Yay! Answering questions about open relationships, making somebody special cum and whether girls like guys who wax their chests…
If you’ve got a question or topic for conversation–ask here. Or e-mail askrabbit (at) rachelrabbitwhite dot com
Maybe we continue the conversation? You tell me:
Bisexual women are seen in popular culture as hot (duuuuude) or just, like, normal. Bisexual men aren’t really considered by popular culture. It seems we would prefer to imagine that they don’t exist.
In 2005 a Northwestern study made the claim that bisexual men aren’t real– the now infamous study had men watch porn and measured arousal. That study found that men were only responding to gay porn or straight porn, but not both. This prompted he New York Times to make the headline: Gay Straight or Lying? It also prompted a lot of bisexual people to exclaim: fuck you! Now (finally) a new study posits that bisexual men do actually exist, this one is again from Northwestern, and more rigorous.
What is going on with this double-standard of the ubiquitous girl-girl kiss and the bi guy seen as a barely existent depressing weirdo? And, with a rise in awareness around male bisexuality– are we seeing this change?
Five years after that initial study was released, the Midwest’s first “all bisexual swingers club” popped up– targeted to men. Hosts of the party, Tim and Karen, are a couple in their late 40’s to early 50’s with youthful energy. When the two of them began looking into the “swinger/lifestyle scene” they realized Tim’s bisexuality wasn’t going to be accepted. “We put up an online profile, but when we put bi-curious on my side, our profile hits dropped to zero,” says Tim. At the same time, another party-goer points out, if women don’t put that they are bisexual on profiles, the couple will also get far less play.
Getting experience gave Tim savvy — there were bi guys in the lifestyle, but there was a code. “Now I know what words to look for on the profile: ‘open-minded,’ ‘up for anything,’ alternative interests’ — those are generally the tip off” he says.
Bisexual nights at these parties are a “trend” all over the country. Perhaps it shows a shift– a rise of a male bisexual chic. But, the double standard remains. Bi men have to go to special dowlow parties to kiss a guy, while all women, regardless of their sexuality, are often expected to be sexual with other women at sex parties. And really, not just sex parties, as I’ve been kissed by far more straight girls at parties than queer ones.
The swinger scene is often a bit older– so what about the generation who was raised on the Internet? According to a study by Eric Anderson of Bath University in England, there are a growing number of college-aged straight men kissing each other. In the study of male university students, 89 percent had kissed each other on the lips, and 37 percent reported engaging in “sustained kissing.”
Anderson says that this trend stemmed from professional sports, and the recent popularity of soccer players sharing passionate kisses after goals. “That made kissing between men acceptable for college and high-school players. Then the players took the same behaviors to nights out in pubs, spreading the trend to non-athletes” Anderson reports to Live Science.
We see this come to life in the “gay chicken” videos on YouTube. Gay chicken is a game in which two straight, alpha-male types make-out, and the first one to pull away is a “pussy.” In the linked YouTube video, two athletic-looking young men make out, while a crowd of people holding plastic cups, cheer them on, their phones held out. The boys only wear underwear, pressing against one and other as they kiss, not coming up for air for the full three minutes.
I polled my social network, and asked young men about their “bisexual” experiences. Aaron is 25 and doesn’t identify as bisexual, but he’s made out with his male friends. “I think good kissing is universal, I’ve made out with a ton of girls who aren’t half as good as some of the guys I’ve kissed.” Aaron says that during high school, and early college, it was just sort of part of the indie rock “scene” he was a part of but he’s left it behind:
“I wouldn’t say I have crushes on guys anymore. Because now, I would never act on it. When you come out, straight dudes will respect you less. Maybe girls will too. I was just lucky that this all happened in a time of my life when it seemed like nothing mattered. When I still felt I could do anything.”
I do think the double-standard is changing– but it will be slow, precisely because of what Aaron describes. Being bisexual was fine when he was hanging out with other kids his age, but when Aaron had to enter the “real world” that double standard snapped him into place.
This is a shortened version of my “Sex Beat” column at Sexis, a bi weekly journalism column about sex and gender.
photos by Giulia Agostini
Some things that are on my Radar, Some things that I’ve been upto:
Groupies aren’t usually seen as a positive force for women — the word has never been associated with feminism. And yet, as the fantasy of “Almost Famous” shows, we are intrigued by this certain “free spirit” brand of female sexuality and “promiscuity”.
This week I took a look at some of the most famous rock groupies for The Frisky. Check out that piece for a quick slide-show, or nerd-out with me here as I look at rock groupies and the affect feminism has had on the term, “groupie” and groupie culture.
Los Angeles in the 1960’s was known as a “groupie heaven”. There were a lot of girls hanging out on Sunset Boulevard in the groupie look — layers of scarves and ruffles and heavy eye make-up. But it was the GTO’s who rose to fame. The GTO’s stood for “Girls Together Outrageously” or “Only” or “Orally”; whatever you choose. Their members included Pamela Des Barres and Cynthia Plaster Caster.
