Attitudes

Designer vulvas and vaginas.

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From the Atlantic:

Designer Parts: Inside the Strange, Fascinating World of Vaginoplasty

Why are some women spending upwards of $10,000 for complete "vaginal rejuvenation"? A visit to one plastic surgeon for a evaluation and sizing.

Dr. Ronald Blatt squats on the stool between the fuzzy pink stirrups propping up my legs. As I brace for the gynecologist to start poking around with his lubricated, latex encased paws, my eyes dart from a garage sale castaway of a seascape painting to an anatomy chart then back to the sole odd aspect of this setup: a mirror positioned so I can see my lady parts alongside Blatt's pink necktie-adorned head. Thank goodness I remembered to trim.

But the doctor I'm straddling isn't about to inspect my ovaries or administer a routine pap smear test. Blatt runs the Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery, and he's preparing to assess my vaginal tightness and to demonstrate how he might alter my labia.

I scheduled this complimentary consultation under the guise of wanting "to understand my options." Secretly, I want to explore why a growing number of women are modifying a body part so few can see by undergoing the elective surgeries in which Blatt specializes: vaginoplasty (removal of excess lining and tightening of surrounding tissue and muscles) and labiaplasty (reshaping of the labia minora, and sometimes the labia majora and/or clitoral hood). The former is often pursued by women who believe their capacity to enjoy sex is compromised by a loose vagina, which can be the result of a congenital condition -- as it was for Lucy Mancini in a Godfather plot point neglected by Francis Ford Coppola for the screen -- or childbirth. I'm especially interested in the latter, which is typically endured for purely cosmetic reasons. Although statistics on these operations are difficult to come by since most are performed by OB/GYN's rather than plastic surgeons, it is believed that the number of women having them is increasing rapidly -- some estimate by fivefold over the last decade. Perhaps most interestingly, an August 2011 study in the British Journal of Medicine showed that 40 percent of women who inquired about genital reconstruction reported the desire to go through with it even after being informed that their labia were normal.

[...]

Moments later, a middle-aged lady with a black bob in a white lab coat bounces toward me wielding pamphlets. She hugs me then steps back.

"You like my doctor? I love this man," she begins, eyes hypnotizingly wide.

"Have you had it done?"

She confesses that she hasn't, but not before reassuring, "I don't have one dissatisfied lady." Continuing, "This is a life changing surgery. You're saying boyfriend now? After this he's going to marry you. I'm telling you, my love. I'm telling you."

Blatt's hype woman escorts me on a tour of the facilities before wishing me well.

[...]

Luckily, the very World Wide Web that hosts all that porn also bestows us with Show Your Vagina, a Tumblr I chance upon while researching. Launched in September 2010, the site encourages women to post anonymous photos of their vaginas. Though shocking at first, the disparities are fixating, and I feel a whiff of empowerment for every female participant while browsing. It seems wrong not to upload my own spread eagle portrait.

Show Your Vagina is an overwhelmingly simple concept that highlights the importance of sharing and openness in combating body-related shame. Unfortunately, we can't rely upon our frighteningly remedial sex-ed programs. Nor can we rely upon popular women's magazines. When I naively pitched this piece to one such glossy, I was told: "Our EIC probably wouldn't take well to an idea that so prominently involves the word 'vagina.'" Exactly.

Read the whole thing here.

The straight goods on sex ed.

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From the Pacific Standard:

What If We Admitted to Children That Sex Is Primarily About Pleasure? By Alice Dreger

A couple of months ago, the sex education notice came home in my nine-year-old son’s backpack. I didn’t realize that, in our district, sex ed starts in the fourth grade. Another sign of the state having more access to my baby than I sometimes wish.

When I handed the note to my mate at the dinner table, our son said with something of a proud smile, “I told Mrs. Reverby we’ve already talked about it at home.”

