New app lets you surgically birth "Frozen" Anna's baby

Remember that bizarre "Plastic Surgery Barbie" App that came out last year? Well, here's another opportunity for girls to learn about the magical worlds of surgery and copyright violation.

Buzzfeed's Daniel Kibblesmith talks readers through the game, which shows Frozen's 18-year-old  Princess Anna ready to give birth to Kristoff's baby (after they get married, of course!)

The app guides the user through a sanitized Caesarian birth, apparently not clarifying whether Anna is suffering from a complication that prevents vaginal delivery, or whether she's just "too posh to push." (It also implies that a woman is put under a general anaesthetic for the procedure, which is not typical.)

I'll leave the WTFing to Jezebel's Rebecca Rose:

Sure, maybe games or apps that talk about pregnancy can be a good teaching tool for parents who want to get their kids familiar with various aspects of childbirth. But unless you are a being on the planet Mikloap Alpha 7, there is no purple glowing orb that magically emerges from your womb because someone waves a special sparkle wand over it. No. Despite what they are trying to teach in Texas high school's sex education classes, this is not what happens during childbirth. 

After the baby is born, you have to use the scalpel to cut the umbilical cord (SO MUCH GODDAMN NOPE HERE) and weigh the baby.

Not exactly a welcome addition to the world of childbirth apps.

The conflicting teen sex messages of Candie's

Creepy much? Via Hollywood Life

Teen fashion brand Candie's seems to want it both ways. On one hand, they sell the idea that teens can look sexy in their clothes, featuring provocative images using young spokespeople like 16-year-old Disney Channel actress Bella Thorne, above.

At the same time, their Corporate Social Responsibility arm, Candie's Foundation, is an organization that seeks to prevent teen pregnancy by preaching abstinence. They've also been heavily criticized for using celebrities to shame teen mothers.

In fact, their whole plan is to instil a fear of pregnancy in teens. From their web site:

Our campaigns are making a difference. Research has shown that teen girls who have been exposed to the foundation and its messages are more likely to view teen pregnancy and parenthood as stressful and negative, and they are more likely to be skeptical of the media's portrayal of teen pregnancy and parenting. They also think teens should wait longer to have sex than girls who are not aware of the foundation and its messages.

There's something quintessentially American about a brand that sexualizes young girls, then tells them to suppress their sexuality or risk ruining their lives.

Interestingly, even the right-wing blowhards at Fox News see an issue with this.

Fox 411 quotes Katie Yoder, of the socially conservative (read: Fundamentalist Christian and anti-choice) Culture and Media Institute:

Candie's isn't selling clothes, it's selling sex and teaching young girls to act seductively. Thorne sends the message that being feminine has nothing to do with being genuine and that confidence means popping your hips and shaking your butt.

When both bleeding hearts like me and the One Million Moms brigade actually agree, you know there's a problem. Although I doubt we see it the same way.

I have nothing against teens expressing their sexuality among their peers. I just think they need the right information and support to do it safely, to avoid exploitation, unplanned pregnancy, regret, and the threat of rape. Candies wants girls to feel like sexual objects by buying their clothes, but also wants to terrify them out of actually acting on that agency by threatening grave consequences.

This is no way to raise a generation of women.

What if boys got pregnant:? A concept as old as I am

That's the question implied by Chicago's new anti-teen-pregnancy campaign.

“The point was to get people’s attention and get conversation started about teen pregnancy and teen births, and how they really affect a community,” Chicago Department of Health spokesperson Brian Richardson told the Daily News.

The ads are running on transit and near high schools with high rates of teen pregnancy.

While attention-getting, I'm not sure the ads really get the full value of the message across. I'm not sure any ad campaign can get boys to be more responsible, but imagine targeting these to girls and saying "If it was him who could get pregnant, don't you think he'd want to use a condom?" or something like that.

