Better

My mother calls me to tell me about the three-inch-wide, deep-to-the-bone gash she got falling down the stairs yesterday and the five staples now holding her arm together.

As the conversations ends she says on the phone “Well, your father…” and then trails off.

She pauses, then says “Well, he’s home, so I have to stop talking now” in the tone of voice that means she needs to go do something so she should get off the phone but what she really means is that she wants to say something about him that’s negative, that might hurt his feelings, that might let him know we all talk about it and it’s actually a problem, that it actually has consequences for the rest of us. She couldn’t do that, though, because he could hear her and he’d be upset. Which is a code word, because everyone gets upset and what he does is more than that.

“Has he been grumpy?” I ask, which is another code word. It’s also a yes or no question. That way she can give me information without tipping him off, clue me in so I know what’s happening, so I’m warned when I come home this week after months away, so I can call my little sister and hear if she’s okay. So I’ll know whether or not to tiptoe when I enter the house.

“Well, he’s got this surgery coming up on Monday, and that’s a nervous thing. And he’s been worrying about that, and then I had to go and have something,” by which she means the gash and the staples, “and it’s a lot of pressure. We have the Christmas tree, and that’s done—thankfully that got done beforehand.”

By all of which she means, “Yes.”

I hear this and I remember being young, maybe seven years old and my sister was four, and we were sitting in the living room of the house in Massachusetts and my parents were putting up a very big Christmas tree. We couldn’t go out of the room because we shouldn’t be unsupervised and more because we didn’t want to miss anything, we wanted to know what was going on, we didn’t want to overhear it from upstairs.

My mother said we could stay there as long as we were quiet as church mice. Every time I had to help Daddy with a Project, I remembered that phrase, and I knew that I should be a church mouse and that Sis was better at it, which was why he always chose her to hand him the screwdriver or hold the flashlight.

And we were very young and we were sitting in little chairs I think, although we could have been on the floor, but we were wedged right next to each other on the right side of the wide doorframe, and I remember being afraid, and I remember Daddy yelling at us if we made any noise at all or if we asked any questions.

He was using a wire to attach the tree to the wall near the ceiling because it was a crooked tree and it wouldn’t stand up otherwise, and this was difficult and it was a Project, and if we interrupted he wouldn’t be able to concentrate and we weren’t going to help only make things worse, so we had to be quiet.

I remember being quiet, that day. And I remember the fear of what would happen if I made a noise and the equal fear of what would happen if I left and couldn’t keep track of what was going on in that room. And I didn’t like the quiet because I wanted to help, to make the Project over, to make it all okay, to contribute what I had to offer, to make it better. But I was quiet, I did it, I stayed quiet.

“So he’s just been worried about this surgery, but he’s being better now. He is doing better now.”

“Okay,” I say, because better is better. I’m thinking about how this all feeds into it, how we don’t name what it is. How instead we say why it is. How we talk about it only in terms of the causes, of him being stressed or angry or anxious, never in terms of what he’s doing, never in details or actions, never in terms of what it all means to us. We never talk about the fear or the sadness or the anger, not directly. We only all know it’s there because we share it. It’s always implied.

“He scared the dog the other day, scared her all the way down into my office,” she says. The office that is four floors down from the dog bowl in their San Francisco hillside town house. “Supposedly he was just trying to give her dinner.”

This Week In Priceless Online Dating Messages

To contextualize this note, you should all know that I'm 6'1 and say so on my OkCupid profile. This provokes, occasionally, some interesting responses. For instance:

so sorry if this question is a little forward and this is totally not a pass at you (though i do find you very attractive) but have you ever had sex with a man who was shorter than you? say my height? (5'8")

My reply?

"no"

Which is actually a lie, but can you blame me? It was just too easy. And it wasn't a pass at me after all, right? *snort*

Very Sexual

Have those of you who do online dating ever noticed that when someone refers to themselves as "very sexual," they're almost always looking for an NSA sexual encounter? And they're usually not very respectful about that.

You know, the whole form letter booty call private message on a dating site. The note on OkCupid or collarme that in one way or another displays that the sender hasn't read your profile at all and is just dispersing as many messages as he (usually a he, could be a she/ze) can manage to copy and paste to as many pretty people as he can find. You know, in hopes of increasing his odds.

The phrase "very sexual" seems to always be involved there somewhere. And it really just doesn't mean anything. It tells me literally nothing about your relationship to sex, about how you approach it or feel about it or what you want from it. In fact, what it generally tells me is that you're a sexual conformist who hasn't done a lot of work on finding your personalized sexual happy-makers, and probably won't be that great in bed. It suggests a lack of creativity. Because really, that's just a catchphrase that you've picked up from reading too many craigslist ads.

I was reading a profile today of someone who wrote me a good message, one that referenced my profile, told me something about him, generally treated me like a human. He did talk about sex in his profile, but as one of many things. And what he said was, among other things, "I love sex."

