"If someone asks you "Do you like ketchup on your ice cream?" and you say "No." are you basing that negative reaction on experience, morality or taste? You haven't tried ketchup on your ice cream, so you can't claim its a matter of experience. You don't have any moral reasons against someone else having ketchup on their ice cream, so it isn't morality. So it really comes down to taste. The same thing goes with homosexuality. Its a matter of taste. There is nothing immoral about it."
The video below was sent to me and contains footage (censored) depicting how female p*rn stars are treated in California's adult entertainment industry.
And if this is the kind of abuse happening in California, what kind of abuse is happening in the rest of the world?
Note: This isn't to say all p*rn is bad. ie. There is a growing movement of Feminist P*rn, including the Feminist P*rn Awards.
The way most Western education is framed, I think, is very strange. I didn't actually think this until I studied abroad in Ecuador, where most university students live with their parents, and actually often live with their parents until marriage. The fact that I lived in apartments or dorms with friends was very strange to my Ecuadorian friends, and when I thought about it... it is pretty weird.
At 18ish, many Western young adults head off to college, where many experience "independence" for the first time. Although this involves a lot of good life-skillsy things like learning to pay bills and manage a budget, one of the more significant things people experience in college is a phenomenon called hookup culture. And if we're not calling hook up culture weird and bizarre, we have a problem. It's been normalized and become hegemonic! Nooooooooo!
For those of you who are too young/old/cool to fit into said culture, let me explain briefly:
Hookup culture tends to be defined by a casual approach to sex (and sexish things). The term "hookup" takes on a lot of meanings and there is no one definition, but I think about it as "making out +." So anything that happens in that realm may be referred to as a hookup. As this is the dominant relationship script in colleges there develops the culture: we do it, we talk about it, and then we listen to other people talk about it.
How widespread hooking up is is somewhat up to debate. Kathleen Bogle, who wrote the book Hooking Up, found in her study that 91% of female college students believed that hookups occurred fairly to very often, while only 40% reported that they had actually participated in a hookup during college. This is why hooking up is significant. If fewer than the majority are actually doing it, it might not seem so big, but this is what most people believe is fact. That is culture.
Unfortunately, most of the studies so far on hookup culture are on heterosexual couples, and as a cisgender, heterosexual woman, my experience is also in line with what information is already out there. Gay hookup culture on campuses is something that I know about through friends, but is not something that I know enough about to really speak on. (--> Perhaps there is someone out there who can? Because those are voices/experiences we need to hear from as well.)
I feel somewhat conflicted about hookup culture. I've always felt a little conflicted about it, but it wasn't until I read Bogle's book this summer that I really started to question it. Here are most of the arguments for/against hooking up (that exclude like... religious ones):
Point 1: Hookup up is positive because it allows women to have a sexual experiences without distracting relationshipy things. Not all people want a long-term, monogamous relationship. For college students, hooking up can give the positive things (fun sex stuff) without the downer things (boring relationship, commitment things).
Point 2: Hooking up is negative because women trick themselves into thinking that hooking up is what they want. Bogle found that some women who sustained hookup relationships believed that these may one day turn into a traditional boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, however that is not how most hookups work. Believing hookups to be fun and/or advantageous to starting something else, women engage in hookups despite actual ambivalent results.
Point 3: Hooking up is positive for women because it is erasing some of the sexual stigma women face. As a culture that expects (heterosexual) hook ups to happen, women have more sexual freedom and are encouraged to participate in a culture that allows them to enjoy sex.
Point 4: Hooking up is negative for women because it doesn't actually get rid of sexual stigma, and in fact encourages men to take advantage of women without emotional commitment. Without that emotional connection, it is easier to delegitimize women and call them "sluts" for analogous behavior from men, which goes unpunished.
Thing is... I think all of these 4 points are true to some degree. As a college senior, I have participated in hookup culture all four years of being in my university, through hookups as basic as making out at a frat party to having a sustained hookup relationship with a friend. Personally, I'm really busy and sometimes barely have time for my girlfriends. Imagining factoring a relationship into this gives me a headache. I am glad that my friends and are at a point in history where our sexuality is somewhat encouraged, and we do encourage each other. However, I think the days of slut-shaming are far from over, and it's difficult to say this when I know that there are some people who would still judge me for my behavior, no matter how tame or wild it is.
Earlier this semester I wrote about this on my blog, and I talked about something called pluralistic ignorance, which is something that Lisa Wade, another sociologist who studied hooking up, found is an issue with hookup culture. Hookup culture has become somewhat hegemonic. I think in general, monogamous relationships are somewhat hegemonic, but that's a subject for another post. But when we (college students) accept hookup culture as fact without questioning the results (kind of ambivalent... it's good, it's bad, sometimes it's fulfilling, eh) we're creating an environment that makes hookup culture bad because no one is questioning it.
College students, whether or not hooking up is personally satisfying (and for a lot of college students, hooking up is not as satisfying as they want it to be), continue to participate in it because that's what we believe to be the norm. Since the post I wrote earlier this semester, I joined an online dating site and have been experimenting with that a little. I don't have to participate in hookup culture. I have options. Honestly, I don't have a lot of time for meeting up with guys I've met online either, but I've been on a couple dates and it hasn't been a negative experience. I'm concerned with fundamentally having equality between me and whatever man I go out with, so I have found it interesting that the simple switch from being an undergrad (*cough*: in a state of extended adolescence) to being a grad student or post-grad for dudes switches their mindset from hookup culture to traditional dating.
Where feminism comes in, is I think it is possible to have whatever kind of relationship works for you, whether it is hookups or a sustained casual relationship, or dating, or a relationship, and still be feminist. If you feel like you're not being valued enough as a person, or that your position in the relationship is somewhat marginalized or unequal, just get out of it. Don't waste your time. College students have the opportunity to experiment with their sexuality without the awkward parent-thing, so I think that's something that should be taken advantage of. If that means just going on dates... that's fine! I have lots of friends who have never hooked up in college, and it's not like it's something they're particularly pining after. Sexuality is a personal experience and can't be defined by what we see on MTV or ABC Family or whatever. Everyone experiences it differently, but maintaining a critical mindset allows us to evaluate whether or not what we're doing makes us happy and determine whether or not what we're doing is a feminist act.
