Current legislation is trying to ban a plastic that has been used for 50 years to line cans, so I decided to look into how much evidence there is that this plastic is dangerous, and whether the potential substitutes for this plastic are safe. The American Council on Science and Health finds little evidence that this plastic is dangerous; they find no proposals for what plastics might substitute, much less any evidence on the alternatives' safety profiles. Their analysis raises very good points and is worth reading.
Just as in statistics, the important question for any risk analysis is "compared to what?" Nothing is dangerous on an absolute level: risks always have to be weighed against their alternatives. When we banned DDT decades ago, it may or may not have had beneficial effects for the eagle population, but malaria has rebounded: going from millions of cases in Sri Lanka to a couple dozen, and then back up to a million cases after the DDT ban. Malaria still affects hundreds of millions of people around the world, many cases that might be prevented if DDT spraying were allowed. The developed world has not had malaria since the 1940s --- perhaps if malaria had rebounded, perhaps we would see pesticides as the life-saving tools that they are --- but we do have the resurgence of bed bugs, even on the Upper East Side, after they had been almost completely eliminated 50 years ago. Maybe the good effects of the DDT ban are worth hundreds of millions of cases of malaria in the developing world and bedbugs in the developed world, but alternatives always need to be considered. The WHO has backed bringing back DDT because it was so useful.
With the current talk of banning BPA, the comparison group is completely missing. By banning a plastic without discussing alternatives and their risks, we risk having worse alternatives or no alternatives.
Showing posts with label reframing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reframing. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, June 8, 2009
Abstinence on prime time
Abstinence has made prime time a few times lately:
1. ABC's the Goode Family. Pilot episode: Daughter of liberal vegans thinks of taking a purity pledge. Even though everyone in the family agrees with the sentiment, they are completely wigged out by the trappings, such as the purity ball, purity ring given by father, etc., the fact that it's held in a church and done by primarily religious people. The father is an academic administrator and says he can't be seen in a church or he risks credibility at work.
Perhaps the most insightful message I've seen on abstinence in entertainment: everyone agrees on abstinence, but disagrees on style and how to talk about it: abstinence-only or abstinence-plus. Ultimately I wouldn't be surprised if the inclination to favor "abstinence only" or "plus" were one of the hard-wired political issues that the neuro- political science folks are picking up on brain scans. Teaching birth control feels wrong. So you end up with political stances like Sarah Palin's as governor being in favor of "Abstinence only" that of course teaches birth control. Just can't say the words "comprehensive" or even "abstinence plus" because those evoke the extremes. (Not to pick on conservatives. The opposite also holds: some start to think about the Taliban and "she was asking for it" rape when the issue of modest dress comes up, even if it's minimal standards that everyone adheres to in professional settings without thinking about. As soon as it's called "modesty" instead of "professionalism," the hard-wired instinct kicks in.)
The show is terrific otherwise as well. My favorite non-abstinence part was a fictional animal rights group called "Animals or Else!"
2. Little Mosque on the Prairie had an episode where the fiance of a woman who wears a hijab (headscarf) asks to see his fiancee's hair, but they decide to wait until marriage for him to see her hair. Very little tension throughout this non-touching relationship, but it's a sitcom with only 22 minutes to an episode, and that's not their focus so they don't have to be realistic. Still neat to see the prism of abstinence from a slightly different perspective. I wonder how many viewers without a cultural background that involves hair-covering have an intuitive feeling about this issue. How many think that it's no big deal to show her hair, versus how many feel shocked at the thought.
3. The Jonas Brothers on South Park: "Purity rings are how we sell sex to little girls."
An outrageous thought, and yet the qualitative research finds that until adolescents can conceive of physical intimacy, they have no conception of abstinence, so both abstinence and sex are foreign thoughts to their mind. Telling pre-sexual teens about abstinence is as much of a foreign idea as telling them about sex. Presumably the same holds for telling them about abstaining from drugs or alcohol before they are in a social world in which people take drugs or alcohol.
My neighbor taped it for me , but I haven't gotten down to watch it with him and only saw the 2 minute clip on youtube, so I don't know what else it has.
1. ABC's the Goode Family. Pilot episode: Daughter of liberal vegans thinks of taking a purity pledge. Even though everyone in the family agrees with the sentiment, they are completely wigged out by the trappings, such as the purity ball, purity ring given by father, etc., the fact that it's held in a church and done by primarily religious people. The father is an academic administrator and says he can't be seen in a church or he risks credibility at work.
Perhaps the most insightful message I've seen on abstinence in entertainment: everyone agrees on abstinence, but disagrees on style and how to talk about it: abstinence-only or abstinence-plus. Ultimately I wouldn't be surprised if the inclination to favor "abstinence only" or "plus" were one of the hard-wired political issues that the neuro- political science folks are picking up on brain scans. Teaching birth control feels wrong. So you end up with political stances like Sarah Palin's as governor being in favor of "Abstinence only" that of course teaches birth control. Just can't say the words "comprehensive" or even "abstinence plus" because those evoke the extremes. (Not to pick on conservatives. The opposite also holds: some start to think about the Taliban and "she was asking for it" rape when the issue of modest dress comes up, even if it's minimal standards that everyone adheres to in professional settings without thinking about. As soon as it's called "modesty" instead of "professionalism," the hard-wired instinct kicks in.)
The show is terrific otherwise as well. My favorite non-abstinence part was a fictional animal rights group called "Animals or Else!"
