Being Amber Rhea

Executive summary of a few posts that have been in draft mode entirely too long. Bold part is the current title of the draft.

• class privilege - it’s not a game of pick-up-stix
  There was a meme going around several months ago where you have this big list of things that supposedly indicate class privilege, and you bold the ones that apply to you, and… I guess everybody gets to compete to see who wins the Oppression Olympics. It was apparently adapted from an exercise for a college class, where everyone stands in a row and you take a step forward for each thing that applies to you. But the whole thing annoys the crap out of me because of all the assumptions it’s based on - and I think THAT speaks volumes. Like, one of them was, “You had a lot of books in your house.” And?? How does that indicate class privilege?? Give me a freaking break! We always had a lot of books, because my parents valued reading very highly, not to mention that my mom worked at a bookstore in the 70s so she got a bunch of free books - so I guess that makes me more “privileged,” except for the part where we never had health insurance. Funny, that. Just goes to show, yet again, that you can’t judge by surface appearances only. Sure, someone may have a lot of books, but that tells you exactly jack shit. And why the assumption that only “upper class” people have books??
• If you can’t stand the heat, and other meaningless clichés
  I hate when people say, “Well, if you can’t stand criticism, you shouldn’t be blogging; huff huff huff!” They’re always so proud of themselves, and they wipe their hands of the issue and that’s that. They’ve got it all figured out. Except, that’s total crap. So basically what you’re saying is that if I’m not okay with being treated like garbage and having things that are not meant to be open for “criticism” being micro-analyzed, then I basically need to just shut up. I don’t deserve to speak my truth; my voice doesn’t deserver to be heard. What if this is the only place I can speak such truths, and now you’ve told me I can’t even do it here? As if it’s up to you anyway.
• SitPS local action idea
  Elizabeth’s comment made me think, there really should be local action committees to mobilize around issues of sexual freedom in specific communities. I wish someone other than me would get it together for Georgia, though. I just can’t right now.
• youth sexuality
  Yes, teenagers are sexual beings. Why can’t anybody admit that without having a conniption fit about it? Look, admitting that simple fact doesn’t mean you’re saying you want to have sex with teenagers. Why are we all so weird about it? Have we forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager? Sexuality doesn’t magically appear at age 18, and teenagers are not children. Maturity levels vary greatly, obviously, but that’s true in people who are over 18, too. Frankly when I was a teenager I was offended at being treated like a child, and being told that my feelings and wants didn’t count, because clearly I just didn’t know myself yet, I was too young.
• Two things
  Men absolutely must call out other men on sexism. <– That’s the only thing that’s in the draft. I don’t know what the second thing was supposed to be.

My comments on Dacia’s post from yesterday…

Comment numero uno:

I think you did as good a job w/ this post.

I think what ppl from the outside looking in don’t get is, it’s NOT a clearcut case of Jefferson being vilified for his sexuality. And it’s not simply that he wrote about his sex life and also happened to have kids (which would be the classic “parent” == “not sexualized” fear response) - it’s that he wrote about his sex life and his kids in a very public way in the same forum… AND arguably took advantage of insecure women AND has a drinking problem.

I think (hope) that there’s got to be a way to fight the very REAL problems of sexual stigmatization and compartmentalization of sexuality without harming oneself in the process… and there’s got to be away to address these issues without letting someone’s bad behavior go excused unde the guise of it. Because no one is talking about that other stuff. Maybe - and I can understand this - they think it’ll make the sex blogging community “look bad” somehow. But the solution is certainly NOT to close ranks and sweep it under the rug for the sake of party unity.

I hate that there’s really no way to say any of this without it sounding like blaming the victim; but the fact is, this situation is so much more complex than how it’s being painted.

The legitimate question remains of, why bring these issues up now, when he’s “down?” Why didn’t anyone speak up before? And yeah, that’s a damn good question. Of course, it’s bc it’s germane to bring them up now; and I can’t fault people for not wanting to invite drama prior to this. But the mere fact that no one has wanted to touch it at all is telling.

Comment numero dos:

Suzanne Portnoy,
There are reasons (which have nothing at all to do w/ sexuality) to question Jefferson’s ability to provide for his kids, but I don’t feel comfortable bringing them up because it starts to veer into invasion of privacy territory, and it feels a little creepy to me. This is essentially a non-comment, I know, but I wanted to say *something*, just so people know that there *is* more to this story than even Dacia has posted here. There’s backstory that the casual blog reader won’t and can’t be expected to know.

I hate doing this cop-out “paste in my comments” post about this topic, but I don’t have any time for much more at the moment. Hopefully that will change later today and I can write more when I get home. Realistically, though, I’ll probably collapse into bed; my Ambien hasn’t arrived yet and I didn’t take a Tylenol PM last night, and guess what, it was back to the nightmares, cold sweats, and tossing and turning.

Busy today, and if I’m going to be blogging, I want to get back to writing personal stuff; but I made the mistake of going back to that thread (which has exploded), and I saw this comment from Emilie Dice and it irritated me:

Because men are already “sex positive” by cultural default. It’s not an issue for them. Of course they want women making the right choice to cater to their sexist demands. It’s a given.

