Future of Feminism, Day Fifteen: Advocating for Sex Workers

Today's post considers some of the initiatives out there designed to support, advocate for and protect sex workers:

There’s no doubt that sex work in its various manifestations, ranging from stripping to prostitution to pornography, remains a contentious issue. It’s one on which even feminists notoriously disagree–a “fracture in ideology,” according to Kate Holden–with discussions veering back and forth between victimization and empowerment.

Of course there’s a substantial difference between becoming a sex worker by choice and, say, being sex trafficked by force, and I doubt anyone would argue that forced prostitution is empowering. However, “sex slavery,” as popularized in films and on shows such as Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, represents a more extreme scenario, with many sex workers–at least in the U.S.–falling somewhere on a spectrum between choice and circumstance. One thing isn’t really up for debate, though: A sex worker, woman or man, cis- or transgender, shouldn’t be deprived of rights, protection or access to health care due to the social stigma that weighs on their profession. Today’s post features projects and organizations recognizing that no one should be left behind in our continual battle for equality.

Click here for more.

Future of Feminism, Day Ten: Let's Talk About Sex

In today's Future of Feminism post at the Ms. Blog, I feature organizations that promote healthy sexuality and reproductive justice for women of color and youth:

While yesterday’s post dealt with the negative sexualization of women and girls, it’s equally important to encourage a positive outlook on sex. In fact, the potentially self-esteem-ruining and otherwise problematic objectification of women and girls in media culture means that supporting healthy sexuality has become an even more pressing feminist goal for organizations.

Click here for more.

The "Art" of Exploitation

I have a new post up at the Ms. Magazine blog:

I consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to some of the most controversial 21st-century debates about sex. I’m not anti-pornography or sex work, as long as they are properly regulated, include health care for workers and require explicit consent of all participants. I also think that erotically charged art can be very compelling, provided it goes beyond prurient sensationalism. So it’s pretty impressive, though not in a good way, that French artist Antoine D’Agata’s photographs of himself having sex with Cambodian sex workers piss me off so much.

D’Agata, whom Flaunt magazine calls a “provocative social documentarian,” revels in the controversial nature of his art practice. He has expressed hope that the photos–which depict him engaged in a variety of sex acts with young women in brothels–might somehow bring light to the plight of sex workers in Cambodia.

Read the rest here.

How to Lose Your Virginity: The Interview (Director's Cut)

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing documentary film director Therese Shechter about her new project How to Lose Your Virginity for the Ms. Blog. She was incredibly generous with her time and I'm very excited for the new film. Our full interview is available below:

Aviva: After your 2005 film, I Was a Teenage Feminist, what made you decide to use virginity as the topic of your next project? Was there some sort of defining event—I know in the trailer the defining event seems to be around you wearing white for your wedding—or was this something that you’d been thinking about for a while?

Therese: I’ve been thinking about it since we were editing I Was a Teenage Feminist because we used some old educational “now you are a woman” kind of films and I was really struck by how lame the whole process of educating girls about their bodies and their sexuality has been in the past—especially the ones that taught you hygiene and proper dating so guys wouldn’t think you were the wrong kind of girl. [Laughs] So that kind of stuck in my mind for a while. Then all this news about abstinence-until-marriage programs was coming out and that added to it. Like, what the hell are we teaching people? What are we telling—especially girls—but girls and boys?

We started doing some interviews and the most interesting thing people were talking about to me was issues of virginity. So, if we talk about virginity we can talk about politics and religion and history and economics and popular culture and it became this incredibly large, fascinating topic.

And then I got engaged [laughs] and my other films had been very personal; they’ve grown out of a very personal questioning I had to a larger social issue. I couldn’t find the personal connection to this film and I thought, oh, I’m just going to play it straight and it won’t be a first-person film, and it just wasn’t working because I don’t seem to be able to tell stories unless they’re rooted in my own experience—for better or worse. When I got engaged and we started talking about the wedding, it hit me like a ton of bricks: that I was this 47-year-old woman who was expected to put on this drag show of purity.

A virgin bride?: Shechter at a bridal fitting in New York City*

The other component is that I’ve been doing this blog for two years, The American Virgin, where we cover some of the same topics. I really couldn’t wait for the years it takes to make a film to talk about this stuff so it’s been a great outlet as a way of bringing this discussion up now. I started getting a lot of letters from people who had not yet become sexually active—a lot—for all sorts of different reasons. Some of them were religious, some of them had pretty significant social issues, and others just by circumstance hadn’t found the right partner to become sexually-active. And these were people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s... There seemed to be a lot of shame and a lot of secrecy attached to that and I started hearing that we were one of the few safe spaces where they could talk about this and not be ridiculed.

I got into this thinking I hate the way young women are being shamed for being sexual people; I never thought about how people were being shamed for being non-sexual people, too. [Laughs] It’s like that double-edged sword; you just cannot win this.

A: Obviously you feel that a personal connection is a central part of your methodology as a filmmaker. Would characterize it as a “personal is political” kind of connection or is it just something that you need to do to invest in a project?

