Posts Tagged: sex
Fifty Shades of Grey: Spicing up the Sex Lives of Readers Everywhere with “Kinky Fuckery.”
Over the last two weeks, I began to read the highly publicized novel Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, and it really gave me a lot I wanted to discuss. I know many feminists everywhere were having a field day discussing the book and all the ways that it’s problematic , but all I could think about when I finished reading Fifty Shades was how freely sex is discussed in such detail; it’s so much more than “the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of organisms that are involved in reproduction marked by the union of gametes and that distinguish males and females,” or “sexually motivated phenomena or behavior,” as defined in the Webster’s Dictionary. Kink is a vast world that operates in society, but it has… Read more »
Sextravaganzas and Other Campus Sex Workshops
Last month, fellow Choice Correspondent Amanda and I attended Creating Change: The National Conference on LGBT Equality. I may be biased, but Choice USA’s workshops really seemed to start some productive and practical conversations about how to help make our communities more sex positive. One of Choice USA’s workshops, “Sex (Education) is a RIGHT!,” facilitated by Sarah Audelo from Advocates for Youth, our own Mari Schimmer and myself, centered around young people’s right to sex and comprehensive and positive sex education, as well as student organizing. The audience was asked to split up into groups and come up with a creative way to promote sex positivity in their hometowns. This yielded some really great ideas, but one in particular stuck with me. An undergrad student from Indiana shared that his… Read more »
Women of Color and Reality TV: the Bad, the Worse, and the Downright Offensive
This post is part of a series about reproductive justice and the media done in partnership with Women, Action, & the Media. Being a woman of color, specifically an African American woman of Caribbean decent, I grew up with little to representations of myself in the media. But looking back the 90’s were really a golden age of television shows with women of color. Shows like Living Single, Moesha, and Family Matters were shows that really shaped my childhood. But when the 90’s ended those representations slowly but surely faded away. By the time I hit high school what began to really take charge of television networks was something I consider absolutely evil…reality TV. Fast forward to the here and now, 2012, where reality TV is no longer the no holds… Read more »
Pornography and Measure B
This post is part of a series about reproductive justice and the media done in partnership with Women, Action, & the Media. Pornography is defined as any material that depicts explicit sexual organs or erotic behavior. Pornography is an art that has been around since ancient times. Sexuality is so innately artistic, after all. Feminism persistently argues that, “The personal is political” and yet again this catchy tagline seems to fit just right. Pornography is incredibly personal — the question arises of the role of the political in this massive enterprise. On election day, Big Brother seemed to intrude just a bit on the pornography industries turf, but with the best intentions… or so they say. In America, every second over $3,000 is spent on pornography. Did you catch that? Every… Read more »
50 Shades and the Responsibility to Educate
This post is part of a series about reproductive justice and the media done in partnership with Women, Action, & the Media. Unless you’ve been hiding in your bunker in fear of the end of the world or as a result of the recent election, you’ve probably heard of the latest bestselling trilogy 50 Shades by E.L. James. Earlier this year I had happened to be investigating the world of BDSM when I stumbled across a blog post deploring the premiere novel 50 Shades of Grey. I took to the BDSM section of reddit.com to which I was subscribed to for obvious “research” purposes as we all like to say. My first impression? I liked the novels. At this time I knew of no one else who had read the books,… Read more »
Lesbians in Primetime Television: Coming Out Is Not The Only Issue
This post is part of a series about reproductive justice and the media done in partnership with Women, Action, & the Media. Given that television’s primetime line-up consists of Glee, The New Normal, and Modern Family, it’s surreal to think that same-sex moments on television were once considered scandalous. But not too long ago, the mere rumor of homosexual content in a program was justification enough for a station to pull its broadcast. Even in the late 90s and early 00s, homosexuality was still very much a Wildean “love that dare not speak its name” in the television world. When “The Puppy Episode” of Ellen aired in 1997, numerous sponsors–from JC Penny to Wendy’s–dropped their support. A Birmingham affiliate of ABC refused to show the episode. In 2005, the US Department… Read more »
How Am I Supposed to Know How to be Sex Positive?
This post is part of a series about reproductive justice and the media done in partnership with Women, Action, & the Media. Increasingly, a culture of fear seems to be pervading the mass media. In the news, we hear about so many awful things happening in our community that we assume crime is high. Our response is then to be fearful and precautionary. In the advertisement industry tries to convince us that we are not satisfied without a certain product, instilling fears of inadequacy. News and advertising are only two of the many realms of mass media that play on negativity generally. Depictions of sexuality in entertainment media are no exception to media’s negative undercurrent. While I would love to write a book on sexuality in mass media generally, popular… Read more »
Don’t Slut-Shame Halloween
As a free-thinking woman living in the 21st century, I am deeply offended by the slut-shaming that coincides with the arrival of Halloween. Finally Feminism 101 defines slut-shaming as shaming and/or attacking a woman or a girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging/acting on sexual feelings. This message implies that sexuality is bad, and as a society we have the right to objectify women based on their clothing (or lack thereof.) The disdain expressed for some costumes is something I would usually expect from the conservative medium, not from fellow women. Let me tell you first that I realize that there is a great divide on this issue of the portrayal of women, sexism, expectations, etc. I come from the belief that “If you got… Read more »
There’s nothing like the first time…
Since the 2008 election, 17 million more Millennials are eligible to vote and many of them will soon get their first taste of civic duty. Share this video and help get first time voters to the polls on November 6th! httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fCDDfGGQ4 If you’d like to help our young organizers get out the vote and have your own “Voting is Sexy” t-shirt, consider making a donation to Choice USA: http://bit.ly/Sw32Fg
21 Things
For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how to write this post. I knew that Love Your Body day was coming up (October 17th), and I knew that I needed to say something on the issue, but it’s been difficult for me to accept my own feelings while still maintaining an image I’m proud to represent. Over the past 21 years there have been so many things that have inspired me while at the same time having just as many struggles within myself and society. I want to take this time to celebrate 21 things that have had an impact on my view of my body, myself. 1.Let’s start at the (near) beginning: A young girl steps in front of the camera. Before caring what she looked like…. Read more »
