Posts Categorized: Sex and Culture
Tell Me I Look Sexy With My IUD Strings Pushed Back: Let’s Chat About IUDs
Let me tell you a true story: I took the birth control pill for less than a month, and it made me feel horrendous. I gained weight, my skin broke out, and my pre-existing anxiety got even worse. This is where my first true love, my Mirena IUD, comes in. I’ve never had huge issues with my periods. They’ve never been particularly intense or cumbersome, but, instead, merely just annoying and inconsistent. I decided to get an IUD by the suggestion of my doctor before I went to college. It felt like not only the responsible thing to do as I take my first steps into ~adulthood~, but also, the thought of not having a period for FIVE years sold me. If you do the math, that’s roughly seven… Read more »
On Free Speech, Discourse and Opinions
Free speech has been a heated and inconclusive source of debate in academia since the 1964 Free Speech Movement started at UC Berkeley. Since then, college campuses across the nation have been influential sites where the status and significance of the First Amendment has been negotiated. With the recognition that marginalized people are excised from political processes, public protest, organizing, and advocacy have been essential forms of resistance and community building, thus legitimizing the multiple global movements behind it. Adversely, free speech has historically been regarded by right-wing politicians such as Reagan and Nixon as a misuse of the Constitution to protect subversiveness — a symbol of judicial excess. This previous rejection of free speech has slowly begun to dissipate as neoconservatives have bastardized free speech and re-oriented it to silence marginalized… Read more »
Toxic Masculinity Is Not A Mental Illness
If you’ve been paying attention since the beginning of time, you’ll notice that men who commit acts of violence after being scorned by a lover and/or rejected by a woman are not a new phenomenon. Here you’ll find a list of 14 women who have been killed in the last two years by men they rejected. A simple Google search will result in tons of other articles with similar themes. Where there’s a woman, there’s most likely a man trailing behind her, thinking of ways he can assert his power over her. Crossing race, class, and sexuality, men’s violence against women and femmes knows no limit. We’ve seen this in the past two weeks, as recently as yesterday with the Cleveland shooting. These men may have been in relationships with… Read more »
Learning to Step Back
Working night shift and being a generally exhausted college student, I’m up most hours of the night trying to get inspiration for an article, a paper, or something to keep my brain busy while I count down the hours to my next class. Tonight was one of those sleepless nights, and I found myself surfing between videos on gender identity, articles on whitewashing in Ghost in the Shell, and some web comics on sex and kinks. With any and all inspiration drained out of me, I looked for something I felt like I could write about in a coherent and passionate way. I came across so many things I could write about, but staring at a Google Doc only takes me so far when it comes to actually writing. So,… Read more »
This Burden Called Strength
This burden called strength is a constant debacle that Black women face daily. This strength refers to the principle that Black women are indestructible forces that are built to not be damaged by oppression, whether it is institutional or personal. We see this played out in slave narratives where mothers are stripped away from their children and are forced to grow thicker skin to bear with the loss of their children. Social norms have created this persona where strong Black women refuse to complain about doing it all. Their social script only recognizes them when they are able to tolerate the intolerable. However, this idea is detrimental to Black women since it neglects their humanity. A consequence of the archetype of Black women’s inhumane strength is that society views them… Read more »
Chimamanda and the Art of Not Knowing
If you’re even remotely close to a queer person of color, you’ve probably heard all of the lively debate and discussion over Chimamanda Ngozie Adicihie’s comments on trans womanhood. As one of the most prominent popular feminists of our time, Chimamanda is a writer known for Ted talks and books, including the critically acclaimed We Should All Be Feminists, which aims to explain feminism in the 21st century. As a non-binary femme, I’m not going to break down why Chimamanda’s comments were harmful, incorrect, and transmisogynistic. Multiple black trans women have done so, and anything I could come up with would pale in comparison. Instead, I would like to take the time to acknowledge one thing about Chimamanda’s comments that I know to be true. She had no idea what… Read more »
Milo Yiannopoulos and The Discourse
It’s been about a week since Milo Yiannopoulos has been ousted from the conservative community. An openly gay man known for his blatant racism, and transphobia, Milo served as a bridge between the GamerGate crowd, and white gay people who refused to be held accountable for their oppressive ways. Milo’s rhetoric has been responsible for protests on almost every campus he has attended, along with violence towards college students, and those with marginalized identities. Milo firmly holds the belief that being gay is wrong and that political correctness is ruining the country. However, it wasn’t Milo’s self determination to be the Worst Human Being In The World that got him dumped on the doorstep of the club he so desperately wanted to be a part of. It was his comments on relationships… Read more »
Fea: Chicana Riot-Girl Revival Will Lead The Revolution
Last summer, I was absolutely dejected when no one wanted to go see some feminist punk rock in downtown Houston with me. Enter my ultra-kind lover, who, despite fear of crowds and noise, offered to drive us to the show. Fea, self-described riot grrrl Chicana punk out of San Antonio, Texas was playing and changed my entire life. They combine the thrashing, overwhelming, pure combustible energy of punk with sounds unfamiliar to many mainstream US punk listeners: Spanish lyrics and queer feminist perspective. As an edgy suburban kid, I identified with the punk and alt-rock of the 1990s and 2000s, and Blink-182 remains a personal favorite (my lover surprised me with tickets for my birthday just this year). The overwhelming whiteness, masculinity and misogyny of the genre is very problematic, but… Read more »
Too Little Too Late, America: The Milo Yiannopoulos Edition
The alt-right poster boy from our nightmares, Milo Yiannopoulos, has been dominating the news for the past few days. Writer at Breitbart News, speaker at universities, and personified air horn, Yiannopoulos has become an online celebrity in recent years, and is experiencing a fall of epic proportions. From his early career as a troll on Twitter and outspoken opponent of the political and social left, he has recently filled his time with outing trans students, inciting passionate protests at his venues, and — most terrifyingly — condoning pedophilia. However, this article is not going to talk about Yiannopoulos. While I could rant about his words and his actions, how they reflect on the larger American social sphere and how they show us the steadily growing bigotry of the country, this article… Read more »
How Feminist Can The Superbowl Really Be?
I’ll be honest, I don’t watch football. I go to a football school, I was a cheerleader for football in high school, most people in my life live and breathe football, but I don’t care much for the sport. I barely know what a first down is, and I’ll be hard pressed to name a single player most of the time. TLDR; Oblivious to any and all sports, thy name is Rachel. So, most years I tune the buzz about the Superbowl out as much as possible. But recently,the game has began to appeal more and more to my interests. The Superbowl is becoming more of a political event than a sporting event, and this year was no different. Headlines have been raving about the progressive moments of the Superbowl,… Read more »