The mate and I looked at each other and obviously had the same thought. Two weeks before, the class had been learning about electricity. The teacher had gotten stuck on some questions about batteries, so she had turned to our son, who was able to explain to the class exactly how batteries charge, recharge, and discharge. He’s learned a lot about electricity at home.

And quite a lot about sex.

“You know,” my mate said to our son, “this is one of those times when you have to not help the teacher even if you know how something works.”

I busted out laughing at the admonition. “Your dad is right,” I said, composing myself. “It’s entirely possibly you know more about sex than they do, but there’s some stuff some parents might not want their kids to know, so you have to keep a lid on it.”

But really. This was the kid who in preschool answered a teacher’s “Good morning, how are you today?” with “I’m fine, but my mother is menstruating, so her uterine lining is sloughing.” I just shrugged and explained to her that he’d seen blood on the toilet paper and wanted to know if I was OK.

Go read the rest here.

Film: Her.

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More info about the movie, which was written and directed by Spike Jonze:

Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, the story follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet "Samantha," a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.

It's been reviewed very favourably. The trailer:

http://www.joblo.com - "Her" - Official Trailer Set in Los Angeles, slightly in the future, "her" follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user.

First openly gay player drafted to the NFL.

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From CBS Sports:

Ready yourself, America, for Michael Sam; because he's ready for you. by Gregg Doyel

This is your dream, America. Or this is your nightmare. Whatever the case, buckle up. Because Michael Sam just got here.

His first few days with St. Louis Rams have been fascinating and thought-provoking and criticism-generating, and the odds are it's going to keep happening. Because in Michael Sam, the NFL doesn't just have its first openly gay player. Its first openly gay player is openly gay.

Not trying to play word games here, but Michael Sam hasn't played an NFL game or attended an NFL practice -- hell, he was drafted just three days ago -- and already he has shown himself to be something much more confrontational, more formidable, for lack of a better word, than Jason Collins. A few months ago Collins became the first openly gay athlete in major U.S. team sports. He's openly gay, but hasn't been openly gay, and his tenure with the Nets has been quiet. If he's kissed anyone, we've not seen it. If he feels like his career path has been slowed, we've not heard it.

We've seen Michael Sam. We've heard him.

We saw him kiss his boyfriend to celebrate being drafted by the Rams. Lots of America loved that. Lots of America recoiled. Had the draftee been AJ McCarron and the kissee been Katherine Webb, lots of America would have shrugged.

But this is different, obviously, and America reacted differently. Don Jones of the Miami Dolphins got himself suspended. Marshall Henderson, formerly of Ole Miss, got himself castigated. Elsewhere, lots of America celebrated. Lots recoiled. All this, because of something Michael Sam did after being a member of the St. Louis Rams for all of 75 seconds.

Gay rights advocates were thrilled the Rams drafted Sam in the seventh round, maybe moreso than Sam, because after he had a few minutes to think about it ... wait a minute, Michael Sam wanted to know. Why did it take so long to get drafted?

Sam never came out and said his sexuality caused him to drop to the end of the seventh round, but he did tick off some of his accomplishments at Missouri and used them to say he should have been drafted much, much earlier.

Read the rest, including responses to his drafting, here.

And the video of the kiss (@ 1:20):

2014 NFL Draft


Project: Trans by Dave Naz.

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About the project:

Trans is a new photo project by Dave Naz, incorporating photography with supplemental video interviews. The models in this project identify as Transgender Women — as well as hold positions within their communities as activists, professionals, and public figures. Through his appreciation of expression in diverse bodies, Dave aims to use his unique position in Los Angeles’ progressive art scene to raise awareness and tolerance within diverse gender expressions and queer communities.