That really annoys me because it is so NOT what being sex-positive is about. It reminds me of non-sex-positive feminists who say, “I like sex! So how can I be sex-negative?” Because it’s not about whether you personally like sex. It’s about so much more than that. And the traditional patriarchal construct of how male and female heteronormative sexuality is played out is NOT sex-positive. So a guy not being afraid to say he likes to fuck isn’t necessarily sex-positive, either. Does he subscribe to the virgin/whore dichotomy? How does he view women who are openly, actively, unabashedly sexual? Does he speak in denigrating terms about some women and/or some types of consensual sex? Does he think “gay” is an insult? Does he use gendered insults? On and on and on. And of course, anything that is sexist (see Emilie’s comment) is by definition NOT sex-positive.

A few weeks ago I collected some sex-positive links to serve as reference for explaining what I mean, since I seem to be so often repeating myself.

ETA: Now the title doesn’t make sense, because I changed my mind and got rid of the bullets.

Part of why I’m on the fence about BlogHer Atlanta? Well, aside from the $100 entry fee (which is totally fine of them to charge; I am NOT being one of those people who complains about anything that’s not totally free at the expense of someone else’s hard work), there’s also the fact that I’m just over a lot of these conferences.

Rusty and I talked about why on a podcast a while ago. They’ve become commercialized, but that’s not even the word. Cartoonized, maybe? Firefox spellcheck doesn’t know that word (but then it doesn’t know “spellcheck” either) but I think it’s the most apt. If I hear the word “conversation” again I may puke.

And I’m really not trying to be one of those too-cool-for-school assholes who blogs about why blogging sucks, or that kind of thing. I HATE that!

But look, here’s the truth. In addition to the cartoony, sales-pitchy bullshit, I don’t feel welcome at these conferences. With rare exception, I never really have - it just took me a while to admit it to myself, I guess. The BlogSavannah experience was a breakthrough, of course, but there have been so many other instances that I’ve lost count.

When you talk about sex, and you’re a woman, and you’re a tech geek, and you (gasp!) also talk about things other than sex (because OMG, people who aren’t ashamed about sex do other things in their lives, too)… well, let’s just say it doesn’t add up to a good combination, with a lot of people. There are some awesome people, sure. But they don’t tend to be the majority at these conferences. Which is one reason I created Sex 2.0 - to bring all those people together and none (or, well, very few) of the sucky ones!

Sometimes I wonder how much of me not feeling welcome is an accurate perception of reality, and how much is self-induced. Then I remember how good I am at reading people and situations, and that my intuition is almost always spot on, and that I always doubt it anyway, because somehow that seems like the proper thing to do (surely we must consider all angles, surely!) and heaven forfend, I would appear “selfish” if I didn’t.

I remember the guy guffawing at BarCamp Atlanta about Sex 2.0. I remember the stupid, predictable, un-funny, adolescent-level jokes. BarCamp Atlanta pretty much sucked all around, but that’s the stuff that stands out the most in my memory. Oh, and the hooker jokes. Those fucking guys joking about going down to 11th street and finding the hookers.

Here’s a secret. When you make a hooker joke - whoever you are - I hate you, right then and there. Even if generally, rationally, I know that most of the time you’re a “good person” - whatever that even means. When you do that, I hate you, and my eyes want to seer through you.

Oh and back to being a woman who talks about sex (bullet point above). Sometimes people seem incredulous that it’s still such a “big deal.” I want to ask where the fuck they’ve been, anyway. Last week, at Manuel’s, I overheard that conversation at the table behind us, carried on by supposed friends-of-friends. I didn’t know these people, but it didn’t matter. I’ve heard a million conversations like it before. Quote: “She was really weird, she talked about sex all the time.” Quote: “Yeah, I mean she was a total weirdo… she said if we went to this party, we’d be expected to have sex in front of people!” Just shove a dagger through my chest already. We’re back to square one.

Well, I should probably wrap it up and try to get some sleep. I feel very restless, but we’re going to Radial for breakfast, so I need to get my butt to bed.

One last thing - I feel the need to say here, too, that Elisa Camahort is awesome and I’m not trying to trash BlogHer or anything like that. I had so much fun hanging out with her at ConvergeSouth - she is just a nice, cool, down-to-earth person. And look at the super cool slide she made!

Repost of two comments I left at Season of the Bitch.

I have longer posts in the works about each of these sentiments, but for now this will have to suffice until I flesh out my thoughts a bit more.

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First comment:

I have a big problem w/ people who dismissively cast concern about sexual equality as “bourgeois.” To me, this says, yet again: “Oh, it’s sex, it’s not REALLY important, silly little girl.” And it doesn’t acknowledge the truth of MY experience, growing up in a working-class family and being VERY interested and concerned with sexuality.

I think Queer Dewd a.k.a. Bitch | Lab said it best here.

