sex positive

Morning After Pill Availability

2008-05-16T15:09:00.002-04:00

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/16/morning-afterpill.html

Pharmacists unhappy about new morning-after-pill availability
Last Updated: Friday, May 16, 2008 | 12:20 PM ET
CBC News

The emergency contraceptive drug known as Plan B will likely be coming out from behind the pharmacy counter, a move the Canadian Association of Pharmacists is not happy about.

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities accepted a recommendation this week to change the way the drug is sold, allowing it to be freely available on drugstore shelves instead of behind the pharmacy counter.

Currently, women who want to buy the drug have to ask pharmacy staff, a condition critics have contended may discourage some women from using it to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The proposed change would see Plan B stocked on shelves near the dispensary, so purchasers could easily ask for advice on its use if they need it.

The national body advises provincial and territorial pharmacy regulatory authorities, each of which will have final say over the matter in their own jurisdiction.

The Canadian Association of Pharmacists (CPhA) does not support the proposed changes.

“Health Canada’s decision in 2005 to take emergency contraception off prescription status [but keep it behind the counter] was based on the need to have a trained health professional provide advice on the appropriate use of ECP,” said Janet Cooper, CPhA’s Senior Director of Professional Affairs, in a news release Friday.

"What will be lost is the opportunity for a pharmacist to use consultation on emergency contraception as a bridge to a referral to other health care providers, when needed, as well as providing important education regarding contraception and reproductive health.”

She says many women don't actually need to take the pill, which can be used within three days of unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy. And once the pill is easily accessible on pharmacy shelves, they'll be losing out on key information about the product, its correct usage and contraception information that pharmacists currently provide.

She says previous studies have shown that many women have misconceptions about Plan B, also known as levonorgestrel, and are confused about birth control generally.

In taking the decision, Canada, where the drug is sold by Montreal-based Paladin Labs Inc. Research, becomes the fifth country to agree to allow Plan B to be sold as an over-the-counter product. Other countries where the drug is sold this way are Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and India.

"CPhA is also disappointed by the lack of an open and transparent consultation with health professionals on this issue," said Cooper. "We believe that such decisions should be both evidence-based and socially responsible."

It could be some time before the result of the decision is seen on drugstore shelves, even if provinces and territories accept the recommended change. Where some can almost automatically accept a decision of the national body and incorporate it into their own provincial drug schedules, others may have to go through more regulatory steps to make the change.

If you have ever tried to obtain Plan B, an over-the-counter emergency contraceptive, from a pharmacist in Quebec, you can (or maybe are, but I've not been to every pharmacy in the province) be required to have a consultation with the pharmacist. It's a hassle, it's a long wait to listen to things you probably already know, but it's a small price to pay for being able to control your own reproductive system, even after you've had an "oops." What you may not know about this consultation is that it actually does have a high price to be paid, and it's paid by the medicare system to the pharmacist. Its sale can be also recorded in order to catch those who are supposedly abusing or unnecessarily taking the medication.

This system disengages women in vulnerable situations from access to reproductive power: if they are for any number of reasons not covered by medicare (e.g. if they are newly arrived in the country, if they have no fixed address) they will have to pay for the medication, and will also have to pay out of pocket for the consultation to receive the medication.

It is essential that women have as much access to as many options for their reproductive health as society can legitimately provide. Who should we lobby?

This Is Not Marilyn

2007-03-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, this image replaced images of women in black and red PVC bodysuits as advertisements for Montreal's sex boutique Sexe Cité. I love the fact that sex stores in Montreal advertise in the metro, and that no one here gets offended that the kiddies might see something they're not supposed to.

The image itself, however, makes me want to claw my eyes out.

I'm not going to get into the issue of whether or not North America's most recognisable sex symbol would or would not have worn plus-sized clothes today. Completely unconfirmed internet research puts her measurements somewhere in the vicinity of 37"-23"-36" Any woman who's shopped for clothes in a mall knows that that's definitely in the large/extra-large range. I don't really care if she would have been a size 16, or a size 12, or even a size 10, but I think any less than that is stretching the point.

It offends me the way that this image of a lush, curved, sexy woman has been co-opted into a stick figure. It offends me most that this emaciated model is considered more sexy than her iconic progenitor.

This is not to say that thin women cannot be attractive. Some are, certainly. Though it's not as if that's something you hear every day. Every media image out there of what a woman "should" look like reinforces society's views, and not mine. We can all quote facts and statistics - about Barbie, about supermodels, about the smooth, thin legs of pre-pubescent girls passed off as those of adults - they're not important. We know that society's idea of beauty is impossibly skewed. There's only so much reminding that we can do.