What is a real shame is that the average Hollywood producer would rather be making be making an action blockbuster with no moral value than making a film with actual substance and purpose.
The closest thing is the Liam Neeson film "Taken", which points the finger at Europe when in truth America has more than its share of child slavery.
Another film on this topic I'd recommend is the 2000 film "Suspicious River", which shows the slippery slope of prostitution into slavery.
I am a globe trotting Vietnamese girl... I've been all over Asia, North America and Europe... so many places to go, so many things to do, so many men to leave disappointed.
And that is the truth of it.
Western men (no thanks to Hollywood movies about the Vietnam War) have got it in their minds that all Vietnamese women are "Me love you long time". And that is really all they know about Vietnam and its women.
So when they meet women like me and discover that Vietnamese women have brains and brawn, wow, they have to stop and rethink what they've been brainwashed to believe.
So here is some FACTS for you!
#1. Vietnamese women outnumber the men. Vietnamese men often die before the age of 65. There is a lot of Vietnamese women out there who are in their 70s or older and lonely. (The ratio of men to women older than 65 is less than 2 men for every 3 women.)
#2. Prostitution is actually pretty low in Vietnam. Quite a few Vietnamese women are very traditional and would never stoop to such a degrading occupation. (Las Vegas on the other hand...)
#3. Vietnamese women are not "dragon ladies". Although some of the feminists might enjoy describing themselves that way... it does not in any way mean that Vietnamese women are "cold blooded reptiles". We're like any other women. We have feelings, if you prick us do we not get pissed off?
#4. Vietnam does have a feminist movement. Feminist groups in Vietnam started appearing during the 1960s and have been growing stronger ever since.
#5. The birth rate in Vietnam is low compared to the rest of the world. 17.07 births/1,000 population. 1.91 children born / woman. For comparison purposes the USA has 2.06 children born / woman.
#6. The literacy rate for women in Vietnam is 92%. The average for the country is 94%. (Mostly its the older generation which is illiterate.) Note: Literacy in the USA is 99.1%.
#7. Historically Vietnamese girls stay in school less than boys. Boys usually quit after 11 years of schooling whereas the average for Vietnamese girls is 10 years. The numbers are due to the fact that older generation of women often weren't schooled as much, but these numbers are improving rapidly as the younger generation realizes the importance of a good education. (In the USA the averages is 15 years for boys and 17 years for girls.)
#8. Vietnamese women have surprisingly lower breast cancer rates than women in North America. Why? We live and eat healthier. Less smoking, less carcinogens in our food. Our life expectancy is going up. In the USA life expectancy is going down due to skyrocketing obesity rates.
#9. Most women in Vietnam ride motorcycles, scooters or bicycles to work. Although this is equally true of the men. Motorcycles/etc are EXTREMELY popular in Vietnam.
#10. Vietnamese women rock! Okay technically its more pop music, but Vietnamese girl bands are an ever growing phenomenon. (Spice Girls eat your heart out.)
[Sources: CIA World Factbook and other sources.]
Vietnam is a modern Asian country and it is changing rapidly. The country is currently in a stage of massive industrial expansionism and these means lots of jobs for both men and women in Vietnam. There is a problem with 'sweatshop' labour of uneducated women, often immigrants not even from Vietnam, but this problem is gradually going to disappear as the government cracks down on illegal operations.
Vietnam does have some government corruption issues, but this is the same everywhere in the world. The difference is that in Vietnam everyone knows the government is corrupt, in comparison Americans are often blinded by their own biases and don't care that they're being swindled by men in Wall Street.
So to all the Asiaphile men out there you guys need a reality check. If you guys are so easily swindled by Wall Street what makes you think your opinion of Asian women is as accurate as the stock market? Apples and Oranges, but the point is made.
Some people just can't see the lies when they're surrounded by them.
FEMINIST - British feminists are planning a 2nd protest against the new London Playboy Club. The first protest took place days ago on May 26th and a second protest is coming up June 4th.
Organized by OBJECT and UK Feminista, picketers will greet Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who is flying over from Los Angeles for the launch of the new Playboy Club, with calls to, “Eff Off, Hef!”
The London Playboy Club is situated on 14 Old Park Lane, Mayfair, London. W1K 1ND. If you want to join the protest please contact: Anna van Heeswijk on 07732 075835 / anna@object.org.uk or Kat Banyard on 07775 855037 / kat@ukfeminista.org.uk.
The new club comes 30 years after its previous location was shut down by a police raid for suspected gambling irregularities. Playboy Clubs are just one many products licensed by Playboy Enterprises, which includes a mix of magazines, films, websites, TV programming, clothing and even children’s stationary. (The latter of which has since been dropped by many stores due to public outrage.)
Kat Banyard, Director of UK Feminista, says:
“When it comes to today’s pornography industry, all roads lead back to Playboy. It was Hugh Hefner who laid the political and cultural groundwork for the brutal, violently misogynistic pornography that now floods society. But sadly for Hefner, you can’t trademark sexism, and Playboy’s retro brand of ‘gentleman’s porn’ can no longer compete with the extreme degradation of modern internet pornography. Hence we see this endless diversification into nightclubs, video games, clothing and even children’s stationary."
“But whatever product Playboy stamps its logo on, the basic brand concept is the same: woman reduced to sex object for man’s sexual satisfaction - and Playboy’s financial gain. Naturally Playboy Club London embodies this brand, offering champagne and sexism. So Eff off, Hef. And take your club with you.”
Anna van Heeswijk, Campaigns Manager of OBJECT, says:
"Far from a symbol of sophistication and class, the opening of a new Playboy club in London signifies a worrying step backwards in the quest for equality between the sexes. It entrenches the legitimacy of a porn empire which makes its fortune out of degrading women as fluffy animals who exist as sexual playthings for wealthy men. It opens the floodgates ever wider to the pornification of our popular culture. And it serves to embed further a porn emblem which insidiously grooms girls into accepting and embracing sex object culture by marketing its brand to children through playboy pencil cases and bed covers."