Part 1:

This is a Trans-Positive project featuring photos and videos of transgender females. For more information, or if you would like to be a part of the series please visit: http://davenaz.org/trans Also, check out my Genderqueer series. http://davenaz.org/genderqueer

 

Part 2:

This is a Trans-Positive project featuring photos and videos of transgender females. For more information, or if you would like to be a part of the series please visit: davenaz.org/trans Also, check out my Genderqueer series. davenaz.org/genderqueer

 

Part 3:

Trans: A Photo and Video Project by: Dave Naz - Part 3 Interviews with: Wendy Summers, Kelli Lox, Foxxy, Eva Cassini, Jamie French, Tasha Jones, Tiffany Starr, Mandy Mitchell, Evie Eliot, Jenny Elizabeth & Stefani Special. This is a Trans-Positive project featuring photos and videos of transgender females. For more information, or if you would like to be a part of the series please visit: davenaz.org/trans


What do women want in porn?

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From XOJane:

Do You Really Want Your Porn To Look More Like You? I just want my porn to feature women who are confident, self-aware, and get off. I realize this is a lot to ask. by Julieanne

Get excited, my fellow perverts: The sex industry is finally ready to cater to your every womanly need -- in exchange, of course, for your lush mounds of money.

In a Slate column about vibrators, Amanda Hess reflected on the recent shift away from phallic shapes in the dong industry. She wondered, ultimately, if perhaps a sea change in our nudie films might be next:

If even dildo manufacturers can successfully transcend the severed organ, surely the porn industry can offer women a little bit more than the old standby—a disembodied penis thrusting through scene after scene until it satisfies every male fantasy. What if porn were designed with an eye toward the female aesthetic in the way that Jimmyjane’s toys are? What if Girls did for porn what Sex in the City did for the vibrator, breaking the taboo? And what if women demanded more from the porn they’re already viewing?Doesn't it feel like Don Corleone's wedding day? Go ahead! Do a little twirl and ask for something! The world is your Dutch Oyster.

Of course, Hess isn't suggesting that there's something we all want unilaterally. Certainly, female sexual desire is as varied and as different as the whorls of the fingers with which we gently diddle ourselves.

But it's an intriguing thought: what if "good sex" on screen looked like the good sex we're actually having? (Or, okay, would like to have, under ideal circumstances.) It sounds like an unlikely, especially since asthetics in porn seem to shift glacially at best. Besides, most of us can't get instant free sex toys on on RedTube.

Still -- given your druthers, would you change the standard hung stud/horny teen pump-and-blow? The "I'm a naughty tattooed bisexual with no bodyfat having an aloof fingerblast in a warehouse" of alt porn? Or would you be on board with (I'll say it) the Dunhamification of your spank films?

Would you want it to look more like you?

Well, for those of you who consume porn, that is. I realize that some of you don't, or feel guilty about it, for ethical reasons. But if buying more porn is indeed an emollient for the problems that have historically plagued women in the industry (which is ailing or thriving, depending who you ask), then I guess now's our time to come up with a list of demands. Let us hold a summit, and draw up a Vagna Carta.

Whether or not you want to actually see yourself in your porn, "fem porn" director/producer Erika Lust made an interesting point in the Guardian: It would be nice to be able to relate to it a little more. "To get excited," she mused, "women want to see something that looks like us. We want to see independent women exploring their sexuality, who are not afraid, but are not sex heroines either. We want to see attractive men who share our lifestyles, our ideas."

This is difficult, as I realize we are not all into penises or vaginas or sex at all. So, this is going to take a lot of generalizing. So, you know, if you're not into mainstream porn,  I'm not trying to leave you out. But, just like some of us like Hawaiian style or deep dish or hand tossed, most of us can agree that pizza is the greatest.

So for generality's sake, we're going Papa John's here. Let's talk about what we'd like to see in our garden variety, ho-hum, porny porny porno. I'll throw out some of my demands, and you guys can hit me with yours. Sound good? Onward.

Read the recommendations here.

Most Americans still think porn is immoral.

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Keep in mind who collected the data. From the Atlantic:

Most People Think Watching Porn Is Morally Wrong In debates about the industry, it's easy to forget that most people think erotica isn't for them. By Emma Green

"All men look at porn .… The handful of men who claim they don’t look at porn are liars or castrates." That's what Dan Savage, a Seattle-based sex columnist, wrote a few years ago in response to a reader who was fretting about her boyfriend's affinity for erotica. By this point, his argument seems like a trope: All red-blooded men have watched porn. It's just part of life. Get used to it.