Major quotage:

Because, lord knows “my” issues aren’t also anyone’s who doesn’t share them. Because lord knows “my” issues are white mainstream middle class feminist fluff. So, heaven help me if I dare speak to something that has profoundly fucking shaped my life and the lives of men and women I love: being sexually marginalized, being erased, having to hide who I am or watch others do so, having to listen to all manner of bullshit.

So, when I dare talk about anything that matters to me, why, I’m a fucking pro-pornstitution feminist and/or white mainstream feminist - if I’m lucky to be called a feminist at all. If I’m even lucky to not be called a man. Because, after all, what it is really all about as I learned a year ago is that I’m all about my moist pussy and my vast, vast, vast, vast porn collection. (oops sorry. Channeling Heart)

Erased. Deleted. Evaporated. My identity, my past, who I am, who my friends are - it doesn’t matter - because I am immediately assumed to be engaged in the issues of concern only to white middle class women or, conversely, a male-identified, patriarchy-fucking, freelancer provacateuring for the right wing. (Damn. Wish I knew who the rest were. I need to do some benchmarking on my competition.)

Because lord knows there are no poor, white, queer women. And it often seems that the only way to have anyone take us seriously on this issue is to focus on extreme marginalization or the fact of poverty, rather than examining the everyday acts of silencing and erasing. If it involves bodily harm or extreme psychic harm, that’s important. But if it’s the harm done to women like RenEv by the way they are treated in this society, then it is *piffle*. If it’s the harm from having your sexual identity erased and you are bisexual: big fucking whoopee. And for christ’s sake don’t you even dare talk about taking pole dancing classes and how that’s personally empowering for you given your working class, Southern, conservative, Christian upbringing. There are more important things in the world and obviously poverty supercedes that.

Except. It. Doesn’t.

Because I (or Amber, or any other woman) can’t be pulled apart into those baby block beads that are discrete from one another, that can be snapped back together after examining each one: one bead poor, one bead queer, one bead woman, one bead white.

I am sex positive because I don’t know what else to call a feminist who fights against the instantiation of elitism and classism in mainstream society and among feminismS, an elitism and a classism that is so subtle virtually no one sees it, and who rails against the way this normalization of class warfare revolves around, among other things, sexuality and sexual representation. I don’t know what to call a feminist who cares about the way these same issues are racialized, who cares about the way sex and sexuality are subject to the same normalizing hegemonic institutions as any other oppressive system we are all supposed to struggle against and dismantle.

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Second comment:

And also?

My feminism is critical of power relations based on a linear hierarchy. (This translates into me feeling guilty being ‘the boss’ at work).

Fuck guilt. First of all, sometimes hierarchy is necessary - and as long as you’re not being an asshole, there’s no problem. Secondly, we get enough guilt heaped onto us as women, without burdening ourselves with MORE guilt for achieving a modicum of success.

Welcome, all, to the 5th edition of the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy! Thank you to everyone who submitted posts. Now, let’s get crackin’…
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Lately, Melissa keeps writing stuff that feels like something piercing my gut and brings a tear to my eye, and then I struggle to put into words what is resonating so deeply and why. Here’s the latest installment. And my rambling commences after the cut.
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In an email thread with potential organizers of next year’s Sex 2.0, I said something that I felt was worth reposting here, as it kind of gives a basic idea of what my “vision” was with Sex 2.0. It can also be extrapolated to other causes/events/etc.

In response to Match’s question:

3. Did the conf pay for travel/boarding for any speakers?

I answered:

You’re funny! Unless you count Dacia staying at my place, nope.

On the one hand I wish we could’ve, but that would’ve taken a shit-ton more money than I even dreamed of being able to raise. I do feel very strongly that people deserve to be paid for their hard work, including speaking, presentations, etc. - and I resent the fact that oftentimes in “progressive” circles, it’s taken as a given that people will do things “pro bono,” or they’re seen as greedy or somehow bad if they expect compensation for their efforts.

On the other hand, since fundamentally this was an unconference, setting up a hierarchy of “speaker” vs. “not-speaker” defeats the purpose. There was no call for papers. Sessions did not have to be pre-approved. Basically if somebody wanted to lead a session, they said so, and sent me a description and I posted it on the web site. It was first come, first served.

So I would caveat my first statement (”on the one hand”) by pointing out that those expectations are reasonable in some circumstances and not in others. I feel like w/ Sex 2.0, there’s a real spirit of community and all of us working for a greater good - and recognizing that we DON’T get a lot of funding, bc we have to fight tooth and nail for what little we get bc of the stigma. I feel like there was passion behind Sex 2.0 that I’ve rarely seen elsewhere.

Y’all certainly don’t have to structure it as an unconference next year if you don’t want to. Seriously, you can and should do whatever you want! Personally I think the unconference model works for Sex 2.0 in maintaining and fostering the sex commons that Elizabeth Wood spoke about. To me it makes sense for Sex 2.0 to be a space for non-hierarchical, collaborative learning. We all have things to teach and things to learn.

Finally, I will caveat THAT by saying that while I really enjoy the unconference model, I think if taken too far it descends into unmanageable chaos. I’ve had a few people lecture me on why I shouldn’t call Sex 2.0 an unconference, since it doesn’t use the “open space” model. I think these people are, quite simply, assholes - and I welcome them to run their own sex conference if they’re so full of bright ideas. I just think asking people to travel across the country without SOME idea of what to expect in terms of sessions, participants, etc. is unrealistic. I think it works best to strike a balance between the two extremes - build a general framework of expectations, and let the content grow organically.

Reminder: I’m hosting the Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy on Monday, so get your submissions in by Saturday night! I’ll be putting the carnival together on Sunday.

(This will show up again in my Twitter auto-post tonight.)

I feel like a fucking flake. But it just wasn’t happening. Sorry, Jill. :( Anyhow, this is as far as I got… might as well post it here:

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What makes a feminist choice? Too often, that question is construed in such a way that it becomes meaningless. Because it’s not about the act itself; it’s about the meaning behind the act. And it’s extremely important to remember who defines that meaning. It’s not defined by outsiders looking in. It’s defined by the woman herself, the one doing the action.

Take for example, a woman posting nude photos of herself online. The act itself is not the important part. The question of whether posting nude photos is a feminist choice is a question that doesn’t make sense if we don’t consider the woman’s motivations. That’s what makes or breaks whether it is a feminist choice or not. Just going on the act alone, we don’t have any information that can tell us if it’s a feminist choice.

And yet (sticking with this example), people feel free to make all kinds of assumptions about women who post nude photos. Similar assumptions are made by society at large and, distressingly, by some feminists. She must be craving male approval; she must have low self-esteem; she must be superficial; she must need validation… on and on and on. But the fact that people make such assumptions based on a particular act is far more revealing of their own biases and the stereotypes they’ve bought into, than anything about this woman’s psychological state.

Sure, she might be doing it out of any of those stereotypical motivations assigned to her without question. But she might be doing it for a variety of other reasons that are all about her and not about what other people say she should or shouldn’t do. She might be giving the finger to the dichotomy we draw between “smart” women and “sexy” women. Perhaps she’s challenging your assumptions, asking you to examine why you make them in the first place. Maybe she’s saying, “I’m not ashamed of my body, and I reject patriarchal norms that tell me that I’m ‘demeaning myself’ if I show it, or that I can only show it to certain people in certain contexts.” She might be stating, “Refusing to keep my sexuality neatly compartmentalized does not disempower me; the patriarchy disempowers me by dictating such compartmentalization.” Maybe she’s doing it because she wants to, and she doesn’t owe you any explanation.

That would be all too radical, wouldn’t it? Because it would mean centering her, the woman, instead of centering men. And even as feminists call out countless examples of male privilege, many of them continue to place a lot of importance on what men think and how men interpret things - even if their interpretations are dead wrong. Somehow those interpretations are granted more importance than what the actor (the woman) states as her intent.

Nothing new there.

And I get it, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world which is, unfortunately, still very much controlled by sexism. So I can understand being concerned about how things may appear to and be interpreted by men. They are the ones making the rules more often then not, and therefore their interpretations are going to be given more credence by society at large. But do we, as feminists, have to replicate this structure?

Surely there’s got to be a middle ground. We won’t shake up the status quo by not doing the things we want to do, out of fear of how some men might take it. If we take that route, we’re still letting ourselves be controlled by men - only they’re forcing us not to do something, rather than forcing us to do something. Either way it’s the same thing - we are passive, reactionary. Instead of being true to ourselves, we base our decisions around what men might think. And that’s not radical at all.

So we have to push. We have to keep on pushing back against the stereotypes, dichotomies, double standards, prescriptive norms. Because if we push long enough and hard enough, people will notice. I won’t go the predictable, clichéd route of invoking the Civil Rights Movement; but the truth is, with any major societal change in our nation’s history, things changed because people had the courage to act instead of just react, to push back instead of just being moved around like a pawn.

—

Maybe next time. Or, maybe writing for somewhere else isn’t for me? Who knows.

As mentioned earlier, on June 23 (next Monday) I’ll be hosting the fifth Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy.

If you have written or plan to write something pertaining to sexuality, sexual freedom, feminism, gender, etc., send your submission to amberlr [at] gmail [dot] com, or mark the post for me in del.cio.us. You can (and should!) also submit posts by your favorite bloggers.

The carnival’s mission statement, once again:

Sex Positive Feminists (or sex-radical, pro-sex or sexually liberated feminists) believe that women’s sexual freedom is an essential part of women’s autonomy. Any legal or social control or regulation over the sexual self is an attempt to control and regulate women, undermines their freedom and infringes upon their human rights. We are interested in promoting sex workers’ rights, sex education in schools, and we encourage the free expression of sexualities.

Get those submissions in!