And that's so different! Anything that's personal, that admits having an actual feeling or opinion about sex is a legitimately valuable statement. It's not even that hard to do. How do you feel about sex? I love it! How often do you want to have sex? Ideally six times a week! What do you get out of a sexual encounter? Connection, physical pleasure, excitement, entertainment, maybe a sharing of love, and the satisfaction of a need for physical touch! How much commitment are you looking for? Doesn't have to be any, could be a lot!

I suppose that if you want to give people the idea that you're just looking for a sexually dissatisfying wham, bam, thank you ma'am kink of experience, you could continue to use the phrase "very sexual." But really, let's try sharing some real information. Nobody's going to bite you through the interwebs for saying specifically what you like and want, even if it is NSA casual sex. And then you might actually get it.

P.S. I'm not even going to mention my feelings on the phrase "very bisexual." Ugh.

What is Sex?

I just realized (again) that I've never talked about what sex is on this blog.

I write about sex all the fucking time, and yet I've never really defined what it is that I'm writing about. I mean, sure, there's a common definition of what counts as sex. I've encountered it, and I think it's really stupid.

See, most people seem to think that the only thing that's "really" sex is some kind of penetrative (enveloping?) intercourse. Vaginal, anal. With a man's (bio) cock. That's it. Everything else is just "foreplay" or "after play" and what's important is the "play" part that only includes fucking.

But, um, I really think that cock sucking is sex. And pussy licking. And finger fucking. And fisting. And using anal beads. Hand jobs in the back of a movie theater. Fucking someone with my dildo. Fingers on my clit through my panties. A mouth on my nipples and really hot, long makeout sessions, too.

The way I see it, if I could have an orgasm from it, or my partner could have an orgasm from it, it definitely counts as sex. If I'm thinking about it for days afterwards, if I could fantasize about it while I masturbate, that's probably sex, too. The things that matter to me are the feelings, the kind of connection I'm experiencing, not some technicality of what body part entered where.

The problem with only considering Penis-In-Whatever intercourse to be sex is that it excludes a whole range of very pleasurable and definitely sexual activities from what we think "counts." I've written before about how the definition of sex as intercourse excludes the activities that make a majority of women have an orgasm. Like, you know, touching the clitoris at all. There's also the fact that lesbians are pretty much unable to have sex under this model. Which is just silly.

The number of people I've actually fucked is definitely lower than the number of people I've considered sex partners. Especially given the women on my list. But I'd rather honor the experiences I've had, honor the partners I've shared my time and my body with, and be that much more of a slut. Because I'm proud of my history, and all the kinds of sex I've had with all kinds of people!

Rethinking "Slut"

I've written a lot about sluthood before, and about how I had trouble reclaiming that word because of my personal history with it. When I was first called a slut, it was not at all cute or kind. Even though I was fine with the sex I'd been having, the shame behind the word got to me when my closest friends used it against me. It's taken me a long time to heal from that.

But heal I think I have. The more beautiful sex I've had with more people, the easier it's gotten to gladly think of myself as a slut. An ethical one. A happy one. And one who is proud of her sex life and sexual history.

Jaclyn Friedman, editor of the book and contributor to the blog Yes Means Yes, just wrote a lovely piece about what sluthood has done for her. One of the best quotes from the piece is this:

Sluthood...reminds me to enjoy the life I have now, instead of waiting for someone to come start it. It helps me know my heart better, and my libido. It makes me better at communicating about both of them, and much less likely to confuse the two. To my mind, far from ruining me for real love, sluthood is preparing me for it...

...Sluthood isn’t just a choice we should let women make because women should be free to make even “bad” choices. It’s a choice we should all have access to because it has the potential to be liberating. Healing. Soul-fulfilling. I’m telling you this because sluthood saved me, in a small but life-altering way, and I want it to be available to you if you ever think it could save you, too. Or if you want it for any other reason at all.

I've made so many great connections, had so many fun and interesting experiences, and learned so very much that I wouldn't have if I weren't happy to jump into sex with new, interesting people. There have been a few bad experiences, mostly because of somebody deceiving me or treating me disrespectfully, but that could have happened even if I was trying to have a relationship with them. In fact, usually the reason they were being deceiving and disrespectful was that they assumed I wanted a relationship and that's what they had to do to get me into bed. Dummies.

I've also made great friendships and found really wonderful relationships. My promiscuity has never stopped me from finding love, just the opposite. My life has been filled with love, all kinds of love, from great friendship to a four-year commitment with a man I'm still close to. And so much in between. I wouldn't trade that for the world.

So I'm done hiding from a word that should just mean "someone who has a lot of sex with a lot of people." If that's the literal definition of a slut, well, that's what I am. And there's not a single reason to be sorry for that.

So here's my shouting from the mountain: I'm 23 years old (on Saturday!), I've had 64 sexual partners*, and I'm proud of it. I am a good slut, and happy to be one.


*This is based on my definition of "sex," which holy crap I've never written about here! I will fix that immediately. Update: I wrote about my definition of sex here.

