Recently in Sex Category

Good article, not-so-good accompanying picture.

After the Red Cross conducted a census of sex workers in an effort to curb the spread of HIV, authorities Bauchi, NIgeria identified 320 women from the study and started to arrest them.

Our correspondent says the Sharia commission seems to have been prompted to act by the perception that it was unable to enforce a ban on commercial sex workers in the state.

The Sharia commission normally liaises with the police, he says, but this time they acted directly, using their own security force to arrest the sex workers.

It is not clear how many of the women have already been arrested.

They could face flogging or prison terms.

Following the arrests, the Red Cross has halted its census.

Horrifying that an attempt to improve women's health could be turned around and used to punish them. What I want to know is how they got a hold of the census?

Thanks to Matt for the link.

Anything that's going near your delicates shouldn't have any razor-like abilities. Seems pretty logical to me. But don't tell that to the creators of the Womaniser, the sex toy that opens up to reveal it's a shaver. *Shudder*

If a vibrator is going to be a transformer, there has to be something better it can change into...any ideas?

Story and pic via Shiny Shiny

Via NPR's "What's the New What?" according to Youth Radio, sex without condoms shows a longer term commitment for youth, as opposed to a walk down the aisle.

Listen here.

My immediate response is of course, "oh HELL no," but I get what they are saying and I respect that. I just want to hear what some young women have to say about it. And how many of these non-condom=commitment situations work out. I do think this is one of those work arounds to heteronormativity. Youth these days and especially working class youth of color don't benefit from straight privilege the way middle class Americans do, so new symbolism replaces old types. And I of course don't think you have to get married to have a baby. But is it as symbolic for young women?

Thoughts?

Tracy Clark-Flory has a really interesting piece up at Salon about the chastity industrial complex that's so pervasive these days--abstinence only education, a slew of books about the "dangers" of hooking up, and purity balls among the primary culprits. I really like Clark-Flory's take because she's not afraid of getting personal.

I'm a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation -- I've had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships -- and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I've found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships.

So many of the people arguing that "casual" sex (what they really mean is pre-marital) hurts young women rely on stories from college girls about how sucky it is not to have a boyfriend or how having "friends with benefits" made them depressed. So it's nice to see some anecdotal battle-back!

Some of you may already know that I'm working on a book about this culture of purity and chastity, and how it's America's obsession with virginity, not Girls Gone Wild and hooking up, that's fucking young women up. And Clark-Flory's piece really gets to some important themes:

[P]erhaps young women are putting feminist ideals of equality into sex by refusing shame and claiming the traditionally male side of the stud/slut double standard. Also, the idea that a woman has to test a man by withholding sex -- as many abstinence advocates actually argue -- relies on a paradigm of inequality in which women are forced to rely on such desperate power plays. It isn't that feminism has taught women to have sex like men, as the argument commonly goes, but that withholding sex isn't women's sole superpower; coitus isn't women's kryptonite.

I'd just add (because it's all I'm thinking about these days!) that there are two things that really, really get to me about the chastity crap.* The first is how it's assumed that women don't like sex, but that we're just using it to get what we really want--husbands and stability. Women liking sex never enters the equation with purity-pushers; if we're having pre-marital sex we're either self-hating or fooling ourselves. And if we do actually enjoy sex (the horror!), then we're simply bad people--sluts and whores the lot of us! And that's the second thing that bugs me--how these books put a moral value on sex, specifically the sex that women have. They've taken the joy out of sex, and commodified it (I'm "saving" it! I'm "worth" the wait!) more than any Girls Gone Wild commercial ever could.

*And no, I'm not saying being chaste is crap, but the way that it's presented to young women as an either or--chastity/promiscuity, good/bad--is incredibly crappy.

If you missed the New York Times op-ed this last weekend on the "sex test" at the Olympics game, be sure to read it here. Jennifer Finney Boylan, an English professor at Colby, analyzes the Olympic history of testing whether athletes were "legitimately" female. The Olympic committee's struggle to define female--by chromosome? by secondary sex characteristics? by genitalia?--is a fascinating microcosm of our larger societal struggle. Boylan writes:

Maybe...Olympic officials have to learn to live with ambiguity, and make peace with a world in which things are not always quantifiable and clear.
That, if you ask me, would be a good thing, not just for Olympians, but for us all.

