Abstinence-Only Education for Adults?

New Sex-Negative Guidelines from the U.S. Government

In an alarming move, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last month that federal funds for abstinence-only sex “education” will now be available for programs targeting adults up to 29 years of age.

The National Center for Health Statistics reports that well over 90% of adults ages 20-29 have already had sexual intercourse.

Federal guidelines for abstinence education require that programs teach “that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity” and “that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

Studies of abstinence-only education have found that these programs rely on medically inaccurate information and that they are ineffective at preventing students from having sex. See our Sex Act from January 2005. Last year Congress appropriated $50 million in grants for abstinence education.
Learn More!

-USA Today’s article “Abstinence Message Goes Beyond Teens.”

-U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ new guidelines for abstinence-only education grants.

-Read the U.S. government’s definition of “Abstinence Education.”

Take Action!

-The U.S. government has no business telling responsible, consenting adults to abstain from sex! Comprehensive sex education — including responsible information about birth control that works — is the best way to prevent unintended pregnancies. E-mail Annie Miller, the Interim Abstinence Program Specialist, at the Administration for Children & Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at ammiller@acf.hhs.gov.

-Support the work of Advocates for Youth, a great organization that fights for responsible, comprehensive sex education while envisioning “a society that views sexuality as normal and healthy and treats young people as a valuable resource.”

Welcome to Babeland’s “nightmare before Christmas.” In mid-November, just as we were gearing up for a busy holiday season, our natural (also known as ‘organic’ or ‘non-paid’) search rankings vanished from Google’s search results, resulting in an instantaneous 30% drop in sales. To put it in perspective: That’s several thousand women who won’t get to buy the popular Bunny Love vibrator kit from a friendly, woman-owned sex toy store. How sad is that?!

The culprit? Google periodically changes its algorithm, which can impact search results. For Babeland, this latest change eliminated our consistently high ranking for keywords like “vibrators” and “sex toys.” Whether by coincidence or design, this last Google adjustment happened right before the holidays, a time when businesses can only make up the loss by spending more money in Google’s Adwords program (paid advertising).

I just happen to be a Google surfer myself who, because of my job in Web marketing, has learned far too much about the intricate workings of your average search engine. I do know that Google’s Adwords is driven by competition—the more people there are bidding on a keyword, the higher the price for that keyword. Since the algorithm changed, none of the previously-ranked adult business shows up in the natural search results for “vibrators,” just a handful of blog spam sites. For Google, a company that values the relevancy of its searches to landing pages, the fact that none of the natural results feature any of the usual adult players, seemed particularly troublesome. Apparently I’m not alone in thinking that while Google’s timing might be a buzz killer for vibe sites, it certainly isn’t hurting Google’s stock climb (an ascent the media loves to cover)–plenty of website owners have commented on the ill-timing of Google’s latest changes.

One of the other theories being tossed around is that this Google change might be an attempt to “clean up” adult material on the internet. According to this blog posting last week from, Dude, Where’s My Porn: “If you Google for porn today, you may not find it. That’s because this past weekend saw a huge shake up in the online porn world. A change in the Google algorithm caused almost all TGPs to fall out of the top results for single-word porn search phrases.”

Honestly, I like Google and don’t think they’re taking on the adult industry. I think they tweaked their code, and we’re paying the price, at least temporarily. The sad thing is, until the system “rights” itself, they’re actually doing a disservice to folks who are searching. With this latest change, Google appears to be prioritizing educational sites, blogs and adfarms, over businesses. But Babeland ranked high because of its relevance. Most people searching on the word “vibrators” aren’t looking for a wikipedia entry, they just want to buy a vibrator from a reputable source. At the same time, they don’t necessarily want Google to lead them by the collar to paid advertisers, which is why natural search results are so important.

And so we’re scrambling to try and figure out how to make up for lost sales, at a time of year when we usually imagine lots of happy toy lovers unwrapping their blissfully buzzing boxes of orgasms. But we aren’t letting Google’s Scrooge-like antics kill our holiday spirit! We’re lucky to have a really loyal customer base, so we’re offering them every incentive we can do order this holiday season.We’ve got pre-wrapped holiday vibrator kits, free shipping, a contest to win five luxury vibrators, and gift suggestions for every budget. And oh, yeah. You know what one of our resolutions is for 2007? Diversify. 45% of all internet searches may be conduced on Google, but that leaves 55% up for grabs. Hopefully Google will recognize that if it alienates its core adwords buyers, we’re likely to spend our money elsewhere. If you want to help us out, pass along the link to this blog post, tell a friend about Babeland’s site, buy a vibrator for a loved one, or just shoot an email over to Google and give them an earful! You can also tell Google what you think by following these easy steps: 1. Use Google to search for “vibrator”  2. Scroll to the bottom of the search results page until you see a link that says “Dissatisfied? Help Us Improve”. 3. Click on that link and use the space provided to tell Google that you were looking for a good place to buy a vibrator, not an article about vibrators! It’s easy.

I just came back from my first plane trip after the TSA’s new only-small-liquids policy. Luckily, my flight was only an hour long so I didn’t have to go without my precious water for too long. Just after I got back, I helped a customer looking for massage oil and lube. I pointed him to the Babeland Body massage oils. He wanted a smaller comtainer which, sadly, most massage oils just don’t come in. Even though we didn’t have the right size massage oil for him, we did have the perfect size lube – Babelube, which comes in a handy-dandy 1oz bottle. Perfect for your TSA quart sized clear plastic bag.

Going somewhere for the holidays and want to bring some toys with you? Just in time, some of my coworkers have written up a handy article on what toys travel well for your holiday plans. It has some of my favorites like the Ducky (sitting in my shower right now) and the Laya – rivaling the iPod as the hottest gift this season (really!). Just remember to take your batteries out for the flight…Happy trails!