T: There’s a long line of feminist filmmaking that takes that exact thought and builds on it [Shechter later emailed to tell me she was thinking specifically of Joyce Chopra's 1973 documentary Joyce at 34]. So there’s a long tradition of this personal storytelling because it’s like the consciousness-raising groups: You tell your own story and you realize that it’s actually a universal story. It’s not your personal problem, it’s a much larger systemic problem, and understanding that other people are going through something perhaps similar is a really big moment of consciousness-raising and can lead to group action. So, I don’t want to say the feminists invented it [laughs], but that’s a classic feminist thing.

A: Do you feel like virginity and sex are feminist issues as well?

T: I feel like the way our culture approaches it are feminist issues. I feel like the way issues around female sexuality are discussed, I’d say almost anywhere, is a feminist issue. Women are often being told how to behave and what the right way to do something is and the right way to be sexual. When you look at the abstinence-until-marriage movement where they’re using moral shaming and they’re using the worst possible gender stereotypes to make a case for women remaining pure until marriage.

Although that world of pledges and purity balls might seem sort of foreign and confined to a small minority, we're symbolically enacting the same process out at any traditional wedding. The father ritualistically gives his white-clad daughter, along with her implied purity, away to the husband, who makes no statements about his own sexual history. It may be symbolic and the bride may not be a virgin, but we're still embracing the ritual and symbolism as something sweet--as opposed where it comes from which is an ancient patriarchal economic transaction. If that’s not a feminist issue [laughs], I don’t know what is!

There’s a larger issue even in the mainstream world that’s sending messages that girls should behave this way. Chloe Angyal just wrote something for the Christian Science Monitor about this study: a woman comes into a restaurant clearly bruised and a guy comes in after her and is physically threatening her, and they wanted to see who would go and help her.

But the upshot of it was that when this woman was dressed in slightly more revealing clothing—a low-cut blouse, a mini-skirt, high heels, sending the coded message of “I’m a sexual person”—people were less likely to help her.

I don’t think people are openly writing that [sexual people should be devalued] but it seems to be embedded in so much coverage we hear about campus rape and how people are being treated, in the rewards of not having sex for female [film and television] characters and the punishments if they do. That old horror-move trope: the couple has sex and then get killed. That’s changing a little bit, which is refreshing, but there’s still so much of that.

A: Do you think that sort of double standard about sex is something that sex education can help with?

T: I think that the essential problem is telling people what to do. It would be nice if the conversation was somehow shifted to “Some people do this and some people do that and some people like this and some people like that,” which is way more nuanced. And leaving space for whether you’re having sex or not having sex as not the thing that defines you.

Obviously we want to talk about being healthy and safe and especially, especially, about things like consent. Are you having sex because you really want to have sex? Or are you having sex because you think you have to or because someone’s made you? Or you think all your friends are so you should be? And we don’t talk about the consent part of this enough. Are you allowed to say “no” to your boyfriend if he wants to have sex with you? Yes! And if he says he’s going to dump you if you don’t do whatever sexual things he’d like you to do you, you should be okay with being dumped. You’re not there for that service, above and beyond all other things.

I sometimes joke that, well, you’re just not going to be popular for a while, but that’s okay. It’s okay.

A: Eventually you won’t be in high school anymore.

T: Eventually you won’t be in high school anymore; eventually you won’t even be in college anymore and everything will make more sense. It’s not a real comforting thing to say to a 17-year-old. I remember when I was 17 and I wanted a boyfriend and I wanted someone to love me and all of it, so it’s very hard to say, “If you don’t do these things you may not have a boyfriend, but that’s okay.” That’s a really hard thing to say...not just to a girl. But in some ways I admire those people who can say, “Sorry, but, I don’t want to do those things and if that means you don’t want to go out with me, I’m moving on. I’m going to the movies with my girlfriends.”

A: You interviewed a lot of teenagers for this film. Did you get a sense that they still feel like [sex is] a big deal or do you feel that the terms have changed, say, in the past couple decades?

T: It depends on the teenager. Interestingly, the people that I’ve interviewed that are sexually active or very comfortable with the concept of sex, if they are not sexually-active, seem pretty open in talking about it. And the people who are religious who are waiting for religious reasons are also open about talking about how they feel. The people who are not having sex and want to be having sex and are embarrassed do not want to talk to me. I run a lot of stuff on my blog from them, because it’s anonymous. People really want to tell their story and other people want to read that story, but it’s been very hard to get people to talk on camera. I’m negotiating with people right now…how anonymous can I make them. But, you know, I think it’s just kind of too bad, really.

A: While shooting and researching for your film, do you feel like you’ve gleaned more insight into why we have such a bizarre perspective on sex even though it’s everywhere—say, why people are so unwilling to talk about it with you?

T: People are willing to talk about it, but I’m not sure if they’re honestly talking about it. And I think when you say “sex is everywhere,” I think that it is everywhere…in people fantasies. In their imaginations, everyone is having sex but them. Or everyone is having amazing sex but them. And I think that’s a message over and over again. That’s how we sell products. That’s how we sell all kinds of media, and, I think that if people were actually honest about their…I don’t want to hear every detail about someone’s sex life, but I think if people were generally more honest about what the world of sexuality really looked like, I think it would look very different than what we see all around.

A: Was there anything that really surprised you when you were making this film, something you didn’t expect?