"It is time to cut through the crap of the Playboy PR machine. Sexualising and objectifying women as bunny rabbits is not sexy and it is not empowering. It is sexist, and everyone knows it. This is why hundreds of women and men across the country are signing up to the OBJECT and UK Feminista campaign to object to the opening of the new Playboy club. Our message is clear - ‘Eff off Hef and stop degrading women!’"
FEMINISM - Fact: Only 49% of sexual assault trials in Canada end in convictions.
It doesn't take a genius to realize similar statistics likely exist in the USA.
But here is the kicker. Most sexual assaults don't even go to trial. Only 9 to 10% of sexual assaults in Canada are even reported to the police.
According to Statistics Canada there is approx. 26,000 sexual assaults reported to police each year. But because Canadians only report 9% to 10% of sexual assaults that means there is between 260,000 and 286,000 sexual assaults per year.
Lastly only 20% of those include physical injuries.
Thus for 80% of cases sexual assault is very difficult to prove. And for the 20% that does have physical injuries, there is still no guarantee it will go to trial.
What is also known is that you are more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone you know, a friend, co-worker or even a relative, not by a stranger. Sexual assaults by strangers is actually pretty rare. However because women are often assaulted by friends, family, co-workers, etc. this is why so few people report it to the police.
Once it does get reported however the police are (generally speaking) very thorough. They interview the woman multiple times, comparing her story to make absolutely certain she isn't making it up. If there is any doubt the charges end up being dropped.
Thus the percentage of false claims that make it to court is so small its not even a percentage point. It is 99.99% or better truth.
Which means its practically a fact, but the problem is how do you prove it?
And that is where the he-said-she-said system comes into play. Without secondary witnesses and character witnesses, how are we to know who is telling the truth?
He says it was consensual. Or claims they were both drunk. Or whatever excuse he can think of. ie. She seduced him and just wants his money. Seriously, whatever lie that sounds plausible is the one that he will use in court.
She says it was rape. There was nothing consensual about it. She said NO and she meant it. She wasn't playing around. She wasn't seducing him or flirting with him. She was tricked, cornered, fooled, abused, assaulted, and then dismissed like yesterday's garbage.
It would be wonderful if someone could invent a lie detecting machine which is 100% infallible and allowable in a court room. Perfectly accurate. It measures their vitals, their heart rate, their hormone levels and brain activity.
And then the liars would be caught and put behind bars for their crimes. The system would be so much simpler with a lie detecting machine which works perfectly.
SEX - Prostitution is legal in Canada, but there are a lot of things which restrict how a sex worker is allowed to ply their trade in Canada. Recently Justice Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court struck down the following sections of the Canadian Criminal Code:
Section 210, which prohibits maintaining, owning or being a member of a “common bawdy-house.” The result is that brothels are no longer illegal in Canada.
Why is this important? Because brothels are safer than walking the streets or answering outcalls. With brothels comes security and bouncers for kicking out the rowdy men who don't follow the rules.
Section 212(1)(j), which affects those living “wholly or in part on the avails of prostitution of another person.”
With this struck down, prostitutes are able to support dependents, including children and partners. It also means that if they run a brothel they can pay to have a bouncer, an accountant, desk clerks, etc.
Section 213(1)(c), best known as the “communicating law,” which prevents street prostitutes from screening clients before putting themselves at risk.
With this gone prostitutes can now screen individuals they choose to have sex with, often because they don't feel comfortable with the person. Examples: Too creepy, scary looking, is a member of the NRA, or even just plain ugly.
The constitutional challenge was made by members of the Sex Professionals of Canada (SPOC) because they felt these laws were unfair and dangerous to the lives of sex workers, regardless of their intent.
Justice Susan Himel agreed and these laws were struck down because they endangered the health and safety of sex workers.
There are those feminists out there that argue that allowing brothels and screening will lead to an increase in pimping (which is still illegal in Canada) and organized crime / trafficking of women.
In major Canadian cities prostitution is not only common, its easy to find. Just open a NOW magazine in Toronto, flip to the back pages and you'll find advertisements for both male and female sex workers. You can also go to Craigslist or Kijiji. Or you can walk down one of the less reputable streets in the middle of the night.
For feminists however there is a huge ideological gap.
In the right corner we have the anti-sex-trade feminists, who believe prostitution should be completely illegal and that prostitutes should essentially be rounded up, forced to go to university and get decent jobs like the rest of us.
In the left corner we have the pro-choice feminists, who believe prostitution is going to happen regardless of what laws we implement because women sometimes just get desperate and are in a bad situation. They believe sex workers need to be protected, given more options for their personal safety and given choices so they can decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives.
Its actually very similar to the whole "women have the right to a safe abortion" argument. On the right side we have people who oppose abortion entirely. On the left side we have people who believe abortions are going to happen regardless and thus we should try and make it as safe as possible.
This isn't so much about "right and wrong", its about ensuring the safety of women who make those decisions, because they're going to make those decisions anyway regardless of what laws are out there. They're desperate enough to try anything.
Justice Susan Himel of the Ontario Superior Court struck down as unconstitutional the bawdy house provision, which by preventing sex workers from sharing premises that ensured their common safety, increased their risk of exposure to violence.
The “living off the avails” section, which criminalizes those being supported by a sex worker, was meant to target pimps, it also affects a prostitute's live-in family, including partners, parents and children, as well as security guards or bouncers who might protect her.
The communication law was declared unconstitutional because experts all agree the greatest danger to street sex workers is their inability to safely screen johns before jumping into their cars.
“For me it's not complicated to understand why there's a divide: it's two visions,” says Diane Matte of Montreal's Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation, who has a street-level view of the sex worker industry. “The SPOC women do not hide the fact that they want to open brothels,” says Matte.
That much is certainly true. SPOC wants to open brothels and make prostitution a lot safer through government regulation and private security. The brothels would be owned by the prostitutes themselves, not by pimps.
