At last! A judge ordered the FDA to allow the morning after pill, Plan B, to be available over the counter!
Hurrah!
Plan B is not my favorite pill to take, because it can be crampy and make you cranky, but seriously, the drug is as safe as anything and it’s important to have access to it.
Yay for sensibility taking over. No need to have be legislating sexual morality.
Happy V-Day once again! Time flies. Per the usual, I’d recommend a viewing of the Vagina Monologues – find one in your area and go if you’ve never been!
For the 15th anniversary of V-Day, check out the One Billion Rising campaign to end violence against women.
Too much even going on in the media today for me to absorb it all. But, people. Please.
I can’t help but directly plagiarize myself, since next to ranting, I think the most important thing about blogging is getting people access to information.
Here is a brief list of links that I think may be helpful.
xox
GENERAL SEX INFO/EDUCATION:
Scarleteen: Sex Education for the Real World.
I can’t really recommend this blog enough. It’s upbeat, thorough and informative. Never judgmental, i wish i had this resource when i was figuring shit out.
Emily Nagoski: Sex Nerd blog
Yeeee, i respect this woman!
SEX/REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH:
Planned Parenthood
Amazing resource. Can’t say enough good about them. Birth control, abortions, health access, etc.
Our Bodies Ourselves.
General Health, woman’s health, pregnancy, sexuality, etc. This book should be in everyone’s library.
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
This is a great alternative health resource that i have turned to again and again to take care of myself by Dr. Christiane Northrup. It was recommended to me in a pap smear crisis and i think you need this book.
Orgasm, Inc.
This is a great new flick about the medical industries search for “pink viagra” and the medicalization of “female sexual dysfunction.” Truly fascinating and pertinent.
Cycle Savvy by Toni Weschler. Written for teens but a great way to get in touch with your cycle, track your ovulation, know your body, etc.
SEX BOOKS/GUIDES:
The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex
This book must be bought, so i’m sending you direct to a purchasing source.
Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex.
(And Nina Hartley in general!!) Click this link for porn, sex education, how to’s and rockin feminist sex positive perspective.
Are We Having Fun Yet
If you read this book, you will surely know it’s so dated, but i sort of look at it as a bit groundbreaking for its time.
SEX TOYS:
Good Vibrations.
Sex Toys, sex info, amazing staff, sex positive kick ass mission, amazing museum of vibrators. Condoms, lube, dildoes, vibrators, etc. If you have any fear or questions or hesitation, go to them!
Adam & Eve
Endless supply of adult toys.
Babeland
Seriously, are you getting the picture? Buy some sex toys. It’s worth it. Explore, play, figure it out, enjoy!
HISTORY OF VIBRATORS
And while we are on the topic of sex toys, might as well learn about their history. An all time favorite topic of mine.
The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines.
She is my history superhero. Ever wonder where and why vibrators were invented? Yeah, it’s good.
Passion and Power
Lil’ flick on the topic, featuring Rachel Maines herself. Dated but informative!
OPEN RELATIONSHIPS:
i would start with Tristan Taormino, one of my personal heroes. i have long respected her feminist porn and sex education, and she recently moved into the realm of relationship advice. Her book is called “Opening Up“. She is bad ass and you can sort of skip around this book like it’s a resource. You can read it cover to cover for sure, which i would recommend if you’ve never even considered non-monogamy.
Then there is always the classic, “The Ethical Slut,” which people (including me!) often complain is too hippie, but it’s good if you can get past that. Especially what they have to say about jealousy. It’s okay to be jealous when your partner is on a date with someone else, you just have to fess up to the emotion, recognize where it’s coming from, and get the support you need.
There is a more casual story-like book called “Open” by Jenny Block. This book is a narrative of Jenny’s experiences with non-monogamy. She sort of tells her life story from childhood to being in an open marriage. It’s a quick read and definitely reassuring if you feel like you are alone in your process.
Lastly, and possibly most excitingly, “Sex at Dawn.” It’s my hope and dream that their more scientific approach to questioning whether or not monogamy is natural will open up a whole new realm of investigation on the matter.
PORN
Tristan Taormino is absolutely my favorite porn director/sex educator. She has the most feminist bad ass approach to pornography and hot/sexy/informative sex education. The first film of hers i ever saw was The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Woman. She somehow combines an informative how to video with some hot damn porn. You can be into anal sex or not, i would recommend checking this out as a good intro to how porn can be more than grody degrading cum shots.
For feminist porn that isn’t instructional in nature, take a look at her Chemistry series. This is a brilliant, hot, unscripted porn series where she hires porn stars, puts them in a house together for a weekend, and films them fucking. It is so good. If you have a hard time getting into the idea of porn but are still compelled to take a look, start with this. Complete with interviews with the actors/actresses; it’s fascinating and hot.