Beautifully, beautifully put.

Last week I got an email from the Family Research Council containing a WARNING from Big Tony Perkins about "a series of videos" produced by a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Washington state that were "so revolting that members of my staff were visibly shaken."

What scary reproductive health topics were so disgusting? Were they close-up videos of STIs? Images of two men kissing? Even worse! They featured a girl talking, without shame, about touching herself! Gasp! If you can bear it, watch the offending video (I think it's pretty work-safe. But, Family Research Council warns, "the material is highly inappropriate for adults."):

The great irony, to me, is that this video is promoting abstinence from partner-sex. Conservative groups like the Family Research Council are usually all about that message. Apparently not when it means women are enjoying their bodies without shame.

Transcript after the jump, along with a special video dedication to Tony Perkins.

When my friend Jen visited me last week, I decided to take her by Toys in Babeland. She once worked in a not so feminist sex toy shop out west and I wanted her to see how the feminists do it. As she was discussing the elusive G spot with the counter person, I wandered over and the woman, who I would later learn was Amber (the amazing human rights masters student featuring awesome tattoos) said, "Hey, aren't you Courtney from feministing?"

I've been recognized in a few places in my day, but I have to say that this one topped the list. You know you're doing something right when the woman who teaches perfect strangers where their g spots are sees you and smiles in recognition. Thanks Amber. Keep on keepin' on.

Are you sick of only wealthy women being able to afford "designer vaginas"? Well worry no more! Now hating your genitals is easy, affordable, and comes in packaging that looks like a cross between My Little Pony and White-Out!

Liquid Virgin "work to temporarily tighten the walls of the vagina." The drops also contain Potassium Alum, which according to the website (and I'm super curious as to why they felt like sharing this fact), often appears in cartoons: "The character eats some Alum and their mouth is shown to pucker up. Often seen on Tom & Jerry."

With the Tom & Jerry seal of vaginal approval, how could I say no?

Via Feministe.

Sitting in on the interview with creators of the Midwest Teen Sex Show. They are awesome. When asked why they started MTSS they said, "We started by doing something that was funny and entertain ourselves." It has turned into one of the most effective forms of harm reduction around young people and sex, along with educational and honest.

The moderator asks, "Why is humor so effective in trying to reach this audience?" They reply, "Sex is funny, repackaging info in a way people will listen. Not talking down to kids (and sometimes) we are making fun of them. We are building a relationship with youth through humor."

In my opinion everything should have more humor and MTSS is a great use of humor while putting out information for young people around sex and sexuality. Because of the nature of their content they have gotten negative feedback along with positive, but hey, isn't is always like that.

When asked about their favorite episode they chose this the older boyfriend.

They also gave a Feministing shout out from the stage! Thanks Nikol and Guy. We love you!

From Janice Turner, who teaches Power of Purity classes in Alabama:

"Girls give in to sex not because they want sex - it's like a hug. If they can get that from their fathers, they won't need it from a boyfriend."

Oh, puke. There are lots of things I'd like to get from my dad - a phone call, advice about what to get my mom for her birthday, a run in the park with our dogs - but some stand-in for fucking definitely isn't one of them.

Dowd has stooped to a new low. Paraphrasing a priest on advice on what to look for in a husband. I guess I can see on some level, since marriage is frequently a religious thing, but in general, this gets a no. And by the way, apparently we should be looking for man-robots that have never experienced any trauma or disruption in their life.

Father Pat Connor, a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordentown, N.J., has spent his celibate life — including nine years as a missionary in India — mulling connubial bliss. His decades of marriage counseling led him to distill some “mostly common sense” advice about how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness.

Keep reading.