Matte wants a Nordic model, such as the laws currently in place in Iceland and Sweden, which has decriminalized sex workers while criminalizing their clients. But all that does is cause prostitution to driven further underground, where violence is more likely to happen.
“As a criminologist I can guarantee you that that doesn't work because it doesn't remove the criminal element from prostitution,” says O'Doherty, who teaches at the University of the Fraser Valley. Making demand illegal only serves to drive sex workers underground, she says.
As the world's oldest profession prostitution will never be eradicated until we've eradicated poverty entirely. And even then we will have another problem, women who don't have sex for money but instead just "slut themselves around willy-nilly for kicks". (For reference being slutty isn't a sin per se, but doing so without regard to personal safety, the safety of others, and ignoring the feelings of others is a cause for concern.)
And lets face it, there's way more sluts than there is prostitutes.
The primary difference however is that sluts have the option of screening their sexual partners and can have sex in the privacy of their own homes if they choose to. They can be safe about it.
Which is what sex workers want to. Safety.
Eventually they will hopefully find a different job, go back to school, etc. There is no pension plan when you're a sex worker. Eventually even sex workers have to start thinking about retirement.
Do you remember your first period? Was it embarrassing or were your proud of it?
Well, be thankful you live in a modern civilized part of the world... some regions have some pretty strange Rites of Passage for young women experiencing their first period. Some of these are done for religious reasons, some are mostly harmless traditions.
Genital Mutilation
The Massai tribe of Kenya uses female circumcision to completely remove the outer parts of the female genitalia. This results is complete deprivation of sexual sensation, increased susceptibility to HIV and may cause life-threatening infections. Crude tools and no anesthesia. The Massai tribe is not the only group that does this. Every year 2 millions girls are forced to undergo genital mutilation.
Burning Hands + Biting Ants
The Carib Tribe of Suriname burns the hands of young menstruating girls using a handful of burning cotton to symbolize their future "handiwork" as women. They're also forced to wear a mat/skirt covered with a breed of stinging, biting ants.
Abdomen Slicing
The Tiv Tribe of Nigeria slices young girls across the belly four times (or more) leaving deep scars to signify her womanhood and her fertility.
Fattening Ritual
The Okrika Tribe of Nigeria has their young girls experiencing their first period enter a hut called "fatting rooms" where they feast on rich local foods until they've gained sufficient weight. Its intended to be a spiritual and physical metamorphosis.
Three Months in Isolation
The Ngoni Tribe of Malawi secludes the young girl in a flooded tent for up to three months. Her face and body are daubed with white flour as a sign of spirituality. Inside the tent she must sit in a pool of water until the women of her tribe determine she is finally a woman (which can take up to 3 months).
Swimming to Shore
The Nootka Natives of the Vancouver Islands in Canada used to take young girls who experience their first period for a canoe ride out to sea... and then leave them there to swim back to shore. This is no longer practiced.
Buried Neck Deep in Sand
The Luiseno Tribe of Southern California used to bury girls up to their neck in sand and then have an older woman of the tribe give them a stern talking to about "the birds and the bees" and the proper behavior of a woman and wife. This is no longer practiced.
Four Days of Running & Rituals
The Navajo Tribe of the American Southwest have their girls wear heavy buckskin outfits in a four day ritual involving a foot race, making food for all their relatives and sitting upright on the first night of the ritual. The Apache tribe have a similar ritual shown below.
I have a hunch many mothers these days simply take their daughters out for a day of shopping, food and buying their first tampons / pads. Not quite the status quo, but close enough.
SEX - 50 years ago tomorrow (it was first approved on May 9th 1960) a miraculous pill appeared on the market that prevented pregnancy 100% of the time if used properly. Sometimes mistakes were made or women forgot to take their pill for the day, but otherwise it was an ingenious little tool for freeing the libidos of women both young and slightly older.
Some people however tend to blame/credit the Pill with the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. Oh how wrong they are.
The truth of the Pill is statistically it did nothing to the abortion rate. Women kept getting pregnant when not on the pill, often due to inexperience and some men not knowing how to do the "pull out at the last minute routine". Thats the routine men were doing prior to the Pill and it apparently was working at least part of the time.
The little compact case and the "magic pills" it contained was somewhat synonmous with the 1960s: Peace, love and rampant sex in the mud at Woodstock.
But what would have happened if there had been no pill?
Peace, love and rampant sex in the mud at Woodstock, that's what. People still would have been having sex, the difference would have been a lot more couples using the pull out technique instead and couples would have been getting less enjoyment out of sex.
So thats the truth right there. The Pill resulted in couples being able to enjoy sex more. It did very little it stemming unwanted pregnancies because all too often people made mistakes with the oral contraceptive and got pregnant anyway.
And the other truth of the matter is that it wasn't all hippie chicks who rushed out to take the Pill. It was mostly married women in their late 20s, 30s and even early 40s. They already had several kids and didn't want any more. Thus this sexual revolution was more in the married bedrooms than the single bedrooms.
“Within the first five years of its release something like a quarter of all married women of reproductive age had used the Pill, so clearly there was a big shift and a concomitant decrease in the proportion of women using diaphragms and condoms,” says Elizabeth Watkins, author of "On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970" and a professor of history at the University of California, San Francisco.
Before the Pill came on the market there was already a sexual revolution going on. Between 1940 and 1960 the number of single mothers had tripled. Women were having sex, getting pregnant, and probably have a good time during the process.
It was after all the 1950s Baby Boom period. Everyone was having sex, women were getting pregnant whether they were married or not and it wasn't until 1960 when the Pill became available that they realized they could have even more sex and didn't have to use the pull out method any more. Married women and men no doubt celebrated with a rousing bout of hide the weasel in the bushes.
Thus the Sexual Revolution was already in full swing when the Pill arrived. It just gave the revolution an extra push.
Its also known that the Pill was rather expensive when it first arrived. A bit like Viagra is today (I'll get back to the Viagra topic later) and thus married/working women were the only ones who could easily afford it.
There are other things that pushed the Sexual Revolution too.