I could go on about Tristan forever, but i will let you do some exploring on your own.
Annie Sprinkle! Goddess of Sex! So her porn is a little dated, but her books are fucking outstanding. It’s a stellar look into her life. Her website is a great resource for a sex positive outlook. One of her best contributions to society was the Public Cervix Announcement. As a post-porn performance artist, Annie did a performance piece where she invited the audience to the stage to take a look at her cervix. Thank you, Annie!
violet blue. Author of The Smart Girls Guide to Porn, violet blue knows her feminist porn. i admit that there was a time in my life i though i needed to be against porn to be a feminist. Fuck that! Porn can be fun if you have a positive approach to it and can feel good about the actors/actresses.
Eros Blog i don’t know too much or have too much to say about this blog. But it has some fascinating historical photos and crazy archives of pornographic photos. Definitely worth a look.
FEMINISM
Cunt has to be one of the best things to read, ever. If you haven’t read it, i highly recommend checking out this little gem by Inga Musico. It would not be an understatement to say it was life changing.
Eve Ensler is a great feminist author, playwright and performance artist. Her most famous work is The Vagina Monologues. It’s an incredibly powerful performance to go check out.
RAPE/SEXUAL ABUSE
Fugitivus blog. This blog is incredibly cathartic to read; it’s rightfully angry, personal, and fearless.
Healing Sex: A Mind Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma. This resource is by Staci Haines. It employs a somatic healing approach to overcoming sexual trauma. It is mostly directed at people abused in their youth but is a guide for anyone. I wouldn’t recommend starting to read this until you are ready to address your abuse head on.
Hope you find some of this information good and helpful!
Some things are so rage inducing that they cause you to start a blog.
I’ve been enraged by Fair and Lovely, a skin lightening cream used in Africa and India that bleaches your skin with the intent of making you whiter, and therefore somehow more attractive. I studied abroad in Kenya when I was an undergrad, and I promise you that people actually use this heinous. One of my homestay sisters would very casually apply it, and when I pressed her for details about it, would simply say “oh, it’s just my cream.” It’s so horrifying that we assign so much importance to whiteness that people freely apply this crap to their bodies that there is no way I can address all of the implications in one blog.
I’ve also been equally or possibly more enraged by My New Pink Button. MNPB is a “temporary dye to restore the youthful pink color back to your labia.” It’s apparently supposed to keep your lady bits looking young since as we age we get “genital color loss.” Oh, and when we make babies. Dirty stuff that.
Women don’t need another thing they are comparing themselves to other women about or another way to live up to a non-existent ideal. Especially when inevitable differences like age and race are being fetishized. And when the process of getting there “burns.” I’ve researched a bunch and haven’t found any ingredients yet. But the chemicals that are in MNPB cannot possibly be okay to put anywhere near your vag. (Especially if they don’t even have the gall to list the ingredients on the website!)
And now we’ve really done it by combining the two. Clean and Dry is a great new product that will leave you “fresher, cleaner, fairer!” As if the idea of douching isn’t insane enough already, preying on the most ridiculous of lady insecurities, this product is bleaching while douching, and that’s just perfect.
One of the ads portrays an (already light skinned) couple clearly not having enough sex. But somehow this lightening douche magically makes everything more magical again. How is it possible that we have taken racism and sexism so far and so intertwined as to be disrupting our poor lady bits in such a foul manner? It makes me so sad that in some ways we have come so far, but in the ways that matter, we are still so far from having figured it out.
Everyone has different colored vaginas. That’s fact. Whatever natural stat your labia/vulva/vag/general lady parts are in is beautiful and perfect. Don’t go fucking with products like this to make em more appealing. Gross! There is no normal vag color, and thank god. Yours is right.
The week in review.
So, this has been an enraging week. On so many levels. I feel like I was so overwhelmed with all the mayhem I couldn’t even bring myself to blog about it every day. So here is the week in review. All of my rage in a quick summary.
We had PETA’s not so surprising ad campaign depicting a vegan boyfriend fucking a girl so good she ends up with a broken neck.
We had the grammys welcoming Chris Brown with open and forgiving arms a mere 3 years after he beat then-girlfriend Rihanna just nights before the grammys.
There was the male dominated birth control hearing, producing the now infamous photo of dudes making crucial contraception decisions.
Let’s not forget Virginia’s new bill that would require women who want and abortion to get an ultrasound.
And finally, we had the charming and quaint declaration of millionaire backer of Rick Santorum that “gals” should just hold an aspirin between their knees as a form of contraception. I had one of those moments thinking that Foster Friess is like your creepy sexist uncle of yours who keeps saying inappropriate shit and you know one day you are just gonna crack and yell at him for being a sexists fuck. Then I realized I actually have that uncle. And he actually said that aspirin thing and old dudes actually think things like that.
Friess is responsible for about 40% of the funds of this super PAC behind Rick Santorum. As if money in politics wasn’t bad enough before, it simply baffles me that super PAC’s ever became acceptable. Can’t we just immediately outlaw shit that insane? Without thinking about it, debating it, or mulling it over? Super PAC’s make it possible for one sexist old man to nearly singlehandedly support one crazy candidate and have it be somehow okay.
I feel like the best option here would just be to embarrass the crap out of the man. “Oh, btdubs, Foster, you could actually still fuck with your knees together. Have you never had sex from behind? Oh, you are totally missing out, you should try it sometime.”
There is never going to be an acceptable contraceptive solution that suggests we all be a little more prudish. So just get the fuck over it. People fuck. They don’t necessarily want babies. This isn’t the 1950’s.
As far as I can tell, this week needs to simply vanish. I mean really.
The one and only moment of sanity in all this madness:
Thank god for constructive comedy.
You can love or hate Valentine’s Day.
You can love or hate Eve Ensler.
What is V-Day? from V-Day Until the Violence Stops on Vimeo.
Regardless, it’s definitely worth supporting V-Day as an alternative to the corporate crap show that is consuming candy and chocolates on Valentine’s day.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the world. Porn is fine. It’s okay to watch it. Sometimes it’s even good and healthy and awesome to watch it. Don’t be embarrassed that you watch it. Don’t be jealous that your lover watches it. Don’t be hard on your teenager if you catch them watching it. Sex is fascinating. It’s normal and healthy and good. Watching other people have sex can have a profound and life changing impact. Short of getting to watch your close friends that you are comfortable with have sex, watching porn may be the next best. You can learn from good porn. See something you have never thought of. Learn something new. Become inspired. Be awed by the varied shapes, sizes, wants, needs and desires of different people and bodies.
Obviously there is some debate about the merits of porn re: whether or not it’s a healthy portrayal of women, how they want to be treated (or should be treated), what they should like or want, and what their bodies should look like. I know there are plenty of feminists who will argue that the negatives far outweigh the benefits of the porn industry. But I say this. Just stop watching shitty porn. You have simply got to see good feminist porn.
It’s hard to find, so I’ve sorted a few starting points out for you.
Tristan Taormino is absolutely my favorite porn director/sex educator. She has the most feminist bad ass approach to pornography and hot/sexy/informative sex education. The first film of hers I ever saw was The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Woman. She somehow combines an informative how-to video with some hot damn porn. You can be into anal sex or not, I would recommend checking this out as a good intro to how porn can be more than grody degrading cum shots.
For feminist porn that isn’t instructional in nature, take a look at her Chemistry series. This is a brilliant, hot, unscripted porn series where she hires porn stars, puts them in a house together for a weekend, and films them fucking. It is so good. If you have a hard time getting into the idea of porn but are still compelled to take a look, start with this. Complete with interviews with the actors/actresses; it’s fascinating and hot.
I could go on about Tristan forever, but i will let you do some exploring on your own.
Annie Sprinkle! Goddess of Sex! So her porn is a little dated, but her books are fucking outstanding. It’s a stellar look into her life. Her website is a great resource for a sex positive outlook. One of her best contributions to society was the Public Cervix Announcement. As a post-porn performance artist, Annie did a performance piece where she invited the audience to the stage to take a look at her cervix. Thank you, Annie!
violet blue. Author of The Smart Girls Guide to Porn, violet blue knows her feminist porn. I admit that there was a time in my life I though I needed to be against porn to be a feminist. Fuck that! Porn can be fun if you have a positive approach to it and can feel good about the actors/actresses.
And of course Nina Hartley is simply a classic with a lot of great stuff to say. As a veteran of the porn industry, folks have a lot to learn from her. One of my favorite quotes from her regarding the possibility of men taking a degrading lesson from porn: “Watching pornography to find out about how sex works is like watching a James Bond movie to find out how spies do their job.” (Read the whole interview at Jezebel. Don’t love everything she says, but do love and respect everything about her. Porn is political for sure.)
Also, youporn dot com is fine for some porn access (you can even find sasha grey on there), but it’s best to be selective about what you are watching so you know you are getting the good stuff. I recommend finding what you like and feeling good and healthy about it before going there.
I’m sure I’ll post more about porn someday when the news has lots to say about the porn industry, but this is just a little intro. Porn doesn’t have to be degrading. Watch it alone, watch it with your partner. Turn it off when you don’t like it. Discuss it. Do it. Enjoy! Sex is for fun and exploration. Porn doesn’t have to be a bad place to start.