- Fun in Getting Taken Out of Context | Feministe
I often avoid writing about this stuff because it devolves into a downward spiral of stupid. “This proves that women want to be dominated!” “No, as long as someone finds it erotic, it’s ok and we have no right to look at this in the context of a misogynist culture!” “BDSM is freaky and for perverts!” “No, people who practice BDSM are always responsible and it’s never abusive!” etc etc etc.
- Romance, Arousal, and Condescension | Blog | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books | Romance Novel Reviews | All of the Romance, None of the Bullshit.
I think the real temptation and curiosity for those people and many, many others was that many women were saying “This is great for my sex life. This is great for my marriage.” Better sex? Who is saying no to that?!…I certainly wouldn’t, though 50 Shades did not crank my engine the way it has for so many other women. But I remain stunned by the fact that yet again we’re repeating the same assumptions, and answering with the same assertions. We cannot examine female arousal without demeaning condescension. And that is a shame. I wish it were possible to speak candidly about what books turned women on, and why. It would be fascinating to see what those books have in common, and why some work and some don’t.
- The Soapbox: Actually, Katie Roiphe, Feminists Are Not Perplexed About Submissive Sex | Jessica Wakeman | The Frisky
Free will is very much present in submissive sex, which, let’s not forget, is acting out a fantasy. In fact, if it is done right, the very act of negotiating a dominant/submissive play session is a choice and is about as far from abuse as possible. Longtime partners and kinkier BDSM folks may play with total, I-place-myself-completely-in-your-hands submission (The Story of O comes to mind), but for the rest of us this “surrender” is beautifully negotiated, even planned. That is because most partners — the responsible ones — approach each other as equals. Equal dignity, equal respect, equal attempts at pleasure. Dominance and submission does not mean some animals are more equal than others. Sexual subjugation in the realm of sexual fantasy does not erase outside-the-bedroom equality — unless, of course, one wants it to, but that, too, will be negotiated.
Tagged as:
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Novels,
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sex,
submission
- The Female Gaze Does Not Exist? – I think my frustration also occurs because decrying terms like “porn for women”, “female friendly” and “the female gaze” (however flawed they are) can have the effect of denying straight women their own space in the pornosphere. As I said in this post two and a half years ago, these phrases are about creating a space in an overwhelmingly male-dominated industry.
- How to get birth control privately when you’re a teen & keep condoms from breaking | Scarleteen – To review, you are old enough to seek health services at a clinic and obtain hormonal birth control options without parental consent, for potentially reduced cost. Plus, we had a bonus discussion about correct condom use because it is important to keep on protecting yourself against STIs even if you have another method of contraception, and condoms make a great birth control backup if something goes amiss with your other method.
- Gmail Gains Delegation Feature: Who Wants To Answer All My Email? | Techcrunch – By way of a new feature in settings, you can grant another Google account holder access to your email account. This allows another person to both send and receive emails on behalf of your account.
- It is not just violent clients who hurt sex workers | Audacia Ray | Guardian.co.uk – In Uganda and many other countries, they are denied access to HIV treatment, stigmatised by authorities and brutalised by police
- Transsexuals Are Edging Into the Mainstream – Is 2010 the Year of the Transsexual? – NYTimes.com – Not since the glam era of the 1970s has gender-bending so saturated the news media. The difference now is that mystery has been replaced with empowerment, even pride.
- Sarah Mei » Disalienation: Why Gender is a Text Field on Diaspora – The “gender” field in a person’s profile was originally a dropdown menu, with three choices: blank, male, and female. My change made it an optional text field that was blank to start. A wide open frontier! Enter anything you want.
- Why you shouldn’t give to the Salvation Army this holiday season | The Bilerico Project – While many think of the group as just another charity, in truth the group is a religious sect that is notoriously anti-gay; you shouldn't give to the Salvation Army this holiday season if you support gay rights.
Tagged as:
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condoms,
culture,
design,
discrimination,
email,
feminism,
gay,
gender,
google,
minors,
porn,
privacy,
sex,
sexuality,
sexwork,
socialmedia,
tools,
transgender,
transsexual,
Uganda
- Crimes of the Art? | Culture | Vanity Fair – Eight years after Larry Rivers’s death, both his pioneering art and his hypersexual private life are getting fresh attention. In the 70s, he filmed his adolescent daughters topless for a documentary, Growing, that the younger one, Emma Rivers Tamburlini, says is nothing less than child pornography. With battle lines drawn between Emma and those who guard Rivers’s legacy, the author asks whether the artist was shattering taboos or destroying innocence.
- Women Who Like to Be Dominated in Bed: Talking to BDSM Submissives | AlterNet – Outside of the BDSM scene, there are many misconceptions about submissive women. Non-kinky individuals might assume that submissive women are passive, indecisive or weak individuals who lack ambition—in other words, the anti-feminists. But spend some time around the BDSM community, and one encounters plenty of submissive women who describe themselves as card-carrying feminists. A female submissive might be a corporate lawyer or an emergency room physician, or she might be signing a major book deal. The fact that she is voluntarily submissive in the dungeon doesn’t mean that she is submissive outside of the dungeon.
- Out Of The Closet … In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch : NPR – "There are two things in my life that are an absolute," the megachurch pastor told his flock. "I did not ask for either one of them, both of them were imposed upon me, I had no control over either of them. One was the call of God on my life… and the other thing … was my sexual orientation."
- NYC swingers sex parties are feeling the pinch of the tough economy |NY Daily News – DDeviousDelights is one of many venues that blame the economy for its 30 to 40% event attendance drop this year. The high-end roaming party One Leg Up said it has had about 20 percent fewer event attendees a year since 2007. And one stationary club — the 14-year-old Carousel Couples Club — reported a 60% attendance plunge from 2007 to 2009.