If you see this ad, please be disgusted. Even if you do nothing about it, if you don't even mention it, blog about it, or write an angry letter to the company about it, please be disgusted. Hold a company morally responsible in your own heart for its part in arbitrarily setting beauty standards and dividing women from each other.

Why I Love Canada

2007-01-12T10:09:00.000-05:00

Some number in a series.

http://www.thesexparty.ca/Platform.html

But this is hands down my favourite part:

Sex-Positive Holidays
The provincial Victoria Day holiday in May commemorates a monarch legendary for her negative attitudes towards female sexuality. The Sex Party would change Victoria Day to Eros Day to celebrate and encourage sex-positive expression.
There is no provincial holiday in February. The Sex Party would proclaim Valentines Day as an official holiday

Well, that and that their webpage looks like a porn site, I mean, really.

And yes, they're based in BC.

Smile And Act Nice, and things I hate.

2006-10-31T22:58:00.000-05:00

In a famous "Googleit!" attempt to discover how to become a dominatrix (I had a day off, what'd you expect me to do, stay at home and have sex with boys on the internet? wait a second...) I ran across a very cool website, the kind with a title that makes you think that these gals know exactly where you're coming from: http://www.smileandactnice.com

I read through the article (an interview with a professional dominatrix by the name of Mistress Elle), and, impressed, head to the site's main page. Given the section heading choices of Sex, Food, News, Home, and Life, I obviously choose Sex, and find myself reading hands down the best on-line sex advice column I have ever read. Lynne, their resident Ho In The Know has five "Ask-A-Ho" question & answer columns covering topics from how to have better orgasms to whether one should spit or swallow. Her advice is non-nonsense (learn to give yourself a pleasurable orgasm, then teach your partner), and honest ("swallow... or at least try"). Please. Read every single one.

Her best advice, however, comes to this guy:

I recently caught my wife kissing her best girlfriend. She told me that she had done this about 3 other times before. Being that her girlfriend is one of her best friends, she occasionally spends the night at her house. I am fairly certain that they sleep in the same bed. My wife has told me that she is not gay or bi. I mostly believe her, but because we are having some problems lately, I am beginning to question it. In general, do girls do this without being bi or lesbian? Any advice?

To which our dear columnist replies:

Hmmmm... sounds a little fishy to me. If your wife feels comfortable enough to make-out with her friend while you're in the vicinity, chances are they've been practicing. But it doesn't matter what the gender of the object of your wife's affections, unless you haven an"open" marriage arrangement in place, it's still cheating, isn't it? Mind you, this little foray doesn't necessarily mean your wife is gay, or even bisexual--but that's not the issue here. You two need to identify your problems and redefine what you each want out of your lives together, both sexually and emotionally. Good luck.

Which brings me to the two things I want to point out that I hate:

1. Awesome websites that haven't been updated since 2003.
2. When men think, for some warped reason that if their female significant other does something sexual with another woman it's not cheating.

Number one speaks for itself. If you are a progenitor of Smile & Ask Nicely and trip across this blog, please be encouraged to pick it up again, and if you can't be convinced, then please accept my thanks.

Number two is my ranting and raving at the universe for sexist double standards. And to take this opportunity, underneath a little line, and in a smaller font, to tell a Q-list celebrity sighting story.

*Note* If you are a man with a reasonable explanation of this, please tell me. If you are a woman who has tips for not worrying about this sort of thing all the time, please drop me a line.

There was a sub-plot on the Showcase TV show "Naked Josh" where main-character Josh's best friend's girlfriend cheats on him with another woman. Because "it's not *really* cheating," girlfriend doesn't get dumped, best friend just gets a single get-out-of-jail-free card to sleep with another woman. *Fume*

At my sister's birthday this year, the actor who plays Josh was sitting a table away from us, with two stick-thin girls in little black dresses, and a second guy who actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

Five Things Feminism Has Done For Me

2006-10-09T09:20:00.000-04:00

As a collective web-response to the attacks being levied at Status of Women Canada/Condition Feminine Canada, over at ProgressiveBloggers.ca, they've asked us bloggish types to post five things that feminism has done for us. All over the Canadian internet people have posted well-thought-out, reasoned, touching, empowering lists. The following may or may not be one of them. But that's because feminism has as much impact on the quotidien as it does on the global.

Because of feminism...

1 - I wasn't shunned for not bringing a date to my high school prom
2 - I can build a career as a sex writer, and as a stage manager
3 - I don't feel obliged to shave my legs (or anything else for that matter)
4 - I can choose whether or not I want to have kids
5 - I'm taken seriously when I open my mouth to speak. Or if I'm not, it's because I'm an annoying, mouthy person, not because I'm a woman.