2. Little Mosque on the Prairie had an episode where the fiance of a woman who wears a hijab (headscarf) asks to see his fiancee's hair, but they decide to wait until marriage for him to see her hair. Very little tension throughout this non-touching relationship, but it's a sitcom with only 22 minutes to an episode, and that's not their focus so they don't have to be realistic. Still neat to see the prism of abstinence from a slightly different perspective. I wonder how many viewers without a cultural background that involves hair-covering have an intuitive feeling about this issue. How many think that it's no big deal to show her hair, versus how many feel shocked at the thought.
3. The Jonas Brothers on South Park: "Purity rings are how we sell sex to little girls."
An outrageous thought, and yet the qualitative research finds that until adolescents can conceive of physical intimacy, they have no conception of abstinence, so both abstinence and sex are foreign thoughts to their mind. Telling pre-sexual teens about abstinence is as much of a foreign idea as telling them about sex. Presumably the same holds for telling them about abstaining from drugs or alcohol before they are in a social world in which people take drugs or alcohol.
My neighbor taped it for me , but I haven't gotten down to watch it with him and only saw the 2 minute clip on youtube, so I don't know what else it has.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Reframing virginity
The sexual abstinence pledges begun by the Southern Baptists and continued by Catholic and other Protestant churches have frequently been called "virginity pledges". It would be an interesting exercise for someone to trace the evolution of terms for these pledges, however, because I have the sense that the issue is gradually being reframed.
For example, the founder of the purity ball finds the term "virginity" and the idea of a virginity pledge to be too all-or-nothing. The pledges themselves rarely discuss virginity, and in fact the very first TLW did not mention the word at all. The term used in their timeline is "commitment cards," and the term used in the pledge itself is "purity". The evolution of the language used for pledges can examine when the term virginity first started getting used in the context of these pledges, and whether it was leaders, participants, or media members who introduced the word into the discourse.
Even if the movement had been ducking the laden term of "virginity", but they seem to be stuck with it. The theology may put the terms on people's minds, or adolescents' obsession with crossing the line into being an initiate of the behaviors they consider adult such as sex or alcohol use, or American society at large (which did, after all, invent the big lipstick red V on the forehead of first time Rocky Horror attendees). For that matter, many adult virgins over the age of 30 or 35 report feeling incredibly self-conscious until they too have crossed that line, so it's not limited to adolescents.
For whatever reason, then, the pledge movement is stuck with the term virginity and all its connotations, and they have to do something with it. The movement began by encouraging "secondary virgins", in which those who have had sex recommit to not having sex until marriage. The "secondary virgin" term sounds like "second class," and it's still attached to the idea of virginity as the goal, rather than some overall average standard of behavior.
I find it interesting, then, to see a book which reframes the term. "Soul Virgins: Redefining single sexuality" (2006) by two evangelical therapists --- one single; one married --- is a dating book aimed at young adults. They define a "soul virgin" as someone who "seeks to" fulfill an evangelical Christian sexual ethic, decoupling the question from actual sexual experience. It sounds like this term is one that they coined for the book, but it would be interesting if it together with the Purity Ball inventor Wilson actually reframed the discussion in terms of a sexual ethic rather than sexual experience and this laden term, and all its associated terms like "losing" virginity. I review the book at length in the following post.
No matter what they do with the term, they will have to deal with the fact that adolescents and perhaps Americans in general are consumed with the idea of initiation, and avidly use the term virgin, so the reframing may be a doomed cause. The impulse to reframe, though, is itself interesting.
For example, the founder of the purity ball finds the term "virginity" and the idea of a virginity pledge to be too all-or-nothing. The pledges themselves rarely discuss virginity, and in fact the very first TLW did not mention the word at all. The term used in their timeline is "commitment cards," and the term used in the pledge itself is "purity". The evolution of the language used for pledges can examine when the term virginity first started getting used in the context of these pledges, and whether it was leaders, participants, or media members who introduced the word into the discourse.
Even if the movement had been ducking the laden term of "virginity", but they seem to be stuck with it. The theology may put the terms on people's minds, or adolescents' obsession with crossing the line into being an initiate of the behaviors they consider adult such as sex or alcohol use, or American society at large (which did, after all, invent the big lipstick red V on the forehead of first time Rocky Horror attendees). For that matter, many adult virgins over the age of 30 or 35 report feeling incredibly self-conscious until they too have crossed that line, so it's not limited to adolescents.
For whatever reason, then, the pledge movement is stuck with the term virginity and all its connotations, and they have to do something with it. The movement began by encouraging "secondary virgins", in which those who have had sex recommit to not having sex until marriage. The "secondary virgin" term sounds like "second class," and it's still attached to the idea of virginity as the goal, rather than some overall average standard of behavior.
I find it interesting, then, to see a book which reframes the term. "Soul Virgins: Redefining single sexuality" (2006) by two evangelical therapists --- one single; one married --- is a dating book aimed at young adults. They define a "soul virgin" as someone who "seeks to" fulfill an evangelical Christian sexual ethic, decoupling the question from actual sexual experience. It sounds like this term is one that they coined for the book, but it would be interesting if it together with the Purity Ball inventor Wilson actually reframed the discussion in terms of a sexual ethic rather than sexual experience and this laden term, and all its associated terms like "losing" virginity. I review the book at length in the following post.
No matter what they do with the term, they will have to deal with the fact that adolescents and perhaps Americans in general are consumed with the idea of initiation, and avidly use the term virgin, so the reframing may be a doomed cause. The impulse to reframe, though, is itself interesting.
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