- Young Women Chat About Porn, Sex Work, Blogging and the ‘F-Word’ With Beauty Myth Author Naomi Wolf – Speakeasy – WSJ – The panelists were Feministing.com blogger and author Courtney Martin, sex blogger and queer advocate Lena Chen, sex education activist Shelby Knox, and libertarian “free-market feminist” Allison Kasic.
- For Gays, New Songs of Survival- NYTimes.com – In the wake of the continued legal wrangling over the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and same-sex marriage; harassment of gay youth in schools; and anger over the use of a gay joke in the trailer for the Vince Vaughn film “The Dilemma,” the top of the pop music charts has become a refuge of unambiguous support for gay rights.
Tagged as:
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feminism,
gay,
harassment,
incest,
jim+swilley,
lgbt,
mollena+williams,
music,
nyc,
rachel+kramer+bussel,
sex,
submission,
susan+wright,
swinging,
women
- Comment Period Now Open on .XXX – Make Your Voice Heard | techyum :: – On August 24 the 30-day comment period opened for the proposed .XXX top-level domain. Until September 23, the public is invited to tell ICANN what they think. If you’re unfamiliar with the history and issues around .XXX, and the men who stand to profit from it (while exhibiting blatant disregard for the very serious problems it poses) please read Now Playing: .XXX. TLD Carpetbaggers Give New Meaning to “Drop and Snatch” (carnalnation.com).
- How To Get A Sex Blogger To Have Sex With You | Sex and the 405 – A good way to get to know me is to engage me regarding the content I post. Yes, we may talk about sex, my preferences and your own. That does not mean you should suggest we fuck. It just means we’re discussing our preferences. Please note that many people engage me in this way and the best way to differentiate yourself is by having intelligent conversation with me.
- An Interview with the author of Sex at Dawn; The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality | Examiner.com – I recently had the opportunity to speak with psychologist Christopher Ryan, one of the authors of a revolutionary new book that debunks the theory that monogamy is a natural and thus appropriate construct for our species. The book is entitled Sex at Dawn; The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality and was co-written by Ryan's wife, psychiatrist Cacilda Jetha.
- “it’s not about sex” and other lies « Sex Geek – I realize that I come to my poly from a place of queerness, where because of a long history of oppression, of being told our sex is bad, many of us hold onto and defend the beauty of our sexuality with great ferocity. I come to it from a place of kink, where we spend tons of time talking about how to play and have sex in ways that feel good to us. But whether you’re kinky or queer or poly, all of the above or none of the above, I invite you to join me in refusing to buy into any variety of “sex is bad” or “sex is less than,” no matter whose mouth it comes out of. Whether it’s conservative lawmakers, or our intimate partners; the American Psychological Association or our community leaders; the Religious Right or the sacred sexuality proponents.
- 5 Things an Affair May Not Mean | Christopher Ryan | Huffington Post – In "Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality," Cacilda Jethá, my coauthor (and wife) and I argue that there's a good reason long-term sexual monogamy is hard for human beings. The evidence we present in the book shows that til death do us part may be a wonderful ideal, but it's anything but an easy (or natural) path for most human beings. Yes, we are moral beings (most of us) with the capacity to override our evolved predispositions to some extent, but maybe, just maybe, an occasional slip on that long and arduous path is to be expected…Or maybe not. Such notions of tolerance are actively discouraged in America. As Pamela Druckerman explains in "Lust in Translation," her survey of global attitudes toward infidelity, "It has come to seem obvious to Americans that the discovery of infidelity leads to a confrontation, followed by counseling, perhaps other forms of support, and a long period of discussion and recovery (sometimes in perpetuity)."
- Sex and Censorship: What Recent Attacks on Online Sex Discussions Have to Do With Your Blog | BlogHer – That is what is at stake here. This isn't an issue of us versus them, morality versus indecency, conservatives versus liberals, believers versus atheists. This is a matter of freedom to speak, freedom to congregate, freedom to learn about ourselves and to share that knowledge. That's what this country stands for and it's essential that those of us who believe in these tenets take a stance against those seeking to oppress them.
Tagged as:
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Blogging,
censorship,
domain,
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gender,
icann,
infidelity,
internet,
language,
marriage,
monogamy,
polyamory,
queer,
relationships,
sex,
sexbloggers,
sexuality,
tfw2010
- Grab Your Dick and Double Click : Librarian Hot – It should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed the Blue and Lust books, while I wanted to throw the Jensen and Paul books across the room (or out the window, or off of a really big cliff). I do agree with them about a few things: for one, that pornography addiction is real, and it can cause serious damage to relationships (as can, of course, any addiction or compulsive behavior). I also agree that most mainstream porn is indeed extremely misogynistic. But do you know what I find even more demeaning to women? Anti-porn crusaders’ tired gender essentialism arguments.
- How the Media Should Treat the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Al Gore | The Nation – A handful of feminist blogs, including Feministing, precede me in decrying the media's haste to impugn the credibility of the accuser. As they rightly observe, almost all other media coverage of the story has given the rest of us permission to giggle, when what we really need is a sober dose of reality: that these are credible charges against a very powerful and influential man. It's in our shared interest to take them seriously, evaluate them based on whatever information comes to light and demand answers and accountability.
- The New Abortion Providers – NYTimes.com – This abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned.
- For Women, Social Media is More Than "Girl Talk" | Mashable – It turns out that sociolinguists have found women to be innovators when it comes to communication, especially with new forms of languages. … The practical benefits that social media affords, combined with its emotionally fulfilling features make it likely that women will not only continue to engage with social media, but with future related innovations, as well.
Tagged as:
communication,
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politics,
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women
