We’re so busy blaming the media for the body image that our girls and women have of the female body that I wonder: are we maybe becoming a little over-zealous?  We’re so very concerned with how girls think they need to be skinny, skinny, skinny when, in reality, the average size of an American woman is 14.  Women here are not as subject to this widespread epidemic of skin and bones as we seem to think they are.  But what’s to be done?  It’s not healthy to be extremely overweight, so the media does negative stories on obesity.  It’s not healthy to be extremely underweight, so the media jumps all over celebrities when they approach that threshold.  Because of this coverage on how weight can greatly affect health, we as a society have designed the general consensus on what is considered attractive.  So I don’t know that the media is to blame.  Magazines and television shows and movies are filled with stars of an attractive weight (unless they’re pointedly not supposed to be).  We’re shown an accurate representation of the female form (with Cosmo’s quick-and-easy ab workout to boot!) but still blame media for the skinny-way-too-skinny girls and don’t blame them for the fat-way-too-fat ones.

It’s not a situation of “love my bones” or “love my curves.”  It’s a situation of love my body for what I made it into.  There is no one to assign fault or credit to but myself.  I am the only one that I can make perfect.  I can blame the media for giving me suggestions and incentive, but I am not, by my standards, perfect, and I do not and cannot blame the media for that.

I was in the fourth grade or fifth when I was first given the talk about the period/sex/diseases. They first separated the boys from the girls and they showed us a video about what the period is and what happens when a girl gets pregnant, while the boys got shown their video.  I was only around 8 or 9 years old and wasn’t very concerned about those topics. They handed out a brown bag with flyers and pads/tampons. I’m not sure if the boys were given condoms or not because we were not supposed to talk about what our presentations were about.

What I find surprising is that I was never given a course to refresh my mind throughout middle school or high school. Shouldn’t the school district make us watch this video again once we hit an age where students are having sex? I strongly believe that middle and high schools should have a course were kids are exposed to the consequences of having sex, such as pregnancy, diseases, financial obligation of a new baby and methods of birth control. I strongly believe that this would help avoid unwanted pregnancy. I come from a 400 student high school and decided to visit old teachers, as I watched the hallways I counted at least 12 girls that were pregnant and was told that a couple of middle school girls were pregnant as well. Since teen pregnancy rates are increasing I do believe there should be more awareness in high schools. So that girls stop thinking that they might get on MTV’s 16 and pregnant and become famous.

Today I went to watch a documentary called Thin, (very good I recommend it) it focuses on women with issues on body image and eating disorders. These women were extremely thin and still wanted to be skinnier because they viewed themselves as fat. These women are in a facility for the treatment of their eating disorder.
We all have that perfect body image and a lot of us would like to be skinny. I’m shocked at the way these women go about getting skinny and still want to be even skinnier. I blame the media for what is happening to these women. They have an image in their head that they want to look like and are hurting themselves and others in the process of getting to that image. I wonder what the boyfriends/spouses have to say about these women. It makes me wonder what percentage of relationships stayed together. Did their boyfriends/spouses, if any, leave them because they no longer found them sexually appealing? Or where they there for support for that person that they care about because some of these women were older and had children while others were just young teenagers.

• I mentioned in class that Rep. Dave Albo, one of the sponsors of the proposed legislation in Virginia that would have required transvaginal ultrasound before pregnancy termination, joked on the House floor that his role in supporting the legislation had killed the mood with his wife.
• Here is a report from the Washington Post about how Gov. Bob McDonnell back-pedaled on the legislation after it became national news. The article includes video clips from Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, which some analysts believe helped the governor change his mind. Having more than one thousand citizens –mostly women– lock arms in protest outside the capitol building in protest was probably also pretty compelling.
• Rick Santorum, who is currently more or less even with Mitt Romney in polls for the Republican nomination for president, is opposed to birth control: ”It’s not OK, because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” he says. “They’re supposed to be within marriage, for purposes that are, yes, conjugal… but also procreative. ” To the best of my knowledge, he has not proposed a ban on birth control.
• I have not yet found a single article that provides a succinct summary of the issues surround the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and their objection to birth control coverage in the new health insurance reform, but here are a couple of pieces that address the main points:
• Catholic Bishops Oppose Compromise on Birth-Control Insurance (Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2012)
• Most of Obama’s “Controversial” Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years (Mother Jones, February 8, 2012)
• Obama birth control compromise distracts from issue of whether the pill is safe, activists say (Washington Post, February 10, 2012)
• I know I hammered you over the head with it in class today, but if you haven’t already done so, please make an effort to read through Justice Kennedy’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas, and keep thinking about your right to sexual privacy — to liberty, as the Supreme Court and the 14th Amendment refer to it —  as you read and listen to the news these days.

Liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a dwelling or other private places. In our tradition the State is not omnipresent in the home. And there are other spheres of our lives and existence, outside the home, where the State should not be a dominant presence. Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and in its more transcendent dimensions.

This week, I have really enjoyed reading the article My Sluthood, Myself by Jaclyn Friedman.  I liked how she talked about sluthood saving her and making her feel powerful. She said how it gave her a choice other than being celibate and settling down in order to satisfy her basic need for sex and affection.  I do agree that having sex with different partners can be liberating and soul-fulfilling.  I believe many women come to the point in their lives where need a break from committed relationships and I think having casual sex helps them figure themselves out in many ways.  They can learn what their likes and dislikes are and it could be helpful in future relationships.  I can see how sluthood can have some negative consequences; however, I think there is a possibility that it can have positive effects as well.  I defiantly think if a woman chooses this path of sluthood, it should not be something she is ashamed of.

In our society it is engraved into our heads to accept people how they are, and not to judge people. How many people actually do this is a different story, but regardless the majority of us think people have the right to be accepted how they are. Now this raises a question that I would really like your guy’s opinion on. We say that we should accept people how they are and not try to change them, because of free will and what not, but what if your child suffered Gender Identity issues? Meaning that youe son had female tendencies and related more to the opposite sex, and or felt more comfortable as the opposite sex (or vise versa with a daughter). Would you as a parent embrace your child’s choice to potentially be transgender? Or would you as a parent do everything in your power to “fix” your child? Articles I have read have said parents should be supporting and loving, but I think this is easier said than done. I don’t know what I would do in this situation I would like to say I would be supportive of my son or daughter, but it is possible that I would try to take my child to counseling to try to change them.

My friend linked this to me a few days ago, and then ironically enough we (aka my group sluts4life ) discussed sluthood etc. in our class discussion, which let me just say, ladies, I had a great time.

The article is from a university newspaper, but I thought it was well written and funny

PS, if you read it you will understand the title of this post (incentive!!)

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/in-defense-of-sluts-a-treatise-on-female-nature-1.2787409#.T0slCfEgfjs

My Sluthood, Myself article+Slutwalks= Support a Slut

I loved Friday’s class structure in which we chose what we were interested in talking about (relating to one of the articles listed in the schedule) and then discussed our views in a group. It was so enlightening to listen to others in the group on what they found interesting. We laughed, gave personal stories, and threw out questions for others to answer. It was useful and such a practical application!

I wanted to write just a little bit about the article I found interest in. The article My Sluthood Myself beautifully written by Jaclyn Friedman highlights her journey of finding mental balance and power through the transitioning of long-term monogamous relationships to a more promiscuous, freeing sexuality. Friedman states “It’s a choice besides celibacy and settling”. “Sluthood isn’t a disease, a wrong path, or a trend that’s ruining our youth.” I find this last quote of hers the most powerful. Our society treats feminine promiscuity as a negative that leads to the worst happening. I agree with Friedman’s philosophy that feminine sexual power and a world without rape is possible. Support a slut.

Below is a link to the Slutwalk’s discussed in class.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/slutwalk-united-states-city_n_851725.html

http://www.facebook.com/slutwalkspokane

In the article “Let’s Talk About What We Can Learn From Asexuality,” One sentence stuck out to me and caused me to think:

“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.”

While I would love to articulate some brilliant and oh-s0-stimulating response to this, the only thing I can come up with is “why?”  Why is it that sex saturates so many aspects of life?  Who benefits from this? 

Part of me thinks that the article answer it when it later mentions a “market-driven” culture.  Sex is selling. 

 Would it sell as much as it does now if we were more open about it?  If there were talk about and if the shame were somehow magically lifted from many forms of discourse that surrounds it, would the taboo be lifted? Is the taboo what helps it sell?

Thoughts?

So I random searched the topic of prostitution. I came across this somewhat recent article that was written in August of 2010. I found this article to be interesting mostly because I have only lived in small towns where prostitution is mostly non-existent, (or mostly outside of public knowledge or as a form of payment for drugs). Since I live in Cheney (yet another small town), it hasn’t yet sunk in that I live right outside the second largest city in the state. Even though I am very well aware of a lot of non-mainstream sexual sub-cultures, prostitution is still not a reality to me. now that I know that it is b enough issue in the area, that law enforcement has made it public knowledge, i’m kind of curious as to where these things happen and how it works? With the internet practically within the grasp of every American, in one way or another, wouldn’t prostitution, for most people who partake in that, be obsolete?

