Here is the Prezi of the workshop, and here is a link to a wonderful recap/liveblog: http://imaginetoday.net/2011/04/02/momentum-liveblog-part-three/

In fact, Jill’s liveblog recap is better than my notes. Damn girl. You are quite the note taker! Thanks!

In April, on the weekend of my 38th birthday, I will be in Washington [...]]]> Last year, I was sure that discussing safe anal sex procedures in front of famed atheist/evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins at TAM (during a workshop on sexuality) would be the highlight of my speaking career. Now, I am not so sure.

In April, on the weekend of my 38th birthday, I will be in Washington DC presenting a workshop at Momentum, at conference that is “making waves in sexuality, feminism and relationships through new media!” Not only that, but I will be presenting at the same conference as just about every single one of the women I have followed in the sex positive community, including Tristan Taormino, Always Aroused Girl, Anita Wagner, Jenny Block, Dylan Ryan, Carol Queen, Ducky Doolittle, and SUSIE FREAKING BRIGHT!!!!!!!!!!

My workshop:

A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Vanilla Go DownPresenter
Heidi Anderson

Sexual assault prevention has generally been focused on two things: teaching women strategies to avoid being victims (watching your drink, parking in well lit areas) and teaching men that “no means no!” This not only reinforces the “women are the gatekeepers and men are the aggressors” sexual stereotype, but also patronizes, alienates, and makes heterosexist assumptions about the very audience it is intended to reach. In addition, the heavy focus on date rape drugs and stranger assault ignore the reality of what the majority of sexual violence actually looks like.

But what if we approached it from a different perspective? What would happen if we used the opportunity to share a vision of healthy sexuality, rather than using horror stories to scare young people into “good behavior?” What would a consent curriculum based on sexual negotiation techniques practiced in BDSM and non-monogamy look like? Can kink practices make sex safer for everyone?

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This post, Dream Come True – Combining Sex Positivity and Sexual Assault Reduction, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on February 7, 2011.

Fat girl accepts that she is fooling no one into thinking she is a selfless, deep, non-appearance oriented person just because she is fat.  Radical shifts occur.

http://movingtothefront.tumblr.com/

Susie Bright is one of my personal heroes. Always has been, from the first time I saw her on TV as a young teen.

Now she has written about the attack on Craigslist to get it to remove the sex ads from its site:

Craig’s List has removed its Adult Services section from [...]]]>

Susie Bright is one of my personal heroes. Always has been, from the first time I saw her on TV as a young teen.

Now she has written about the attack on Craigslist to get it to remove the sex ads from its site:

Craig’s List has removed its Adult Services section from their bulletin board, under  pressure from a McCarthyist collection of “non-profits” (cough cough) and ambitious law enforcement magistrates.

I think their decision was a tactical retreat—  with the swipe of a claw. I have no professional interest or investment in CL, nor am I privy to their private discussions. But I have a sense of “deju vu” from previous witchhunts, and a clear memory of CL’s origins.

There was one piece of her post that in particular spoke to me, as a lifelong feminist who has spent her entire career working with domestic violence and sexual assault victims:

You won’t find the anti-Porn, anti-Trafficking Activists in the domestic abuse shelter, the rape crisis hotline, the emergency room, the orphanage, the refugee camps. Heavens, no. They have no interest or knowledge of what goes on in the trenches. They are actively fighting sex workers all over the world who have articulated their needs and rights. They don’t want anyone to have any kind of sex they don’t sanction. They are FRAUDS.

Thank you Susie, for continuing to inspire me to this day! Read the entire fantastic post here.

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This post, Susie Bright Breaks Down the Craigslist Sex Ad Fiasco, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on September 17, 2010.

The September issue of The Humanist contains an interview with a woman who is witty, intelligent, a humanist, lover of science, former nurse, a feminist, and just happens to be a porn star.

Marie Hartman graduated with honors from San Francisco State University and is the author or coauthor of several [...]]]>

Nina Hartley

The September issue of The Humanist contains an interview with a woman who is witty, intelligent, a humanist, lover of science, former nurse, a feminist, and just happens to be a porn star.

Marie Hartman graduated with honors from San Francisco State University and is the author or coauthor of several books published by major publishing houses under her stage name, Nina Hartley. She is also the star of more than 600 adult films spanning three decades. In addition, Hartley is a humanist, a proud atheist, and a vocal feminist. . .

The Humanist: I’m curious about your hobbies and education growing up. You mentioned that your grandfather had a PhD in Physics. Were science and medicine an important part of your life?NH: Both of my parents are science folks. My mother was a chemist and statistician for the State Department of Public Health and my dad has a good layman’s understanding of science and biology. I loved all natural science as a child and wanted to be Jane Goodall when I grew up. I especially liked human biology and anatomy. I’m an RN with a BS in nursing and I love science to this day. I keep up with the latest advances in science and enjoy physics, biology, psychology, brain science, and more.

The Humanist: You weren’t raised in a religious home, but one full of values. For the religious, values and religion are synonymous. Could you explain the difference?

NH: We were taught social justice at home. My maternal grandparents were early supporters of civil rights in Alabama, where my mother is from. As secular Jews (my grandfather refused Bar Mitzvah) they were already a minority, but when my grandfather turned to socialism for its sense of social justice it put the family in jeopardy and they were subject to harassment by the Ku Klux Klan. My grandfather almost lost his life to goons.