Status Report - Status of Women Canada/Condition Feminine Canada

2006-10-09T09:08:00.000-04:00

Status of Women Canada/Condition Feminine Canada, the federal agency responsible for funding women's groups in Canada, as well as conducting gender-based policy research, has just had its budget radically sliced up by the Conservative government. Its mandate has been altered so that it no longer includes the word "equality," and as recently as this week, groups who receive funding through Status of Women Canada/Condition Feminine Canada are now no longer able to use those funds to do government lobbying.

But guess what Stephen Harper, the feminists are coming, and they're pissed off.

If you'd like to learn more, or to get involved, please leave me a comment with an email address, or you can check out the fledgeling site: http://www.statusreport.ca

This is about porn.

2006-07-17T17:44:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking recently about what it is that allows me to call myself a "sex positive feminist." Sure, I like sex. I think people should have sex. I don't think that all sex is rape, nor do I think that there is anything fundamentally unfeminist about sex.

I've been thinking about the impact of the label "sex positive" has on my idea of specific "feminist issues" (an idea I have trouble with as it is, mind you.) Does an identity as a sex positive feminist change my view on abortion? Does it suggest that I ought to be more in favour of abortion as unwanted children are a basic consequence of unprotected sex? No, because being in favour of sex doesn't make me in favour of unprotected sex. Unprotected sex is dumb. Period. That's not to say that I don't understand why people have unprotected sex, nor is it to say that I haven't had instances where I've thought about skipping out on a condom.

However, the question of pornography is the one that's given me the greatest pause recently. To one extent, I've made peace with my personal ethics by only looking at porn of the drawn/animated/written varieties, even though I'm assured (by men, might I add) that women in the business are a) "in control" (whatever that means), and b) better paid (than men, I assume.) Let's be clear, though. Better paid does not mean not exploited. "In control" (of which we'll take the narrowest of definitions, and say that they have a veto over what might happen on set - though who would, lest she not be paid that "better pay") may mean that no one's holding a gun to her head, but doesn't mean that she's in the business for the fun and the glamour. Paris Hilton being a porn star is not the same Sally Wilson of Terre Haute, Indiana moving to New York to be a Broadway dancer and ending up making skin flicks to pay the rent.

This is not to pay any disrespect to any woman who enjoys what she does in the porn business. With them, I have no quarrel. It'd just be nice if for-women-by-women were splashed across more porn, and if I could believe the words that allude to that, but don't say it.

The theoretical, ethical issues that I have with porn, however, remain. Let this not be construed as my being against porn on principle, or being against the sex trade, this is more a litany of reservations.

First, the overwhelming majority of porn is created for a male audience. The resulting product caters to male tastes, the actions portrayed pander to male enjoyment and arousal, which leads men who consume a lot of pornographic material to believe that that's the way that sex ought to occur, and further more, that women are as easily aroused as porn stars pretend to be. To extrapolate an example, most influenced by this of course are men/boys with little sexual experience, who most often have sex with women/girls with little sexual experience, leading more women to enjoy sex less.

Women, I believe, have the right to enjoy sex.

Secondly, the portrayal of women in porn, even that that is drawn/animated/written, is so ridiculously antiquated that it scares me. Women solely as the object of desire. Women solely as the providers of pleasure. Women solely as subject to the whims of men. Porn perpetuates those stereotypes. Women have a right to be seen, in porn and in life, as better than that.

This is about dating sites and abortion.

2006-05-22T11:03:00.000-04:00

The dating site OkCupid improves the degree to which two people will "match" based on answering multiple choice questions that both the site maintainers create, and the site users submit. It's a cool site, lots of interesting people, and as a bonus, it's 100% free.

Here's one of the questions asked by the site. It is, as I recall, a user-written question:

Hypothetically, if you had an unwanted child on the way, what would you do?
1 - Abort it
2 - Give it up for Adoption
3 - Keep it regardless

This question seems odd to me. Mostly because as written it implies that a man answering the question could legitimately made a decision about a woman's right to choose.

If the question is intended to ascertain a view on abortion, might I suggest the following as a better question:
How do you feel about abortion?
a) I am pro-choice
b) I am pro-life
c) I respect the right to have an abortion, but I would not want to have one/want my partner to have one

I know this may make me come off as man hating feminist. I don't really care. This is one of the things on which I am very firm: a woman's right to choose is a woman's right to choose. She should have access to a safe, medically supported, and medicare-covered abortion. It should be her decision to have one, or not have one. Not her partner's, not her doctor's, not her government's.

That isn't to say that women shouldn't have the good sense to make the decision with their partners (should such a person be a positive part of her life), and/or to tell the father if she decides to keep it, because that's just basic human niceness.

As an addendum, an online acquaintance once explained to me her view on abortion: she said "I would like there not to have to be abortion. I would like every child to come into the world as a loved, cherished, and nurtured individual. In the meantime, there is abortion, and it should be legal, safe, and affordable." I thought this was very sensible.