Whether or not Savage is right about how often people watch porn, they don't seem to be "getting used to it." According to data from the Public Religion Research Institute, only 29 percent of Americans think watching porn is morally acceptable. Somewhat predictably, men and women have very different opinions on the issue: Only 23 percent of women approve, while 35 percent of men think it's okay.

These statistics suggest something wildly different from the Dan Savage view of the sex world. Even if it were true that all men watch porn at some point—which it probably isn't—65 percent of them feel bad about it.

One striking thing about these findings is the incredible variation in how people think about porn on a personal level and how they think about it on a legal level. Overall, 39 percent said they'd oppose legal restrictions on pornography, compared to the 29 percent who consider it morally acceptable. That means roughly ten percent of people disapprove of porn but don't think it should be illegal. The demographic breakdown reveals some unanticipated nuance. A twentysomething and her grandma are just as likely to think access to porn shouldn't be restricted on the Internet (42 percent), but the Millennial is five times as likely to think watching it is morally okay (45 percent versus 9 percent). Democrats and Tea Partiers have similar attitudes about legal restrictions against porn (41 and 40 percent opposed, respectively), and Tea Partiers are much more morally forgiving of erotica than those on the right who just call themselves Republicans: 27 percent versus 19 percent say it's okay. (Earlier this week, I noted a similar divide in the PRRI survey between Americans who support a right to gay marriage while still disapproving of gay sex.)

Read the rest here.

Tristan Taormino on feminist/ethical porn.

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Tristan Taormino is, to use a well-worn cliche, an unstoppable force of nature. She's an icon within the adult sex education world (her porn-educational videos are widely-regarded as über-awesome), and is a pioneer of the feminist porn movement (check her bio here). Here website PuckerUp is a great resource for everything related to sex.

A while back, she posted a piece on feminist porn and its history. I'd say it's the go-to for an accurate and detailed account of the movement, and how and why it originated. Here's the opening:

What Is Feminist Porn?

Feminists have hotly debated pornography since the Women’s Movement began, and the debate reached an infamous fever pitch during the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1980s. While there is no one production considered the first example of feminist porn (and, in fact, there must be images and films created even before the term ‘feminist’ was first used), feminist porn has its roots in the 1980s. The modern feminist porn movement gained serious momentum in the 2000s thanks in large part to the creation of The Feminist Porn Awards (FPAs) by Good For Her in Toronto in 2006, which put the concept of feminist porn on the map. The FPAs raised awareness about feminist porn among a wider audience, prompted more media coverage (see:Bitch, San Francisco Chronicle, and even MTV Canada), and helped coalesce a community of filmmakers, performers, and fans. There is no easy answer to the question, “What is feminist porn?” because there is no singular definition of feminist porn, but rather multiple ideas and definitions.

Let’s begin with a brief history. Annie Sprinkle began performing in porn movies in 1973. In 1981, she produced and starred in the film Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, which is described on her website as “innovative for its time, as it showed the women as sexual aggressors, focused on the female orgasm, and Annie spoke directly into the camera to the viewers from the heart.” She also starred in and directed two experimental, explicit, “docudramas” in 1992: Linda/Les & Annie: The First Female-to-Male Transsexual Love Story and Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop, which are considered cult classics and feminist porn prototypes.[1]

Go read the rest here.

Here's an excellent interview with her discussing ethical porn, female sexual agency and pleasure, and why porn isn't always anti-women:

PLay GAME - http://playchromegame.com/


Melissa Gira Grant interview.

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From BitchMedia:

 

Recognize That Sex Work is Work: A Conversation with Melissa Gira Grant by Jamie J. Hagen

[…]

JAMIE HAGEN: In your book, you emphasize sex work is not about feelings, it’s about money. You recognize sex work as labor. This seems like an incredibly powerful shift in perspective that is outside of much of the current dialogue about sex workers.