But at least these ads, while presenting teen pregnancy as an unwanted consequence of teen sex, don't try to heap shame on teen parents the way New York City did with their campaign. Even if the concept behind the Chicago campaign is as old as I am:

Yep, that's the famous "pregnant man" ad by Jeremy Sinclair of Cramer Saatchi (Predecessor of Saatchi & Saatchi) circa 1970 (via Creative Review). If you're going to borrow creative ideas, they might as well be this classic.

Candie's Foundation gets spanked by activist moms #NoTeenShame

The Candie's Foundation recently launched an anti-teen-pregnancy campaign in which a who's sho of Millennial celebrities  — Hayden Panettiere, Carly Rae Jepson, Hillary Duff, Lea Michelle, Fergie, Vanessa Minillo, Ciara, Teddy Geiger and the band Fall Out Boy — tell teens how much parenthood sucks.

According to Feministing, the campaign has really offended the Strong Families Movement for its shaming approach towards teen pregnancy. Allied blogger Natasha Vianna puts it plainly:

At the age of 17, I gave birth to a little girl. When the Candie's Foundation launched a teen pregnancy prevention campaign with the tagline "You're supposed to be changing the world... not diapers," I was outraged by their attempts to shame young parents. Although I was changing diapers at age 17, I am changing the world – and so are Lisette, Consuela, Jasmin, Gloria, Marylouise, Christina, and so many other young parents like us across the country. Our activism has been shaped by our experiences as young moms; we are working to change the world because we are young parents.

The organization has launched a petition to Candie's and encourages the use of a hashtag, #NoTeenShame, to draw eyes to the cause.

This controversy is similar to what happened when NYC's Human Resources Administration put up ads  in which young children shamed their teen parents about getting pregnant.

The problem lies in the strategy of shame. This is an organization that previously used wealthy teen mom (and born-again abstinence advocate) Bristol Palin as a spokesperson for what a burden young parenthood is. They describe themselves as " a non-profit organization that works to shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood." 

And sex:

Research has shown that teen girls who have been exposed to the foundation and its messages are more likely to view teen pregnancy and parenthood as stressful and negative, and they are more likely to be skeptical of the media's portrayal of teen pregnancy and parenting. They also think teens should wait longer to have sex than girls who are not aware of the foundation and its messages.

But where does that leave the teens (especially girls) who have become pregnant? Ashamed, if the campaign has its way with them. But even if their own feelings of self-worth are not important to you, do you actually think that teens are unaware of the fact that unplanned pregnancy is a big deal? 

It would be really refreshing to see someone pony up for a pleasure-positive, choice-positive teen sexuality campaign that helped young people get and use contraception without vilifying those who do not, and who decide to have a baby. The Candie's Foundation's pro-abstinence stance reflects a conservative culture of sexual shaming, in which people who consensually give in to their natural curiosities and pleasures are seen as morally weak. (And the shaming can affect victims of rape as well.)

As much as I don't want to be a grandparent too soon, neither would I want to raise my young son to believe that teen parents are lesser people than him. Not only for their sake, but possibly for his own. 

NYC shames teen parents to battle unplanned pregnancy

It seems that scaring and shaming people just won't go out of style in social marketing, no matter how much research proves it's ineffective.

These ads are from NYC's Human Resources Administration, and they feature "with hard-hitting facts about the money and time costs of parenting, and the negative consequences of having a child before you are ready".

Think Progress points out that New York's mandatory comprehensive sex ed curriculum, as well as better teen access to contraception, have seen the teen pregnancy rate drop by 27 percent over the past decade. But they compare this campaign to abstinence-only education, "a misguided approach to sexual education that teaches adolescents to be ashamed of their bodies, rather than equipping young people with the tools they need to safeguard their health" and expect that the campaign by itself will be no more effective.

But worse, the negativity heaped on kids born to teen moms is unconscionable. Just because the statistics are there, doesn't mean you have to be so insensitive to real children and their parents.