T: We shot on the set of Barely Legal, which is a porn franchise run by Hustler and it is a virginity porn franchise. There are no virgins in porn, despite what anybody may claim. [Laughs] These are professional actors being paid to act, let me say that right out front. We were on the set of Barely Legal and we’d spent the day before talking to someone who blogs about porn [Gram Ponante, NSFW link]; he’s actually part of the Fleshbot family, which is Gawker’s adult site. He was awesome and he gave us this really great interview, and I had come into it with some preconceived notions about what being on a porn set might be like.

We got to the Barely Legal set and it was one of the best-run film sets I’ve ever been on and everyone was cool and it was kind of a fun day. And that coupled with the complete surreality of watching people having sex right in front of you [laughs], walking around naked and whatever, I mean that was incredibly weird. But it wasn’t creepy, people were very open, and it was refreshing to spend the day with people who are so comfortable with sex and sexuality. I certainly don’t think that all porn sets are that pleasant, just like not all offices are the same. Working at one insurance office is different from working at another insurance office.

On Barely Legal's set, a wardrobe person displays the virginity franchise's signature white panties.*

It turned out to be one of my favorite shoots in the sense that it was the most interesting to me to be there and just observe it and talk to people. So, I’m reluctant to give you: oh yeah, being on that porn set was great. It’s all in the inflection. But it was fascinating and I didn’t expect that.

The other really surprising thing that I have found is…just the number of people that aren’t sexually-active. The incredible number of people that aren’t sexually-active that pretend they are because they don’t want to be shamed.

A: And because the culture tells us that everyone is, like you said?

T: Yeah, something weird happens. Up until a certain age, you’re not supposed to be sexually-active and then you cross some invisible threshold and suddenly everyone is supposed to be having sex. I think if you get out of college and you still aren’t sexually-active that seems to be the weird taboo-zone. And I have met so many people that aren’t and feel terrible. Not personally feel terrible—they’re making decisions about their lives—but feel terrible culturally. Like, God forbid anyone should find out about this.

And here I thought everyone was having sex.

A: Which I did, too, but I guess that assumption alone is a sign of the cultural backdrop. To wrap up, do you have anything specific that you want to mention that we haven’t talk about yet or any teasers [laughter] you want to give readers for what the film will encompass?

T: Yes, well the question is: what wedding dress will I wear? [Laughs]

A: Ah, yes.

T: Will Therese wear a veil? Will she be walked down the aisle by her parents? I’m sure these are burning issues for your readers! [Laughs]

There is one thing I want to say, which is that I think if you talk to people who think about this stuff a lot, they’ll always tell you virginity is this cultural construct, so let’s dismiss it. The thing is that, it may be a cultural construct but it’s still very, very important to people. I think that the idea of one’s sexual initiation, however you want to describe it, is important and we can’t just toss it out because there’s some issues around it that are problematic.

The other fascinating thing is that when you talk to people who identify as queer—who don’t engage in penis-in-vagina sex, for example—and how they perceive of the concept of virginity, which leaves them completely out of the definition that most people use because it’s a much more nuanced thing. I’ve also talked to people in the asexual community who are like, “This has nothing to do with us. We don’t even want to be called virgins because it’s defining us by whether we’ve had sex or not and we don’t have…it’s not part of our lives. So we don’t want to be defined by something that has nothing to do with us.” That’s also fascinating and makes a lot of sense; I hadn’t thought about it.

A: And even for people who are heterosexual, the definition for “what is sex?” is very different for different people.

T: Yeah, and there’s really no answer to that; there’s no blanket answer where we’re going to write up a virginity manifesto—“We’re all following these rules now”—because it’s too complicated so we can’t do it.

A: You’re raising money to finish editing a rough cut of How to Lose Your Virginity through Kickstarter and you have until July 1st to raise $10,000. And there’s a cocktail party fundraiser for the film in New York City on June 29th. So, besides donating money and telling our friends about the film, what else can readers do to help get this film out there?

T: There are a couple things and only one involves money. The Kickstarter thing is really important. To make an even modest documentary costs about $300,000. And people have been doing stuff for me for free, for really low rates, people have been fantastic. But we cannot, literally can’t do anymore, unless we have cold hard cash, [laughs] because we have to employ an editor full-time. I can’t ask someone to volunteer four months of their life to me, full-time.

So this Kickstarter thing is part of it. And we have to get to this $10,000 goal or we don’t get any of the money that people have pledged, so in the next two weeks, that’s a huge push for us. And I hate asking people for money—I can’t tell you how much. It’s the most detested part of this job, but there you go. Our budget is equal to Tom Cruise’s hair and makeup budget on some other film. And there’s no Hollywood studio asking for a feminist critique of female sexuality in pop culture. [Laughs] They’re just not. So we’re always looking for money. We just can’t ask people to do stuff for free anymore.

The other part of it is that we are looking for subjects. It is very easy for me to find white, Christian young women to talk to me about virginity. It is harder for me to find people who are queer, people of color, trans people. My subject group right now is not diverse enough and it’s something I want to remedy and I know there are people out there from those different communities that could tell their story. And I don’t care what the story is, I just want to hear their story. [If you’re interested in volunteering to be interviewed for Shechter’s film, you can contact her via her website]

A: Is there an expected release date for the film?