Good God It's Haunting Me

2006-05-08T13:34:00.000-04:00

Mary Elizabeth wants to go to Berkley and get two degrees. One is for political science. The other is for sociology with a minor concentration in women's studies. Mary Elizabeth hates high school and wants to explore lesbian relationships. I asked her if she thought girls were pretty, and she looked at me like I was stupid and said, "That's not the point."

-the perks of being a wallflower
by stephen chbosky

Why Lesbian Feminism And My First Year Of University Got Along

2006-05-04T23:19:00.000-04:00

I began writing the "Why Canada Should Have Same-Sex Marriage" paper in my first semester of university. It was for "La Vie Politique Quebecoise," a course that was taught in French by a francophone who was a senior strategist for the Quebec Liberal Party.

I subsequently wrote the same paper (with an increasingly substantial and refined understanding of jurisprudence as I went along) for "Women, Ethics & The Law in Canada," for "Human Rights and International Justice," "Introduction to Canadian Politics," "Public Policy & The Politics of Equality," "Women & Politics in Canada," and "Comparative Judicial Politics."

And by the time I'd done with political science, they'd legalised same-sex marriage, which was a good co-incidence because I would have had nothing else to write about.

Every one of those papers included the same well-written footnote about what was meant by the term "lesbian feminism." It was a term introduced to me by the book Stonewall by Martin Duberman, which follows the very early beginnings of the queer rights movement by following the stories of six people who ended up at the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, and told a little of their lives after the riots. One of the women interviewed was Karla Jay, a prominent queer academic who was an early member of the Redstockings.

She spoke in the book about the development of a separate climate for women's queer liberation, and about the phase of lesbian feminism, which is a political stance taken by feminists that maintains that it is fundamentally incompatible with feminism to be sexually involved with a man. And thus they took up with women, found that they liked it, and became lesbians. This was a "movement" (if it can even be called that) of feminist academics in the 1970's. It was the same movement that idolised female androgyny and gave us gender neutral language like "police officer" and "fire fighter."

It is interesting to me that this has recently become a topic of discussion with some friends, since it is, to my mind, a very passe idea. The primary criticism levied against this "lesbian feminism" or "political lesbianism" is that it is going against one's own currents of desire. This is not a new criticism. It is - in fact - an old criticism, and to a lot of women that I know, tied to the criticism that feminism is inherently evil because it leads to lesbianism, which, as we all know, is evil to the power of evil. It can also simply smack of an arrogant underlying assumption that these women are being beguiled away from their natural place with a man by the clutches of the feminists who de facto hate men and want to see the reversal of twenty-five hundred years of societal structure so that men can know what it feels like.

There are four flawed assumptions in this criticism. The first is the ignoring of the fact that the premise of actual "lesbian feminism" includes women enjoying being in the relationships that they founded out of their political passion. The criticism denies this, and furthermore denies that there is value in experimenting with gender and sexuality choices.

The second is that this is an issue of human sexuality. If it were a question of human sexuality, as opposed to women's sexuality, we would be asking the question of men as well. But we don't. Because this is a question the grew out of feminist discourse, not sexuality discourse (setting aside for the moment the fact that most sexuality discourse has taken place primarily among ment) and as a question of feminism, the logic of the theory supports the practice. This is illustrated by the third flawed assumption: that this doesn't happen all the time.

As people with opinions, we constantly weigh them against our own actions, and there are times when our political/society/theological/etc opinions are stronger than our interpersonal relationships, not only our romantic ones. We routinely distance ourselves from friends when differing political opinions make things too difficult, and it is all but accepted for someone to decide not to date outside of their religious or ethnic group. We let things dictate our relationships, why is it inconceivable that for a woman feminism should have the same influence?

This is not to say that there aren't legitimate criticisms of "lesbian feminism" as feminist practice. Much like identity politics still strangely holding sway in the academics of art, the idea that there could be a Platonic form of a political idea (like "lesbian feminism") is still strangely present. I see it primarily among the type of vegetarians and vegans who are militant about their food. The idea that there is a hierarchical progression to dumpster-dived raw food veganism is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It also sounds one hell of a lot like fruitarianism, of Notting Hill fame.

It is a fundamentally un-postmodern analysis, and - my "Theology & Art" prof once pointed out: "you can think that postmodernism is dumb, but you can't really argue with its existance" - that specifically progressive causes like queer rights or veg*anism should get bogged down in it puzzles me further.

The last thing I will say about "lesbian feminism," however, is that is preported to grow from the same branch of feminism that has given us women-only spaces. I would say rather that this is more fear-mongering against women-only spaces, by linking them to evil to the power of evil: lesbianism. A relationship between two women is not a women-only space, and neither do women-only spaces exist in a vacuum that prevents interaction with men in any other dimension of one's experience.