MELISSA GIRA GRANT: I think that’s because most of the current dialogue about sex workers actually is not initiated by sex workers.

When people who talk about sex work have no grounding in experience, of course it’s going to go to those things where they believe that they have expertise. Some of those things might be their feelings about the existence of the sex industry.

I was just watching a very odd response go down on Facebook to the Belabored podcast I did yesterday. We spent 45 minutes talking about sex work as work, everything you just stated in your question, and it took about five seconds for some guy to jump in and say, “But what about the johns?” It’s a kind of derailing that I think happens in like every conversation about gender and sexuality pretty much ever!

It’s akin to “concern trolling.”

It is! It is like a concern trolling. “Your experience might be one thing, but what I’m concerned about is how I feel about it.” Unfortunately, that kind of derailing into the feelings of those people outside of sex work is the place where policy is made.

[…]

At one point in your book you address the fact that sex workers aren’t allowed the role of being a whole women by those who seek to save them. Within this framework, there isn’t much room for conversation about agency and empowerment for sex workers.

The whole woman thing comes from a confluence of narratives, whether that’s the media or even some of the feminist narratives around sex work. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking at the religious right anti-trafficking projects. In some ways, those seem like a revival of the Promise Keepers and they talk a lot about restoration and mending the soul, this idea that the sex worker is like an injured person who can never be whole.

You find that on the left and on the right, secular and religious kind of tropes. So of course that’s going to pop up in the media. That’s how people imagine sex workers. If they’re not whole, then they don’t have voices and they need other people to speak for them because their voices and their stories are suspect. I think that’s what really lets the media off the hook. That’s why you see these tropes so persistently because it doesn’t even seem to occur to people that sex workers might have the capacity to dispute them.

In my academic work I look a lot at the question of women’s silence and agency. In the predominant discourse used today it seems you’re a sex worker (or prostitute) or you’ve been raped and therefore “victim” is your category.

And, well, it makes it very easy for the people on the outside to then create a roll for themselves right? So if there are people who are injured then they need a rescuer, they need a savior. You even see that in humanitarian work where on the one hand people might view themselves as coming in and empowering people who might need their help, but it’s still a very fraught relationship - power dynamics there are pretty intense.

The tropes around the injured woman who then needs our outside intervention to save her, they go far beyond sex work but they are one of the things I think in sex work that people least often question.

You can find links to her work and book, and read the rest of the interview, here.

Balloon fetish and porn.

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From Vice:

Looner porn is a subset of pornography involving balloons and the people who love them. VICE caught up with Grim Looner, a masked, 25-year-old looner porn star from Melbourne, Australia, to help burst any misconceptions we had about one of the most innocuous online fetishes.

For more episodes of My Life Online, click here: http://bit.ly/1lIeldY Looner porn is a subset of pornography involving balloons and the people who love them. VICE caught up with Grim Looner, a masked, 25-year-old looner porn star from Melbourne, Australia, to help burst any misconceptions we had about one of the most innocuous online fetishes.


More from the Duke student who performs in porn.

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This story just won't quit. It appears that the USA has become fascinated with Lauren, so much so that she did an interview on CNN. Check it out, but keep in mind that her experiences and background are not necessarily representative of ALL the people who work in porn: 

Piers Morgan talks to porn actress and Duke student "Belle Knox" about her career, empowerment and society's scorn.

Belle Knox explains how she chose her adult film name

TED: Christopher Ryan presents Are We Designed To Be Sexual Omnivores?

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Here's a recent clip of Dr. Christopher Ryan discussing his theories on (non-)monogamy. Keep in mind that many in the academic community take issue with his data and his interpretation of that data, even though most agree with the overall message that non-monogamy may not be the boogeyman that it's made out to be. 

An idea permeates our modern view of relationships: that men and women have always paired off in sexually exclusive relationships. But before the dawn of agriculture, humans may actually have been quite promiscuous.