Inspired by this post, I decided that I wanted to try writing for a larger audience. Eek! I’ve always felt very stressed out writing under any kind of pressure, even self-imposed pressure, but I want to challenge myself and see what happens. So last night I did a bunch of free-writing/brain-dumping. The result of that exercise has now graduated to rough draft numero uno, which means I had to cut a bunch of stuff so I could stick w/ a central theme. Here’s all the stuff I took out - I think it’s all important stuff and highly relevant, but I just couldn’t make it “fit.” Solution? Blog it!

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You often hear feminists saying that just using “choice” as an excuse or justification or way of avoiding dealing w/ complex issues is BS. And it is. They will often say, “The context in which that choice is made matters.” And it does!! So why does that concept fly out the window when the issue is sex, and in particular sex that squicks some people out?

Look, if you’ve got a woman telling you, “This is what I like, I’ve examined it and yes this is really what I want to do, and doing it makes me happy, and trying to force myself NOT to do it made me feel awful, and will people just get off my back about it already?” - what the fuck is so hard to understand about that?? A core tenet of feminism is the importance of listening to women, providing women with space to speak the truths of their lives, to speak honestly and openly without the restraints put in place by a society that tries to dictate what is acceptable and what is not. We often say when it comes to issues of rape: “Listen to the woman. Take her at her word. Believe her.” We often say when it comes to issues of abortion: “Trust women. They are capable of making their own decisions.”

Why do these sentiments not apply when a woman says she likes a certain kind of sex?

Recent editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves have removed some of the sex fantasies that were in the original 1972 version, because they were deemed too controversial or uncomfortable. Wait a minute. Wasn’t the point that women need space to talk about these things openly, even if (especially if!) they are “controversial” or “out of the norm” or make other people squirm a little?

Do you think I haven’t been told that, as a woman, actively wanting and pursuing sex, enjoying it for its own sake and not as a way to “get” something or as a reward, not necessarily tying it up with love or a relationship, etc., is bad and that there’s something wrong with me? You think the social script of sluts vs. good girls doesn’t play on an endless loop in the back of my mind, even now? You think I haven’t been hearing this shit since before I was old enough to really understand what “sexuality” even meant?

You think that’s not patriarchy??

The patriarchy is SEX-NEGATIVE. I am personally not a fan of the term “The Patriarchy” (capital P!) but I often refer to the sex-negative society in which we live. Guess what, folks? Same thing, different name.

I am tired of my arguments being reduced to black-and-white, simplistic, non-nuanced cartoons of themselves. And the funny thing is, often the people who are doing this reducing are, nearly in the same breath, complaining about arguments about sex being so black-and-white and over-simplified! It would be laughable if it weren’t so crazy-making. Uh, well maybe part of that is that you’re the one simplifying things. You are not hearing what people are saying. There’s a filter in place, filtering out the nuance.

Don’t tell me it’s not worth pushing back against the status quo. To do anything else feels like death to me, and yeah that might sound melodramatic, but I don’t know how else to convey it.

—

Other responses to the Feministe thread:

• Bookworm: Feminist-positive sex: some initial thoughts
• let them eat pro-sm feminist safe spaces: Getting off on power exchange is BadWrong, let me tell you it.
• Letters from Gehenna: Examining Desire
• Renegade Evolution: You know, I think the feminist thing to do would be to stop telling people how to fuck…. and Patient Zero, it’s time for your Examination…
• season of the bitch: Female Desire Week (plus): Sex and Art

Ren gave me kudos for engaging on this thread; and frankly, I surprised myself by having the stomach for it.

Quote of the morning goes to Ren, commenting about this particular installation of hand-wringing. (It was hard not to quote her entire post!)

MAYBE for people with kinks or rougher preferences feminist sex includes being aware enough of what they like to ASK for it, do it, enjoy it, explore it WITH other CONSENTING ADULTS! Wow! There’s a fucking thought…

I’ll tell you what, I think the woman who has the spine to tell her partner “I want you to pin me down, choke me, fuck the hell out of me and call me names” is a hell of a lot more empowered sexually than the vanilla woman who lays there and thinks of England rather than telling her partner amid sex what she really wants…no matter what that is. The woman who says “tonight, you’re going to fuck me like an animal, and tomorrow, I’m gonna fuck you like an animal” is light years ahead of the woman too ashamed or afraid to say that. The woman who tells her partner she wants to tie them up, do them with a strap on, and smack them around is better off that the woman who takes what she is given because she is ashamed to mention she’d like to do that.

And I sure as fuck want everyone to examine why they think they can tell other adult consenting people how to fuck or that they are doing it wrong and why they feel they can shame them for it.

I’ll have more to say about this later, when I get a free moment.

I meant to post this a few days ago. After furiously typing these notes, I managed to call and leave a mostly-coherent voice mail.

I am now posting the rough-cut version as a total cop-out of a blog post. And I see now that there’s some ambiguity, but I’m not going to “correct” any of it. Fortunately it made sense to me at the time.