Oh my, even I can't comment. I just want to clarify, that it is not that I completely disagree with this advice. I just think it is unrealistic and feeds into those crazy ideals we have to internalize and then adds more pressure on our relationships. And I do think that his not having experience does effect how much of an expert he can be. I don't think you have to have experienced things just to comment on them, but I do think relationships is one of those things that is frequently case by case and very much based on experience.

What a dick. A Boston Herald op-ed covers this "Horribles parade" in MA:

At this year’s Horribles parade in Beverly Farms, the biggest laughs - and loudest complaints - were inspired by a float mocking the “Give It Up” girls of Gloucester High. Ladies from “The Fahm” adorned themselves in fake baby bumps and danced to “I Got It From My Momma.” Guys tossed condoms and waved signs rhyming words in a decidedly family-unfriendly manner.

Pretty horrendous, no? Apparently, this guy thinks it's appropriate to shame the pregnant students at Gloucester High:

..Other communities and families send a far clearer message condemning teen sex. There are 15-year-olds who know that if they make the wrong choice, they will be greeted with embarrassment and disappointment, not on-campus day care.

When the same girl shows up at the school clinic for five pregnancy tests in one month, shouldn’t somebody be mocking her for it? In fact, isn’t promoting shame through mockery our civic duty? (Emphasis mine)

He also condemns comprehensive sex ed supporters for rejecting the use of shame as a value and tactic to woo kids away from sex.

I'm actually glad the author published this, because at least he's exposing the truth by standing proud to what the abstinence-only movement feeds on.

Talk about shame.

h/t to Emmeline.

Time magazine has a story about a Massachusetts high school that has apparently started a trend among their girls – to be mommies:

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year.

After some digging, school officials found that almost half of the pregnant students had actually made a pact to get pregnant and raise their kids together. But the school still isn’t willing to offer contraception to their students. And Time implies that meeting teen mothers’ needs in the school may be the problem:

The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.(Emphasis mine)

So is that the solution? Stigmatizing teen mothers and denying them an education? Blaming the prevalence of teen pregnancy in a school on sex ed and family-friendly school policies and denying birth control to sexually active students is definitely not going to help this situation.

The school’s nurse practitioner Kim Daly and the school’s clinic medical director Dr. Brian Orr actually attempted to get permission to offer birth control to the students, but were shut down with what seems like a "How dare you??" response. Mayor Carolyn Kirk said, "Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children." What the mayor doesn’t seem to understand is that it wouldn’t be their decision at all, but the students’. Both Daly and Orr resigned in protest.

There’s obviously a lot to address at this school and in the community, but the focus of blame is in the wrong direction.

Thanks to all the readers who alerted us to this story!

All hail Dr. Sue! (NSFW.)

Transcript after the jump for those who are at work and can't listen to audio of a 60-something woman imitating sex noises.

I was so excited to go see Sex and the City. Like most feminists with any shred of race or class analysis, I have always had a love hate relationship with Sex and the City. There were things about that show that were so god awful that I literally had to tune them out completely to enjoy the show. As a woman of color inundated by media that fails to ever acknowledge who I am or that what I am is valid, I am used to this type of spectatorship. And Sex and the City has always been one of those shows that always made it worth it, because for better or for worse, the show always made me feel better, especially if I was feeling heartbroken (which has been often!).

So naturally I was most excited to go see the movie with two of my best gal pals. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my lofty expectations. Disappointment would be an understatement. Did I laugh? I sure did, but I am stupid like that sometimes. And honestly, I couldn't tell if I was laughing at the movie or with it for most of it.

Fun facts about your clitoris:

• The clitoris rivals the penis in size.
• "The vaginal wall is, in fact, the clitoris."
• "If you lift the skin off the vagina on the side walls, you get the bulbs of the clitoris - triangular, crescental masses of erectile tissue."
• [T]he clitoris is more than just its glans - the "little hill"
• "There's nothing quite like the shape of a clitoris."
• "The glans are dense with nerve endings and receptors - all the vibration and sensation is there."
• The bulk of it is shaped like a pyramid.
• Its base forms the external genitalia or vulva; its triangular "walls" are wrapped around the urine-carrying tube known as the urethra and the vagina.
• When aroused, the whole structure becomes engorged.
• "They're designed to stimulate a much larger area."