Facial hair transplants.

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From the New York Post:

Hipster Wannabes Get Facial Hair Transplants By Natalie O'Neill

It’s shear madness! Brooklyn’s hipster beard craze has grown so popular that men in New York are rushing to doctors for “facial hair transplants” — surgery that helps make beards look thicker and less patchy, sources said.

Stubble-challenged guys are forking over up to $8,500 for the beard-boosting procedure, which has spiked in popularity in recent months, plastic surgeons told The Post.

“Brooklyn is probably the nucleus of the trend, it’s the hipster ‘look’ guys want. If you have a spotty beard, and you let it grow out, it looks sloppy, ” said Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a Midtown-based plastic surgeon.

“[Clients] want full beards because it’s a masculine look. Beards are an important male identifier,” he added.

Epstein performs two or three beard implants per week — up from just a handful each year a couple years ago, he said.

The specific hipster-inspired style  — a lumberjack-meets-roadie hybrid — was made popular in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope, doctors and patients said.

One happy patient  is Danny, 27, whose beard used to be so patchy, he was forced to “fill it in” with an eyebrow pencil, he said.

Two years ago, he paid $8,500 for the surgery, which he considers a fashion statement.

“I have a baby face but now I’m able to look older. My fashion statement is a little edgy, and I do like the ‘rugged look,’” he said,

He added, “It’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made.”

During the procedure, doctors remove hair from other body parts, including the head and chest, before implanting it in the face.

New beards grow back normally and can be shaved.

The hair-raising trend is also popular with female-to-male transgenders, Hasidic Jews, and guys who simply aren’t very hairy, doctors said.

“It’s the style. It’s just more common now to see scruff than 10 years ago,” said Dr. Yael Halaas, a Midtown plastic surgeon who performs the procedure.

“We’ve been getting a lot more calls about it,” she said.

A 39-year-old New Yorker, who works in the catering industry,  got a beard transplant to make him feel younger, DNAinfo.com reported.

“I had contemplated [getting a beard transplant] for approximately eight months,” he said. “Knowing the results, I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time deciding.”

Mini-doc: The Economics of Sex.

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First, watch this mini-doc (and don't read the rest of the post):

Like the Austin Institute on Facebook: http://bit.ly/AtxInstitute Follow the Austin Institute on Twitter: http://bit.ly/AItweet The Research: http://www.austin-institute.org/ai-research-animates This Research Animate pulls together some of the key sexual economics arguments made by social scientists, including Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Vohs, Timothy Reichert, Mark Regnerus, and George Akerlof.

What is your first reaction? Give it a quick think and then scroll down.

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What if you then found out the makers of the doc, the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture, is a far-right religious academic organization that is ostensibly advocating against families that aren't headed by a married heterosexual couple?

It isn't to say that some of the facts and ideas presented in this aren't correct (Roy Baumeister, one of the researchers they cite, is highly respected), but the conclusions drawn should lead to some red flags.

The Slate published a piece on this:

Are Men Getting Away With Too Much Sex? A New Austin Think Tank Says Yes. By Amanda Marcotte

The latest "viral" video—does it count if it has fewer than 100,000 views?—causing eyes to roll at computer screens coast to coast is the "Economics of Sex." This gem of right-wing concern-trolling explains to ladies how contraception has destroyed their lives: No longer can they use accidental pregnancies to trick men into marriage. The theory, which we've all heard a thousand times, is that contraception lowered the "price" women can charge for sex (getting hitched)—so women are all sad now. Clearly the height of a woman's happiness is being saddled for life with a man who barely puts up with her because he fears he can't get sex anywhere else. But it's in a cutesy format, so let's just pretend it's hip.