Many of the women of the GTO’s had come over from the hippie community. The original members of the GTO’s were close with — sometimes financially supported by — Frank Zappa, who eventually produced their albums. The GTO’s were a band despite none of them being able to sing or play instruments (how very riot grrrl of them.) They were hanging out with Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones and were known as the girls you would want to meet if you were a musician.
The GTO’s owned being groupies, and they owned their creativity as well. Aside from spoken word and music performances, the GTO’s were said to have had a hand in men’s careers, and are credited with coming up with Alice Cooper’s signature mascara’d proto-goth look. Cynthia would go on to be thirdwave feminist darling — as her plaster casts of rock-star penises have been shown in countless feminist art shows.
The early ’70’s saw a new era of groupie in the mix. The girls in the tiny shorts, floppy hats and strewn with scarves became known as the “groupie babies”. The name was apt, as the two most famous of the pack got their start at 13. The groupie babies also had near instant brushes with fame, as a short lived, but infamous groupie magazine called “Star” chronicled their lives in paralyzing glamorization.
Sable Starr and Lori Maddox were the ’stars’ of the magazine. Lori got her start by losing her virginity to David Bowie, as the tale goes, at age 13. She began seeing Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin after he saw her in the pages of Star and swore he had to meet her. In true romance novel style, he had his tour manager “kidnap her” and take her back to his hotel room. Sable was Lori’s best friend, and lost her virginity to Iggy Pop at age 13. Sable was also linked to Robert Plant and David Bowie but fell in love with Johnny Thunders, guitarist of the New York Dolls. She ran away to New York City at age 15 to live with him, and hung around Debbie Harry while her boyfriend got further into drugs. When she finally decided to go back to California and live a “normal life,” she was only 17.
It’s hard to pull feminist themes from the famed groupies of this era. Where-as girls their age a decade previous were fainting at Elvis concerts, Lori and Sable were hanging on the Sunset Strip with Iggy Pop. But this does speak to real teenage experience — it seems we have a hard time societally dealing with the fact that teenagers are sexual, and those teenagers who do decide to explore their sexuality may end up doing it in extreme or unsafe ways. Certainly we still see this today.
Punk rock in it’s purest form was an extremely short lived genre. And one of the most cliche’d images has become Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistold and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Nancy was a New York groupie who hung around Sable Star and bands like the New York Dolls and Aerosmith.
When Nancy got with Sid, the press dubbed her “Nauseating Nancy,” and to this day, it is how she is remembered — in revile. And when she was killed, stabbed, at the Chelsea Hotel…not many people seemed to care. Was it the blasé punk rock attitude? Was it that people were sick of groupies? Was Sid and Nancy, the unit, detestable? I’ve always read the story of Nancy as one that is quite sexist, and it seems Nancy changed the course of the “famous groupie”. The label stopped being a good thing.
With the rise of hair metal and rock making more money than ever — there were also more groupies than ever. But now the “famous groupies” are famous for other things — being actresses, models, porn-stars and…do musicians themselves count as groupies? It may be too obvious to note, but while the groupies of the 1960’s were busy playing home-maker to the rock-stars, these girls were all about getting their own career out of the deal.
Carmen Electra got her name and rise to fame from Prince, Pamela Anderson was almost just as well known for dating Tommy Lee. Donna D’Erricho was a well known as a Baywatch star as well as a wife to Nikki Sixx. And there were women like Tawny Kitean and Erin Everly or Bobbie Brown who became video-babes for Whitesnake, Guns and Roses, Warrant, as well as girlfriends to the bandmembers. On the indie side of things, when Winona Ryder rose to fame in the ’80’s she was dating quite a few musicians.
There is one “famous” male groupie, and he goes by “Pleather”. Pleather rose to fame by the accounts of his conquests — which include Courtney Love — in Pamela Des Barres’ book I’m With The Band; Confessions of the Groupie. He recounts Courtney’s shaky self-esteem, but apparently has a lot of very nice things to say about women in music.
I find it interesting that it is not until riot grrrl and the explosion of women in rock during the ’90’s that we see the concept of a male groupie.
photo by J Silva
The Internet has allowed allowed certain groupie cultures to flourish. One semi-active groupie forum dedicated to indie rock and pop punk offers tips from other girls. They talk about which bandmembers fool around, which will give you an STI, who has a girlfriend and tips on how they got them.
Reading through pages of the forum, it struck me at times these were young women owning their desires and getting what they want without shame. There was little slut-shaming (of course not, they were Kathleen Hanna fans) and a strong sense of solidarity among the girls.
