

Ok the truth is that I don’t like drama, but I felt this needed to be said because I feel like it is so difficult to know who to trust in the adult industry. There are many wolves in sheep’s clothing and just straight up wolves. But without education a lot of people can’t even spot the wolves who aren’t hiding. There are so many dangerous products and exploitative services in the adult industry because there are few regulations. It is an industry that has to self-regulate. That is why it is so important to be able to trust who you are giving your money to.  If you can’t trust them, how can you be sure they’re not out to screw you in the most unpleasant way possible?

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This post, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 05/13/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Thanks for visiting!
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