Victim Blaming and "Just Trying to Help"

I've often struggled when talking to ordinary folks who, after a woman is sexually assaulted or even just in a general discussion of rape and sexual assault, focus to the exclusion of all else on what the victim could do or could have done to prevent an assault. I can clearly articulate that saying these things to a sexual assault survivor after her experience is only going to make her feel guilty for what was clearly a crime against her. Many, if not even close to all, people can get that.

What I've had trouble explaining is why that kind of rhetoric is bad even when we're just talking about rape as a concept or on a societal level. I've had more than one person answer with: "But it's true that there are things one can do to decrease the risk of sexual assault. Why shouldn't I point that out? Couldn't it help someone avoid it?"

Always Aroused Girl has helped me out immensely with this by smoothly articulating what's wrong with looking to the victim for the reason why a rape or assault happened or for the responsibility to prevent them.

While it might (might!) be appropriate to educate our sisters and daughters about “sexual assault prevention tips” and “sending messages” before they set foot out the door, once an assault — or “almost” assault — has taken place, it’s time to shut up and listen. Advice about what the survivor might have done differently or should do the next time amounts to nothing more than victim blaming.

Every single time. Sincere or not. “Just trying to help” or not.

People who don’t want themselves or their loved ones to be assaulted feel great comfort in handing out those tips because they give the illusion of control. “You should never have gone to his house!” they say, or “You should have said ‘NO’ more firmly,” but what they really mean is that they hope that those strategies will work for them if they should be so unfortunate as to be assaulted.

They are wearing blinders. While I’d like to feel pity for their sightless state I cannot, because every time they try to rationalize assault, they hurt the ones who have lived through it.

In Defense of Publicly Airing Dirty Laundry

I've done a lot of thinking about gossip vs. public accountability in the past few days, and I really think that pushing issues that would usually be private out of the closet and into clear daylight is a good thing. So long as it's all done out in the open and names are named and any person has the freedom to respond to allegations or opinions in any way that they want, it benefits everyone to have things be more public rather than less.

I'm specifically advocating this with regards to abuse, bullying, rape, harrassment, stalking, etc, but I think it also applies to other arenas. Bad business practices, friendships gone awry, hell, even breakups. I know that the court of public opinion can be ridiculous and (especially on the internet) freely shared information can be freely abused information. I understand why people want to keep some things private. It hurts when we put something out there and then others react with vitriol.

The other side to that, though, is that creepy people then show their stripes. If someone's being abusive, especially on a forum like Fetlife or Facebook where it's not anonymous, they're outed as an abuser. When everybody is talking about something publicly, rather than whispering about it privately, it becomes clear pretty quickly who is being crazy and who is reasonable. It also means there's more information that's readily accessible to everyone, and people can make their own judgments about who they want to befriend or who is safe to be around.

Thomas over at Yes Means Yes writes all the time that the way we're going to stop rapists is by publicly shaming them and removing the social constructs that allow them to continue. Calling people out on rape jokes. Standing behind victims who come forward. Etc.

I think that applies here. If it's impossible to misbehave without having your shit broadcast all over a community you're part of, then people are either going to hesitate before they misbehave or they're going to leave that community. If every community then had a similar public response to bad behavior, any kind of abuser would run out of places to go. Or get stupid, then get caught.

I think that very public discussions of personal issues are actually different than gossip. Gossip allows people to hide things; by its very nature it's a hidden form of communication. Figleaf quoted Dilbert creator and blogger Scott Adams the other day on privacy.

When privacy goes away completely, we'll all be freer. There's only a penalty to privacy when your asshole neighbor can look down his nose at your hobbies while secretly masturbating to Field and Stream magazine. The best two situations for society are when you have either complete privacy or complete non-privacy. It's the middle ground that creates problems. That's where we are now.

What allows that neighbor to be an asshole, alongside the fact that his own kinkiness is a secret, is the fact that he's probably only trash talking you privately, to his friends. If everything was out in the open, how long do you think his superiority would last? Not long at all.

Inadequate Language for Play Partners

I really struggle with what to call the people I'm dating when I'm referring to them in conversation. I really dislike the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" because they imply all kind of things about commitment levels and monogamy. I don't want someone I'm talking to (or dating!) to think that I'm unavailable because I'm referring to someone else as my boyfriend. It just comes with too many expectations and connotations.

Calling someone I'm wildly attracted to and dating and fucking regularly my friend, though, is a little ridiculous. And the linguistic contortions that I've tried so far all have a bit of a silly note. "Partner" sounds like a business acquaintance. "Sweetheart" sounds sappy and old-fashioned. "Fuckbuddy" is too crude and doesn't give enough credit to the friendship/intimacy part. "Special friend" is way too euphemistic. "Lover" is the one I'm most inclined to use, but even that sounds pretentious and a little goofy.

There's also the issue of being in that space where you've started dating someone but don't have commitments yet. . . But you might be moving towards that. . . But you don't want to jump the gun or give people wrong ideas before you're ready to embrace a relationship. Kind of like how people don't announce a pregnancy in the first month because it's likely to miscarry. Silly in a way not to tell anyone, and it doesn't give enough credit to how sad and how common it is to have a miscarriage, but you don't want to have to repeatedly explain what's happened to everyone if it doesn't work out.