No wonder, after reading this, Andrew Sullivan claims "clitoris envy."

Click here for an extremely educational video on the clitoris (internal and external).

If you missed the documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox, you have to check it out. It is an amazing film about the development of a feminist conscience, the connection between individual courage and community change, and sex education policy.

You can also check out Shelby's current work, traveling the country and speaking her truth about sex, feminism, and America. She's getting on the blog train.

We have written about hymenoplasty before. It is when women undergo a surgical procedure to restore their hymen and create the illusion of virginity, including the "bleeding" that should occur on that fated wedding night. So I suppose it shouldn't be a shock that so many women in Europe are opting for this surgery in the Muslim community. In discussing the fate of one woman who has undergone the surgery the NYTimes reports,

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

Hmmm, I don't know the motivation to feature this particular quote, but I think being a virgin is something that is heralded in most communities around the world, not just the Muslim community. Women are often scrutinized for their virginity and chastised, shamed, insulted, etc., if they do not have "it" come wedding night.

According to the article it has been noted that there has been an increase in the number of Muslim women wanting "certificates of virginity" because now they are in Europe and having more sex. Perhaps it is the shift in setting and through access to new norms around sexuality, but I don't buy it. I think it is a stretch to suggest that due to European influence and its supposed sexually free environment Muslim women are having more sex. That is a leap, I think they were always having sex, but working around the consequences in different ways.

Hymenoplasty is becoming common in many parts of the world. And while I think it is good to know it is happening, let's not forget the underlying message. While we might want to believe a sexual revolution happened in the Western world that the oppressed women of the world are still catching up to, it is actually untrue. Puritanical sex ethics reign supreme in many parts of the world, including Europe and the United States. And it is not about being able to have sex or not, it is the way it makes a man feel on his wedding night to know that another man has had sex with her. It is the control of female sexuality pure and simple because if she did it before she has already been used by another man, she has become property of the one before, as opposed to the one she married. It creates that inexplicable fear and anxiety that is often the basis of misogyny.

Understanding this, we do have to keep in mind that women are often put in great harm is they can't prove that they are virgins on their wedding night. We can't blame them for self-preservation.

Only in a world this patriarchal is there an expensive, painful and dangerous practice for women to undergo that will create an illusion of her virginity to indulge the male ego.

For a more humorous take the youth at YO! via yoblogger take on this topic.

A new study from the CDC shows that teen sex may be creeping up, while condom use is decreasing, The Washington Post reports.

The new report did not examine the reason for the trends, but experts said there could be many causes, including rising complacency about AIDS, changing attitudes about sex and pregnancy, shifts in ethnic diversity and the possibility that there will always be some teens who cannot be convinced to wait.

"The truth is that as a field we really don't know what the answer is," [Sarah S. Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy] said. "There are lots of theories: the economy, classroom education, the messages kids are getting in the digital world where they spend their time. They probably all play a role."

But the new figures renewed the heated debate about sex education classes that focus on abstinence until marriage, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey and have come under increasing criticism that they are ineffective.

In other words, teaching kids that condoms cause cancer and don't work may be mucking things up. (Not to mention raising a generation that thinks bleach and Mountain Dew are acceptable contraceptives.)

"Since we've started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity," said John Santelli, chairman of the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University. "The other piece of it is abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it's not surprising, if that's the message young people are getting, that we're seeing condom use start to decrease."

Abstinence proponents' response? It's Carrie's fault!

"It's highly ironic this comes out right after the launch of the biggest movie of the season, which is 'Sex in the City.' The No. 1 movie that all teenage girls want to see right now is 'Sex in the City,' " said Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council. "Our culture continues to tell them the way to be cool is to dress provocatively and to consider non-marital sexual activity to be normative."

Never mind that the gals of Sex in the City are middle aged and, you know, fictional. Oh, and non-marital sexual activity is normative. Time for a new sound bite, perhaps?