T: If we had $30,000 right now, we could have a great rough cut by fall. That means it would then be in the form that people want to see it in order to give us all the finishing money we need.

A: Oh wow. Great.

T: Once you have rough cut, it makes a huge difference. So, yeah, we could have it done this year. The only thing standing in our way is funding, and the funding climate is horrible for everyone. Horrible. So, we’re not taking it personally.

A: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me! I'm eagerly awaiting the release of How to Lose Your Virginity.

Our new trailer! "How To Lose Your Virginity" from Trixie Films on Vimeo.

How To Lose Your Virginity

Therese Schecter, whose first documentary I Was a Teenage Feminist I used for one of my Feminist Flashbacks two years ago and have since screened for my Women's Studies 101 class (who surprised even themselves by loving it), is working on a new documentary and needs your help!

In Schecter's words, her new project, How to Lose Your Virginity, explores why "we're so obsessed with virginity":

It's a quest to dig beneath the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t double-speak of a culture that cynically encourages both virginity and promiscuity. How can young women wade through these mixed messages–like a reality show that auctions off virgins to the highest bidder or Disney starlets flashing purity rings while writhing on stripper poles–and act instead on their own needs and desires? What’s behind this strange moment in American culture?

You can find out more over at her Kickstarter Page, where she's raising funds for a rough cut of the film.



As a bonus, here's a trailer for the new film, followed by a trailer of 2006's I Was a Teenage Feminist:

The "How to Lose Your Virginity" trailer from Trixie Films on Vimeo.

Marriage: a political prerequisite?

Is Marriage a Political Litmus Test?

New post up at the Ms. blog (I promise I'll post something just for FWF again soon; I've just been a little swamped with deadlines and sundry):

Last week, Al and Tipper Gore announced that they are getting a divorce after 40 years of marriage. It’s a “mutual and mutually supportive decision,” according to an email the Gores sent to friends and family. Since their announcement, the internet has been a-twitter with a fair degree of disappointment and confusion. To many, the Gores’ marriage epitomized an ideal union: an equal partnership, free of scandals and palpably romantic (over the past week, blogs, newspapers and cable news shows alike have been obsessing over the validity of the Gores’ steamy kiss at the 2000 Democratic National Convention).

Ultimately, it’s immaterial why the Gores have decided to separate. They’re clearly both responsible adults, capable of making their own choices and it’s frankly none of our business. However, their announcement did get me thinking about the importance of marriage in today’s political arena and, in particular, the burden of expectation placed upon the political spouse to behave a certain way in both the public and private sphere.

Read the rest of the post here!

Pitcairn Island

On Fresh Air yesterday, British journalist Kathy Marks spoke with Terri Gross about her new book, Lost Paradise, a nonfiction account of the child abuse sex scandal on Pitcairn Island. Pitcairn Island is a British outpost in a remote part of the South Pacific. It is and has always been extremely isolated, with no airstrip and reachable only by a grueling 6 or 7 day sea journey from Australia. Only about 50 people live there, most of them descended from British sailor Fletcher Christian and the crew of the Bounty, which fled there in 1789.

In 2000, while British detectives were on the island investigating rape allegations made by a 15 year old girl, they discovered evidence that suggested most of the adult male population, 10 men, had been sexually abusing the island's girls for decades. And most of the victims, who had chosen to leave the island over the years, had been initially raped as young as 7 or 8.

How does something like this not just happen but become an embedded community norm practiced without impunity for years? Marks' explanation is a troubling one: she says that Pitcairners had lived an isolated existence in a male dominated society where men were doing exactly what they pleased." Raping children, eh? Was there just not a good game on?

Marks says the women on the island (who had overwhelmingly been victims themselves) felt unable to blow the whistle on the abuse or even to admit such things were occurring. She says, "If you are the mother of a girl who's being abused, what can you do? There's no one to complain to. The people in authority are doing it as well. Your own husband and brother are doing it." Even 10 years later, there is still a very strong sense of denial in the community, which Marks attributes to patriarchy: "It's ingrained in the mentality of the men in Pitcairn that this is an OK thing to do."

As unbelievable as it sounds, she has a point. A Google search of the island doesn't turn up much more than fluffy travel journals that call it a paradise and praise the islanders' virtuous, crime-free lives. If any mention of the sex scandal is made, it laments the loss of manpower that occurred when 9 of the 10 men were sentenced to prison terms in 2004 – not the physical and emotional injuries endured by the first- and second-grade girls who were sexually assaulted. One site even made a big deal about how the jail hadn't been used since 1922.

Throughout the trial most of the international community hemmed and hawed over the British investigations, fretting about ethnocentricity and British cultural imperialism. I, however, find it a bit suspect for men to cry "Culture!" when they're caught with their dicks in little kids' mouths. Or when he wants to confine his wife to the home. Or when he wants to excise her clitoris. Or when he wants to forbid her from earning money or casting a vote. No matter what the atrocity, so long as the victims are all women, a pretty effective case can be made for cultural relativism. Judging by the reactions in the media and international community to the Pitcairn scandal, there are plenty of people willing to look the other way and let Pitcairners do to "their women" as they like.

Men, watch out! Lesbians are stealing your women!