This one, however, has the right positive message (in the headline, at least):

Why couldn't the whole campaign have taken this route?

Artist makes statement about "babies having babies" with pregnant baby doll

From Darren Cullen, the mind behind "Topless Mayan Advent Calendar" and "The Meat Planet" comes..

From Dangerous Minds:

Baby’s First Baby toy doll by artist Darren Cullen is—I’m assuming here—some kind of statement about glamorizing teen pregnancies on shows like MTV’s 16 and Pregnant. 

If you notice, even the fetus is pregnant! 

Of course, America should gut funding for Planned Parenthood…

Yeah, that is weird. But I like it when stuff makes me think about stuff.

Great POP condom advertising

It may not address STIs, but it is awesome.

Via Buzzfeed

Breaking the rubber barrier

Have you ever asked yourself why we don't see more condom ads on TV? Well, apparently the big American television networks are afraid to air ads that encourage safer sex — creating a de facto "ban" on promoting one of the most important health products for sexually active people.

That is changing, apparently, just today as the AIDS Healthcare Foundation "breaks the rubber barrier" on daytime and primetime television with this horribly awkward PSA to be run during Oprah and Family Guy (now THERE's an odd pairing):



As the Make The Logo Bigger blog noted, "This is Real Talk feels anything but. The only connection with her show may be the markets the spot will run in (Los Angeles and Washington, DC), but it sure feels like something she would produce. Campy, awkward and full of the type of acting at home in a PSA from the 1950s."

It's like safer sex filtered through The Cosby Show — except that old Bill consistently railed against premarital sex whenever one of his kids was suspected of it. The writing is stiff, the acting forced, and the timing is obtuse.

And yet even this sappy approach to safer sex, as a bonafide PSA, is too much for some U.S. broadcasters. According to the AHF:

"AHF’s ‘This is Real Talk,’ PSA was also submitted for approval for airing on a number of other primetime and daytime programs in Los Angeles. All stations agreed the spot was suitable to air, although some stations stipulated that the spot could only run in certain dayparts, such as after 9pm or 10pm."

At least they're trying. Just earlier this month, the NY Times Parenting blog, Motherlode, looked at the way American culture views sexuality with fear and disgust when dealing with issues such as condoms.

"Rachel Phelps (who works at Planned Parenthood in the United States) concludes that while American parents, advertisers and public-service announcements aim to scare teens, those in Europe are matter of fact and humorous.

'The idea is that sex is like a big industrial fire — dangerous, scary and bad,' Phelps writes. 'And having sex without a condom is like fighting a big industrial fire naked — very bad. But does that mean that having sex with a condom is like fighting a big industrial fire in a spacesuit? Not very appealing. Why would this image motivate teenagers to use condoms?'"

You think she's joking? Check this out:

This is from a slideshow on Slate that contrasts European condom ads — which playfully celebrate sexual pleasure — with American sexophobia.

Let's hope that the "Real Talk" PSA's awkward first steps into mainstreaming the safer sex conversation in America are the beginning of a slippery slope. I'd love to see the faces of the abstinence-only education parents when they see spots like these crop up during Dancing with the Stars:

Cloning the talking baby

A few months ago, I blogged on Osocio about Bristol Palin's PSA for the Candie's Foundation, an American not-for-profit that tries to show girls the realities of becoming a teenage mom.

Now there's a new spot out with Bristol's endorsement, although this one is less about comparing her wealthy life to that of poor teen moms. Instead, it steals E*Trade's talking baby concept (which itself was an old idea) to demonstrate what a tyrant a baby really can be:



Mind you, teen parenthood is a very serious issue, and I hope this PSA convinces a few girls (and boys!) to take steps to avoid it. But it's always a shame when lazy ad people waste an opportunity for originality by ripping off a well-known idea and then doing a poorer job of it.

I do, however, love the line "and you thought your parents were controlling?" coming from the daughter of someone who almost became Vice President of the United States.