On the forum, when the girls ask about who is dating /has slept with who, there are a few names that come up again and again: Audrey Kitching, Hanna Beth and Jac Vanec: who are neon-clad, pastel-haired “Internet personalities” with have records of solely dating musicians. I imagine they are of the ilk who fight the groupie label — but unlike the Electras and Andersons of yesteryear, it’s hard to pin-point exactly what these girls do for a living. Which in my mind makes them all the more like the free-spirited GTO’s of the ’60s. What’s interesting is that we see the rise of the famous groupie again, not thanks to the tabloids but the Internet.
As women gained more equality, in work and otherwise, the groupie label fell for famous groupies. They become simply known as models, artists, or whatever it is they are passionate about. However, the hobby of sleeping with a musicians still exists with it’s own culture. And it’s a hobby that I don’t think necessarily needs to oppose feminist ideals.
Pamela Des Barres, was a bit more blunt about it when feminists called her sexist , saying: “Hey I went after what I wanted, and I got it. Gloria Steinam can kiss my ass.”
A new documentary (A)sexual has brought the topic to the blogosphere–both Salon and The Rumpus published interviews with David Jay–founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network.
But the “asexuals exist” has kinda been broken and the new documentary covers this, reveling in footage of the ladies of The View questioning David Jay about whether or not he masturbates. In a wood-paneled Manhattan diner, Jay informs me that when you go on The View, you get a giant care-basket full of booze afterwards. Full-sized bottles. After the Q&A, he promptly invited friends over for a hotel party.
Jay is sort of responsible for the movement of asexuality. The film follows his life, and mostly answers the basic questions: how his relationships work, what being asexual looks like, but it also delved deeper, with a glance at the trials of asexuality. An uncharacteristically vulnerable David Jay opens up to the filmmaker, on the street in New York City, lamenting that he will have to have sex if he wants to find a partner.
Jay shifts in his seat when talking about this part of the documentary, because he’s worked a lot of this stuff out now–he dates and yes he has had sex but he’s still asexual. To Jay, the only regret with the film is not not talking about “Gray-A’s” — who are fluid with their asexuality. Just as one’s sexual attraction can be fluid (ala bisexuality, pansexuality, a shifting of preference over time) one’s asexuality can shift too. At some points in your life you might be more sexual, other times you might not
And feeling less sexual can be okay and normal and here are these very nice organized group of people who will help you find ways to navigate relationships.“How freeing is that! This should be in every women’s magazine,” I say to David, who is eating a halved melon with a spoon.
Yet this message — that not sex is okay and interesting — has been slow to catch on in the sex positive community. The filmmaker capture this in Dan Savage, as a devil’s advocate. He makes insightful comments about asexuals in the interview alongside speculation that often if you don’t want sex, you must be repressing something. (I get it, Dan, but fail to understand why it can be okay that kinksters might be acting out unconcious trauma, but if asexuals are it’s bad?)
“Yeah, what about Dan!?” I ask David, who seemed to have nothing but respect for the columnist, agreeing that America remains sexually repressed. After-all, we are presented with poor sex education, queer-phobias and a culture which seems adverse to talking about sex in any sort of logical, constructive way.
And yet, ours is also a culture with sex in every ad, billboard, plot-line. We are presented with a culture that simultaneously says: sex is shameful, and sex is glamorous and incredible.
Sex positive people often lament the image on the billboard, the omnipresent airbrushed white lady– but not necessarily the content. Sex positivity is rooted in “sex is good and natural” but even this can lead to glamorizing sex. “The desire to create a dialogue about sexuality in our marketing driven culture can easily turn into over celebrating sexuality and glamorizing and fetishizing it. By celebrating sexuality, you should also be celebrating the fact that sometimes sex is boring and that there are other ways to connect” says Jay.
Too often for women, celebrating your sexuality is a specific kind of sexuality–available, sexy-all-the-time. The message that it’s okay to celebrate sexuality in opposite ways seems powerful and important.
In sex positivity, there are also assumptions about what sex does. “So in our society, intimacy is really strongly correlated with sex. The ability for someone to fully emotionally connect with someone else is largely sexualized. Just the words “intimacy” and “relationship” have an expectation of being sexual…but there is a strong case to be made that not all intimacy on an emotional level is sexual,” says Jay.
As I sit across from Jay, I find myself studying his fingernails, and thinking “Cute. His fingernails are so cute.” Here was intimacy and connection, and in any other situation I would have felt a need to address that sexually–go into “sexy mode”. But, refreshingly,was no need to make it sexual, which made the chemistry and the moment feel all the more intense.
Asexual people are perhaps, better at this then sexual people. They are relationship-geeks, creating new models. Jay scribbles into my molkeskin his diagram for tackling relationships. According to Jay relationships are a cycle of time spent together, emotions shared about that time and promises to spend more time together. He has intricate maps to help you figure out what kind of relationships you want, and how to foster those you have.
Marriage researchers like Stephanie Coontz and Pamela Haag report that more and more people are looking solely to their partner for friendship — for their partner to fulfill everything . So Jay’s model of maintaining many friendships, and figuring out which are helpful or not seems like a way of the future — no matter your sexuality.
“The sex positive community wants to create an open honest dialogue about sexuality; the asexual community wants to create an open honest dialogue about asexuality—those two missions are fundamentally aligned,” he says.
Sex-positivity is about bringing a set of ethics and morals for how we talk about sex. And there are some established morals, the safe-sane-consensual ethos of the BDSM world, the “do as little harm as possible” hippie mantra of The Ethical Slut. But I also argue that sex positivity needs a more psychological approach that is personally crafted — that may ask: what is okay for me? How interested in sex am I really? Where is this behavior stemming from? It seems that if this was where sex positivity were coming from, we might more easily find that while sex is a beautiful part of life, it’s perhaps not necessary, and by no means the only option.
Moshino Fall 2011, Ready to Wear
The idea that fashion and feminism are inherently opposed hasn’t died out in the digital wave. Publications like Bitch and Filament have prided themselves on not being “into fashion”. “No Fashion, No Diets, No Celeb Rubbish.” reads the former’s tagline. Yet the inclination for fashion to oppose feminism seems a bit ironic, considering that in the fashion industry women have long reigned. What’s more interesting to me than the question is fashion feminist is the dialogue between fashion and feminism.
Feminism has affected in trends in fashion. The first wave of Victoria Woodhulls and suffragettes fought for the right for women to own property and to vote, as we begin to see these victories take hold (1920 for the latter) fashions change. Flappers with bare knees and shifty dresses become the image, not of feminists, but of women relishing their newfound freedom. The successes of the second wavers with Roe v Wade and divorce laws are celebrated with mini skirts. And pro-sex third wavers get Paris Hilton. At least this makes for good party banter.
I discussed these ideas with fashion illustrator and poignant blogger, Danielle Meder. She was more curious about how certain trends in fashion are feminist. She took her ideas to a post, writing:
“One of the initial, most life-improving changes that women fought to claim was literally freedom of movement – the ability to participate in work, sports, and daily activities without being weighed down by long skirts and restrained by corsetry.
Initially, advocates of dress reform were ridiculed. Their efforts lacked style, their models weren’t attractive, and they lacked the ability to sell the public on their ideas. It wasn’t until fashion designers like Poiret and Chanel proposed a corsetless silhouette, with their considerable publicity engines and attractive clientele, that corsetry and long skirts were under serious threat. Even then, the fashions weren’t necessarily feminist – Poiret held women’s mobility under bondage with the hobble skirt. While Chanel’s motivations were more clearly feminist in that she designed for emancipated, active women, Poiret’s were more about novelty and publicity.”
Left: two piece ensemble, 1925, Right: Yves Saint Laurent 1982
What might be worth noting here is the privilege of fashion. While I’ve found some sources that say Chanel began designing for working women in France during World War I (offering men’s pull over sweaters, sailor jackets and plain skirts) most seem to trace Chanel to upscale patrons since the beginning. Regardless, Chanel’s simple designs, her menswear for women was not fashionable when Chanel was accepted by the fashion industry and serving upscale clients. But things that are reserved for the privileged always trickle down to the middle classes, to the mall.
With this trickle-down into the clothing of the every-day woman, feminism didn’t just passively affect feminism, the right to wear pants (outside of the factory) was hard won, Danielle notes:
“The bifurcated garment has been considered a masculine garment since the middle ages. Co-opting it for women was not at all an insignificant social shift – in fact, vestigial laws are still being revoked, and the subject provokes (confusing) debate in some circles to this day. The leading edge of trouser-clad femininity was celebrity. Amelia Earhart, Katherine Hepburn, and Marlene Dietrich imbued the garment with adventure, charisma and sex.
The early majority was youth – young women who were for the first time, were enjoying the phenomenon of ‘teen years’ in between childhood and adulthood. Youth had an excess of casual down-time and the disposable income to exert influence over their own clothing, it makes sense that the popularity of pants – and that notable unisex garment, denim, began to trend during the 40s and 50s even as feminist goals were backsliding due to The Feminine Mystique.”
It’s interesting though, that with the new rights women gained, fashion saw women trying on male-ness. Is it feminist, if women had to bend what they were wearing in order to fit into the “man’s world’? Whether it’s women bobbing their hair after they get the vote, or Chanel’s pantsuit, or the 1980′s power-suit with it’s pointed masculine edges, worn as women really took hold of the workplace it’s all women taking on male roles. (One of the things the third wave seems to have done is take back traditional feminine fashion, in it’s “ironic” retro silhouettes and crinoline.) And yet playing with gender in fashion can be liberating, and helpful to breaking down gender roles and the binary.
But men have not socially been allowed to try on the accouterments of female-ness in quite the same way. While the last twenty years have seen more androgyny on male models, men in skirts have not sauntered into mainstream. But as more and more men begin questioning their gender roles and it’s stereotypes, will be see more ripples in male fashion? With designers like Rick Owens and the mall-level phenomenon of metrosexuality, we are already and I think this is just the beginning.
Rock Owens Spring 2012 Menswear
But that nagging question — can fashion can be feminist– does have it’s arguing points. Fashion is an industry that promotes unrealistic standards of beauty– via underweight models who are overwhelmingly white. Fashion also promotes a culture of consumerism. The logic here often is fashion = corporatism = bad. But as illustrated in the “Slow Fashion” movement of designers hand-making all of their wares, fashion can embody feminist values.
Feminism today is not the feminism of Chanel’s or Friedan’s. In it’s digital incarnation is far more effort toward inclusivity than we’ve ever seen before, and as we align our support with women around the globe, what is the affect? Through it all, there will be a dialogue between the two, whether that conversation is: No, I disagree, I reject you or Yes, yes, yes!
Art by Brandi Strickland
In alternative spheres, whether it’s a ‘scene’ in music, art or sex there is something that smells a bit… incense-y. Recently, when talking about polyamory my partner remarked: “But why is it so…Wiccan?” It seems many people my age, while not religious, are looking for a spiritual full-ness– in religious ideology or mysticism. Perhaps science [or just modern life?] leaves something to be desired, perhaps atheism just isn’t seductive enough.
Personally, atheism has only made me feel more grounded as a spiritual person. When it comes to things like sexuality, morality, life and death, I feel content knowing there is no God, no after-life. And yet I understand the drive to look for wisdom in old belief systems. I don’t believe a deck of tarot cards could predict my future, but I do believe this was used as an exercise in self-reflection, a way to ask: where is my life headed and what are my options? And, I like that.
I asked you guys on Twitter and Facebook, if any of you also identified as atheists, and holy FSM, yes you did! This is round-table from those readers, who I interviewed about atheism.
*** Because this is a reader-round-table, I hope that you’ll weigh in with your thoughts + ideas– on how your own beliefs, spirituality or secularism have influenced your sexuality, morality and views on life and death. This piece is on atheism, but I would love to get a discussion going from people with a wide range of beliefs and viewpoints. ***
“I remember the deacon at my school parish addressing my 7th grade class one day on the issue of homosexuality. He shared the fact that he was also a therapeutic counselor working to remove client’s ‘homosexual desires’. Three out of the four of them committed suicide throughout the course of treatment as a result of the ‘pain of sin from homosexuality’.”
“Many of the laws governing sex emerge from religious morals rather than scientific fact and inquiry. A full separation of church and state would drastically change the sexual culture of the United States.
Same sex marriage is an excellent example; all arguments opposing it ultimately come down to religious morals– and yet same sex marriage is only permitted in a few states in the country. Access to abortion and reproductive healthcare is becoming increasingly difficult due primarily to religious beliefs. The list goes on and on: the definition of obscenity or ‘sex offender’, the ability to consent to alternative sexual practices, sexual assault prosecution, whether or not you will be arrested for selling vibrators. Whether or not you believe in a god or gods is less of an issue but it’s rather whether or not those beliefs should be used to sculpt our legal landscape.” – Maggie Mayhem
“Like many rules in religion, ones around sex are there to provide self-inflicted submission… By creating a set of rules that counter who you naturally are, and having people obey those rules, all other control comes quite easily.” – Paul
“What has changed since no longer being a Christian, sexually? Now I don’t look at a woman like they were made for me. I look at them like we are all part of this experience of life and that it is beautiful that we get to share in each others pleasure and passion for one another. It’s also made me accepting of homosexuality.” – K.L.
“I realized I was an atheist in junior high and solidly came out as an atheist at age 13. Sadly, I’ve lost many people close to me between then and now. Although I do not believe that I will ever see any of these people ever again, I celebrate their life and the impact it had on mine. It also reminds me how precious this time we have here on earth really is and it compels me to relish and enjoy my own.”
I’m not bothered by a lack of the afterlife and my thoughts always go directly to how I’m living my life right now. I’m also reminded that I do not have a body, I am a body. The human brain is the world’s most complex computer and it is made entirely out of meat. I am humbled by my fragility but I am awestruck by our potential. I don’t dwell much on death, I focus on life.” – Maggie Mayhem
“I have a healthier relationship with my mortality than my christian counterparts do. I feel complete inside when I think about returning to the earth — and I don’t mean that in a hippie way, haha. I’m a scientist at heart (and in schooling), and it is infinitely more beautiful to me that my body is made up of the same matter as all things in existence than the idea of a physical soul that goes to heaven or hell. The real physical world is amazing, I don’t need anything else to make sense of death or grief.” — S.S.
“While I intellectually understand I will have no awareness after my body stops functioning, I long for some way to return, or continuing to exist, simply because it is so fun sometimes. I do get bummed that we have one shot, and a few short years to enjoy everything this world has to offer.” — Paul
“No matter what you believe, loss is painful. My atheism, I don’ think has made grief less tolerable. But instead of trying to attach some kind of reason or significance to ‘why’ certain people died, atheism has helped me accept obvious, painful truths…that everyone will die, some in random, “unlucky” ways. Atheism has also made me look at life more optimistically. To accept the fact that life is fleeting, and to appreciate and feel things while I’m alive.
I believe that humans should be very grateful for the forces in the universe that have led to the consciousness humans experience. I also recognize that, like a great dog, you won’t have it forever. Atheism forces me to love harder, appreciate the present, and accept the inevitable. The universe is not fair. It just is, and there is some comfort in knowing that. ” — Roadrunner
“I feel deeply responsible for my decisions because I have to make them based on my own principles and ethics rather than the word of ancient dogma and scripture. I do not act out of fear of an eternity in hell or for a supernatural reward of heaven. This has also pushed me into action as an activist because it is apparent that social justice is in the hands of people, not holy spirits. There is no reward for human suffering on earth and there is no deus ex machina that will come and relieve it. That puts the onus on humans to put an end to poverty and injustice. ” — Maggie Mayhem
Since embracing atheism, I’ve found myself getting more political, more radical. I believe that things aren’t going to change themselves so people have to push for that to happen. That quote ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ really rings true.” –Lolo Holmes
“Ideas that seems common sense to me (don’t discriminate against people, respect science, respect nature/animals), were completely foreign to some of my religious friends. Once I started seeing that my moral code was based on a humanistic/holistic approach to life, I felt better about these differences.” – S.S.
I also believe, unlike many atheists, that religion has prevented humans from doing some pretty horrible stuff to each other–as history can attest. I don’t believe that violence initiated by religious beliefs compares to the kind of slaughter that might be possible in a more ‘godless’ world. ” — Roadrunner
“When people say ‘God’ what they mean is ‘Hope’. Really, I think that our evolution selected for minds that had the ability to believe in a supernatural god, because it is a belief that fosters ‘hope’ in even the most impossible situations.
There have been several experiments with animal test subjects that show, even in the animal world, animals that have the capacity to hope for a better future outcome will survive longer.
I think that ‘hope’ is the reason that humans desperately need a god. The base idea in a supernatural god I believe lies in the ‘hope’ that there is a force out there that can affect events in human lives. This ‘being’ can bring rain for crops, save sick children, protect you from animal attacks, etc.
There is that old (yet so untrue) saying that, ‘there are no atheists in foxholes.’ I believe our capacity to hope is what gave birth to gods. It was much less naïve/noble traits that gave us dogmatic religions. I personally, don’t need a god to create hope for myself. I make goal for a positive future outcome, and then work towards them. I don’t feel like my belief system is better or worse (though mine starts far fewer wars), but I feel that it takes a very specific personality trait to sustain.” — S.S
“With an imaginary construct like god you can project all kinds of hatreds and cultural bigotries through that god. This is why god is kind hippy Jesus to liberal Christians and warmongering old testament monster to fundamentalists.” – Joey
“Humans thirst for knowledge, and having a simple, quick answer is always preferable to not knowing.” — China Hepburn
‘When people say ‘God’ what they really mean is ‘I’” — Maggie Mayhem
Some questions asked from my tumblr. Lemme know whatchu think or ask me any questions you have here.
Only one in 10 women think there is no shame in having discussions about female genitalia. <3-ing your vulva is not a given. This piece is a forum for all things vulvacular and a discussion on how the media, porn and culture skew our image of what’s normal. I’d love to hear your thoughts/questions/ideas. (Sources are linked to.)
Someone asked me on tumblr what I thought of the recent Summers Eve “The V” campaign. The company apparently spent a lot of money on some “edgy”/”hip” commercials, in hopes of convincing women they need a special chemical to clean their vaginas. My guess is Summers Eve is flailing, since most women know that douching is harmful and not analogous to walking on a misty beach with a sweater tied around your shoulders. But a “special wash” is just as unnecessary as douche, and putting any sort of soapy stuff in your vagina can mess with it’s natural self cleaning and make you smell worse .
I hope women might be warded off from supporting a company who made the word“douche bag” a pejorative. But the reader also pointed out–“it seems the vagina is easily capitalized on”. There are a mass of cultural messages, thanks to advertisers like Summers Eve, who are reinforcing the idea that tell us there is something wrong with our vulvas. That on their own they that aren’t fresh/clean/pink/small/neat enough. It’s making money by making us feel bad about ourselves via hyper nitpicking — like the ever-incessant ”lose 5 lbs!” message, to which I say “loose 5 lbs or don’t! No one cares!”
It’s been reported that labiaplasty is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery. According to statistics from the book “I’ll Show You Mine” Google has reported a breakout increase (more than 5000%) for searches related to the surgery since ’05.
Researching myself, I even found labiaplasty support forums with threads titled things like “Strange ‘Wiping’ Question”. The on the forums women recount not being able to walk or even sit up for days after surgery, and still micro-obsess about hating their parts.
Another study cited in “I’ll show you Mine” found that in almost all cases women requesting surgery had completely normal vulvas. The average length of the inner labia varies from 3/4 of an inch long to two inches long. Yet more than half of the women think their genitals are an improper size. Sometimes the labiaplasty forums sites are bombed by anti-labiaplasty activists– “Don’t cut the wings off of Beautiful Butterflies!” reads one message before it’s deleted.
It seems the message your pussy isn’t good enough is one shouted perhaps loudest to women of color. The Summers Eve V campaign was called racist in relying on stereotypes to target Black and Latina women (and an often quoted 1995 study found that douching was more common among black women then white women, something I’m sure Summers Eve is trying to capitalize on). In the essay Fear of a Black Cat by Hapa Wahine described herself as a bi-racial woman who solely dates white men that refuse to go down on her. She writes:
We’ve all heard the same tired old “big strappin’ buck” stereotypes about Black men and the “teeny weeny” stereotypes abut Asian men, but what of the false notions about Black and Asian women? Some of the ones I’ve heard are doozies, from Asian women have horizontal vaginal openings to Black women having an unusual amount of sweat glands so as to produce an inordinate amount of stench. And I’m expected to live in the face of all this? no wonder nobody’s giving me head…
Thanks to lighting, editing techniques, biased model selection and labiaplasty, in porn, we often see the same very pink very clipped looking vagina.
While studies show there is a wide range of labia length and shade among women, the 2010 Schick survey of Playboy Magazine found labia minora visible in just 7% of photographs and only a single picture depicted the labia as a color other than pink or light red. (In reality there is a range of red, brown, pink, purple and even blueish labia.) Since when did a child-like vulva (hairless, without adult-sized labia) become the ideal?
I was recently sent a copy of “I’ll Show You Mine” a coffeetable book that works to combat the single porn vadge image. The book features photographs of dozens of women’s vulvas with a vagina “bio” of sorts –
Jacqueline: The reason I wanted to model for this project was so that girls who doubt their self image know that they aren’t alone with their body type and that it is okay to be different. I am recovering from anorexia and bulumia, which took a serious toll on my mind, body and spirit. I had a seriously skewed image if what it meant to be beautiful and this inecessant pursuit for the ideal beauty. The reality is that no two people will have the exact same vulva, and the women in pornography or other mainstream media are not representative of the whole population.
Meta: I once was having some medical checks done and they needed a swab from under my tongue, the back of my knee, and “down there”. I asked, “Down where?”, having no idea what the nurse was chatting about. She indicated quite vaguely between my legs. This still left several possibilities of exactly where and shoe she wanted the swab done. I continued asking and she got pretty flustered and would not use the word vagina…Since then I have come across other medical professionals who can’t say “vagina”. I guess it’s quite an embarrassing word to say.
I love this book for the same reason I love projects like Show Your Vagina, The Non Sexual Breast Gallery and to an extent, Guess her Muff + Guess her Muff 2.0 ( apparently “guess her muff” technology has advanced that much in the last two years?) Because porn often presents the same plasticized pussy over and over, it’s interesting and helpful to see a real variety of women’s “private parts”.
Jamie McCartney’s Great Wall of Vagina also shows a variety of real women’s vulvas in a series of casts.
Here are a few more stats, vulva <3 tips and other vag tidbits. Pussy power points, if you will.
The Future of Marriage and Non-Monogamy | A Conversation with Pamela Haag
Marriage has never been one solid thing throughout time– contrary to its “sanctity”. Even the bible was once suspicious of marriage– it was seen as more holy to be celibate and in many cultures throughout time polygamy has been the preferred relationship model. Women were also once sold from father to husband–family decided who you married. But perhaps most shockingly, monogamy hasn’t always been central to American marriages! So in the digital age, when things shift faster than ever, what is the future of marriage?
In this interview, I talk with marriage researcher, Pamela Haag, author of the book “Marriage Confidential” , about the future of marriage–and the role non-monogamy is already playing.
Can you tell us a bit about the “secretly transgressive” oreo marriages you describe in your book?
If you’re at a cocktail party with 20 married couples, chances are, one or two are in openly non-monogamous marriages. They’re the marriage next door. They pay the bills, go to little league games, recycle—and maybe on the weekend go on swinging holidays.
Have the rules of monogamy in marriage always been so strict?
The 1950s—a so-called golden era of “family values!”—was more tolerant of covert affairs than the 1980s. This was more true for husbands more than wives, but not entirely, Kinsey found in his research that a fair percentage of wives had had affairs too
In the 1950s there was a fair amount of “wink, wink” tolerance for a gap between the monogamy ideal and reality. The conservative 1980s were more about regulating behavior, religious social conservatives not only wanted us to act as if we were monogamous, they wanted us to BE monogamous–monogamy became a stricter social ethic.
But the reality is that a fair number of spouses cheat, and we forbid cheating. So, we end up with what I call the “shocking banality” of infidelity: it happens all the time and we’re shocked by it all the time.
When did we begin to see an opening up of non monogamy in marriage?
My argument is that in the 1970s, free love and non-monogamy had a certain chic to it, but it didn’t have solid foundations in demography, economy, or technology.
Today, the idea of openly non-monogamous marriages has no political chic to it, but it does have a more solid foundation in demography (we live longer and healthier than ever), economy (women earn their own paycheck, and don’t rely on the sexual contract in marriage for their meal ticket), and technology (we’re connected to people more than ever—and much more easily than ever before).
So marital monogamy is under greater stress today. And I think it’s being deliberately rethought and re-evaluated by a post-romantic generation that sees the main function of marriage as friendship, an establishment of a home base–not sexual passion and fidelity, per se.
In the past, people married for money, order, family and having babies. Today we seem more apt to say we marry for love. Yet statistics show we marry in our own social class and race… What are we really marrying for?
Today we are more inclined to marry “partners” than lovers. The majority of unmarried Americans say they want to marry a soul mate, according to Gallup research. It’s an interesting goal, because it’s not specifically a romantic love that we’re envisioning. “Soul mate” can apply to any number of relationships, from friend to colleague to spouse. Maybe we want marriages that are intimate, but not “romantic,” per se.
From what I understand, more people are marrying their best friend, but this is not boding well for marriages– that best friend/spouse is too expected to be “all things” for us.
Men and women have the same opportunities and life experiences more than ever before, we’re more similar and comradely toward each other. All of those things are victories, and upsides of feminism. The bad news is that a marriage today can slide too much into a “partnership” or a co-parenting arrangement, and lose that sense of intimacy that comes from a sense of mystery or difference.
How does non-monogamy fit into the future of marriage?
More marriages will have a conversation about monogamy, rather than just assuming it is the default. It seems to me that non-monogamy might become a more accepted option, much as premarital sex has shifted from largely scorned to widely tolerated today.
In my book I look at the entire gamut of extramarital sex—from conventional cheating to “affair tolerators” who look the other way, to monogamy “agnostics” who don’t care as much about marital monogamy as they thought they would, to deliberately open, ethically non-monogamous marriages and even “asexual” marriages, where one or both spouses really doesn’t have an interest in sex.
It’s funny that historically, there were more models for non-monogamy — even if it was the “mistress” model.
I wonder how our views would be different if we had a social recognition for those historically honored roles of “Mistress” and “Lover.” If these roles were more integrated socially, we’d be less inclined to mistake lust or romantic attachment with “true love” — and bolt for divorce court when an affair happens. I like to entertain the idea of a revival of the mistress and lover roles in society.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a trend story claiming that less people are divorcing because divorce would mean a failure. I got the sense this was among the kids who grew up in the family values 1980′s…
More affluent, better-educated Americans are getting and staying married than less affluent Americans. I think this is happening in part because we have a Type A desire to succeed, and this applies to marriage as to everything else. Whereas in the 1970s there was a certain admiration attached to getting divorced and fulfilling your dreams and “personal growth,” we grew up in the 1980s, when the family values retrenchment was going strong.
Also, some of these spouses grew up in divorced families themselves. I encountered more than one husband or wife who had vowed never, ever to do that to their own children. In my own survey for my book, I found that 33% of respondents agreed that “even if you’re unhappy, you should stick it out for the children.” That’s up from 20% in a 1970 survey.
How are things different for younger generations, such as my own, who largely grew up in the 90s early 00s?
The younger generation that grew up in the 1990s is vastly more “connected”. It’s my guess that your generation won’t have the same expectation that a marriage should be “the world” to them. I think there will be more tolerance for having a range of intimate relationships and friendships, and a greater understanding that it’s not a marital failure if you seek different things from different relationships. I also sensed that the younger generation has more pragmatic views of marriage, even more than my generation.
Is marriage on the way out?
40% of Americans think that marriage is “becoming obsolete,” and 50% of younger Americans believe this, according to 2010 Pew research. I think that marriage is in a brainstorming phase. It’s trying to find its footing in the new realities of the 21st century. It seems to me that we still believe in marriage—we still want to give it a try—but the reality is, we don’t always do it according to spec. We’re improvising.
The bottom line is that I think both arrangements are challenging. It’s challenging to have a non-monogamous, committed relationship; it’s challenging to have a monogamous, committed relationship. Forever is a long time—it pays to be flexible.
This story also appeared at The Atlantic
And now let me ask you guys:
Do you think marriage is on the way out?
How is your generation changing marriage? Do you want to someday marry– what for?
Do you think more people are really going to try non-monogamy in marriage? Would you?