For more information on comprehensive sex education (you know, the kind that works), check out Advocates for Youth and SIECUS.

For those of you who know my penchant for feminist sex shops, I'm excited to announce that Babeland just opened a new store in Park Slope Brooklyn. I'm also a little bit sad, since that happens to be my old neighborhood. And now I live in a city totally devoid of feminist sex shops. Sigh. But yay for Park Slope! I also heard a rumor that when the store was being planned, the moms of the neighborhood (this place is yuppy stroller city) protested. But this post makes me think otherwise. So if you're like me and don't have a feminist sex shop nearby, check them out online!

How many times have you heard that - whether it was on some terrible Dr. Phil episode or urban myths about "rainbow parties" - American teens were having tons of oral sex because they don't consider it "real" sex? I've certainly heard a lot about it. Turns out, it's not really so accurate.

Contrary to widespread belief, teenagers do not appear to commonly engage in oral sex as a way to preserve their virginity, according to the first study to examine the question nationally.

The analysis of a federal survey of more than 2,200 males and females aged 15 to 19, released yesterday, found that more than half reported having had oral sex. But those who described themselves as virgins were far less likely to say they had tried it than those who had had intercourse.

The report, from The Guttmacher Institute, notes that if teens are having oral sex, they're probably having vaginal sex as well. Of course abstinence-proponents are using the study to argue that virginity-pledgers aren't big oral- and anal-sex enthusiasts after all. (The fact that they're less likely to use contraception doesn't bug them that much, I guess.) But virginities aside, the real point of the study is that debunks these panicked myths about promiscuous teens.

The study's lead author, Laura Lindberg, says the study "does not suggest that teens are hooking up around oral sex with lots of partners."

In fact, the report showed that most teens who were engaging in oral sex - 67 percent - had only one partner. Certainly throws a wrench in all those media-created scare tactics about slutty teens. (I think it's also worth mentioning that the sensationalized media stories always seem to focus on girls giving oral sex to boys, when studies have actually shown that reciprocity is the norm. And, naturally, same-sex relationships are dismissed altogether.)

Parents in Schenectady, NY are up in arms because the sex education in their school district dares to talk about sexuality as if it was a good thing. The nerve!

Several Fonda-Fultonville school district residents on Tuesday criticized the use of a Planned Parenthood educator to conduct sex education classes for seventh- and eighth-graders beginning today.

The parents said they had collected 163 signatures of residents opposing the introduction of Planned Parenthood materials or organization-developed instruction in the school.

...Deborah Young said she started researching Planned Parenthood education guidelines and found passages that suggested masturbation is a source of pleasure.

“I went in, I could not believe what I saw,� Young said. (Emphasis mine)

Seriously, how dare an educator tell the truth about sexuality! Where's the shaming and misinformation about how sex is dirty, wrong and bad?!

Despite the fact that the PP educator has already been instructed not to mention abortion (at all), people are still concerned.

Dr. Michael Rochet, a physician, said the school district should search for alternatives for Planned Parenthood programming because he believes the instruction will facilitate curiosity among students.

“It will lead to more sexual activity,� he said.

Sure it will. Never mind that this particular county has the second-highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, much better that they stick to abstinence only education and pretend they've done their job.

Thanks to Liz for the link.

The New York Times has caught on to the daddy-knows-best-for-your-hymen horror shows that are purity balls.

The first two hours of the gala passed like any somewhat awkward night out with parents, the men doing nearly all the talking and the girls struggling to cut their chicken.

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.�

The gesture signaled that the fathers would guard their daughters from what evangelicals consider a profoundly corrosive “hook-up culture.� The evening, which alternated between homemade Christian rituals and giddy dancing, was a joyous public affirmation of the girls’ sexual abstinence until they wed.

Good times! I guess if your dad is going to be pledging ownership over your body, you might as well get some "giddy dancing" in! There's also a creepy slide show to boot.

Picture from The New York Times.

New York currently has no designated funding stream for comprehensive sex education in schools, but the Healthy Teens Act will make information available to fund sex education in the state. This means school districts, BOCES, school-based health centers and community-based organizations would be able to apply for grants to develop and implement programs that will give students real sex ed.

So if you're a New Yorker, let Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno know that New York schools need support for comprehensive sex ed.

Via Choice Words

Sad to say that 77 year old Dr. Sue Johansen will be ending her Oxygen network show this Sunday evening.

Best quote ever:

77-year-old Sue said, "It's been part of my life and I just love it. I'm going to miss writing scripts. I'm going to miss having to read books. I'm going to miss playing with sex toys."

Who wouldn't love having a grandmother who says things like that? We'll miss you Dr. Sue.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the sex worker in the Spitzer scandal, has filed a lawsuit against Girls Gone Wild, which notes that Dupre was underage when she exposed herself on video.

GGW founder and known asshole Joe Francis' response: "But I think it's ironic that she charged Gov. Spitzer $2,000 for sex and she wants to charge me 10 million for taking some naked pictures of her...I feel like I'm getting a raw deal."

Warms the heart, no?

Thanks to Hilary for the link.

Contributed by Nancy Gruver, the author of “How To Say It to Girls,� Founder of the international publication, New Moon for Girls and CEO of New Moon Girl Media, Inc.

Cross-posted at Girl Media Maven.

You can imagine that the sexed up photos Vanity Fair published of Miley Cyrus have been a topic of discussion at New Moon, just as on [the organization's blog]. Thanks for all the thoughtful comments so far on the topic - they're well worth reading.

Kathleen Kvern and I were talking about how the prevalence of sexualized images of girls in our public culture creates an atmosphere of impersonal, silent, constant harassment for girls.

Like an iron grip in a velvet glove, the hypersexualization of girls in the media holds actual girls hostage under the pretense of entertaining and informing them. And, like in the Stockholm Syndrome, it's not surprising when girls start to identify with the all-powerful culture that's holding them hostage.

It feels more subtle than verbal or physical harassment, but that's part of its stealthy effect. It's like a neverending buzz in the background that you try to ignore but can't. Gradually, sub-consciously, more and more of your energy and attention is spent on trying to ignore the buzz.

Girls are barraged by sexualized images all around them and everyone they come into contact with in daily life is also surrounded by those images. The images viscerally teach "the importance of being sexy" if you are female. The images teach all of us that acting sexy is how girls/women can have power without being rejected as domineering or bitchy (see media coverage of Hillary Clinton for the way "non-sexy" female power is conveyed).

Now imagine the extreme confusion girls feel when they are surrounded by images promoting the power of female sexiness and at the same time are told that it's bad for girls to be interested in sex, to act sexy themselves, to dress sexy, etc. The real message being conveyed, of course, is that girls shouldn't want to be powerful.

The conflicting messages about personal power create an epic inner struggle for girls that stays with us into adulthood, sapping creative energy and focus that would be better used in changing the culture and making our world a better place for everyone.

I believe media oppression of girls and women via hypersexualiztion is one of the most serious barriers standing between us and full equality. We need to break that barrier down and release the power it's holding back. That's why I work with girls' media and bringing girls' voices to the world at New Moon.

How would you do it?

Note: The above post does not necessarily represent the opinions of Feministing or its bloggers.

From a recent performance at The Whitney Biennial. Photo by Eduardo Aparicio.

Coco Fusco is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and writer. She is the author of English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas, and editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (with Brian Wallis). Her work on military interrogation was selected for the 2008 Whitney Biennial.

"In the guise of a CIA manual, Coco Fusco's provocative A Field Guide for Female Interrogators offers an unflinching look at women's role in the military and at America's use of torture in the War on Terror"-- (from the book's back cover copy).

Here's Coco...

This is vile.

Now that Senator David Vitter is likely to get a pass for this past summer's scandal with having a connection to the "D.C. Madam" prostitution ring, prosecutors are having their day in court with D.C. Madam and 15 other women who worked with her in a pointless , slut-shaming witch hunt.