Prostitution in Spokane

While yet again looking up more topics dealing with sex and sexuality on google, I decided to look up info on the porn industry. I came across this site that talks about the statistics surrounding the porn industry both world wide and within the U.S. Some of the number i found for certain topics I actually found surprising while other weren’t as surprising. Here is a link to the site in case anyone was wanting to take a look. These stats vary upon age and the various formats of pornography whether its VHS, DVD, internet, text message, or over the phone. It appears the porn industry is a stable and prosperous industry. I think that it is very interesting how even in our national economical state, people still are willing to put more money out on sex.

Porn Statistics

Got to love the internet!- While I was looking up various topics to discuss on here, on google, I came across this site. It is called lustability.com What attracted me to this site was the 88 “amazing sex facts.” I do question the validity of some of the “facts,” however I found some of the topics to be interesting. I also found several to be mildly entertaining. Something I found interesting about this site is that this site uses itself to be an intermediary for people who have considered having a sexual relationship. Anyways, the idea is you and potential partners are supposed to take it to see if you are sexually compatible further than just looks and sexual attraction. I like the idea personally. However, I’m not sure a lot of people would actually use this intermediary.

Lustability.com Sex facts

Surgeon performs boob job on daughterAlright so to rewind our class back up a bit to when we were discussing the purity pledges between daughter and their fathers. I was just on MSN about to login in to my e-mail was I saw this headline, ”

“Surgeon performs boob-job operation on daughter”

my initial response, WTF!? So I read the article and this surgeon decides not only to give his daughter breast implants for her 18th birthday, but he performs the surgery himself. When interviewed He also described his own daughter as “sexy.” I don’t care if I come across as narrow minded or whatever, but that is just disgusting. He also regularly gives his older daughter botox treatment. Apparently his supports his daughters’ fears of growing old. Am I alone in thinking its a little disturbing that a man is sexualizing his own daughters?

More precisely, this is a Public Cervix Announcement — from Buck Angel to other trans men on the importance of regular gynecological exams. I thought it was relevant to our discussion of Julia Serano’s Trans Woman Manifesto, as it provides a vivid illustration of this statement from p. 13:

By insisting that the trans person’s gender is “fake”, [cissexists] attempt to validate their own gender as “real” or “natural”. This sort of thinking is extraordinarily naïve, as it denies a basic truth: We make assumptions every day about other people’s genders without ever seeing their birth certificates, their chromosomes, their genitals, their reproductive systems, their childhood socializations, or their legal sex. There is no such thing as a “real” gender – there is only the gender we experience ourselves as and the gender we perceive others to be.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/28/only-you-and-you-and-you.html

The article above is one of the assigned readings for this week and it talks about a polyamory family which is relationships with multiple, mutually consenting partners. Terisa Greenan is the main squeeze in group. It started out with her boyfriend Scott and her, then a few years later Scott introduces her to Larry and they all three end up living together with both men having a relationship with Terisa. Several years after adding Larry, Matt joined the relationship group, but Matt was married to Vera so she moved in too. So if I lost you, Terisa is married to Larry, dating Matt and Scott. Vera is married to Matt but dates Larry on the side, and they all live together and they are all heterosexuals.

This sounds like a pretty confusing and odd situation. What’s the point of being married to someone if you know one another is going to sleep with other people and have other boyfriends and girlfriends? Why not just be single with an open relationship? It’s like they’re cheating on each other but openly, I find that very strange. Marriage is between one person and one person only and infidelity does mean being unlawful to a spouse. I think by doing this your just ruining what the covenant of marriage means. I understand it’s all consensual, but who is just okay with their spouse cheating on them? Personally, I really don’t understand the whole thing, if you can’t commit yourself to one person then don’t marry them. And the fact that she has a son, how confusing for him to see and grow up with that. In the article it says kids can grow up just fine in a situation like this as long as they’re shown love and support, but how is he supposed to know what to do when he wants to start dating. Is he just supposed to date a bunch of girls at once and hope they all agree with it. I don’t know anyone who would be or is okay with they’re spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend who is okay with them “cheating” or having multiple sexual partners while they’re with them, unless its a casual relationship with no strings attached, but that’s not the case here. It just makes me think, what has our society come to?!