Women-only spaces exist because the rest of one's daily interaction is interaction with men. Or at least, that is how the world seems to a certain kind of feminist - the kind, much like the person of colour seeing skin tone as the great divider in society, for whom gender is the axis along which experience is drawn.

On Abortion

2006-03-23T11:29:00.000-05:00

Well, here's the best piece of news I've heard in a long time:
http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/013061.asp

So that you don't have to read the link if you don't want to, the story is thus:
1 - North Dakota bans abortion
2 - South Dakota plans to ban abortion
3 - Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe lets it be known that if South Dakota does ban abortion, she will set up a Planned Parenthood chapter on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

This is awesome, and totally the right kind of activism, of the make you stand up and cheer kind. A lot like Molly Saves The Day's DIY Abortion guide. I've been asked before how I can support abotion. I figure if you're reading this I probably don't need to explain it to you, but I'll say this. No, I wish there didn't have to be abortions, they're fairly traumatising ordeals if mostly because of the guilt piled on by crazy "Christians," but the right to a safe abortion is something I hold sacred in a list of fundamental women's rights.

Oxford English is behind the times & a follow up

2006-03-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

For my playwrighting class, I am writing about a translator who is also going through a gender transition. The play is mostly about the imperative to tell her mother about her transition, but I'm having a lot of fun playing with the levels and parallels available in making the character a translator as well.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is one of my best friends. Yes, I'm a loser who can spend hours hitting the "learn something!" button on the website (though most of the time discovering that I know the word they're showing me.) So I looked up transsexuality for a speech in the play. Their definition? "loosely, bisexuality."

This bothers me... a lot... though it might go some way to explaining what the hell was going on with these guys that I ranted about before. It bothers me academically because I feel that people who run a dictionary ought to know better. It bothers me personally because I had, up to that point, put full linguistic trust in the OED. Proving once again that you shouldn't believe everything you read...

Beyond Blood & Bra Straps

2006-03-10T17:27:00.000-05:00

So I know this blog has lain dormant for the past little while (so much so that I forgot my password!) because I'm insane, and have basically been doing three full time jobs. Well, they would be three full time jobs if I were getting paid for them.

One of them has been co-producing a theatre festival at Concordia (http://loyolatheatre.tripod.com), and stage managing one of the shows in the festival. When we first got the proposals for the projects (not that us, the lowly student producers were given any opportunity to see them before the faculty approved them) were all about women - an adaptation of Anne Sexton poems, Paula Vogel's Desdemona, A Play About A Handkerchief, a play about what it means to be a young woman faced with the idea of "goodness," a group of three plays written by a graduating female playwright from the department, among others.

To myself and the other co-producer, this seemed to suggest an obvious theme: feminism. We got excited. We planned installation art. We came up with a title: Beyond Blood & Bra Straps.

We were thwarted at every turn. Our advisor (all hail the straight, white, balding, Ph.D.-ed male) looked at us crooked every time we brought up the subject. We nearly quit half a dozen times each. He said the idea that "you can be a mom and a feminist or whatever" was an 80's idea. Like he knew something about the topic.

In the end, the installation art got nixed because no one wanted to approve a budget for two gals to build giant vaginas in the auditorium. But we were being marked on our ability to create a "whole art space." So I gathered up some old bras (why do we keep bras we don't wear? The ones that the underwires have come out of and that poke you in the armpit? A topic for another post...) and a dozen or so stockings with runs in them and strung them up on a string across the space. We're calling it The UnderGarland. Yes, this is the fluff paper as manifested in theatre school.

Someone asked me what it was about. I stammered, then bluffed. Then I decided that my bluff was a good idea after all. I told her that it was purely literal. The space where the UnderGarland was hung is the passage way between the lobby and theatre. The theatre, I said, was literally beyond the bra straps.

"Oh good," she said, "I was worried that it was some crazy feminist thing..."

You were worried!?!

A twenty one year old actress is worried that feminism might... what? intrude on the theatre? say something that makes you uncomfortable? ask you not to submit to the male-dominance of theatre which continues to exclude women as directors, artistic directors, playwrights, and characters on stage? You would have thought that feminism would be good for actresses.

I am tempted to let the whole thing slide, let my literal art stand as literal, because I don't have a good idea of what it means, outside of knowing that the display of displaced lingerie is meant to demystify female sexuality - they're just items of clothing... maybe it's the women who wear them that make them sexy. Maybe they're there to defend women who won't be cow-towed into wearing lingerie for a man but who just want to wear it for themselves. Maybe it's to convince women that they don't need to apologise for having a sexual self. Maybe it's to convince women that they don't have to apologise for their bodies.