Prosecutors are making the women recount sexual experiences with their clients, condescendingly poking and prodding into personal and irrelevant details. Prosecutor Catherine Connelly even asked DC Madam:

'Did you specifically discuss what happened when you went in the shower?' the prosecutor wanted to know.

The witness explained, 'I was having sex.'

'What would happen if you were menstruating?' Connelly asked.

Because a lady's bleeding has everything to do with money laundering! For this, women's careers will be ruined; a young naval officer on the stand yesterday was put on leave from the navy after being forced to talk about when she was "aggressive" or "submissive" with a client.

And this is just the beginning. Over 100 other previous sex workers will also be publicly named.

We all know who should really be ashamed here.

While I was perusing around the blog for The American Virgin - a film in the works by the woman who brought you I Was a Teenage Feminist - I found quite a gem. Trixie featured this amazing "Virgins are hot" shirt being sold at a Heritage website. They're like the guru of abstinence-only ed, marriage-initiative (for straights only!) programs that tell women to get back in the kitchen and various other fun anti-feminist dribble.

But really and truly, my day wasn't made until I saw this shirt on the right, featured on the same site. Wowza! We're virgins or wives. I know what I'm wearing to this year's purity ball!

My beaver is not to be compared to a beaver! (I keeeed). But really, I don't know about that thing.

via.

Thanks to Dave for the link.

If you didn't catch the New York Times Magazine piece, "Students of Virginity", make sure to check it out. It serves as a good reminder as to why the abstinence-only, modesty, chastity, or whatever they're calling it at the moment, movement is bad for women.

The piece - which examines the abstinence movement in ivy league colleges - focuses mostly Harvard student Janie Fredell, an outspoken member and speaker with True Love Revolution. What I found interesting is that Fredell tries to explain her penchant for virginity-worship using a feminist analysis:

“People just don’t get it,� Fredell said. “Everyone thinks we’re trying to promote this idea of the meek little virgin female.� She said she was doing no such thing. “I care deeply for women’s rights,� she said...She had awakened to the wage gap, to forced sterilization and female genital mutilation — to the different ways that men have, she said, of controlling women. One of these was sexual. Fredell had seen it often in her own life — men pushing for sex, she said, just to “have something to say in the locker room,� women feeling pressured to have sex in order to maintain a relationship. The more she studied and learned, the more Fredell came to realize that women suffer from having premarital sex, “due to a cultural double standard,� she said, “which devalues women for their sexual pasts and glorifies men for theirs.�

Okay...but isn't the problem the double standard - not the sex? (Shameless plug alert.) If we don't like that women "suffer" from sexual double standards, how is not having sex fighting back? Seems more like giving up to me. Of course, Fredell also frames her views with the idea that it's just men who want or "push" for sex and uses bad science to boot - but that's a whole other post.

Jill hits on the nail on the head:

I can recognize that it is hard to remain abstinent, especially in the face of a very sexualized culture. I appreciate and applaud the personal strength of individuals who decide abstinence in the best choice for them. But what I can’t support is the constant attacks on sexually active people. People who have sex do not feel a constant need to tell abstinent people that their human dignity has been compromised, or that they’re dirty, or that they are secretly unhappy, or that they’re headed for total life ruin.

Indeed. It also doesn't help Fredell's "feminist" argument that abstinence-proponents rely on the virgin-whore dichotomy to shame women into being chaste.

It’s amazing how two contraceptive ads can be on such opposite sides of the respectrum. (Yes, I totally just made up that word.)

I posted a while back on Trojan’s commercial launching their “Evolve� campaign that I was a bit wary of, but now I’m really digging what they’re trying to do. Their new widely released ad uses the recent study showing that 1 in 4 teenage girls have an sexually transmitted infection (STI), with the statement, “We can do better than this! We can evolve the way we approach sexual health in our country.�

Then we have Durex.

According to All Diva Media, the text says something along the lines of, “There are better things to hit.� Who needs to talk about a sexual health crisis when we have references to sexual violence to make!

Thanks to Kory for the link!