One of my coworkers calls her most important partner her "jellybean," which is pretty cute. I suppose that could be the answer: an otherwise meaningless word that you can then explain to mean whatever your relationship status happens to be. I wish there was something easier in our language, but I guess that's what poly pioneers and rapid progress are for! Anyone else have any great ideas?

Why Isn't Rape Ever Funny?

Because chances are, you're telling your hi-larious rape joke to somebody who has been raped. And that re-victimizes them. It actively causes harm. And that's not okay.

Also, when you joke about rape, you create a culture in which rapists - who live and walk among us - know that their actions most likely won't see any kind of consequence. They have their desires affirmed. They get to actually talk about what they do, so long as they put it as a joke. And then people laugh. And they feel safe. And then they go rape people. And that's not okay, either.

This is not about being Politically Correct. Triggering someone's traumatic response to what is generally agreed is the most traumatic experience you can have has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with being a decent person who doesn't want to hurt people.

So just don't. And don't laugh along when someone else does. It's like a tiny, tiny thing you can do to fight rape. So let's all do it.

On Satire

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/12/04/rape-the-method-by-josh-brorby/

This post on Feministe (I think I'm a bit late responding to this one, but my thoughts stand nonetheless) made me think hard and very clearly about the difficulty of satire being such a thoroughly appreciated and oft-attempted medium in this day and age.

Since I stopped writing my college sex column, a variety of other collegiate types have taken it over. They almost uniformly attempt to write "satire" that is as poorly written as Mr. Brorby's and frequently deals with the same topics. It's sexist, sex negative, and supposedly "all a joke." It just tends to be so very, very poorly done that it comes off as a bashing of sexuality as a whole, and most often specifically of women.

This is immensely frustrating. It's actually the reason I applied to start writing the article, and I made a very serious effort to be funny in my writing but also respectful and inclusive. I think I did a fairly good job, but I have no control over what happens now. It's just back to the way it was before.

I see this a lot with amateurish writing, be it blogs or college newspapers or even real-world but poorly-written-and-edited publications. People think they are quite clever, but they manage to just make a muck of out what they're trying to say and perpetuate the awful cultural trends that they're trying to critique. I think any newspaper writer should have to go through a mandatory "Art of Satire" class before they're allowed to have any creative control over what they publish. Or just, whatever, the world should stop being so sexist and sex-negative and rasist and classist and miserable. Yeah.

My Work: Identity and Control

As you may have been able to tell from the fact that I published one of my articles here, I've been conflicting with the editors of my college sex column. The column itself predates me; it existed before I started writing and I took it over in January of last year. I've been writing an article for it every week that school was in session since then.

About two months ago (maybe a month and a half) the paper had elections and I got a new set of two features editors. Right off the bat, they started editing my articles more heavily, and particularly turned the first one into a piece of sentimental drivel. This was annoying, but they did a little better the next few weeks.

I admittedly am not very good with deadlines, so it's not really fair to expect stellar editing in the time crunch I force them to. I recognize this, and take responsibility for that. My previous editors took the tack of just not changing what I wrote much, but one must account for style differences.

In any case, about a month ago, they started looking for a writer for next year and put out a call to basically the whole staff of the paper asking for submissions for my column. They didn't tell me they were doing this. They informed me the day I would have submitted an article that they had someone else interested in writing the column and they were giving them a shot. They told me after it ran that they were looking for someone for next year.

They told me they had another article for the next week, and because I had a large work load that week, I didn't submit one of my own. Both the articles they ran in these two weeks were very sex negative. The next week, I wrote my editors a letter asking them to consider sex positivity in selecting a new writer. I sent them the article I published here last week.

They responded (somewhat dismissively) to my about concerns surrounding the content of the column, but did not publish my article that week. I did not hear from them about said article at all for the next month, even though I emailed them asking if they might like a different one or whether they wanted me to keep writing at all. I simply picked up the paper every week and instead of my article there was another piece of painfully sex negative writing.

I finally wrote an email asking them to communicate with me more clearly about the column and let me know what was going on, saying that my feeling were hurt by being ignored. Just days shy of a full month had passed since they'd last responded to me.

My editor answered finally and made it clear that she had not even read my article (which I'd sent in a month before) until I sent my blunt feelings-hurt email. She said she didn't want to run it because it seemed like too much of a response to the articles they'd been running. She thought it seemed more appropriate as a letter to the editor.

She chastised me for being late with articles, which admittedly I deserved. She asked me to submit them no later than Mondays at 5. She said she would run a new article of mine the next week if I got it in on time.

I decided to pick my battles and just submitted a new article this week. I turned it in on Monday at 7pm, which I think is fairly reasonable. I didn't get a response and again I opened the paper to see someone else's article. This one was thankfully not as judgmental, but still relied on some negative language to make jokes.