In 1947 Professor Alfred Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. Kinsey's research about human sexuality during the 1940s and 1950s was groundbreaking and the first of its kind. His books "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" in 1948, followed in 1953 by "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" reached the top of bestseller lists and turned Kinsey into an instant celebrity.
In 1950 Ernst Grafenberg, a German gynecologist, discovered the G-Spot.
In December 1953 Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine featured Marilyn Monroe as its first cover girl and nude centerfold in the premiere issue.
In 1959 The Immoral Mr. Teas was directed, produced and released by Russ Meyer. Meyer was a pioneer in the porn industry, creating softcore porn (he even created the term) in films like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen! (1968) and pushing the limits of censorship in America. He continued making films well into the 1970s.
And there are hardly the only things.
What the Pill did really was allow women to more fully enjoy sex, right up to moment of orgasm and even afterwards for round 2 or 3.
“Polls taken at the time indicated that single women who were already sexually active were enthusiastic about the Pill because it allowed them to enjoy sex more fully,” says Elizabeth Tyler May, professor of American studies and history at the University of Minnesota, is the author of the just released 'America + The Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation'.
It wasn't until 1967 that Time magazine dubbed the Pill the “miraculous tablet”.
“If the Pill can defuse the population explosion,” the magazine theorized, “it will go far toward eliminating hunger, want and ignorance.”
But that never really happened. The Catholic Church pushed the agenda that the Pill was a sin to use, thus while population growth rates have declined unwanted pregnancies still exist because the percentage of women on the Pill never reached a "breakthrough level" where it became the driving force behind population control. Instead women kept getting pregnant by accident, men kept using the pull-out method and it wasn't really until STDs like AIDS appeared that people started taking condoms more seriously.
The Pill was more of a contraceptive stepping stone in legitimizing the use of other contraceptives like condoms, diaphragms, injections, patches, rings, the Morning After Pill, Lybrel, a continuous low-dose period-free pill with no placebos, etc. It created a Contraceptive Revolution... but it was hardly the cause of the Sexual Revolution which was already in full swing anyway.
And it also kickstarted the sex-pill revolution... Pills like Viagra, Cialis and what will eventually become the Viagra 4 Women pill (or whatever name they choose) are a growing (sometimes disturbing) trend. Just this past week Britain released a new pill called Prilogy which cuts down on Premature Ejaculation and allows PE sufferers to last 3 times longer.
Just wait they'll invent pills that cause instant orgasms, feelings of love, induce abortion without the need for surgery, allow men to orgasm without releasing semen, make women more sensitive so they can orgasm easier, pills to make us younger, more energetic... Disturbed by the possibilities yet?
And frankly it will all become a bit disturbing because it won't be just the younger generation popping pills, it will be the older generation getting it on. There's nothing more disturbing than our parents and grandparents having booty calls.
CANADA/HEALTH - When a country like Canada or the United States contributes money to help legal safe abortion clinics overseas what they are really doing is saving lives.
Unsafe abortions (the kind you do with a coat hanger, etc) in third world countries have a 13% mortality rate, and are usually done by women who already have children thus resulting in their existing children becoming orphans.
Safe clinical abortions however have a 0% mortality rate and is one of the most important ways for planning childhood.
When women don't have the option for a safe abortion, they will inevitably pick an unsafe one.
Even in countries like Canada where abortion is legal... unsafe abortions still happen because sometimes young women like to keep it secret.
I know a woman from northern Ontario who had an unsafe abortion. Lets call her "E". E's parents were very religious and because of her age in order to have an abortion she needed parental permission. She didn't want to upset them so she arranged to have an unsafe abortion using a coathanger in her bathtub while her parents were away. She had kept the pregnancy a secret by wearing baggy clothes and putting on extra weight until the fetus was large enough to be removed using the coathanger technique.
"E" then buried the fetus in the woods.
"E" doesn't regret her decision. She was convinced her very strict religious parents would have killed her if they had known she was having sex and had gotten pregnant. They didn't even know she had a boyfriend, who later beat her up and ditched her.
So here's my point: If these kind of traumatic unsafe abortions are still in Canada, just imagine what its like in a third world country where food is scarce, crime is rampant and local governments allow abortion but can't afford to fund it?
Abortion is a women's right. It is a human right. Women are going to do it whether its legal or illegal, safe or unsafe. Religion isn't even a factor when you're desperate.
So when Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, announces that Canada's foreign aid will no longer be used to fund clinics that provide abortions... what is he really doing? What he is doing is cutting off ALL funding to all clinics that provide anything meaningful in terms of condoms, advice, abortion, everything... Its an all or nothing scenario.
The end result is the only groups that would receive funding are ones that promote ABSTINENCE and preach that using condoms is a sin.
Abstinence doesn't work. Its a proven fact. People are going to have sex regardless, either because they want to or because they've been raped. These are third world countries and there isn't a lot else to do for fun and because of low educational standards it means they don't know the dangers of sex, how babies are made and possibly even have some superstitions about it.
Years ago I met a woman from China who thought only married couples have babies. She didn't even know what condoms were for because she thought people just used them for being kinky. She was coming from a reasonably educated country with a one-child-only policy. In theory she should have known what condoms were for but apparently didn't learn that until moving to Canada.
What third world countries need therefore is more sex education. And they also need the tools and funding to perform legal safe abortions in the event that fails to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Stephen Harper's recent cutting of funding for safe abortions shows his complete ignorance on the topic and a political bias rooted in fundamental Christianity wherein he thinks abstinence can actual work.
Abstinence is a great theory, it just doesn't work in practice.
Magnitude of the Problem
20 million women experience an unsafe abortion worldwide each year; 18.5 million of these occur in developing countries.
67 000 - 70 000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion each year - all in developing countries.
Nearly 60% of all unsafe abortions in Africa are among young women aged 15-24 years.
RELIGION/SEX - What does religion have to do with men's magazine "Details"? Well, I'll tell you at the bottom of the article.
Not like it really matters. The content of Details magazine was always a bunch of macho bullshit anyway. Here is list of sample articles listed in Details magazine (Jan/2010):
How Internet Porn is Changing Teen Sex
The Five Creepiest Substitutes For a Woman
Meet the Man Who Has Slept With More Than 600 Women
Should You Get a Sex Coach?
