Sex – Page 4 – Feministe

The Parallels Between Breast Augmentation and FGM

A very interesting article asking what distinguishes voluntary genital mutilation from voluntary breast augmentation:

But even if FGM were carried out in the best of clinical conditions on a consenting adult woman, we call it a human rights violation. Why? Because it is an intervention which is carried out solely to satisfy stereotyped notions of what a women could or should be, and which has:

1. no discernible health benefits;
2. a negative impact on women’s sexual health; and
3. permanent effects on women’s health more generally.

The Sexual Counterrevolution

A very good article by Tracy Flory-Clark about the GOP’s war on sex — as we’re all getting more liberal in the bedroom, conservatives are trying to turn back the clock. It’s what Susan Faludi was talking about 20 years ago.

The best thing you will read today about Breaking Dawn

And vampire-fetus-babies and misogyny and female desire and abuse and rough sex and mother-martyrs:

Welcome to the twisted glory that is Mormon housewife turned teen-lit sensation Stephenie Meyer’s imagination.

On the pages of Breaking Dawn Meyer let that imagination, which has been hovering under the repressed surface of the series’ previous three books, run rampant: Bedboard-breaking, feather-spilling, bruising honeymoon sex. A demonic pregnancy that grows so fast the fetus is nudging and jumping around the heroine’s womb days after conception. A grown-up werewolf falling in love with a half-vampire infant. And our heavily-pregnant heroine sipping blood from a soda cup–and loving it–just before her ribs and spine are shattered by the immortal spawn she’s carrying. It gets better: a c-section performed by vampire teeth. A shot of venom straight to the heart. A crazed childless vampire woman who will protect the fetus at all costs.

Snakes on a Plane

A reader asks Slate, what’s the appropriate response when someone is watching porn on a plane?

Live Chat with Jaclyn Friedman: Send In Your Questions

We had a livechat scheduled with Jaclyn Friedman, author of What You Really Really Want this afternoon, but since we only received a small number of questions we’re going to push it back until next week. In the mean time, watch last week’s interview and send in any questions to have to feministe@gmail.com (or leave them in the comments).

Teenagers: Way More Boring Than We All Thought

It turns out that teenagers are not even sexting that much. Ugh, teenagers. Don’t you know that adults’ lives are so horrifyingly boring that we have to occupy ourselves by harping on you young, adventurous things doing stupid crap like sending each other nudie pics with your fancy portable telephones? I just retired my flip-phone a week ago, and I need to believe that someone uses their iPhone for a more exciting purpose than playing 16 games of Scrabble at once. THROW ME A BONE HERE. (And don’t laugh at the word “bone” you immature brats).

There’s been no shortage of hand-wringing over the menace of “sexting” among kids, but new research finds that parents’ concern may be largely overwrought: only 7% of children ages 10 to 17 created, appeared in or received a sexually suggestive photo in the past year.

Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me that every teenager in the neighborhood isn’t hosting Friday-night Rainbow Parties and then spending their Saturdays consuming vodka through a tampon. What else are you idiots doing with your time? Studying for the SATs? KIDS TODAY.

Jaclyn Friedman on What You Really Really Want, Plus Live Chat Next Week

Two weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of interviewing author, activist, speaker, former Feministe guest-blogger and my friend Jaclyn Friedman. Jaclyn’s latest book, What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety is out now, and should go on every Smart Girl’s reading list (it also makes for a great gift). It’s a feminist-minded guide to relationships, sex and love without judgment and with lots of exercises to help you figure out what you’re actually looking for. It is fantastic and everyone should read it.

It’s also incredibly rich and complex, and there’s a lot to cover. I asked Jaclyn about a few parts of the book that I found particularly interesting, and our conversation is below. She has some pretty incredible things to say, so I would really recommend checking out the video (transcript is below the fold). And a million thank-yous to Marc Faletti for shooting and editing the thing.

And to make this even more fun, Jaclyn and I are going to speak again, live on video, on Wednesday December 7th at 2pm EST — just come to Feministe for details on how to watch. The purpose of that chat will be to answer reader follow-up questions. So of course feel free to discuss the book and this video in the comments, but also email any follow-up questions to feministe@gmail.com, or tweet at me (@jillfilipovic) with the hashtag #WhatYouWant. I’ll pick a handful of Q’s and address them to Ms. Friedman live. Now, the interview!

Siri: Total Misogynist.

The big news of the week is that Siri, the iPhone 4s’s virtual assistant, is apparently unable to find anything related to women’s health. Ask her to find an abortion clinic in New York City — a place with a few abortion clinics — and she can’t locate a single one. She can, however, direct you to several pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Ask for contraception, and she doesn’t understand the term “contraception.” And as Amanda figured out, it’s not just reproductive health stuff that she can’t get right — it’s anything related to female sexuality at all (she’s great, though, when it comes to male sexual needs):

At my house, we discovered this while playing with Siri’s quickly established willingness to look up prostitutes for a straight man in need. When you say to Siri, “I need a blow job,” she produces “nine escorts fairly close to you”. You get the same result if you say, “I’m horny” into it, even with my very female voice. And if you should you need erection drugs to help you through your encounter with one of the escorts, Siri is super-helpful. She produced twenty nearby drugstores where Viagra could be purchased, though how — without a prescription — is hard to imagine. But no matter how many ways I arranged mouth-based words — such as “lick” or “eat” — with the word “pussy,” Siri was confused and kept coming up with a name of a friend in contacts. Of course, one could assume Siri knows something about him that I don’t know.

I actually tested this out too, since I recently upgraded my 2005 flip phone to an iPhone 4s. I stood on a street corner in Brooklyn with my friend P, and we came up with all kinds of sex-related questions to ask Siri, and then we died laughing because we are children. Since the Siri story broke, Feministe Friend Nabiha also sent on some questions she asked Siri, which I recreated (thanks Nabiha!). My results:

The Sexual Appeal of Non-Gender-Conformity

This is a guest post by Rebecca Katherine Hirsch.
Hello! Have I a disclosure for YOU (and you and you and you): I am attracted to men who do not hew unbendingly to unrealistic–that is to say, “traditional”–templates for male behavior. I am similarly heartened by all gendered people who work to find the courage to map out their own internal and presented identities in the face of omnipotent, implicit and explicit gender stereotypes!

Deus Vult: “God Wills It”

This is a guest post by Laurie and Debbie.
Believers in a Judeo-Christian god must, by definition, believe that the world was designed by that god as (s)he wished it to be. The Latin phrase is “Deus Vult,” translated literally as “God wills it.” In this context, let’s contrast a popular (although far from universal) Christian view of sexuality with what’s known about the animal kingdom: