Fascinating Reflection on Transexuality

My friend Anne Eaton directed me to this fascinating but in some ways deeply puzzling essay by Andrea Long Chu, who is (I take it) a graduate student in Comparative Literature at NYU. It's a lengthy investigation of the fraught, and too little discussed, relationship between identity and desire in the experience of trans women, specifically. Probably, Chu right restricts her discussion to that case: the one she knows from the inside. But I strongly suspect that her reflections have something much broader to teach us about gender, and our experience of it. Certainly, as someone who is genderqueer, it rang a lot of bells with me.

Great (and Funny) Video on Consent

Amazing Reflection on Sexuality and Sexual Violence

On Feministing:

When I started having sex, disposability was the first thing on the menu. Fuck you, ignore you, make fun of you on Facebook. Even now, it is the public penance exacted from women who dare.
A friend of mine said as much at the end of our first semester of college. ...“Boys aren’t going to want to date you if you keep having sex with them,” my friend said. The words smashed against my face like ice or glass.

And that's just the part about sexuality.

Rape By Fraud?

There's a myth out there that no law, program, or action designed to counter rape can be too extreme for feminists. Well, here's proof to the contrary, an article by Amanda Marcotte decrying a bill introduced in New Jersey by Assemblyman Troy Singleton that would criminalize "sexual assault by fraud". Which means, as Marcotte puts it, "[lying] your way into someone's pants".

As Marcotte notes, this a terrible idea:

...[T]his law is so vague and wide-reaching that it's easy to see how pretty much everyone could be considered a rapist, because, as any quick perusing of OkCupid can tell you, representing yourself as someone you are not is a universal behavior. All of us are claiming we woke up like this, and we are all lying.

But at least the dude's heart is in the right place.

Good Reads: Bisexuality

There are many things that puzzle me. But in the realm of sexual politics, the discrimination suffered by bisexuals, even in the queer community, is near the top. Here are a handful of articles on the topic.

• Why Some Bisexual People Don’t Feel Welcome in the Queer Community (Everyday Feminism)
  
• 13 Lies We Have to Stop Telling About Bisexual People (Everyday Feminism)
• 8 Questions To Stop Asking Bisexual People (Role Reboot)
• Monosexism: Battling Myths About Bisexuality (Good Men Project)
• Being Bisexual Taught Me That Sexual Intolerance Is A Bigger Problem Than We Realize (Elite Daily, via Good Men Project)
• Becoming Visible: On Coming Out As Bisexual (Autostraddle, and lots of good articles if you search for "bisexual" on the site)

I meant to do this for bisexual awareness week, but got distracted.

If you've got anything similar, post it in the comments.

Jaclyn Friedman on How She Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love Pleasure

Jaclyn Friedman has posted her piece from Yes Means Yes, "In Defense of Going Wild", on her blog. It's a sort of "confession" about Friedman's love of sex. Of course, in describing it that way, I'm almost buying into the idea it is fighting: the loving sex is somehow shameful if you happen to be a woman. Which, obviously, is an idea to which I do not subscribe.

Read it.

Do You Know About Jian?

Somehow, I totally failed to link to this amazing article by the extent to which people surrounding Jian Ghomeshi knew that he was "weird" about women. I meant to include it with these links (and now have).

I have since found another article in a similar vein, by Carl Wilson on Slate XX. And another, by Emma Healey, on The Hairpin.

Alcohol and Consent

I post a lot of links to what Thomas MacAulay Millar writes about consent, because so much of it is so sensible. And his recent piece "Draining the Swamp: Alcohol and Agency" is no exception.

Yet More About Consent

Kind of basic stuff here, but worth reading. The nice point is that one doesn't have to go so far as to satisfy the legal definition of rape to violate consent in a way that does harm.

• "Coerced Consent: When 'Yes' Really Means 'No'" (Harris O'Malley, Good Men Project)

This one is thought-provoking. I won't even try to say what it's about. Probably, as she suggests, men shouldn't read it.