Robot girlfriend ushers in a new dawn in "solo" sex
In the January 2010 issue there is an article called "The Lure of Dating an Ex-Lesbian", which we have quoted below (complete with images):
Certain female archetypes capture men's sexual imagination because they represent that elusive thing men can't have. Among them: the porn star (for obvious reasons), the nun (for obvious, more disturbing reasons), and the lesbian. For Dudus Americanus, this last image tends to conjure up the predictable girl-on-girl fantasies that have consumed him since he first stumbled upon Dad's secret stash of Oui magazines. But what about the guys who manage to break through? Is landing a woman who once found gratification in her own sex really a cause for celebration—or something more like trepidation?
Paul Mattingly, a 34-year-old actor, was doing "Klingon work" at Star Trek: The Experience in the Las Vegas Hilton when he met Anne, the pretty young manager of the attraction's gift shops. He chatted her up at a party (out of costume) and found out she'd dated a few other guys at the Experience, which didn't bother him. But after he and Anne became serious, he learned she'd been romantically involved with a woman for years.
"There was a minute there where I had a little Ben Affleck Chasing Amy moment," says Mattingly. "It was this feeling of 'Clearly, this person has out-experienced me—is that going to come back and bite me in the butt?'" Five years later, it has not; in fact, the two have been married since 2007. And while Anne admits she will probably always be attracted to women, he isn't worried. After all, the Mattinglys now have celebrity analogues. After three years as one half of the most famous lesbian couple ever, Anne Heche ran off with Ellen DeGeneres' very vagina-less cameraman Coley Laffoon. When she split with him, she didn't seek comfort in the arms of someone of her own gender—but instead shacked up with Men in Trees stud James Tupper. Even Ani DiFranco, folk guitarist, feminist icon, and prominent bisexual, just hitched up with a man for the second time last January—in freaking Hawaii. And Lindsay Lohan—well, these days it's safe to say Firecrotch will take whatever she can get.
There are no reliable statistics by which to gauge how many refugees there are from the isle of Lesbos. Nor could there be: Bisexual women, for instance, don't have to "switch teams" to enter into relationships with men, even if they've lived with other women for decades. But if the hasbian (and for simplicity's sake, we'll include bisexuals who've shifted from women to men) really is having a coming-out moment, it might be because the lesbian had her big coming-out moment in the nineties—the decade that saw Cindy Crawford shaving k.d. lang on the cover of Vanity Fair, the birth of Lilith Fair, and the mainstream popularity of lesbian-friendly folksingers like DiFranco, the Indigo Girls, and Dar Williams, not to mention a slew of literal "coming-out moments" set off by Ellen's "Yep, I'm gay" in 1997. Today, The L Word has come and gone, Katy Perry has qualified her confession about kissing a girl with "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it," and the tabloids are far more preoccupied with LiLo's dropout antics than with her sexuality—just as we are more compelled by Rachel Maddow's intelligence than by her orientation. It's safe to say the novelty has faded. A woman who began her sexual exploration in the lesbian-leaning nineties would be in her thirties now. Is it unreasonable to suggest her biological clock could also affect her sexual proclivities?
"It's impossible for women reaching their child-rearing years not to be aware of that at some level, and to have that influence who they're with," says Dr. Lisa M. Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah and the author of Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. "I've seen bisexual women who say they could go either way, but as they get older, that structures how they want to be and who they want as a partner. The standard first question, Mattingly says, is "Aren't you afraid she'll go back to dating women?" "Continued change is really the norm," says Diamond. "We have this notion that as people get older, things stabilize. Not so. Meredith Baxter just came out at 62."
Benji Friehling, 26, a restaurateur in upstate New York, had another concern when he started dating his fiancee, who had been in a 12-year relationship with a woman and identified fully as lesbian: Could he possibly navigate the female anatomy as skillfully as a woman? Those concerns weren't limited to the usual matters of clitoral mastery and G-spot triangulation. "I worried that perhaps I was a bit inadequate," says Friehling, "that my penis wasn't as big as her dildo." This sort of fear raises a question about that whole adolescent obsession with girl-on-girl action. Though these guys may be in a better position than the rest of us to act on it, none, including Friehling, has any interest in actually following through—not because they're worried their wives and girlfriends will revert, but because they fear that they themselves won't be able to handle it. And that might be the greatest irony of dating a hasbian: In the end, we're the ones who lack the balls to explore our sexual margins.
"Of course I think about it. What man wouldn't?" Mattingly says. "But my wife's argument is that I wouldn't be able to emotionally survive it because I'm the one hung up on the 'sex is love' thing. She knows enough to know that it'd probably end in tears—and I'd be the one who's crying. She's the one who wears the pants." Anne Heche's rugged-looking new beau, Tupper? He enjoys bird-watching. After high school, he lived on a coffee farm in East Africa where he studied Swahili, and he has since appeared in several Off Broadway plays—not the resume of a dude who opens MGD with his molars and whacks off to Coochie Hoochies 2. It is hardly a stretch, then, to suggest that the reason modern men are more ably attracting hasbians is that modern men are, quite simply, offering these women something close to what they had before. Just look at Tom Cole, a pastoral-care director at International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Without a healthy exploration of his feminine side, he probably wouldn't have met his wife, Donna—who like Tom identifies as a "former homosexual." Before the two met years ago at church meetings for born-again Christians, Donna was in a lesbian rugby league. "They didn't even wear pads or anything," Cole recalls. "She had a tattoo and she drove a motorcycle." Since then, Cole notes, Donna has "softened up," and he's learned that the right woman can get him "extremely aroused." But a few aspects of their former selves never changed. "She doesn't love to cook, that's for sure," says Cole. "But I do, so it works out really well."
So according to Details magazine...
Lesbianism was just a fad from the 1990s.
There is a mass exodus of lesbians back to being straight.
Lesbians need a man to have babies.
And WTF is up with the photo of a woman sucking a banana?