Today, I received a letter from the editor in chief of the paper. She basically said she thought my article was too blunt about sex without "adding anything to the space." I'll run it as a separate post so you can judge for yourselves. I don't think this article was especially explicit, and it was much in the same vein as the ones I've written for a year with overwhelmingly positive response.

She explained that on Wednesday night, which is the night the paper has to be finished, the features editors had showed her my article and the one that they ran instead. She said she regretted "that we didn't have the time prior to publication to give you feedback and discuss your piece so that we could have run it. I would love for you to finish off a strong run by writing in our final three issues for this semester, but I think that also requires an equal commitment from you to make sure your articles are in early so that this situation doesn't present itself again."

She clearly thinks it's my fault that she only saw the articles on Wednesday, which means my editors are passing the blame onto me. This week, I got the damn article in on time.

So now I don't know what the hell to do. I'm feeling incredibly discouraged by this. Sure, I can try and write a new article super early for next week (in addition to writing a rough draft of my honors thesis by Monday) and hope that makes it better. Even if I do get it in early, I just don't have faith that my editors would give enough shits to do what needs to be done to publish it, especially if that means feedback. They've never given me feedback. Ever.

It also just really, really, really sucks to see the column I've worked so hard on, the column I started writing to try and counter the sex negativity it and the rest of the paper were filled with, revert back to the bullshit that's everywhere else in this freakin' society.

It hurts. it makes me feel like all the work I've done is being erased. I've had people, strangers, come up to me and thank me for writing what I do because it made them feel better about who they are and what they wanted to try sexually. I've gotten emails from random adults from clear across the country asking for sex advice because they didn't know where else to go.

I feel like they're taking that away from me, and almost spitting on the work that I've done. They don't value it, and they don't realize how much everyone else around here seems to value it.

I sound like such a diva, but I really think this is important. There is so much shitty sex writing everywhere. If you're an editor, why not seize the opportunity to do better? Why perpetuate negative stereotypes that actively hurt people, that make them feel guilty or unsexy or bad about themselves? Fuck that. Fuck that so much.

I also know that I've let a lot of my public identity get wrapped up in this column. Really, everybody on my campus reads it. I meet people and they recognize my name. These days, I meet people and they ask me why I'm not writing the column anymore. (And complain about the new writers.) I like being "the girl who writes that sex column," it makes me feel happy. I'm proud of what I've done.

I feel like that's being ripped away and it's part of my identity. Which is why I'm so (possibly unreasonably) angry about all of this. I'd been trying not to take it seriously, to just take the attitude of "I'm leaving and have no control over what happens when I'm gone anyway and this is just the way of the world so I should let it go" but the letter from the editor in chief today just sent me over the edge into full blown fury.

I'm hoping writing this has let me clarify and solidify my thoughts. I'm going to have to respond to this in some way, and it'd probably help if I can talk about it without getting choked up and angry. I apologize if it's ranting and rambling. If you've gotten all the way through it, any thoughts? Am I being totally unreasonable? Ugh, I hate this feeling.

Laugh About Sex, Humanely

This post is actually an article I wrote for my sex column in the campus newspaper. I wrote it directly after the editors ran two guest columns to test potential writers for after I graduate. Because the editors felt it was a response to the previous two columns (which did in fact rely rather atrociously on sexual stereotypes), they decided not to run it. I think my point is important despite my slightly vindictive motives, so I'm posting what I wrote here:

Anybody can talk about sex. Anybody can have sex. I mean, much as we might not want to think about our parents or grandparents or other people we’re not attracted to getting all sweaty in the sack, it probably happens. Your folks had to do it at least once, right?

We’re all repulsed by some people, just like there are traits in others that make us want to tear off our clothes, throw ourselves on the floor at their feet, and starting panting that Nine Inch Nails song about doing dirty, dirty things with them.

There are also sex acts that make each of us hot and bothered, and those that make us want to gag ourselves with a fork. While some of us might get a little thrill in our loins at the thought of wearing an adult diaper, others might think that’s gross.

Some people are really into oral sex. Others have a reaction like I did when I was nine and my mother explained why I shouldn’t publicly sing the Alanis Morissette song about going down on someone in a theater. “That’s what it means? People do that? Ew!”

A lot of people have a tendency, though, to fall back on stereotypes of sexual norms when they’re talking about sex. Oh man, the fat people have sex. What a laugh! Ugly people get it on. Ew! Some people are kinky weirdos. Oh, no! There are folks that take money for sex. What dirty sluts! Old people do it!

It’s easy to get a laugh by exploiting sexual stereotypes, but it’s not always the best way to have a chuckle with your friends. You’ll never know if one of them is secretly into public sex or pegging. Maybe they like German scat films.

If you’re making their tastes into a mean joke, they’ll probably never tell you about them. They may even learn to feel bad about their perfectly harmless desires. The last thing anybody needs is another reason to question and distrust their sex instincts.

There’s so much shame surrounding sex in our culture, and these kinds of jokes only add to it. I’m not suggesting that you can’t joke about sex, or even make fun of stuff that people do in bed. It’s just important to do it from a place of acceptance.