This sense of social justice carried over into my parents’ marriage, and I grew up participating in civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations. There was never any mention of God as a reason to do right. It was just the right thing to do. I feel strongly to this day that right and religion don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

As a believer in evolution, we can “take the best” from religion and “leave the rest.” We no longer need the story of “God” to explain why the rain falls, or the wind blows, or spring comes again each year. I’m comfortable with there being things about people or the world that I can’t know, or that we don’t know yet. I’m fine with life as we know it being random or an “accidental” result of chemical and physical processes.

For the full text of this truly delightful article, go to The Humanist website.

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This post, Thoughtful Intercourse, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on September 10, 2010.

A friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) recently responded to a blurb I posted about Gail Dine’s book, “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality”. Being a scientist, and a man well schooled in porn, he quickly decided that the best way to see just how HORRIBLE porn is would be [...]]]>

A friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) recently responded to a blurb I posted about Gail Dine’s book, “Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality”. Being a scientist, and a man well schooled in porn, he quickly decided that the best way to see just how HORRIBLE porn is would be to look at what videos were getting the most views.

“The most popular acts depicted in internet porn include vaginal, oral and anal penetration by three or more men at the same time,” (Gail Dines)

Really? That sets my skeptical alarm bells off…

Lucky for me (although not for the research I SHOULD be doing), the Internet also provides a site for a simple and sorta scientific test of this claim: YouPorn.com (the most popular pornography website on the internet, and the 49th most popular of any kind, according to Wikipedia.) Youporn, like YouTube, hosts user uploaded material, and is user rated (with total views tabulated) and categorized. It provides a fascinating portal into the real world interests of actual internet porn consumers.

The results?

There are a total of 783 videos in the ‘double penetration’ category and 3,285 in the ‘facial’ category. The most watched video in each category was watched ~8 and 14 million times, respectively (although the facial category is a little misleading, since, judging by video titles, the act in question seems to be incidental in at least the top few–a video may be slotted into multiple categories).

How does this compare to videos in “traditional” categories? Well, ‘couples’ has 2,097 videos, with the highest viewed gaining a whopping

38 million views. (It should be noted, that it is possible that ‘couples’ videos ALSO contain facial scenes, but the number of participants excludes DP.) So, judging from the data, it seems straight up sex is many times more prevalent and popular than Dines’ dreaded multiple penetrative sex.

And facials? Well, they are a genuinely popular contemporary sexual meme. (Although, I note that there are 8,509 videos in the ‘blowjob’ category, so facials make up a minority–38%–of the blowjob content on the site). Perhaps, like peeing, the newness of the act in popular pornography makes it attractive, and it will cycle through, like all trends. I don’t know. I do know that precisely because the act is inherently mildly degrading, it can be incorporated into empowering, consensual hetero or homosexual sex that involves an element of powerplay (as many relationships do). (See Dan Savage for a more thorough unpacking of this topic.)

Now some editorializing:

I think there is real reason (and sociological data) to be cautious at the effect that pervasive, unrealistic sexual and body-shape imagery is having on our culture, and on the expectations of those in the “porn generation” in particular. But at least the YouPorn data suggest that much of the explosion of pornography is simply channeling age- old, vanilla fantasy, e.g., ‘masturbation’ has 4,747 videos. There is also evidence for a continuing mainstreaming of women’s sexual pleasure: ‘cunnilingus’ has 2,086 videos, with, surprisingly and happily, a straight-up instructional video in this category logging more views (8.13 million) as the most popular double penetration video.

Science. It works, bitches.

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This post, A Skeptic Looks at Porn – What ARE People Watching?, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on August 23, 2010.

It started off similar to what I was saying:

I remember my first encounters with the sex positivity/sex positive movement, especially through the internet. I remember loving [...]]]> After my most recent post on sex positivity, blog friend/mentor/hero aag tweeted the link to a post on madame thursday called “sex positivity and other lies”.

It started off similar to what I was saying:

I remember my first encounters with the sex positivity/sex positive movement, especially through the internet. I remember loving the basic principle of the thing: “Sex is awesome! No one should be ashamed of their sexuality or wanting sex! Let’s bring it out into the open so we can all enjoy a healthy, happy relationship with sex!”

Yeah! Rock on.  Sex positive is awesome!!!! And then . . .

But there was this lie in the whole thing, and the lie was told by blog after blog, webpage after webpage that talked a great game about how we can be open about sex, but seemed to equate sex with the nude bodies of thin, conventionally attractive, blonde white women in male-gaze centric pornography, as though if I really pushed myself to enjoy such titles as Biker Bitches 5 and clinically lit photoshoots of a woman with her legs in improbably acrobatic positions, I’d be making the world a better place.

Oh yeah. That part.

People have been celebrating the sexualities of attractive white people for centuries. In fact, I’d say if there were ever a time when people’s discomfort towards sex dissipates and they’re willing to accept, tolerate, and engage with sexual content is WHEN it comes in the form of these bodies, these pre-approved forms.

But what about the queer porn?

Worse yet, so many queer oriented blogs are so white, able, and cis that it hurts. I’m a pansexual/cisgender/cissexual person, and when I see these blogs I see the white, Western version of queerdom splattered across the screen.

Oh god. She is right. Jesus.

If you’re sex positive and you’re not making an active effort to include and celebrate all kinds of sexuality from all kinds of people? You’re a fucking liar. There it is. You’re a liar.

Because sex positivity and body positivity and anti-racism and fat acceptance and the disability movement and queer positivity and womanism are part of the same thing.

So I say FUCK sex positivity. I want sex inclusivity.

I think we just got schooled. I know I’m taking notes.

Thank you madame thursday.



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This post, Sex Positive? Or Sex INCLUSIVE??, originally appeared on The Fat One in the Middle on August 16, 2010.