A few days ago, my father directed my attention to an article by Mary A. Fischer in this month's Oprah Magazine. The article's entitled, "Why Women Are Leaving Men for Other Women," and my dad's of the opinion that Oprah's paving the way for her own coming out. (I'm not really one to speculate, but if I were, I would agree that she does spend an awful lot of time with that Gayle!)

Anyway, the article is moderately interesting, although it doesn't say anything earth-shattering and there are some problematic moments. FeministGal points out a few issues, such as Fischer's use of 'lesbian chic' as evidence of society's acceptance (rather than exploitation, a more accurate term) of lesbian relationships:

Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it). Actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship from New York to Dubai. Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts. The L Word, Work Out, and Top Chef are featuring gay women on TV, and there's even talk of a lesbian reality show in the works. Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable—or at least, acceptable.

Lesbianism is fashionable? Um. Yay? Also, I've heard that before (e.g. Laura Cottingham's book(let) Lesbians Are So Chic...: ...That We Are Not Really Lesbians at All and Linda Dittmar's article "The Straight Goods: Lesbian Chic and Identity Capital on a Not-so-Queer Planet," both written in the mid-1990s and a long time before the age of Katy Perry and Tila Tequila).

Fischer also points to a landmark 2004 study (referenced a few months ago in this New York Times Magazine feature) as evidence that female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality. I don't know. I haven't read the study itself, but it seems that Fischer is vastly simplifying the results. Regardless, I don't have too much of a problem with the idea that women's sexuality is more fluid--stereotypical though it may seem. Who knows, maybe it's true? I have a much bigger problem with the conclusion Fischer draws toward the end of the article: that women who leave men for other women tend to be more attracted to butch lesbians, androgynous women or bois. She writes:

Ironically—or not, as some might argue—it is certain "masculine" qualities that draw many straight-labeled women to female partners; that, in combination with emotional connection, intimacy, and intensity. This was definitely true for Gomez-Barris, whose partner, Judith Halberstam, 47, (above right, with Gomez-Barris, left) says she has never felt "female." Growing up in England as a tomboy who had short hair and refused to wear dresses, Halberstam says people were often unable to figure out whether she was a boy or a girl: "I was a source of embarrassment for my family." As a teenager, she was an avid soccer player—not that she was allowed on any team. And her 13th birthday request for a punching bag and boxing gloves was met with the demand to pick something more feminine. "Throughout my youth," she says, "I felt rage at the shrinking of my world." Halberstam channeled her anger into a distinguished academic career and authored several provocative books, including, in 1998, Female Masculinity. It was during the past few years that she started calling herself Jack and answering to both "he" and "she."

With all due respect to Judith (Jack) Halberstam, whose work I really admire and whose own sexuality isn't really the issue here, it does seem a little reductive for Fischer to argue that most "straight" women tend to fall for masculine/androgynous women, and the article seems to come to some sort of unspoken conclusion that socially-sanctioned gender binaries (male as rational and female as emotional, for example) still play a role, even for women who fall in love with other women. This may be true for some people. It may even be more often true for straight women who date lesbians. But it's certainly not something I'd be willing to build an argument around.

Do you think female sexuality is more fluid than male sexuality? Do any of you who are gay, bisexual or heteroflexible want to speak to whether or not you tend to be attracted to more "masculine" or more "feminine" women? And what that might mean, if anything? Is this even something about which we can make generalized claims?

Lest I sound too grumpy, I think the article's mostly fine, especially for something published in a mainstream publication. What do you all think?

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.

Cross posted at Paper Cuts and Plastic.

Dollhouse, some answers and more questions

Earlier today, Jacyln over at Bitch Ph.D., posted a compelling series of questions about Whedon's Dollhouse. And I just responded to her post with an absurdly long comment, so I thought I would replicate it here, bringing my answers to her questions (and I few questions of my own) to Fourth Wave readers. The questions in italics are Jacyln's questions from her post. My responses and questions (at the bottom) are in normal type.

1) Did you watch? What did you think?
Yes, I saw it. As a fan of Buffy and Firefly, but not an obsessive fan of Whedon in general, I liked it with some serious caveats. The premise still disturbs me and the pilot did little to mitigate that feeling. I'm uncomfortable not only with Echo's tabula rasa imprintability, but also with the way viewers are (at least in the pilot) encouraged to like her handler and the geeky guy operating the imprinting machine (these people have names, which I don't remember, and I'm sure the machine has a name, too -- anyone care to enlighten me?). They're complicit in Echo's imprisonment and exploitation, and I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I already sort of like them even though they haven't (yet?) shown any signs of remorse.

2) Were you as psyched as I was to see that Mutant Enemy tag at the end?
Yeah, kinda, in spite of myself.

3) How did you feel about Eliza D as Faith in Buffy? How have you felt about everything she's done since Buffy? What did you think about her performance as Echo?
I loved Faith. I haven't really seen much of what she's done since Buffy. I actually thought she was a little flat as Echo, and not just in the moments when she's supposed to be flat because she's a shell. I'm willing to give her a little more time, though. In general, acting in pilots has a tendency to be a bit wonky.