Brandon Watson of the Austin Chronicle did a little reporting on who's behind this video. It turns out to be the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture("family and culture," of course, being the uncomfortable conservative euphemism for sex). This new organization is run, in part, by Mark Regnerus, most famous for publishing a thoroughly debunked study arguing that gay parents are bad for kids. Watson has some fun describing how he imagines the staff: "On the veranda of a buttercream Victorian, the fellows sip lemonade while casting disappointed glances at University of Texas co-eds." Indeed, digging into their website reveals a bunch of half-baked studies that serve no real purpose but to cause jealous prigs to shake their heads ruefully at all the sexy people out there having too much fun.

Watson zeroes in on an article decrying the widespread practice of men taking "me time" in front of computer screens. The post—titled "Masturbation Nation?"—is an attempt to discredit the argument that masturbation is good for you. "Frequent masturbation is modestly associated with lower self-reported happiness as well as greater anxiety in relationships and difficulties navigating interpersonal relationships successfully, especially among men," it says. Of course, if you read the actual report, you'll find, buried deep inside, an admission that the masturbation is probably not causing the loneliness. Common sense would suggest that it's the other way around. But! We should nonetheless see masturbation as a challenge to "human flourishing," claims the report. The possibility that frequent masturbation could be a helpful coping mechanism for lonely people until they get a little less lonely is pointedly ignored.

Regnerus himself has been in the news again recently, after the blogger Jeremy Hooper highlighted a speech that Regnerus gave at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. In it, he warns women that supporting gay marriage is going to backfire by persuading men that all kinds of dirty sex things are OK:

If gay marriage is perceived as legitimate by heterosexual women, it will eventually embolden boyfriends everywhere and not a few husbands to press for what men have always historically wanted but were rarely allowed – sexual novelty, in the form of permission to stray without jeopardizing their primary relationship. Discussion of openness in sexual partners in straight marriages will become more common, just as the practice of heterosexual anal sex got a big boost from the normalization of gay men’s sexual behavior in both contemporary porn and the American imagination. It may be spun as empowering women, but it sure won’t … sure doesn’t feel that way.

The theme here is that women were once an empowered class that used all their magnificent social power, which was so much greater than that of men's, to make sure men didn't have very much sex. And now, because of gays and porn and contraception—and for all I know, the 19th Amendment—women have lost their power and men are just having out-of-control sex and we ladies can't do anything to stop it. It's an interesting theory, though it does snag against the reality that women don't seem to be bothered by men orgasming without paying the supposedly heavy price of marrying us first. Indeed, we may even think that marriage is not a "price" at all, but something men do for love and companionship.

Freshman porn start speaks out.

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 This story has drawn considerable attention across the web, and has been quite polarizing. From XOJane:

I'm The Duke University Freshman Porn Star And For The First Time I'm Telling The Story In My Words. By Lauren A.

I am a porn star. I am a college freshman. You know nothing about me.

"But why would you do porn?"

People often ask me this question. They know I am a freshman at Duke University, and their shock and incredulity are apparent when the rumor they've heard whispered or read on a chat board turns out to be true.

However, the answer is actually quite simple. I couldn't afford $60,000 in tuition, my family has undergone significant financial burden, and I saw a way to graduate from my dream school free of debt, doing something I absolutely love. Because to be clear: My experience in porn has been nothing but supportive, exciting, thrilling and empowering.

The next question is always: "But when you graduate, you won’t be able to get a job, will you? I mean, who would hire you?"

I simply shrug and say, “I wouldn’t want to work for someone who discriminates against sex workers.”

I am not ashamed of porn. On the contrary, doing pornography fulfills me. That said, I vehemently want to have my privacy respected -- and I ask that anyone who knows my real name respect the fact that I am only discussing this publicly because it was made a public matter when I was confronted by a fraternity member who chose to tell hundreds of other men in the Greek scene.

[…]

One of the facts Internet commenters have gotten very wrong is accusing me of participating in "rape fantasy porn." This is a horrifying accusation, but I absolutely understand where people are coming from. The site in question that I shot for is a rough sex website. That is how I perceived it at the time. I was not coerced or harmed in any way during the filming of the scene. Everything I did was consensual. I also stand by and defend the right of adult performers to engage in rough sex porn.