• Anti-sex work bias affects clients, too
• Letters From Johns shows they don’t have a vocabulary to talk about sex work outside of the stereotypes
• Stigma and shame around being a client when it comes to the individual, even though in general it’s accepted that it’s ok for men to be clients as long as they don’t talk about it - or as long as they don’t talk about it *seriously* or by invoking a power dynamic
• Review boards result in competition among escorts and gossiping and bad-mouthing - generally not a good thing
• I don’t think sex work thrives because of shame. I think it thrives in spite of shame. It shows just how powerful sexuality is. I think one thing that might change is there might be more male sex workers and female clients.
• Illegality of some types of sex work reinforces the lack of discourse about sex work by the people actually involved (workers and clients) and leads to the continuing trope of people talking ABOUT and FOR sex workers and clients.

Listen to Bedroom Radio episode 16.5 here, and call in with your own thoughts! (As a fellow podcaster I know how important voice mail is.)

As mentioned earlier, on June 23 I’ll be hosting the fifth Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy. Because that’s a mouthful (but a good one, because it describes the carnival accurately!), from here on out I’ll be calling it the feminist sex carnival.

I said in my previous post on the matter that I would try to think of some specific themes I’d like to address in the carnival. Well, I’ve tried, and I can’t think of any. And anyway, I think there are so many important issues to talk about that I don’t want my call for submissions to feel limiting in any way. So, if you have written or plan to write something pertaining to sexuality, feminism, gender, etc., send in your submission to amberlr [at] gmail [dot] com, or mark the post for me in del.cio.us. You can (and should) also submit posts by your favorite bloggers.

The carnival’s mission statement, again:

Sex Positive Feminists (or sex-radical, pro-sex or sexually liberated feminists) believe that women’s sexual freedom is an essential part of women’s autonomy. Any legal or social control or regulation over the sexual self is an attempt to control and regulate women, undermines their freedom and infringes upon their human rights. We are interested in promoting sex workers’ rights, sex education in schools, and we encourage the free expression of sexualities.

I wonder, should I upgrade my blog to Wordpress 2.5.1 before the carnival, or after? Hmm…
(That’s a rhetorical question. I don’t actually want input about what I should or shouldn’t do w/ my Wordpress installation.)

Interesting post up at Uncool. This idea of a woman’s body as a signifier for sex is something I first discussed back in college, in my awesome Biology and Politics of Women’s Reproduction class. The professor had asked us to bring in magazine clippings of ads that use sex to sell their product. A lot of people brought in ads featuring scantily clad women. As we went around and each showed the ads we’d brought, the professor called these out and asked, “Why does this signify sex? This is a picture of a woman. Why do we understand the picture to represent sex?”

It was a real “a-ha!” moment for me.

I don’t think this is something nearly enough people consider, or that it even ever enters their mind as something that needs to be considered. There’s nothing to think about there, right? Sex sells… and we understand that even an image of a woman’s face or lips [can't find the photo I was looking for] means “sex.”

But, why? Talk about your deeply embedded cultural assumptions. We’ve got some unpacking to do. Because until we do that, there are a lot of other problems that will remained only partially dealt with at best, instead of getting to the root of the problem.

For example, Caroline says:

Now, to me, it seems reasonable to make a connection with street harassment (I’ve got a post in the drafts, will do very soon). Because naked women = sex, so to do ‘revealing’ clothes. Take, for example, the lady pictured (right, taken from Tom Paine’s blog). Sexy? Certainly this image would equate with sex in this society because 1) the jeans show clearly her figure and 2) there’s a lot of skin on display. Therefore, some men believe that sex is being ‘offered’ to them and whistling, leery looks, comments etc ensues. So, if women say, “No, I’m wearing these jeans because I like the way I look in them and they make me feel more confident and therefore happier, and it is not about attracting the attention of all the men on the street,” many will laugh and dismiss that as utter nonsense.

Why? Because, like we said, naked women = sex, and that attitude permits, in part, that sort of behaviour (obviously it’s by no means solely responsible). Blokes don’t want to wear their shirts in the summer because they’re too hot, whatever. Women want to wear short shorts or, say, cropped tops because…. what? They’re sexy? They’re trying to be sexy? Cos they’re after attention? Please. Some do, some don’t. Depends on the lass just as it depends on the lad.

I think the other thing at work in this example is entitlement, which as we know, is a big part of male privilege. Obviously it must be about the men, what else could it possibly be about? Surely she couldn’t have her own reasons for dressing a certain way, that’s inconceivable!

It’s really, really stupid. I mean when I really think about it, the utter stupidity just knocks me on my ass.

Unfortunately I see similar arguments coming from some feminists, and the fact that I know they’re not stupid at all points to just how entrenched this idea is. For example, in Caroline’s post she points to another incarnation of the ever-present hand-wringing discussion over why some women post naked photos online. It simply must have something to do with wanting male approval, right?

My reaction, again, can be summed up with this emoticon: :|

I think there is a discussion to be had over the relative lack of male bodies portrayed on some self-identified sex-positive sites; but getting hung up on the “women only do it for male attention” / “those sites are replicating existing power structures” argument will simply lead to a stalemate, preventing discussion of whatever the real issues are.