4) Why the hell did Joss agree to work with Fox again? Or ever?
I have no idea. I certainly hope it wasn't so Fox could pair Cameron (Summer Glau) from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Echo together for sexy dual promos during the commercial breaks. That was really beyond the pale and made my head swim. (I could only find the outtakes from the Glau/Dushku promos on youtube, but you get the gist; also, in the second video, check out the lovely grindhouse-style joint trailer for TSCC and Dollhouse put out by Fox last week.)





Urgh... Fox... WHY???!!! Oh. Never mind. Because you're Fox.

5) Um... are there still no people of color who want good roles in Hollywood? It's a real problem, isn't it? How on earth can we fix it, so that all the producers and directors aren't forced to only cast white people all the time? (Yes, there's Harry Lennix as Echo's handler, but a) that just makes him the token and b) Driving Miss Daisy, anyone?)
I have no words. It's so infuriating and endemic of television in general that I don't even know how to address this question.

6) Ditto fat people, people with physical disabilities, people who aren't freakishly pretty, etc.?
Ditto my answer to #5. I do feel like certain shows, especially non-action ensemble dramas (e.g. medical shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy, among others) are more likely to cast people of diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds who are less freakishly skinny. However, everyone's still gorgeous, even if there's an occasional woman who wears over a size 10. I don't know. It is television...the "everyone has to be pretty" conundrum is one of those problems where I have the tendency to throw up my hands.

7) Did they really have to start with the girl-is-broken-due-to-sex-abuse-and-requires-the-intervention-of-a-kind-man-to-seek-redemption plotline? Why is that never the secret weak spot for male action stars, huh?
Yes, they did. Because they're idiots. And men never have secret weak spots that stem from sexual abuse, didn't you know? (Except for Derek Morgan in Criminal Minds, which is one of the reasons I love that show.)

8) If Person A is desperate and out of options, and is coerced into fully giving up her agency and identity, and if, after making that one decision, Person A no longer has any meaningful ability to consent to anything, nor does she have the ability to withdraw her consent from the original agreement -- under those circumstances, if Person C pays Person B money to have sex with Person A, is that really prostitution, as Joss and Eliza have said it is? Or is that sexual slavery?
I love this question. It's (sexual) slavery. If Person A lacks consent because her personality has been wiped and there is no way to establish her consent for every various task she is asked to perform, then it's not just prostitution. Consent can't be given as a blanket endorsement of any and all activities of the body from now until eternity.

9) Can someone tell me that Joss is going somewhere good with this? I want to believe...
I would love to, but I'm concerned as well. Petpluto over at Art of the Auction says the show could offer a compelling discourse about identity, authenticity and identify formation, but I'm withholding judgment until I've seen a few more episodes.

Now, I have a few more questions of my own:

a) Can a disturbing premise be mitigated by the subjugated character developing agency and control over her oppressors? If so, to what degree? Does she need to escape? Seek retribution? Take over?

b) How long can a show like Dollhouse continue on with this same "she can be anything you want her to be" shtick before something has to give?

c) Is it possible to maintain narrative interest if Echo escapes or if Dollhouse (the place, not the show) is shut down? If so, how? If not, then doesn't the continued need for the Dollhouse as an element of narrative interest necessitate the continued exploitation of the "actives" for our viewing pleasure?

As you can see, I've been thinking about this a bit too much.

The Orgasm Gap

Just in time for Valentine's Day, check out this interesting article by Hannah Seligson over at The Daily Beast about "the orgasm gap":

Women are shattering political glass ceilings, surpassing men in the workforce, and even winning Indy-car races. But there’s one area where the gender gap has proved particularly stubborn.

“The orgasm gap is an inequity that’s as serious as the pay gap, and it’s producing a rampant culture of sexual asymmetry,” says Paula England, a professor of sociology at Stanford University.

New academic research conducted by England and others is shedding light on one of the world's most familiar bedroom problems. In a study to be published later this year by W.W. Norton in the book Families as They Really Are, researchers found that college women have orgasms half as often as men on repeat hookups (meaning hooking up more than twice) and only a third of the time in first-time hookups. And they concluded that a lack of sexual reciprocity could be a key reason for this orgasm gap. The study was conducted by a team of researchers from Stanford and Indiana University.
[...]
The bright spot of the study is this: Even though folklore has it that women don’t achieve orgasms with strangers because they need emotional attachment to feel that sort of pleasure, the truth is that women’s orgasms are not usually the result of emotional attachments, but simple physicality. Which is why Angier says she believes the sexual paradigm of women as passive receiver and man as sexual agent needs to be stamped out if women are going to get serious about their orgasms.

“The woman really has to be the boss of the sexual experience, because it’s harder for women to have an orgasm through a straightforward sexual position. Women need to start understanding how their clitoral nerves are positioned,” says Angier. Speaking from her own experience, she says multi-orgasmic women take responsibility for their own pleasure. “Personally, I made that my pet project.”

Although Sigmund Freud argued that a clitoral orgasm was adolescent and that the vagina was the fountain of the more “mature” orgasm, there’s evidence that theory is not only misguided, but is also fueling the orgasm gap.

Compelling statistical evidence, but nothing new as far as what I and many people I know already know about female sexuality. What do you all think?

Sex Work and Privilege

There have been a couple of interesting and definitely provocative posts on sex work in the blogosphere in the last week. What else is new, right? This time, though, I'm joining the discussion.

