Results matching “star ledger”
While underage drinking and possible cocaine use are not surprising activities that would dethrone a beauty queen, I love the fact that one of those activities that may lose her the crown include dating multiple people.
Miss USA, 20-year old Tara Conner, is being “evaluated� by pageant organizers and pageant owner Donald Trump for her “behavioral and personal issues.� Aside from underage drinking and supposed drug use, one of the “behaviors� that have been repeatedly mentioned is her apparently sluttiness.
She really is a small-town girl. She just went wild when she came to the city," one nightlife veteran said. "Tara just couldn't handle herself. They were sneaking those [nightclub] guys in and out of the apartment."Rivera [Miss Universe] cleaned up her act, sources said, but Conner still brought boyfriends home. . .
Soon she broke up with her hometown fiance and started dating around in the Manhattan nightclub world - when she wasn't traveling all over the country for pageant obligations.
They also make sure to mention the fact that she's kissed 18 year old Miss Teen USA in public as well. (She'll turn all of our little girls into lesbians!)
I didn’t know dating was a breach of contract, or a “personal issue� for that matter. While most of the public statements that Trump and pageant organizers have made references solely to her underage drinking, pageant queens have historically been booted for their sexual and personal lifestyles in the past:
In 1973 Marjorie Wallace, the first American Miss World, was dethroned for dating too many men. . . Vanessa Williams, who was the first African-American Miss America, resigned in 1984 when sexually explicit pictures of her appeared in Penthouse.Rebecca Revels was fired as Miss North Carolina after her former boyfriend e-mailed to pageant officials topless photos of her. She unsuccessfully sued the organisers to get her title back.
Perhaps the beauty queen with the biggest exposed secret was Leona Gage. Crowned Miss USA 1957, she was stripped of her title soon after- wards when it emerged that she was married with children.
Okay, so you can’t be married and/or with children (A single mom beauty queen?? The horror!) but you also can’t date or have any sexual history whatsoever. Oh, but can you put this bikini on for us please? (In short: your body belongs to us.)
Not at all a surprise, just a reminder of the dichotomies that these ridiculous contests create.
The fine state of New Jersey is really on a roll. First the courts back same-sex marriage, and then comes the news that the state has refused federal funding for abstinence-only education. Why? Because the state believes in teaching teens about contraception.
"Some of the elements required are inconsistent and violate our own educational standards," state Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs told The Star-Ledger... "Monogamy is not a bad idea, but having the government of New Jersey dictate these things for families is not something we wish to do," Jacobs said.
Awesome.
I know all those proponents of abstinence-only education bristle at the idea of girls being taught how to put a condom on a penis, but a new study shows that practical sex ed cuts teenage girls' STD rates significantly. Imagine that.
At the start of the study, more than half of the girls said they'd had unprotected sex during the previous 3 months, and 22 percent tested positive for one of the three STDs.
One year later, girls in the skills-based program were less likely than their peers to have an STD; about 10 percent tested positive, versus 18 percent in the general-health program and 15 percent in the STD-information program.
They also reported fewer instances of unprotected sex than girls in either of the other groups, and were less likely to say they'd had multiple sexual partners in the past 3 months.
Can't really say the same for those sodomy-obsessed virginity pledgers, huh?
This recent article from the Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger about adolescent gynecology made me think about how this issue is largely left out of the discussion on teen sexuality.
The first visit is described as a "gynecological encounter," which doesn't include a full pelvic exam, but allows teenage girls to start a dialogue with their OB/GYN. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that healthy girls first visit a gynecologist between the ages of 13 and 15 and preferably before sexual activity. As a good friend of mine pointed out, the first visit is kind of like the "control" to which every exam after sex can be compared.
This also ties into the discussion on abstinence-only education. If teenage girls aren't getting accurate information about sex in school, then maybe they can get it from their OB/GYN. I'm wondering: Are parents who advocate abstinence-only education delaying the date of their daughters' first visit to the gynecologist?
Speaking from personal experience, my parents are conservative Catholics who believe strongly in abstinence-only until marriage. I made my first OB/GYN appointment by myself, and I was way older than 13. This article certainly makes the case that more girls would benefit from starting a relationship with their gyno at an earlier age, even if they aren't sexually active.
Thoughts? Do you think age 13-15 is too young to see the gynecologist, or should we be encouraging girls to be comfortable with their doctor at an earlier age?