ETA: Also be sure to see Laura’s original post which Caroline was referencing. Meant to link it when I first wrote this post, sorry!

It’s still a ways off, but this is a just a heads up that on June 23, I’ll be hosting the fifth Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy. The fourth installment is currently up at Dacia’s; check it out.

Please feel free to submit blog posts (your own or someone else’s) for potential inclusion to amberlr [at] gmail [dot] com. If you use del.icio.us, you can also mark links for me that way; my username is amberlrhea.

Description of the carnival:

This theory of feminism is known more commonly as Sex Positive Feminism, a movement that developed in the 1980s in response to feminists against pornography and prostitution. Sex Positive Feminists (or sex-radical, pro-sex or sexually liberated feminists) believe that women’s sexual freedom is an essential part of women’s autonomy. Any legal or social control or regulation over the sexual self is an attempt to control and regulate women, undermines their freedom and infringes upon their human rights. We are interested in promoting sex workers’ rights, sex education in schools, and we encourage the free expression of sexualities.

Sex Positive Feminists recognise that not all women choose to work within the sex industry and some are grossly exploited, so it is crucial to understand that sex work must be done consensually. Otherwise, it represents another form of control. We understand too that the opposite of sex positive is not sex negative. For more information about Sex Positive Feminism, click here.

In the next week or so I’ll be trying to think of some specific themes I’d like to cover in the next installment, but please send anything you think would be appropriate.

As usual, inimitable Susie nails it:

For her, it’s like Iggy Pop spotting a CBGB T-shirt for sale at the mall. What “Sex and the City” did was co-opt a very real, very important movement at the time that was dedicated to female sexuality and was in no small part spearheaded by Bright. Unfortunately, “in some cases, like with ‘Sex and the City,’ the fantasy became bigger than the reality of women speaking about their sexuality.” As “Sex and the City” returns, “everyone knows who Sarah Jessica Parker is, but Sarah Jessica Parker is not a pioneer in sex-positive feminism.”

The women of “Sex and the City,” asserts Bright, aren’t political. “They’re desperate to get married. They obsess about their marital status.” And they turned the sexual revolution for women of the new millennium into a business. To make her point, Bright references a recent New Yorker essay, “The Fall of Conservatism” by George Packer, in which Pat Buchanan paraphrased social theorist Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Comments Bright: “‘Sex and the City’ is the racket part of what once was recognizable as the sexual self-emancipation of the feminist movement.” For her, the commodification of the 21st century female sexual revolution hits too close to home. “I can’t watch these women, you know, make asses of themselves and be so petty and small-minded about sexual possibility. I take it too personally.”

Says Bright, “I feel like someone drove over me with a truck. I feel invisible. I feel — you know what I feel like? I feel like Trotsky when Stalin airbrushed him out of all the pictures of the Russian Revolution. I feel like the revisionist version of the sexual liberation movement is so stupid and shallow. If the original idea was about self-knowledge, and being orgasmically aware, and large and in charge, and independent, and not pathetically hung up on a man’s approval, then the show is a failure.” But, she adds, “I take it very seriously. I’m sure the people who make the show would say, ‘Lighten up. Susie Bright — what a pain.’”

This is what bothers me so much about Sex and the City.

And the money quote:

You have to laugh sometimes, how these things finally enter the mainstream vocabulary, what becomes exploitable, and what becomes lost.

And once again I find myself feeling like I did when I first read Full Exposure ten years ago: wishing that I could be like Susie when I grow up.

I’ve had this pinned in Bloglines for a while now. I quoted from it on my Tumblr, too. I guess I kept thinking I’d come back and write more lengthy commentary, but I realize there isn’t much else I could say, other than just: I relate. So I submit now without comment, a rather lengthy excerpt from Miss Syl’s post Type cast.

One thing that’s interesting about this internet world–and the written word in general–is the perception aspect. That is, the perceptions one builds of the people one reads. Much like reading a book where you create a mental image of the character, people read a blogger’s words and filter them through their own imaginations and experience. And whether deliberately or no, a picture of what the person would be like to interact with in “real life” develops–you invent an imaginary voice for the person, an imaginary height, body type…you think you “get” how that person would move or respond or act in real life.

I suppose this response is only natural. But it’s good to remember that this imagined perception is all you, not them.

…

Assumption #3: Because I talk about sex it means I want to fuck you, or that I’m an emotion-free Fembot designed specifically for your pleasure.

This one I feel really deserves no explanation–it should be an obvious fact of life. But it is shocking to me how often men themselves are shocked by a woman who will talk about sex with frankness and openly say she enjoys it. And equally shocking to me are the assumptions some of them make based on that reality. I mean, come on fellas, is it really that rare these days? When a GUY talks to you about sex, do you assume he wants to fuck you, regardless of his orientation?