This is too gross. An online game, Miss Bimbo, encourages girls (as in under 10 years old) to buy their avatars plastic surgery - face lifts, boob jobs, you name it - in order to be the "hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world." Yeah.

Children are given a naked virtual character to look after. They compete against other players to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing. They are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills.

Perhaps even worse than the sexist and dangerous messages being sent to young women, is the cavalier response of the Miss Bimbo creators (both men, btw).

[Chris Evans says,] "But there are lots of positive lessons that replicate messages in real life."

While feeding your bimbo too much chocolate has added virtual pounds to the animated girls' hips, feeding her fruits and vegetables will improve her health, Evans points out.

That and diet pills, apparently. Evans also claims that the game is just aiming to be realistic: "The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them, just reflecting real life." You know, the kind of real life where nine year-olds get boob jobs. Charming.

So I read this quote in a Newsweek article about why few female politicians get caught cheating on their husbands:

Some insist it can be explained by basic biology. ___________ says men "stow their brains in their crotches. Women do seem to approach work differently. And women tend to regard sex differently. They like to at least like the person."

Fill in the blank. Any guesses as to who is advancing this perspective, common in abstinence-only education, that all men are savage sex-obsessed beasts and all women value emotional connections? Charlotte Allen, perhaps? Abstinence-only crazy lady Leslee Unruh? Or maybe all-purpose anti-feminist commentator Phyllis Schlafly?

Nope, it was feminist author and activist Robin Morgan. Wow. I'm going to go out on a limb and say many, many feminists (myself included) disagree with her on these points.

Shockingly, Newsweek follows the quote with a reasonable response that takes into account the sexual double standard:

But surely part of the reason is that, historically, women who stray have suffered more than men who do. Men are often forgiven more easily—their dalliances are considered a lapse, an uncontrollable urge. Gunnbjorg Lavoll, a psychiatrist at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, says the assumption that men will be "naughty" is built into phrases like "boys will be boys." "Do you hear 'girls will be girls'?" asks Lavoll. "No. The social consequences for women are much harsher. What kind of woman would abandon her children?"

Right. It's not that women politicians never cheat. In fact, Newsweek named several who have. It's just that women have more disincentives for doing so -- society punishes them more harshly than men who stray.

The FDA has promised a speedy review of Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, for women over 26 years old.

The designation means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to make its decision on the marketing application within 6 months, rather than within the agency's typical 10-month review period.

Nice. Because let's not forget that 25% of women in the U.S. (yes, grown-ups too) have HPV. Now we just have to see if the FDA sticks to their schedule. Hopefully the "controversy" factor will be a bit less since this about adult women.

The National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF) is asking folks to take action against the above campaign publicizing a new Asian fusion restaurant owned by Chow Fun Food Group, Inc.

Thankfully, because of the outcry over the ad - it's been pulled by Chow Fun Food Group owner John Elkhay. But NAPAWF says that's just the first step.

NAPAWF denounces the Chow Fun Food Group for leveraging, in this marketing campaign, the lowest common denominators of Asian female exoticism and the commodification of a generalized Asian culture. NAPAWF is also disturbed by the flippancy with which the restaurant appropriated the name "Chinese Laundry" without recognition of the significance that line of business played in Chinese American history and oppression.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese Americans were largely forced to enter the laundering business due to intense discrimination that closed the door of opportunity to most other forms of work. Chinese Americans came to be associated with the laundry business because, as with railroad work during the mid-19th century, it was one of the few available industries that Chinese workers could enter into to pursue a livelihood. Mr. Elkhay clearly missed the mark in naming his restaurant "Chinese Laundry" to "honor the time honored traditions of those before us," as Mr. Elkhay has stated.

Similarly, the advertisements' evocations of passive, faceless hypersexuality resurrect the struggles that Asian American and Pacific Islander women have historically fought against. For centuries, Asian American and Pacific Islander women have been represented as objects of submission, foreignness and sexual exoticism. The advertisement is proof that this "orientalism" continues today.

Sign this petition calling on Elkhay to issue a formal apology and discontinue this "business practice."