Blog Feminism

2006-02-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

Check it out!

http://feministing.com/archives/002648.html

There are links in the article which I will re-post here, but I don't know if they're not working cause I'm on the computer at the library, or because the links are busted. The site says something about databases and stuff.

I am claiming all responsibility for coining the term "blog feminism," that is, unless someone can prove to me that they came up with it before I did over at Audra's blog a pretty long while ago now (ok, well, a month, but given the month it's been... damn.)

Why I Love FemThought

2006-01-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

I discovered today that my sexual politics are at odds with the heteropatriarchal systems of realist belonging. Any help on what that actually means would be appreciated.

What the hell is Conservative Feminism, and what is the Left doing to enable it?

2006-01-15T12:08:00.000-05:00

How's about that for a horribly cliche 2005 magazine article title?

I hope this makes sense by the time I've finished writing it.

Amp (from over at Alas, A Blog commented on my last post, asking me what made me think that the CWA (Concerned Women for America) was a feminist organisation. I never responded to the comment because it was something that required more thought than I had time for last week. Once this had been given enough thought, it also seemed to require a full post.

I had a poli sci prof who held firmly to a concept called "conservative feminism." I am not entirely convinced that this was a theory supported by anyone else - in the academic community or otherwise - which held that because we live under patriarchy, any action/organisation which unites women and/or tries to make their views as women heard in the patriarchal marketplace of ideas is by nature a feminist action/organisation. This lead to the necessity of having the term "conservative feminism" to describe women who's views didn't fit within the rubric of more typical, 'left-wing' feminism, by virtue of being against things like abortion, same-sex marriage, children outside of marriage.

(The CWA, as one of its primary points, stands against the UN having any control over the US government's policies on anything, yet they want God* to have dominion over the country and bring it back to its Biblical values.)

This idea of "conservative feminism" seems logical enough. Which is unfortunate. It's unfortunate because it buys into the post-modern narrative break-down which allows all perspectives to have equal value in the so-called ideas marketplace. It's unfortunate because that's the bad version of moral relativism. And that's unfortunate, because it means that we're allowing conservative feminists to argue both sides of the moral relativism coin, and they're getting away with it.

I also took a Feminine & Feminist Ethics class back in my poli sci days. Feminine ethics (or the "ethics of care") are based on that whole woman/mother thing, whereas feminist ethics are based on that whole feminism/the personal is political thing. There is a necessary distinction.

The CWA and organisations like it are able to couch feminine ethics in the guise of feminist ethics because the left has allowed feminism to be broadened so extensively to end its post-1970's demonisation that we willingly allow third-wave feminism to include anything that a woman believes, solely because she is a woman.

I think this is a fundamental error. First of all because it undervalues the contributions of non-women. Secondly, it inhibits the rare but often necessary unification of third-wave feminists.

However, this is redeemed for the time being because the CWA would never call themselves feminists.

*God def. All powerful being who is in favour of the war in Iraq

Concerned Woman entirely in Canada

2006-01-07T11:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, so feministing.com has already treated this topic

I don't care, I'm writing about it as well.

I'm used to conservative wingnuts (feminism division) getting all rankled by stupid shit. However, two things really stuck my craw in this article, you know, aside from the obvious stupidity of the premise.

1 - To pose "this transgender question at little girls, they've really crossed the line," Knight said, who added that "bisexuality gender confusion" is the Web site's agenda, which is "very dangerous." This is in response to Barbie's website which asked girls for their gender as "boy," "girl," and "I don't know" (They now claim that it was an honest mistake, and should have said "I don't want to say.")

Ok, hi. Since when is transgenderism and bisexuality the same thing? Do people not research this kind of thing before making public statements so as not to appear ridiculously stupid? No, because contrary to what family values types say, they're not just sticking up for their equally valid opinions - no, they're actively quashing other people's choices.

And you can bet that some poor intern pointed out the gaff and was told "that no one was worried about pissing off the queers."

2 - This might just annoy me more: the group in question is Concerned Women for America. The person being cited all the way through is the director of the Culture and Family Institute of the CWA. His name is Bob Knight, and you can bet that he's not FTM.

See, I'm all for men in the movement. They're great. Sometimes they don't get it, but they're great. I have a hard time believing that men in the CWA are equally as great. Because frankly, it looks a hell of a lot like a man couching his patriarchal values behind a smoke screen of conservative feminism. They say sluts are bad for feminism? What the hell is conservative feminism?