Renegade Evolution does a good job of answering some of buggle's assertions about "special" sex workers, but she leaves out what I think is the most important point.

What we need here is a discussion of privilege.

Those who enter into any industry with lots of privilege are going to be safer, healthier, and less likely to take risks that lead them to brutal experiences. (By privilege, I mean having a penis, white skin, no disabilities, heterosexuality, good health, a supportive family, good education, and/or an already-healthy pocketbook, to name a few.)

If people with the above privileges do experience brutality, they're also more likely to be able to access support systems to help them escape it and recover from it.

People with less privilege have fewer options for making and keeping money. In general, our system puts these people at a disadvantage, systematically and through no fault of their own. If someone desperately needs money, they'll do desperate things to get it. In any line of work, underprivileged folks are more likely to be taken advantage of and harmed.

This definitely applies to sex work, probably even more than many other industries because of the stigma surrounding it.

I would never, ever want to ignore the speech of people who've been brutalized at the hands of prostitution. They need everyone's help and compassion. I also don't want to discredit the people who do have a choice in what they do with their bodies and their decisions to take money for sex.

We absolutely need to talk about the systems of privilege and hardship that cause women (and men, let's not forget they do sex work too) to unwillingly enter an industry where they're raped and abused. The fact that privilege protects people from all kinds of pain (in all aspects of life) and yet leaves others to be trampled is deeply fucked up.

I think, however, that this is a larger issue of helping under-privileged people and not simply getting rid of sex work. (Intersectionality, anyone?) Prostituted women and men are just one group of under-privileged people who need help and need a voice.

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 their 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.

Cross-posted at Paper Cuts and Plastic.

What is Feminist Sex?

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Musical Androgyny

The Cliks are one of the most fascinating bands in existence - the lead singer, Lucas Silveira, in particular.


Here's why:

As someone who thinks she knows enough about music to write about it, I haven't actually been listening to popular music for very long. I'd been a classical musician since I was quite young, but I've only been listening to popular music for a few years, and one of the first things I noticed as I started to listen was the overwhelming influence of sexual attraction. And not simply as a subject of the music, but as a part of the music itself.

The vast majority of popular music is sung, and one's attraction, or lack of attraction, to the singer (either in voice or appearance) greatly influences the way we perceive the music. The instrumentalists, too - one could write books on the guitar as a phallic symbol. This isn't a bad thing, certainly! I used to wonder, though - what would androgynous popular music sound like?

Not asexual music - that's what (some) classical music is for. The question is more difficult than it seems. What does an androgynous singing voice sound like? The first thing that comes to my mind is the sound of a boy's choir - but that brings us back to the asexual problem! I really can't imagine what normal, adult, androgynous singing would sound like. (Although, it's quite possible I simply haven't heard it yet!)

There is another solution, though. I first heard the Cliks on NPR. My first thought was, I like the singer. She has a great voice! After I listened to the interview and realized that Lucas was an FTM, however, it became obvious that he had accomplished something amazing.

The combination of a female (but not overly feminine) voice with a male (but not overly masculine) appearance creates androgynous music without sacrificing sexuality. In fact, many of the Cliks' songs are rather overtly sexual. By avoiding the typical feminine or masculine attraction, we are forced to focus on the song and on the music itself - yet without losing sight of the singer.

Is anyone familiar with a comparable MTF singer? I would imagine that the effect would be much the same.

Male Authenticy

(A surprise visit to relatives ate up all of my writing time this weekend, so instead of anything remotely original, this post turned into an impassioned rant. My apologies.)

I'm really pissed at this thread. Specifically, at the person in the thread who goes by the name of 'Chinese Gorden'. Yes, I am aware that complaining about Internet trolls is a pointless exercise, but this person was unusually interesting/horrible.

To spare you the trouble of reading the thread for yourself, somebody made an announcement for a show by a all-female cover band (DandeLion, which is fairly good, to judge by their myspace). The Troll trolled in with an offhand remark that women just couldn't really play rock music. Needless to say, other (more sensible) people tried to jump in and refute him, they did a poor job (since he's a professional troll), and he ended up getting the last stupid word. Predictable, I know. But here's the interesting quote:

Rock-and-roll almost has to be 'male' to be authentic.It has to be ugly and raw and sexual and in-your-face and unpleasant and powerful. It has to imply rebellion. It's about standing up on your hind legs in your life and in your music.

Great rock and roll is not passive, feminine, playing-by-the-rules, having babies, having a hobby, being someone's bitch, staying neat and clean, avoiding a fight, wearing skirts and makeup, playing-it-safe....

Leaving aside that this is one of the silliest definitions of 'rock and roll' ever, notice the first sentence: "Rock-and-roll almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."

How many other subjects could that sentence have been about, and still be seen as true by many, many people?

"Science almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Professional sports almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Business management almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Building things almost has to be 'male' to be authentic.".
In general:
"Earning a living almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
How about:
"Technical writing almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
"Journalism almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
Even:
"Reasoning and logic almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."
and, for that matter
"Sex almost has to be 'male' to be authentic."

It almost seems, that for any thing that actually matters, "[noun] almost has to be 'male' to be authentic." In other words, male=good, female=bad. And women need to become more male in order to matter. Even very well-meaning individuals sometimes fall victim to this attitude. Take this otherwise excellent article:

So what flaws can female characters have? Uh, I don’t know. How about the same flaws a male character would have?