It’s so easy to joke about sex without relying on disapproval or discrimination to do it. Sex is damn awkward, with fluids everywhere and high tension and so much potential for feelings and body parts run amok.

There’s farting and too much lube. Things squirt places. There are queefs. You know, the noise a vagina makes when it’s been so well taken care of that there’s air in it? Then the air comes out. It sounds like a fart. Queefs are funny.

There’s always the hazard of falling out of bed, the pitfall of trying to stick it in the wrong hole, the possibility of poop coming out in the middle of an intense anal moment. Yes, it can happen, and it’s funny!

One of the most important skills in talking about sex, and in having it, is the ability to laugh about it in a humane way. Laugh with your partner. Laugh with your friends when you tell the story later. Giggling is a way of having fun, and it’s a wonderful addition to any kind of naked frolicking. Just do it humanely and it’s a surefire push in the direction of a better sex life.

Slut

I very rarely use the word "slut" to describe myself.

There are a lot of people who have decided to reclaim it and try to recast it in a positive light. I'm all for that, and I don't think a word that describes someone who has a lot of casual sex should be so negative. I support the efforts to reclaim the word slut.

I just can't do it myself.

It makes me really uncomfortable. I think it's mostly because it's still so overwhelmingly a negative word. It connotes someone who's diseased and irresponsible, as if anyone who has lots of sex is either of these things. (As if people who don't have a lot of sex can't get diseases. Great, double stigma, on sex and disease.)

Slut conveys a complete sexual availability. This is of course not a problem in and of itself. I'm very sexually available, and I think it's great. I like being open to do whatever I want with whomever catches my fancy. "Slut," though, suggests availability to the point of passivity, of loss of choice. A "slut" is someone who "will sleep with anyone." They just go along with whoever wants them. It suggests someone who is often and can easily be taken advantage of.

I think it's a disempowering word. I don't like all the negative and sexist ideas about sex it carries along with it like eight tons of baggage. I can't divorce it from those things in my mind.

It's also just because it's been used against me and hurt me in the past. Its use can completely change someone's life. Women who are labeled sluts get abused and generally treated poorly all the time, just because they're somehow considered subhuman. I don't want that for myself or anyone else.

I recognize that this could be like the word "queer." People in my generation don't have the same negative connotations for it and so we like to use it as an umbrella term. I find it empowering. Older folks don't like it because it was a very negative slur in their youths. Maybe (hopefully!) the same thing will happen for "slut," but I'm okay with not embracing the word for now.

First Troll

I got my first troll the other day!

I got to be called a whore and hear about how all women are whores (because getting paid for sex is like totally the worst thing ever, right?) and feminism is bullshit. Woot.

Seriously, though, I knew it would happen eventually. It's ironically in the same week as the first time I've been called a (fuckin') whore at my university. I'm more perturbed by name-calling by someone I actually know, but it feels all of a piece.

In writing and talking about and having sex a lot, I've always known I practically invite these kinds of backlashes. I got slut-bashed in high school by people I'd considered close friends. That was very hard and hurtful, but I know it's a nearly universal experience for women. I'll bet that all women have been called a slut (in seriousness not in jest or reclamation) at some point.

I've actually been pretty perplexed that I hadn't gotten more of it since I came to college. I write a sex column, I founded a sex discussion group, I'm open about being very sexually active, I'm an out stripper, I'm queer. I've gotten very little negative feedback, even though I am known as "the sex girl" around here.

The person who called me a whore is someone I slept with once two years ago and haven't spoken with since. It was a generally baffling 4am Facebook message, but I'm not particularly worried about it. A close friend basically told me he's got a serious drinking problem and I shouldn't take it too personally, and I'm not.

Getting trolled, though, online and in person, makes me feel like I've arrived. Like hey, someone thought I was being sexually transgressive and felt the need to punish me. Hey, enough people are reading this blog now that some asshole was able to find it and felt the need to comment negatively. I'm a REAL blogger, now! (Like Pinocchio, but without the growing and shrinking phallus on my face.)

So yeah, I am kind of celebrating it. My attitude is kind of like, bring it on! I don't need to be hurt by these things and maybe it can even be a part of having a larger discussion. Let's go! Have at! Dukes up! Here I am, ready.

Tired

Renegade Evolution wrote a post about how tired she is of the feminist sex wars and all their resulting baggage. It's a long post and she goes into a lot more depth about how this affects her personally, but I share the overall sentiment.

I read a lot of blogs and I see so much hostility that seems so unnecessary. We all ultimately want the same sex equality and sexual health. Why should we be so vicious in arguing over our tactics for making it happen?

I think a lot of it is based on the anonymity of the internet. It's easy to keep a closed mind and direct anger and shame at people you disagree with when your name and face aren't behind your words. It's too easy to dehumanize the other side when all you see of them is the written word and sometimes a picture. Not like when a person is standing there in front of your face, breathing and emoting.

I think the personal anger on each side is in fact justified because everyone has been personally attacked. That's not fair, it hurts, and in turn it angers. But of course then the cycle starts all over again.

