The Purity Myth at TPMCafe Book Club
Hey y'all, just thought you might want to check out the awesome book club that TPMCafe put together on The Purity Myth.
Lila at TPM got a great group of women together to discuss the book, and I couldn't be more excited to hear their thoughts: Hanne Blank, Katha Pollitt, Emily Bazelon, Amanda Marcotte, Echidne of the Snakes, Jennifer Baumgardner, and Leora Tanenbaum.
My post introducing the book is here, and Leora, Echidne, Amanda, and Hanne have already weighed in. Make sure to check it out!
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Very cool! I am reading my copy right now. It's especially surreal reading about it while I watch my 12 year old daughter and her friends grapple with the issues of "purity" and "virginity". A lot of her friends have promise rings, even the ones who are not especially religious. I had to pull her from health class last semester when they had a fear-inducing, anti-choice sponsored "abstinence-only" seminar. (ironically she got to hang with the kids who parents were extremely religious and didn't want them discussing sexuality *at all* in school, which was kinda an interesting experience for her).
My daughter and I are talking about the issue of sexuality and what defines her and makes her a moral person quite a lot lately, her response to her friend's views & rings "it is really creepy". Although I am glad we are raising her in an environment where we discuss social, political, moral issues openly and productively - I wonder how the differences between her experiences and her friends experiences will ultimately shape her...
Anyway thanks for the link, I am off to TPM...
firs excuse my english
to KristinSue : In my humble opinion and with all respect i think the reason why your TWELVE year old daughter told you that purity and virginity are "creepy" is that she perfectly understands that it's what you want her to say .
I have to admit that it is very unfortunate that some religious persons think that promoting abstinence requires to not give any information about sexuality and contraception.
So i think that the mistake you instilled in the mind of your daughter is that because there is some pro absitnence familys that make the mistake to think that ignorance about sexuality is a good thing then that means that virginity is a concept that promotes ignorance and thus is a CREEPY idea .
Abstinence in ITSELF is has NOTHING creepy . It does NOT necessarily goes hand in hand with the promotion of ignorance .
I am looking forward to reading the book, BUT:
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but why are there no women of color on the panel?
I didn't organize the panel (TPM did), so I can't answer your question fully, but I do know that Dorothy Roberts and Loretta Ross were invited to participate.
My copy of "The Purity Myth" JUST arrived today... I can't WAIT to read it :)
OK, I just started reading it, and it's awesome.
One minor thing, though - in the author bio at the end, it says that Jessica 'received' her master's degree, when she in fact EARNED it.
I read it in less then a week - I couldn't put it down!
I am waiting for my copy to arrive from Amazon soon! Can't wait to read it.
I went to the book store in my small southern college town, figures they didn't have it. But it will be here in a week and I cant wait to dive into it.
I'm currently reading it. There's a part I wanted to comment on so I'll do it here. When you mention that some people claimed that comprehensive sex education teaches kids how to give each other orgasms. You know, I had a dream that happened. Did they have the same dream and were unable to separate it from reality?
LOL! I just read that part, too, and was thinking, "What the hell is wrong with that?" I had accurate, non-judgmental comprehensive sex ed back in the dark ages, and my one complaint is that everything was so clinical - nothing about pleasure was ever mentioned.
Well, in my dream it was that they had us have sex with each other to teach us how to have pleasurable sex. That's the image I got and maybe what they thought.
Mine is on order from Amazon as well, and I can't wait to dive in. It never ceases to amaze me the reaction you get when you suggest that a woman's worth isn't related to the number of sexual partners she has or hasn't had.
Things took a pretty ugly turn in the comments on a post I wrote about Steve Harvey's "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man." I deleted a few that I felt were just over the top abusive, but you can still see most of them here: The cow is not for sale
barnes and noble in my town ran out, but it's on order! i should get it this week! weee!
All it really shows growth of quantity of the literature on feminism in English and reflects well-known, but nevertheless the interesting fact, that when the point of issue becomes clear and gradually is accepted by a society increases both quantity of publications, and quantity of their types. As an original trend the most reading the countries in the world - very laudable edition...