Now, I'm not sure that the author really meant it, but that almost sounds like "Male characters are just fine - now let's make female characters just like them!"

Perhaps I'm just in a screw-the-gender-binary sort of mood, but I believe that everybody tries to apply this concept to real life, too. Men want women to be like them, but not too much, of course. Feminists want women to be almost just like men, to accomplish the same things, etc. Unless, of course, they want to be the same 'tough slut' types that men like - and that's okay, too. I'm certainly guilty of this myself - I'm a femmeish lesbian - guess what kind of women I'm attracted to!

Why can't we admire feminine individuals for themselves, both women and men? Why are certain concepts, power or intelligence or rebellion or creativity or even simple non-object value almost always associated with being, at least, somewhat masculine.

It's something we all need to work on.

On the other hand...

The Whole Feminist Mess Over Porn

I'm writing an honors thesis on porn.

I've mentioned this before, and I've said a few things about it. You probably have some idea where I'm coming from, especially since I'm a stripper. That gives you some prepackaged ideas about who I am and what I think.

I don't know, though, how to engage with all the shit (yes, shit) that feminists say about pornography.

Everybody is so concerned with taking a side. We must all be Pro-Pornography! or Anti-Pornography! and there is so little room allowed for having an opinion that's in between. It's yet another fun incarnation of the good ol' virgin/whore dichotomy.

There's so much vitriol on both sides:

"Those who oppose pornography are anti-sex! They continue the oppression of women by oppressing our sexual expression! They take away the agency of sex workers, taking away the agency and independence of women! Pornography should be encouraged as a sexual expression and an education tool!"

Or:

"Those who support pornography are anti-woman! They continue the oppression of women by encouraging representations of violence against women, perpetuating the myth that all women want to be dominated and abused! They ignore the economic and social coercion of women into sex and sex work! Pornography should be illegal and stigmatized!"

For heaven's sake, you're both right.

I think, actually, that Ariel Levy has a good idea of what's going on. Her book Female Chauvinist Pigs is immensely popular, especially with the anti-porn set, but if you read carefully, she's in the middle of the debate. She doesn't actually think that all porn is terrible (as the anti-porn activists want us to think), but she's not unequivocally accepting of porn and what she calls "raunch culture" either.

Here's an excerpt from an email conversation she had with Susie Bright about her book and what it means for "sex-positive" or "sex radical" feminists:

OF COURSE I don't think you & co. are responsible for this...the whole point of sex radicals is to explore new and different and more creative ways to represent— and to have— sex. I'm all for creativity. I'm all for exploration. I'm just not for the incessant reiteration of this one incredibly dull shorthand for sexiness... Wet t-shirt contests! Implants! Brazilian bikini waxes!

It's pathetically limiting. I'm tired of hearing about how liberating and empowering "raunch culture" is. I think it's the easy way out... as if when we buy a thong or a t-shirt with the Playboy bunny on it, then we don't have to question or face our own complicated desires. (But then you miss out on all the fun!)

You have always been about encouraging women to investigate what they really and truly want from sex. Raunch culture, on the other hand, is about performance, not pleasure. That's my objection.

Let's try and find a middle road here, people. We all want the same thing, ultimately. We want women and men to be equal to each other. We don't want these gender stereotypes and privileges to rule our lives. We want to preserve sexual freedom for both sexes. We want to make sure that no one ever has to give in to a sexuality that's harmful to them. It's a noble goal. We should work towards it together.

Cross posted at Paper Cuts and Plastic.

So Sexy So Soon

The dangers of hyper-sexualizing children have been well documented. Dads (and moms) are distressed by, frightened by and sick of the onslaught of “sexualized” messages and images raining down on our daughters—and sons.


Two women for whom I have the greatest respect have written a guide for parents on how to deal with this problem: “So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect their Kids” by Dr. Jean Kilbourne and Dr. Diane Levin. Jean and Diane are veteran researchers and advocates on marketing to children and I’ve shared platforms with them many times through the years. This new book is very, very needed and very well done.

For children today, learning about sex too soon is only one problem. Another serious issues is what the authors call “the synthetic and cynical source of a child’s information.” Popular culture and technology shower mixed and developmentally inappropriate messages on young children who don’t yet have the emotional sophistication to understand what they are hearing and seeing.

The result: kids have distorted, unhealthy notions about sex, sexuality, their bodies, relationships, gender—the list goes on. On top of that, some kids are getting into increasing trouble emotionally and socially by engaging in precocious sexual behavior. We are left with little girls wanting to go on diets so they can be “sexy,” little boys getting suspended from school for sexual harassment, and parents in desperate need of guidance.

“So Sexy So Soon” provides it. If you’re the dad (or mom) of children today--or if you care about human relationships--read it.

(Joe Kelly runs http://www.thedadman.com,/ blogs @ http://www.dadsanddaughters.blogspot.com/ and has written books about healthy father-daughter relationships.)

Porn Wars and Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality

Yes, I know that's a scary post title.

Today I'm writing about 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 the three authors 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 Paper Cuts and Plastic.

JuicyCampus.com and 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 Paper Cuts and Plastic.