So for the record: just because I talk about sex with you doesn’t mean I want to have sex with you. It means simply that I like talking about sex as one of many topics I enjoy talking about. It doesn’t mean I am trying to turn you on, even if you do get turned on. Saying that I enjoy sex doesn’t mean I’m thinking of having it with you. Necessarily. Of course, any of those conditions may be true: in some cases I might want to fuck the guy I’m talking to, or tease him to arousal, or I might be thinking about having sex with him. But this is not the rule by a long shot.

…

End point: A blog gives you very little to go on. Even when people are totally genuine, we are all of us more than we appear in the little glimpses of ourselves we give you. I myself have been surprised multiple times when I’ve met online people in real life and something about them has completely clashed with my perception of them.

And, I will end by posing to my readers the same questions Miss Syl poses to hers (the “what do I look like” one is less relevant, since I post plenty of photos).

I’m curious: Just for fun, what image of me do/did you have in your head? What do I look like, sound like, act like, dress like? I promise to debunk all misconceptions offered with the real picture (unless you ask me not to).

And for those of you who already know me off blog a bit–or for anyone else–what misperceptions do you run into most between your writing and in-the-flesh selves?

Debauchette apparently has a type of patience I lack. Here is part of her response to a comment that sent up countless “asshole” red flags for me:

There’s a learning curve in the choices we make. You learn something from promiscuity; you learn something else from a monogamous relationship; you learn something else from an open relationship. I think this discussion is more about feeling free to question whether monogamy, or the monogamy we know, is working for us and whether we need to think about relationships differently.

This is timely given how the “Don’t Be That Guy” panel went down today. More on that later - including audio of the panel, and probably an entire podcast of Rusty and me talking about our impressions.

I am, in general, not a patient person.

Anyway - I’m still at Balticon and have my last panel tonight at midnight (”So You Want To Be A Sex Podcaster”). Will be heading home tomorrow morning, at which time I’ll probably crash. I’ll post about the overall experience at some point (including going into Baltimore with Jenny!) but not sure when.

It’s been very interesting reading people’s definitions of kinky. (Keep ‘em coming!) The definitions are varied, but most of the commenters so far at least seem to agree that “kinky” is subjective.

What fascinates me, though, is that there does seem to be some concept of a generally-accepted meaning of the word, nebulous though it may be when you actually try to pin it down. But when people make your garden-variety stupid “oh, so-and-so is into the kinky stuff!” joke, there seems to be at least a general understanding of what that refers to. (Or not? Am I totally off base here? This is the impression I get.)

Maybe it’s pointless to try to reconcile individual’s personal definitions of/ruminations on the word with a larger cultural meaning, but this stuff fascinates me. I guess it’s the linguistics nerd in me.

I feel like in general, “kinky” is taken to mean “weird,” but “weird” includes stuff that actually isn’t weird by a lot of people’s standards, when you actually ask them. Which is why I think this general definition comes from a cultural level, which can be slower to change than the minds of individuals.

Am I making any sense here? I’m making sense to myself, but I feel like I’m probably making no sense whatsoever to anyone else.

Anyway, I’ll move right along and talk about what kinky means to me. Honestly, when I hear the word “kinky” or that someone is “into kink” or that a place is “kink-friendly” or whatever, I think of BDSM. I wonder how many other people equate kink and BDSM to some degree? I think I do it because I know quite a few people who are into BDSM to some degree and they do tend to use the terms interchangeably - or at least that’s how it appears to me, as a non-BDSMer looking in.

So to my mind, “kinky” tends to involve some or all of the following: leather, corsets, elaborate costumes, various props, bondage, domination/submission, safe words, not necessarily any actual fucking, most likely the term “scene,” and possibly the term “aftercare.”

It seems like in the thread where people were offering definitions, a lot of people were defining kinky the way I’d define sex-positive. I have to admit when I hear about kink this or kink-friendly that, sometimes a little red flag goes up, and I wonder if this is going to be my scene (ha!) or not. Look, I have nothing against BDSM and all that stuff; some of my best friends, an’ all. I’m just not into it. As a friend who shall remain nameless (unless s/he chooses to self-identify!) said about first learning about BDSM: “When’s the part where you have sex?” That’s basically how I feel about it. The whole dom/sub thing, and the props and the costumes and whatnot, does absolutely nothing for me. Now, I certainly like handcuffs from time to time, or being smacked on the ass with a belt, and other assorted fun stuff. But there’s usually fucking going on at the same time… I guess that’s the kicker for me.

Now before any of my BDSM-loving blog associates read this and get all worked up because I’m attacking your preferences - hey, you don’t have to. ‘Cause I’m not. Whatever anyone is into is awesome, for them! To my mind, the most important thing is for people to have the kind of sex they enjoy, and - I’ll borrow a phrase from the BDSM crowd here - to always be safe, sane, and consensual.

So in light of the recently-declared kink week, and my remark that I think kink is subjective, I want to start things off with a question for all you readers - even the lurkers! Come on, click on over from your RSS reader.

What does “kinky” mean to you? Is it particular acts? (If so, which ones?) Is it more of a mindset kind of thing? How do you understand that word in your personal lexicon?

I’m looking forward to hearing people’s answers!