• "Consent Is Way More Complicated For Women Than Just 'Yes Means Yes'" (Samantha Eyler, Role Reboot)

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

• "6 Myths About 'Yes Means Yes'" (Soraya Chemaly, Role Reboot)
• "Neutral Evil: The Problem With Refusing To Decide" (Thomas MacAulay Millar, Yes Means Yes)

Which means we should remind ourselves again why people have a problem with this.

Should You Buy Sex Toys From Amazon?

Some thoughts inspried by a nice article today by Dangerous Lily (possibly NSFW, depending upon where you W), which reminded me of a slightly older piece on Daily Dot.

Good Reads: Consent, Ghomeshi, BDSM

This is an oldie but a goodie. The basic point is that people rarely refuse an invitation of any kind by saying "No". To the contrary, refusals are usually hedged in various ways, to soften the blow. The lesson is that people who violate consent don't "not understand". They don't want to understand.

• "Mythcommunication" (Yes Means Yes)

Another oldie about how communities "work around" the knowledge that one of their own is "sketchy on consent".

• "The Missing Stair" (The Pervocracy)

And this is a wonderful piece on a much older case explaining the fundamental difference between BDSM and abuse:

• "Not What We Do" (Yes Means Yes)

All of which brings us back to Jian Ghomeshi:

• "Ghomeshi: The Developing Story, And Predator Theory Observations" (Yes Means Yes)
• "Jian Ghomeshi Isn’t the First Alleged Abuser to Cite the Right to BDSM Sexuality" (The Cut)
• "Do You Know About Jian?" (Nothing in Winnipeg)
• "I Knew About Jian Ghomeshi" (Slate XX)

One of the really important reminders here is that "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard that applies to criminal prosecutions and not even e.g. to arrest.

While we're at it: Here's a nice cartoon that explains what the real objection is to affirmative consent.

(Via Everyday Feminism).

Good Reads: Feminism, Sexuality, Relationships

You may already have seen the post on HuffPo on which this is based, since it went viral. This is her husband's side of the story. It's about honesty and feelings and love and woundedness, and it is very much worth reading.

• "My Wife Told Me She Wants To Cheat: Here's How I Feel" (Nige Atkinson, Good Men Project)

I had no idea that it's completely legal to fire people for what they do privately in their sex lives. But apparently it is:

• "Can You Really Be Fired For Being Kinky? Absolutely." (Jillian Keenan, Slate Outward)

Probably seen this one:

• "The Problem With That Catcalling Video" (Hanna Rosin, Slate XX) 

(No, I won't link to the video itself.) But maybe not this one:

• "What My Wife Taught Me About Street Harrassment" (Damon Young, Good Men Project)

There's other good discussion about that out there, but I forgot to keep the links!
 

A Wonderful, Sad Story About the Shame of Masturbation

From Julia Boriss, at XOJane:

When I was eight years old, I stacked two layers of pillows across my bed to keep myself from masturbating. I figured that sleeping atop a pillow fortress would force me to sleep on my back, which would keep my fingers from wandering to my nether regions, which would prevent the soul-crushing shame that befell me every time I gave myself an orgasm.

I suspect (as she more or less goes on to say) that this affects women more than men. But, having been raised Catholic and in a very sex-negative household, I remember those feelings, too.

Some Truth About Abortion

A new book by Katha Pollitt, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, is getting a lot of attention in the left-wing press. What Pollitt most wants, it seems, is for us "to talk about ending a pregnancy as a common, even normal, event in the reproductive lives of women". These articles are a start:

• "Abortion: Not Easy, Not Sorry" (Laurie Abraham, Elle, from Feministe)
• "Abortion is Great" (Hanna Rosin, Slate Double X) 
• "Abortion Without Apology: A Prescription for Getting the Pro-Choice Groove Back" (Lindsay Beyerstein, American Prospect)

You might also check out:

• Not Alone, a website where women tell their own stories about their experience with abortion
• Emily's Abortion Video (yes, it's old, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you)

Good Reads: Sexuality, Gender, and Feminism

Jessica Valenti celebrates Jennifer Lawrence's public response to the theft of her photos, and a couple more articles on the same topic:

• "Jennifer Lawrence's Outraged Response to Nude Photo Leak Marks an End to the Era of the 'Shamed Starlet'" (The Guardian, via AlterNet)
• "Jennifer Lawrence Says Don’t Look At The Pictures" (Thomas MacAulay Millar, Yes Means Yes)
• "Jennifer Lawrence Does Not Owe Us" (Thomas MacAulay Millar, Yes Means Yes)

An interesting article on how people respond when their other-sex spouses come out as gay:

• "How Straight Spouses Cope When Their Partners Come Out" (Christine Grimaldi, Slate Outward)

More articles on affirmative consent:

• "Yes Means Yes Culture of Consent Catches On" (Tanya Serisier, Good Men Project)
• "No, California’s new affirmative consent law will not redefine most sex as rape" (Maya, Feministing) 

For people who don't understand what male privilege is:

• "Why I Refuse To Be One Of `The Good Guys'" (Charlie Glickman, Role Reboot)

Good Reads: Sex, Gender, and Feminism

Interesting piece on gender identity:

• "Appearance, Gender and Why I’m Not 'Cis'" (Ms Naughty)

A piece about how differently men and women's sexual functioning is treated by doctors, and then a more personal account of Beismer's journey of recovery:

• "On Women Having Sex After Surgery" (Lynn Beismer, Role Reboot)
• "How I Learned To Love My Frankengina: Recovering sexual functioning after surgery" (Lynn Beismer)

Interesting article on the first amendment issues surrounding "revenge porn":

• "Should Revenge Porn Be a Crime?" (Michelle Goldberg, The Nation, via AlterNet)

Amusing video:

• "If Buying Condoms Was Like Buying Birth Control" (Buzzfeed Video, via Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross)

Finally, we have a wonderful article connecting the marriage equality movement to the overthrow of older ideas about marriage as ownership:

• "When 'Redefining Marriage' Meant That Women Had To Be Treated Like Human Beings" (Ian Millhiser, Think Progress)

The article begins with the following quotation from Sir William Blackstone, in 1765:

The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.

Indeed, until passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, a married woman could not get a credit card in her own name in some states without her husband's permission. Etc, etc, etc.

Good Reads: Sex, Gender, and Feminism

Some good recent articles on sex, gender, and feminism:

• "Frat Brothers Rape 300% More" (Jessica Valenti, AlterNet)
• "Why It Matters That Lena Dunham Wrote About Being Raped In College" (Tara Culp-Ressler, Think Progress)
• "The Smartest Constitutional Argument for Marriage Equality That No One Is Making" (Susannah W. Pollvogt and Catherine E. Smith, Slate Outward)
• "Ladies Come First: Why Every Secondary School Needs a Lesson on the Clitoris" (Alice Holloway, Vagenda)
• "What Do We Really Mean When We Say Women Are Sexually 'Fluid'?" (Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart, Slate Double X)
• "St Louis Study Confirms That  IUDs Are the Key to Lowering Teen Pregnancy Rates" (Amanda Marcotte, Slate XX)
• "Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were 'Born Boys'" (Mari Brighe, Autostraddle)

I'll be posting these sorts of lists periodically, once I've collected enough articles.

Sex as a Jam Session

There's something extremely important happening in feminist re-thinkings of the nature of sexual consent. Namely: the idea that there is something seriously wrong with the language of "consent"; that this language embodies a certain model of sexual interaction that is itself part of the problem. The locus of this work is the book "Yes Means Yes!" and an associated blog. There's no way I can spell out all the ideas here. The rough idea is that there is something oppositional about the language of consent and the "commodity model" of sex that underlies it. Person A has something person B wants, and so B asks A's permission to take or borrow or use it. When you see sex that way, you are just asking for people to take or borrow or use when A doesn't give permission.

So, the suggestion is, we should instead see sex as collaboration. The key advantage to thinking this way is that it now follows immediately that rape isn't sex. Period. You can't force someone to collaborate with you.

Sex educator Karen K. B. Chan has produced a (non-explicit) video that promotes this way of thinking about sex. It is absolutely fantastic stuff. Everyone should see this.