Abstinence-only education breeds stupidity

2006-01-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

[A] condoms-don't-work ad campaign led sexually active teens to have unprotected sex: "My boyfriend says they don't work. He heard it on the radio." Why is the Bush Administration giving horny teenage boys an excuse to be sexually selfish?
- Katha Pollitt, "Is The Pope Crazy?" The Nation, 11.03.03

Ok, forgive me if I'm wrong here and just arguing from behind my priviledged, Canadian, wear-condoms-or-die education, but is this girl just really really dumb, or what? Maybe I'm sheltered enough to expect a modicum of sanity and logic, even from people from Texas. Ok, ad firm, you're right. Condoms are not 100% effective. But guess what, they are 85% effective. Because so long as they don't rip and are properly put on and stay on, they are 100% effective for preventing pregnancy.

But even if no one told you about that 85% thing, doesn't it cross your mind, as a young, sexually active teenager, that the reason that there is a condom industry is because people use them? Don't you therefore make the next logical step to saying "my boyfriend thinks condoms suck, he can't be the only one, other people use them even though they think they suck, maybe there's a reason!"

Imagine yourself. You're a teenager. You're having sex. Even if a condom prevents pregnancy or an STD 1% of the time, don't you want to use one and hope? No, because of the patriarchy.

The patriarchy that tells you that you're a cooler person if you have a boyfriend, the patriarchy that tells your boyfriend that he "deserves" to have sex with you, the patriarchy that tells you that in order to keep your boyfriend you have to have sex with him. So you do it without a condom. Well done, education system, way to go.

Ethics & Abstinence-only education

2006-01-05T22:21:00.000-05:00

Landing across my metaphorical desk from feministing.com, a new report from The Society of Adolescent Medicine about abstinence-only education in the US. Its claim is that abstinence-only education is not only ethically wrong, it is also self-defeating. Can we take a moment to pretend to be shocked and at least make them feel better about it?

I'm happy about this! Overjoyed! Except. I have a hard time relying on a claim that things are morally wrong, even when they're using the argument to claim something I believe in. I'm far more likely to argue that something is logically inconsistent with what exists as a moral standard are reflected in law & public policy. (Ex: capital punishment. I may think it's wrong on an instinctive level, but I'll let that argument slide in favour of saying that sanctioning the state to kill people is logically inconsistent with it being illegal to kill people in the first place.) As such, I don't really know where the logical inconsistency - or in fact, the ethical argument - against abstinence-only education lies.

That said, the fact that it doesn't work, that it further ingrains patriarchal gender roles, and that demonises sex and reduces it to a part of a marriage contract, are my usual arguments.

Feeling that there probably a logic and ethics question in here somewhere, I turned to David C. Wiley, over in the Journal of School Health back in 2002 was willing to tackle the ethics involved. In his article The Ethics of Abstinence-only and Abstinence-plus Sexuality Education he defines ethics, morals, and values:

"Ethics" is a branch of philosophy deals with systematic approaches to understanding morality. Ethics includes a process by which one determines an action as moral or immoral. Generally, an act is considered "moral" if it is right or results in good being done, while an immoral act is determined to be wrong or bad. Therefore, it follows that "morality" refers to a specific situation or event that requires judgment regarding its relative "rightness" or "wrongness." The term "values" refers to estimations of worth. If an individual values one ethical principle over another, an "ethical dilemma" has been created. One's values often determine whether or not an action was moral, while the process by which the act was accomplished is judged by ethical standards.

Wiley then goes on to say:

First, is it ethical to intentionally withhold sexuality information from students? ... A better question might be asked "is it ethical to withhold contraceptive information from secondary students?" ... Second, is it ethical to present contraceptive information exclusively in terms of failure rates? Does using a negative approach (ie, failure rates) violate any ethical principles? Does using negative approaches constitute "scare tactics" methodology? Health educators sometimes use scare tactics to influence student behavior. For example, risks associated with cigarette, alcohol, and other drug use are routinely emphasized in health education lessons. Failure rates for contraceptives, when accurately presented, can be used in instruction if these rates represent factual information.

Cool Canada moment: I had sex ed part 1 [what is puberty] in the fifth grade. I had sex ed part 2 [where do babies come from] in the sixth grade. I learned how to put a condom on a cherry wood dildo in the eighth grade. No one ever said that we ought to be married when we did any of that. My poor, embarassed MRE [Moral & Religious Education] teacher even tried to include some gay male perspectives.

What Wiley notes in this passage - and a whole lot of other people have noted as well - is that the failure rate of contraceptive measures & STD protection is constantly overinflated by abstinence-only education schemes, when they mention contraception of any kind as well. Is this true? Are people that stupid? Do they outrightly lie to high school students?

Wiley again:

Third, what are the implications of educating students that the only acceptable form of sexual expression occurs in marriage? What does this approach say to gay and lesbian students forbidden by law to "marry" in a legal sense? What does this message say to those with no plans to marry, or to those who wait until later in life to marry?