I think Jane at good girls don't put it best in her very excellent post on Operation Cross Country and sex work.

I don’t think sex work is a “free” choice, nor do I think it’s a reconstitution of the patriarchy. I think it’s something in between.

I recommend reading the whole post, as she eloquently covers a lot of the nuances missing in this discussion. There's so much grey area here and when we get caught up in these black and white verbal fist fights we miss all of it. I hope that we can find a better way of discussing this that involves a lot more mutual respect.

Links Because I Read Too Many Blogs not to Share

I've been keeping up with my feed reader, so I've found some very interesting posts I'd like to share with you. I know I haven't been good about blogging this week. Too much school and an on the fly trip to NYC will do that to a person.

My Sexual Manifesto
Essin' Em shares her sex commandments, all of which I agree with heartily. I, too, have noticed that almost all the sex I've been having has been good. It's a wonderful change and without a doubt due to my better ability to communicate about what I want and ask how to please my partner, even after a brief acquaintance.

What Women Want and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians
Greta Christina writes a spot-on post about how lesbians don't actually automatically know how to please every other woman because they've got the same kind of genitals. We're all different!

Is Sex Work Queer?
Jane at good girls don't asks if sex work is queer and grapples quite well, I think, with the question. I think that sex work CAN be queer, and that it's most exciting when it is.

I Need Another Word for Vagina
Found this via synthetic pubes. The title seems fairly self-explanatory.

Six Ways to be an Ally
Great post by Silvia on how to be an ally to women of color if you aren't one. I struggle a lot with how to deal with my own privilege, and I think this is a good, thought-provoking post on doing just that. Fires me up even more to do what I can to dismantle privilege in general.

Penetration?

I really don't like the word "penetration" when it pertains to sex. It suggests so much stabbing and unwillingness on the part of the penetratee. Like if you're taking someone inside your body, you're just lying there while they stick something into you. It sounds invasive. It connotes violence.

It's hard to find a word, though, that conveys the same action without being awkward. I find myself referring to intercourse as penetration in public contexts because it's the socially acceptable term for fucking. It's a euphemism, the word you can say on television or in a classroom. It's almost scientific. They use it in textbooks. It's like an official term. I use it all the time, for lack of a better word.

I really don't want to do this anymore.

A few weeks ago, I was reading a book on pornography (I can't remember which one, unfortunately) and instead of calling it penetration, they called it intromission.

Activities like fingering, dick in pussy, and strap-on anal are intromissive. To intromit very simply means "to enter." I don't think it has the same connotation of active and passive roles or of aggression that "penetration" has. It also preserves that scientific quality, the euphemism that's useful in stuffy situations. I definitely like it.

What do you think. Do you like/dislike the word penetration? Would you ever use "intromission" instead? I'm curious to see if it's something that could ever catch on.

Sexuality Feminism

I’ve been struggling, like many feminists interested in sexuality, with the issue of self-identification. I am clearly neither an anti-porn feminist nor a sex-positive feminist. I very much enjoy porn, but I think its trends and messages are extremely problematic. I'd much rather see a new, different kind of pornography as an alternative to what we've already got.

In the past, I’ve identified most closely with sex-positive feminism. When I was growing up, I was socially attacked and ostracized for being a woman who was openly interested in sex. This hurt me. When I encountered sex-positive feminism, it was like a light shone down from the sky. There were other people who thought that sex was important, that women could be sexual, that I was really an okay person even though I had a sex drive.

On the other hand, I don’t agree with a total lassiez-faire attitude towards porn. I think it’s important to recognize the systematic misogyny in porn. I don’t want to ban porn at all, but we can’t do any better for sexuality if we don’t recognize its problems. That “pornified” misogyny is part of what creates the idea that women can’t be sexual unless they’re whores (in other words unless their sex is in service of men). I can see that, and think it’s important.

Therefore, I am coining a new term for myself. I am a sexuality feminist. I believe that sexuality is central to gender inequality. I think that addressing sexual inequality is a very crucial step towards decreasing overall gender inequality. I make sexual equality the main focus of my activism.

This term could, in fact, apply to both the anti-porn and the sex-positive feminists. It says nothing about whether you’re in favor of mainstream porn or not. Maybe it could even let us work together sometimes.

It doesn’t mean we have to give the word “pornography” a new meaning in order for the average person to understand what we mean when we define ourselves. It doesn’t suggest that those who oppose us are “sex-negative” or anti-sex. Rather than putting us in opposition to something, it gives us a realm in which to work, rebel, agitate, create, define, and live.

Who knows, maybe it could catch on. I'm claiming it here and now: I’m a sexuality feminist.

Note: This is an excerpt from my in-progress honor's thesis on porn and feminism.

Tuesday Review: Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality

Okay, I know the Tuesday Reviews are kind of sporadic, but I'm a busy woman. I do my best.