Everyone has their kinks and we should not shame anyone for enjoying something that is perfectly legal and consensual for all parties involved.

Of course, I do fully acknowledge that some women don't have such a positive experience in the industry. We need to listen to these women. And to do that we need to remove the stigma attached to their profession and treat it as a legitimate career that needs regulation and oversight. We need to give a voice to the women that are exploited and abused in the industry. Shaming and hurling names at them, the usual treatment we give sex workers, is not the way to achieve this.

For me, shooting pornography brings me unimaginable joy. When I finish a scene, I know that I have done so and completed an honest day’s work. It is my artistic outlet: my love, my happiness, my home.

I can say definitively that I have never felt more empowered or happy doing anything else. In a world where women are so often robbed of their choice, I am completely in control of my sexuality. As a bisexual woman with many sexual quirks, I feel completely accepted. It is freeing, it is empowering, it is wonderful, it is how the world should be.

It is the exact opposite of the culture of slut-shaming and rape apology which I have experienced from certain dark corners of the Internet since being recognized on campus a few months ago.

Go read the rest here.

Period Panties.

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This is a rather controversial project, started by Anthony Hall. His Kickstarter campaign, which originally set out to raise $10,000 is currently at $278,573 and still has 13 days to go. From his Kickstarter page:

Fun underwear that high-fives you for being a woman and serves as a friendly reminder to others!

Why settle for the old ratty or granny pair that you always wear? Celebrate your womanhood by wearing Period Panties! Sure, it's not necessarily the high point of your month, but with Period Panties it doesn't have to be the low point. Half the world menstruates, so why not have some fun with it?!

Check out the promo video here.

Period-Panties-4-650x864
Period-Panties-4-650x864

There has been a strong response to this project on several websites. Here's an example from Geek System:

Personally, I think Hall’s product is well-intentioned. But goddammit, doesn’t it seem risible to anyone else that his product slogan–and in fact the entire line of underwear–implies that embracing a natural process of the female body also means you have a responsibility to warn other people of how scary your vagina is?

But once I stopped giggling/gagging, I realized I have definite reservations about wearing “Cunt” underwear designed by a dude who focuses his kickstarter video on how to tell if his girlfriend is dtf. I also worry that by wearing one of the comfy-looking pairs I would be supporting the message that vaginas are gross, scary, and a lot like that scene from the end of Carrie.

Among the underwear that gave me the most misgivings was Sour Puss–because for one, it is always a bad idea for men to bring up how vaginas smell (duh Hall, that is a body politics minefield.)

Also, the Puss in question is flipping off someone presumably trying to get a intimate with the wearer, which again ties in to Hall’s whole inspiration for the panties, i.e. sometimes his girlfriend didn’t want to have sex with him and wouldn’t explain why. So, naturally he designed underwear that could do the explaining for her, because the only possibility for a vagina not wanting to have sex with Anthony is that said vagina has been transformed into an embarrassing graveyard freak-show.

[…]

However, no matter how funny or lighthearted the spirit of Hall’s panties are, I think there’s something fundamentally gross about his campaign that shouldn’t be ignored. (And not gross like, ick, I just passed a blood clot the size of a baby’s fist. Although, yes, if you’re asking, I’m not a huge fan of that either.)

It seems to me that Hall’s female-positive message is a little skewed. Personally, I am afraid and disgusted by my body at times and perhaps reluctant to acknowledge what’s going on with it. But the solution to any negative feelings I have about my ladybits isn’t to embrace the idea that yes, my vagina is literally just a monster, periods are very scary, and when I am bleeding, it’s my responsibility to warn others away from me and explain to men why the shop isn’t open, sex-wise.

I also don’t think humor as a means of dispelling any awkwardness over the physical pain I’m in or my lack of desire to have sex will solve anything–I shouldn’t be held accountable for how my period makes other people (like Hall) feel.