Thank you Mr. Wiley for finding my logical dilema. However, to make a logical argument with this point would have to assume that queer students weren't also being pressured into becoming un-queer. No, abstinence-only education is just another example of how queer identity is oppressed in American schools.

More Wiley:

The median age at first marriage in the United States is 25.9 years for men and 24 years for women, yet 80% of college students 18 - 24 years of age have engaged in sexual intercourse. Given the high divorce rate in America, is it ethical to imply that marriage offers the only answer to sexual fulfillment and protection from the "emotional and physical problems associated with sexual activity?"

Ah, the classic "marriage solves everything!" philosophy. Ugh.

Wiley then goes on about maleficence and beneficence - the ethical principles of doing "bad" and doing "good." This is the problem with ethics; as Wiley noted in his definitions, when ethical questions arise, it is our values that help us determine the answers. I do not pretend for one moment that those who support abstinence-only education are not aware of actual statistics on sexual activity, teen pregnance, and condom use.

They have just made the choice that they place higher value on maintaining a falsely-Biblical teaching methodology than they do to actually preventing unwanted pregnancy and the spread of STD's. Ethically speaking, they are not wrong, because they are not utilitarians. If they were utlititarians, they would have to weigh the absolute value of things like back room abortions, cycles of poverty perpetuated by unwanted pregnancies, and confused, scared, and raped teenagers. If they went ahead with abstinence-only education anyway, they would be what Kant calls ethically irrational, much like the man who believes himself to be made of glass and proceeds to throw himself against walls. [Ed. This example never really made much sense to me. If you were in a position to think yourself made of glass, you're probably a mental patient. Having been a mental patient, I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that a man made of glass would throw himself against walls to try and break himself and thereby commit suicide. But you get the point]

And that's the other reason I don't argue ethics very often, because it always seems to come back to Kant. And I kan't take that any more. (ha, ha, ha, that was the worst pun ever.) But then there's this can of worms: Katha Pollitt in The Nation in 2003 in an article called Is The Pope Crazy? [Ed. Yes!] cited a Texas high school student who didn't use a condom because her boyfriend heard on the radio that they didn't work.

Female sexual enhancement drugs - part 1

2006-01-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

This week, viagra-type drugs for women were explored at I Blame The Patriarchy

I am conflicted about this.

At one side, I see Twisty's point. This is advanced marketting skills in cahoots with patriarchy to convince women that a) there is a problem with their libidos, and b) they should do something about it so that men can have more sex. This is general badness.

However.

Good sex is, you know, good. [see blog title]
My point is this - if women can enjoy sex more, why shouldn't they? It's not as though the pharmaceutical industry is witholding this kind of thing from lesbians (this is not to say that lesbians are somehow exempt from patriarchal structures), so women could just want to have more sex with each other, not because some man thought they should want to. Women who want to have more sex, increase their level of desire ought to be able to.

One of the first things that ever made me a conscious feminist was a cartoon I saw in a media arts class in high school. It was a bizarro clip with three male balding scientists standing behind a press conference table labled with some major medical problem and the lead scientist says something to the effect of "while we haven't cured [insert major disease here], we have developed an excellent treatment for male patterned baldness." Now, this comic was not meant to turn my fifteen year old self into a feminist - no, in fact, it was simply meant to be funny.

But the point is this: I have a hard time accepting the logical fallacy of arguing both sides of the coin, i.e., claiming that women are at once being ignored by scientific reasearch because the field is male-dominated, and getting mad because someone finally made a sex drug for women. The point made against such a drug is that it's a sex drug, and that there are many other more pressing problems that ought to be addressed by your medical dollars at work. This is a point I accept. There are more pressing problems than uninspiring orgasms. But I'd rather have inspired orgasms than a cure for male patterned balness.

-K

Introducing yourself to sex-positive feminism through bloggage

2006-01-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

This blog is kind of academic, I can feel that even before writing pretty much anything in it. For something a little more sensual, let your fingers do the walking over your clit mouse and keyboard to The Bliss Project where my softer self has been known to let go a little, along with a bunch more anonymous women posters just letting their own erotica spill out onto the digital page. You can contact Lenee if you'd like to add your own to the project - in fact, I very much encourage you to do so, because that's the point of the thing. Plus, the poetry is lovely.

How it all began...

2006-01-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

So the inspiration for this blog came about like all good inspiration - with some right wing bitch with a holier-than-thou attitude who suggested that we bring Ann Coulter to speak at universities because she would inspire young women to more moral thought than the Vagina Monologues. You can read that article here. It will one day disappear and I will have to deign to copy out the whole thing.

After I read the article, I started calling myself a slut feminist. Not only does the name have an aural aesthetic that I very much like, it's also provocative and titilating enough for the people that I think will appreciate reading this blog. Yes, those are mostly my friends. We'll see where this crazy adventure takes us.

-K