Okay now here is the truth of it... Details magazine has been hiring a lot of Christians (or born again Christians) on their staff in recent years, including former American evangelical preacher. Try reading the above article and look for hidden messages that sound remarkably similar to the same crap being spouted by right wing Christians who obsessed with trying to convert homosexuals.
Conclusions? Even men's magazines have a dual purpose, to convert people to the Christian right-wing way of thinking: Lesbians and gays are evil! We must convert them into born again Christians!
ENTERTAINMENT - Want to see a movie that is rather... misogynistic?
The "Antichrist" is a horror film starring William Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg and is rather graphic... featuring a scene in which she lops off her clitoris with a pair of rusty scissors.
Now evidently people are going to get upset about this film. The name "Antichrist" alone is sure to offend some religious folks and create confusion about what the film is about.
The film wasn't the only film at Cannes that was anti-woman. Its actually a theme this year. "Kinatay" features the kidnapping, rape, torture, murder and dismemberment of a prostitute.
"Enter the Void" is about a Tokyo stripper named Linda who is haunted by the spirit of her recently murdered brother, and the end of the film features a rape scene viewed from inside the vagina.
"The White Ribbon" is set in a remote German village just before World War I, where the village elders variously commit incest with their daughters, physically and emotionally abuse their spouses and lovers and treat women like slaves.
Then there's the opening scene in "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo" about a female fish cutter who moonlights as a hit-woman. In the scene a group of Japanese businessmen sitting around eating sushi off the torsos of naked women who lie before them, all the while making sexist and racist remarks.
So what is the point of these films? Well, you might say they are to provoke the audience in the hope that people realize times are changing, but in some cases they really haven't changed that much. Women are still seen as sexual playthings by many men.
Thus these films are just a wake up call to women. I am not saying we should start burning bras again (thats just silly in my opinion), but it is certainly past time that many women start taking a more active role in promoting equality.
SEX - I was visiting my local Toronto bicycle mechanic when he showed me the video below (he knew I'd like it and want to talk about it):
You see when I first saw the video... my first words was "What is this advertising?" I had immediately jumped to that conclusion, and then taken the next step, if its not advertising, it would certainly make good advertising online. It is apparently a clip from a German film, but I immediately thought of the advertising potential of a clip like this. Not for TV obviously (because then children would see it), but as internet advertising.
And I realized, and admonished myself for doing so, that I had immediately jumped to the conclusion that this would make good advertising because as we all know sex sells. Ergo... I thought sexually charged advertising = good advertising.
And in this era of internet advertising (and the increasing obsoleteness of television) this just made sense.
However... its not like we don't already have sexually charged advertising on TV. Check out this Marca Bavaria beer ad from 2003:
Or this ad from Nintendo Wii:
And we're more or less used to seeing such things on TV or the internet these days (although online you can get a lot more raunchy because there is no one looking over the advertiser's shoulder to see if they follow any ethical standards or show nudity).
The trick I think I should point out is that these ads aren't just sexually charged... they're smart and witty. Like this one for Diet Coca-Cola:
Advertisers seem to have mastered the ability of balancing sexuality and wittiness in their ads... Why? Because they know we'd get offended if the ad was blatantly offensive and had no wit involved.
We all know sexually charged advertising is here to stay, but what we have to watch out for is the ones that present an offensive stereotype. The trick after that is to let the company know we will be boycotting their product until after the ads are pulled (hopefully without letting the media know, because mass media attention is probably what they are looking for anyway).
I also want to take this moment to say kudos to the good people at South Park for making their new episode "The Ring", which depicts how the Walt Disney Corporation uses sex to sell their movies, music and products to little girls. I strongly recommend people watch the episode.
FEMINISM/SEX - What is the point in arresting prostitutes? We charge them, fine them and release them back on to the street within 48 hours.
But the Johns and pimps on the other hand... to say nothing of sex traffickers who smuggle children into sex-slavery. Those are the people we should be worried about.
"89% of prostitutes desperately want out"
In the world of international exploitation and sex trafficking, it's men, the customers and the people pushing the women into into sex, who should be charged and tossed in prison.
Some women choose to work as prostitutes, but many admits its "the ultimate act of humiliation and desperation". They do it to survive and put food on the table. Studies show that 89% of prostitutes desperately want out. They're hungry, need to feed children or give health care to aging parents, and the only alternative is to take their clothes off and service a line-up of willing men.
In some countries there's really no other kind of work for young women to do, especially in countries with struggling economies. Its not like the United States or Canada or other western countries where prostitution is largely a choice. In many countries they don't have other options available.
And even here in Canada there is surprising results for the makeup of prostitutes. Many of them are immigrants with poor English, struggling in this new place. In Vancouver many of them are Native Canadians who were raised on reserves and are now being controlled by pimps who pay them with drugs.
The drugs keeps them controlled and coming back for more.
The pimps are the root of the problem and the Johns seeking a "moment of bliss" are the demand. So how do we cut off that demand?
"These men never ask how she is, how did she get here, is she being forced. They don't look into her eyes beyond the veneer of gaudy makeup, stiletto heels and cheap clothes. They just want to get their rocks off. When money changes hands, it's the ultimate conscience pacifier. They don't have to deal with guilt," says investigative reporter Victor Malarek, author of "The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men who Buy It".
"They delude themselves into believing that every moan and groan is because of their magnetic masculinity. They want to believe it, and the women are trained to do this," says Malarek.
And the type of men who use women in this way, they're not exactly pro-women, just pro-sex. "When anyone on the... sex sites raises the question about conscience, they are immediately asked, "Are you a feminist, a fem-Nazi, a fundamentalist? Who are you?" They don't want anyone to raise the question," says Malarek.
Then there's the STDs, the beatings, the men who pay extra for strange services (including having sex without a condom)... and even murders. Legalized prostitution comes with all the same risks as illegal prostitution, the problem is its giving men a green light to do whatever they want, without fear of police looking over their shoulders.
Even in drug-and-sex-crazed Amsterdam, the mayor is saying, "What a big fricking mistake." Women there are still controlled by pimps, beaten, trafficked, forced and controlled with drugs. There is almost no measures to protect women and organized crime is rampant. The government there has essentially becomes pimps and pushers.
