No on Proposition 8!

If you live in California (especially if you read this blog), you probably already know that Proposition 8 on the ballot next week is a measure which will add a clause to the state constitution stipulating that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

Because the May court ruling decided that a law banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, they're trying to change the constitution. Woo, putting discrimination in the document that defines us as a state. That's just great.

Shine Louise Houston of Pink and White Productions, a great lesbian porn company, is donating all of the proceeds from her popular Crash Pad Series to the No on Prop 8 campaign for one day, TODAY, October 30th.

Basically, if you're a fan of lesbian porn for any reason or you want equality as a general rule, get your butt over there and spend some money! It's really good porn, and it's for a good cause. Maybe you usually get your porn for free, but think of this as donating with a tasty bonus. Mm, porn for charity!

I also want to reiterate my support for Proposition K to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco and make known my vehement opposition to Proposition 4, which would dangerously require minors to report abortions to their parents.

Below are a few good videos and links for more information on all of these ballot measures. A lot of bloggers have written very eloquently about these measures, so I will direct you to them instead of trying to reiterate what's already been said.

This post on sex worker blog Bound Not Gagged is a very thorough explanation of the arguments in favor of Proposition K. It's really long, but even just the beginning is helpful.

Here's a great post on Feministe explaining why Proposition 4 would put teens in danger if they don't feel they can report an abortion to their parents. I also explains why the so-called "bypass procedure" written into the law is completely unhelpful and would actually serve to put teens through more stress than "just" their unwanted pregnancy.

Here are a couple of fun videos about the anti-marriage-equality proposition, via Sugarbutch Chronicles.





Lastly, this video gives me goosebumps all over. I don't know how anyone could say this is wrong.


Vote! Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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.

Porn in the Library

I'm watching Nina Hartley's Guide to Oral Sex in the library.

We have a theater with a projector and a large screen that any student can use by hooking up their computer. It's attached to a big, well-lit room that's open and used fo studying 24 hours a day.

Now, I love Nina Hartley. I got to meet her this summer and it was all I could do not to go totally squee and fan girl over her. I might have, just a little. She's been in the adult business for 23 years, and she rocks it. She's made I don't know how many films, many of them education pornos meant for (heterosexual) couples. She herself identifies as a "heterosexual butch dyke," which is super fun. She's also written a book, Nina Hartley's Guide to Total Sex.

To be watching her in a neon green transparent body suit demonstrating the joys of cunnilingus on a huge screen in the middle of the library is just making my week.

Here's a great video of her on Julie Goldman's (of the Big Gay Sketch Show) Celesbian Interview Special:

Lesbian video from AfterEllen.com

Too Much to Do

Hey everyone. I've been working on a blog post about the history of feminine body hair and its removal, but I'm trying to do it right so it's taking a while. There's a lot of crap on the internet with no cited source, and I'd like to have a legitimate article up with traceable facts and everything. I guess academia does get to me sometimes.

If you read here, you've probably noticed that I've been a little remiss in my goal of daily posting. I'm starting a new student group for sex awareness right now, as well as all my other silly responsibilities. You know, like class. Psht.

I've come to the conclusion that trying to post every day is just masochistic, and I'm going to cut back a little. I'll still probably try for every other day or three posts a week, but I'm not going to overstretch myself. That probably makes for shittier posts anyway, and who wants to read that?

Here are a couple little tidbits from artist Sylvia Ji that I found, for your viewing pleasure:





And yes, I know that if you're reading this on my actual blog page, the pictures are too big for the frame of my main text box. I'm working on a complete revamp of the layout as time permits. Please bear with me in the meantime.

San Francisco Prop K: Decrim for Prostitution

I know I've written about this before, but the election is getting closer and I want to bring it up again.

San Francisco Proposition K is on ballots this year to decriminalize prostitution in the city of San Francisco. The initiative will stop police from prosecuting prostitutes or their johns, making it much easier for sex workers to report crimes against them without fearing incarceration.

This is a huge step in respecting the rights and protecting the safety of these workers. Sex work happens everywhere and it is simply within the rights of consenting adults to exchange sex acts for money.

Prostitution is not always coerced nor does it always (as anti-prostitution activists keep trying to tell us) involve trafficking. Decriminalization, even just in progressive San Francisco, will hopefully be a step in changing the shockingly negative dialogue about the women, men, and people in between who sell sex. Maybe if we can respect them as human beings and laborers, we can help the sex workers who need it and start to break down the stigma against those who don't.

To learn more about the proposition, check out the official ballot write-up of it on page 153, the Yes on Prop K site, the other Yes on Prop K site, and the article on the proposition from the San Francisco Chronicle. Here's a video of Sadie Lune performing at the SF Museum of Modern Art in support of the proposition.

Living Alone

I very much miss living in a house with other people.

I'm in a dorm again this year, in my own room. My RA is a friend who I've known for years and years, but she's not a night owl. We talk often, but don't have that many shared interests so we don't necessarily do things together.

Last year, as I actually mentioned in my last post, I lived in a house with about 30 other progressive, misanthropic, hippie types. We had a kitchen and a big living room with a TV. I had a roommate at the beginning of the year, who I adore and am still close with, and then a room to myself for most of the second semester. While I wasn't best friends with anyone in the house, I got along with all of them pretty swimmingly.

I don't think that I realized how much I got out of living in a house with so many cool people, being around them all the time, while I was actually there. I didn't think I was that close with them, or that it would be too big a deal to live elsewhere this year. I've only really digested it, actually, in the last day or two.

I used to come home from work at 2am, absolutely exhausted and talked-out and done being social and charming. Someone would usually be up smoking on the porch or playing video games in the living room. I often sat with C, a nice boy from the house, while he played Guitar Hero, just watching him until I felt calm and tired enough to go to bed. It was really nice, actually, because they were fine with me just sitting there and I think being comfortably around people after work and at night made it easier for me to cope with a high stress job.

I just got home from my first weekend night shift since I've been back at school. I started back at the club on Tuesday, after taking about a month off from dancing to get settled into school. I'm physically beat, but I don't want to go to bed. I miss having someone to just sit with. Makes me want to go visit my old house a lot more. Silly me for taking it for granted.

P. S. I know I've been bad and took a few days off from blogging. As mentioned, I went back to work this week, and I've just been feeling less-than-verbose. Here I am, though, doing better.