This week's review isn't exactly a recommendation, more of an exercise in stretching my brain and my opinions on porn. That's important to do, and books like Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality by Gail Dines, Robert Jensen, and Ann Russo are the background for dialogues about porn and sex work today.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit I read this book for a research project I'm doing for my Women's Studies honors thesis. I'll be examining "feminist" porn and the tactics it uses to address critiques like the ones brought up in Pornography. I'm starting by reading a whole slew of books written by anti-porn feminists so that I can be fluent in their criticisms of porn.

One of the things that was striking to me in reading this book was the way the authors framed their arguments in relation to sex-positive feminists who they called "sexual liberals." The first couple of chapters were devoted to naming and disputing "sexually liberal" criticisms of anti-pornography feminism. As the book went on it got a little more nuanced, but the first two chapters set the tone for the narratives about porn.

I'm probably not going to make myself popular with people on either side by saying this, but I have a huge problem with the divisiveness we see surrounding the issue of porn in feminism. It's a problem on both sides, and I think it's really unproductive.

I agree with the anti-porn feminists that a lot of porn does represent and reinforce the patriarchal gender roles of our society. Including a tendency towards violence against women.

I agree with the sex positive feminists that porn can be a very powerful tool for exploring and expressing female sexuality. I think that any consciously navigated choice to be sexual as a woman is an act of rebellion against the stupid virgin/whore complex.

Which, by the way, is hugely at play in the conflict between these groups. The anti-porners basically call the sex pos-ers whores for advocating for what they see as the always patriarchal representations of sex in porn. The sex pos-ers call the anti-porners prudes for criticizing sex and porn and fucked up power dynamics between men and women.

It's a bad show.

I'm having a real "Ack! I've been identifying solely with one side of this argument, but I think the other has solid points too!" kind of moment.

I still think that the sex positive movement has a more productive approach to porn: actually making porn and REconstructing gender roles in it by altering the circumstances of its production and consumption. However, I don't think they'd be much of anywhere without the efforts of the anti-porn movement to highlight the sexual inequalities that are prevalent everywhere.

I think that where the anti-porn movement reacts to a negative sexual situation in our country, the pro-sex movement acts to change it. That's why I'm writing about feminist porn; I want to see how they're doing.

After that long word vomit, back to the book. I did really like the last few chapters where the authors talked more about their personal interactions with porn and how it affected them emotionally. These three closing essays showed, finally, a much more complex view of how to deal with porn.

I think that in the end these three are somewhat open to dealing with sex positive types (or "sexual liberals" as they're called in the book). I hope that we can all find a common ground. We're all working towards the same thing anyway: equality between men and women.

Cross posted at Fourth Wave Feminism

Juicy Campus: A Cultural Gross-fest of Slut-Bashing

One of my friends just sent me a link to a new "social networking" site called Juicy Campus. According to the home page, "this is the place to spill the juice about all the crazy stuff going on at your campus. It's totally anonymous - no registration, login, or email verification required."

What this means is that students have free reign to post whatever, anything at all, about anyone or anything. So of course it's a huge racist, sexist, classist, sizeist, ableist, just-prejudiced-in-general party.

If I had any extra time this semester, I'd want to write a research paper about this site. It takes all the bigoted tensions under the surface of our culture and brings them right out into the light. I mean, it's pretty awful stuff on there and it kind of sucks to read it, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

I've never seen more obvious examples of slut-bashing than on the site. I'd say a majority of the posts on the site (or at least on the pages for my college) are about specific girls and their sluttiness. (They cut off search results at 150 posts so I couldn't compare the number of "slut" posts to anything.) It's just a reminder of how hurtful that stuff can be.

There were a couple of girls from my school who were specifically targeted over and over again. One of them bravely stood up for herself on the site and said that she knew the posts were mostly made by a guy she rejected. Shocking, right, a girl labeled "slut" because she wouldn't have sex?

If you read Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation by Leora Tanenbaum, which I highly recommend, you'll find out that the slut label is often completely disconnected from sex. Not always, of course, but a lot of the time it's just a way to punish girls who aren't "normal," who dare to be "deviant" in some way. It's a punishing word, a weapon.

It is also, of course, a word that reinforces sexual stereotypes and the female gender role. By forcing girls and women to toe a line between being called a slut and being called a prude, patriarchal culture keeps our sexuality strictly controlled. We have to fight hard in order to have a respectful, healthy relationship with our own sexual desires. It's yet another way the patriarchy strips our personal power, leaving us so caught up in living up to its standards that we don't notice how ridiculous they are and throw them over.

In the last year or so, I've been on a personal crusade to stop slut-bashing when I find it. It doesn't always work, of course, because some people are stubbornly mean. There are lots of people, though, who don't think about what they're saying when they call a girl a slut. "Do you mean she has a lot of sex? Sex is fun. Why is that bad?" actually gets a pretty thoughtful response, especially if someone's using the word in a way unconnected to sex. "Do you mean you think she's mean and you don't like her?"

So I encourage all of you to combat "slut" when you hear it. It's such a "small" thing, but it makes a big difference in individual people's lives, and it's the combination of a million small things that leads to big patriarchy.

Cross posted at Fourth Wave Feminism.