Prostitutes in Sweden have been reduced by half.
So what would happen if we started having sting operations and charging Johns?
Well, theoretically we could get that 89% of women out of the business and doing something else. Give them job training so they can find jobs and create careers with a future.
In Sweden the government decriminalized the women and criminalized the men. Since then the number of prostituted women has been reduced by half. Norway just introduced identical legislation in January 2009.
So would it work in Canada and the United States?
"I believe it would. We have a mishmash of laws that don't seem to make sense. Sweden is concerned with equality of women ... and an option for women to be retrained, to seek psychological help, all the safety valves. Here, there is certainly no protection for women," says Victor Malarek.
Laziness seems to be the key for some of these men. They say they don't want the drama, they don't want to invest in relationships, because it takes too much time, effort and emotional strain.
But if it was illegal for men, if the police did a lot more sting operations to catch Johns, it would cause men to be more worried about getting caught with their pants down and their balls on the chopping block.
If its proven to work in Sweden and Norway, why can't we do it here?
FEMINISM - Sunday March 8th is International Women's Day (in Canada and several other countries IWD is celebrated on March 7th). Around the world women will be gathering together to promote equality, better pay and an end to discrimination against women.
International Women's Day did not come about by chance but evolved under pressure. This pressure was brought to bear as women reacted to hardship experienced by female needle trade workers in New York City in 1908. Due to poor working conditions, several female workers in that trade perished in a fire. The tragic event led women in the needle trade to demand better working conditions, the right to be unionized and the right to vote. Their ideas gained momentum with wide acceptance of IWD on a global scale, in both developed and developing countries, since 1910.
WORLD WIDE PROBLEMS
Female Genital Mutilation
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), between 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are living with the consequences of female genital mutilation. In Africa, about 92 million girls age 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone the procedure - the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, the partial or complete closure of the vaginal opening, or other injury to the female genital organs as part of cultural, religious and social reasons. The procedures are mostly carried out on young girls, sometime between infancy and age 15.
Violence against Women & Femicide
The WHO reports that about 5,000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honour each year worldwide. See The Ten Worst Countries for Women.
Also, in a 10-country study on women's health and domestic violence conducted by WHO, between 15 per cent and 71 per cent of women reported physical or sexual violence by a husband or partner. See Femicide in Guatemala & Canada or Gender Violence in Mexico.
Stonings of Women
In countries like Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia the stoning of women is still highly practised. In one case in Nigeria, Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu, a 30-year-old woman was ordered stoned to death for having sex outside marriage after asking a court to force a man that she alleged had raped her, to pay for her newborn daughter's naming ceremony.
IWD LOCAL EVENTS
If you live in a major city, check out the local events that feminists are doing tomorrow in your local city newspaper.
In Toronto Canada, Feminists are having a three part event on March 7th:
11 AM - Rally at OISE auditorium.
1 PM - March down Bloor Street and Yonge Street. See map.
1:30 PM onwards - Fair at Ryerson University, 55 Gould St.
But first, lets stop and ask what is affirmative action?
Affirmative action is about taking sex, race and ethnicity into account when giving people jobs. So for women in politics, affirmative action is hiring/electing more women for high and low ranking positions, so that the sex distribution is eventually roughly 50/50.
The point of affirmative action is to address social disadvantages so that equality is endorsed in the hopes that eventually people hire equal or proportional numbers of staff from different backgrounds.
But is affirmative action a good thing?
Lets say for example I have a job available for an assistant manager. I want someone with experience and don't want to promote someone within the company because none of them have the relevant skills/experience.
I narrow down the resumes to 4 candidates, one Caucasian female, one Caucasian male, one ethnic minority female and one ethnic minority male. They're all roughly the same so I have decide whom to hire which one is best suited for the company. Depending on the current ethnic/sex makeup of the company I could pick any which one of them. In theory if we have a shortage of white males (fat chance that will ever happen) I should hire him. Depending on the company however it is possible.
Typically the ethnic minority female should be the one hired, but if the company already has plenty of ethnic minority females maybe the Caucasian female or the ethnic minority male would be a better choice. Its all about balance and can sometimes be a difficult challenge.
If all else fails, stick their names in a hat and pick one randomly.
So affirmative action is usually good for women and minorities.
But what about the company? Does the company somehow benefit?
According to a new report from the Fawcett Society in the UK, yes they do.
Companies who hire equal numbers of women develop higher productivity, more profits and are more resistant to corruption and bankruptcy during times of recession. The report also discusses how women in the UK are currently dealing with the American recession and gives several possible solutions for addressing the inequality of women's pay and the lack of affirmative action in the UK.
One of the ideas is to fill government imposed quotas, similar to what Norway has done and has achieved remarkable success with.
In Norway, women's representation in boardrooms has soared from 6% to 44% since they first introduced quotas. The rule in Norway states that either gender may not exceed 60% of the workforce in public owned companies (ie. government buildings, utilities, etc). By enforcing this in public companies women get more experience, better resumes and this follows over into privately owned companies as those women take new positions later in life.
As a result of the changes Norway has seen a blossoming of its productivity in the workforce, with men and women realizing that if they want that promotion they're not just competing with the other men or the other women, but all the people... so if they really want that promotion they need to work harder.
The report's five point plan includes:
1. Promote women’s rights and stamp out discrimination. 2. Deliver a bold package to end pay discrimination. 3. Promote flexible working as a solution to the recession. 4. Fast-track women into decision making positions using quotas. 5. Ensure women’s skills are harnessed through education.
The real trick, for most industries, is that affirmative action is largely optional. Some industries just plain have a shortage of women who have studied that particular field (ie. engineering or physics).
But that could be addressed through university quotas, allowing in more female applicants wanting to study physics, engineering, etc.
OR, depending on the field of study, it could be addressed by getting rid of class size caps, allowing more of both women and men into the program.
The point I am making is that affirmative action can be used smartly, and actually benefits companies in terms of productivity/profits.
