If you are not in the "loop" or if you are a White sexologist who has NO clue how to discuss what is going on with Mayer's racist, triflin, -ism ooozing comments you need to take some time to sit and read the following analysis:
People often forget these sexual and reproductive health care need during times of distress, terror, confusion, natural disaster, etc. If we don't learn from what people needed during 9/11 then we surely need to learn from what people needed during Hurricane Katrina. If you are sending items to Haiti please remember the following:
-Sanitary Napkins -Tampons -Condoms -Spermicide -Morning After Pill (Plan B) -Napkins/Paper Towels/Toilet Paper UPDATED My homegirl Prof. Susurro (who has also made a comprehensive list of places to give) reminded those of us with access to meds: -HIV medications -Hormone medication
Folks may not want to recognize that often when people are scared, confused, and needing something tangible in their life, sex is often one of the most accessible forms of affection and touch that can be experienced. When 9/11 happened I was at NYU and students were evacuated from downtown housing. Those students were placed in the NYU arena/gymnasium. They had to distribute condoms to students because in that time that was the one thing that they found comfort in: one another's bodies. Please help the possibility of infection and unwanted pregnancies by remembering condoms, spermicide and plan b.
Also, people may be menstruating and needing various products to help them from experiencing any more frustration and discomfort than they already have. Please make sure that if you are sending items to Haiti to remember these items. I have yet to see a list of what Haiti needs that includes these items.
I've heard (but can't find confirmation) that FedEx is shipping anything under 50 pounds FREE of charge to Haiti. UPDATE neither FedEx nor UPS are offering free shipping at this time. Please take the time to remember all the things people lost and need and how reproductive and sexual health intersect with coping and healing.
I've joined the team at Anti-Racist Parent to write about sexuality, gender, youth, class, ethnicity, race, and other aspects of our identity. I'm working on a post about the topic of "sexual bullying" and some posts about how our sexuality develops over time, especially with children! The link above is my introduction as a writer, with a brief bio.
I'm teaching a class at the College of Mount Saint Vincent this summer called Women, Art & Culture. I'm super excited to teach this class again because I get to share and discuss topics I love. Also, I get to have my students interact with dynamic media, and phenomenal women. Guest speaker line up includes: Maegan "La Mamita Mala" Ortiz, Sofia Quintero aka "Black Artemis" and my homegirls from DC who focus on mestizaje identity and women in jazz music.
In researching videos to include in my syllabus, which is interdisciplinary and incorporates intersectional theories, I will be using the following videos throughout the class to highlight the connection of gender, race, age, ethnicity, national origin, disability, citizenship status, sexuality, sexual orientation, and other aspects of our identity. I think it is important to share resources. These three videos will be used in my class. They are created by The Empowered Fe Fes, a group of young women ages 13-24 who "all different kinds of disabilities and come from different racial and ethnic communities."
(The Empowered Fe Fes Take On Bullying) was produced in a workshop with the junior group of the Empowered Fe Fes, a project of Access Living in Chicago. In this film, 13 young women with disabilities explore school-based bullying by interviewing people on why bullying happens and how they respond, then acting out common experiences with new solutions. The Empowered Fe Fes demand viewers to consider bullying as a serious issue of discrimination, letting us know that we can work together to both understand the stop the problem.
The next video is called Beyond Disability and is about:
The Empowered Fe Fes (slang for female), a group of young women with disabilities, hit the streets of Chicago on a quest to discover the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them. Their revelations are humorous, thought provoking and surprising. As the young women grapple with issues as diverse as access, education, employment, sexuality and growing up with disabilities, they address their audience with a sense of urgency, as if to say, "I need to tell you so you'll see me differently."
This last video is called Doin' It: Sex, Disability & Videotape
The Empowered Fe Fes, a peer group of young women aged 16 to 24 with different disabilities, strike again with their second video production, an insightful investigation into the truths about sex and disability. In the video, the Fe Fes educate themselves about sex from many angles by talking with activists and scholars. The viewer tags along on a date between a woman with a disability and her able-bodied boyfriend, exploring relationship issues of dating with a disability over a candle-lit dinner.
I hope it goes without saying that having a "disability week" in a syllabus is condescending and inappropriate, just like a "lesbian week" or "Latino week" would be.
Here's My Plan: Currently, I plan to introduce the topic of disability and how it intersects with our multiple identities on the first day of class. Students will complete a social identity profile/matrix and I have assigned a paper around this profile/matrix. My colleagues and disability activists have shared and suggested to me terminology, definitions, and statistics on people living with disabilities in the US especially among women, women of Color, working-class women, and youth. What I have discovered is that when disability is discussed with other aspects of our identity, able-bodied privilege is one of the most surprising privileges many able-bodied students rarely think about. It is often the only privilege that students openly talk about and admit to having (if they do) versus discussions of White privilege, privilege of citizenship, Anglophone privilege etc., which are usually met with more resistance and defense of such privileges.
I plan to use these videos throughout the class, on three different days, and showing them again (as they are all under 1 hour) at other times during the course when my students have learned media literacy skills (I think it's important for students to acquire the skills to then re-watch a film and actually see how their lenses have widened/shifted/become more informed). Usually, when discussing reproductive rights and health, I remind students that it was not just Puerto Rican, Haitian and poor women of Color who have been carelessly used as "guinea pigs" for birth control research in the US, but women with disabilities were included too and are still not protected or given the same rights/choices/agency.
I hope this post can begin conversations on what we as educators use in our classrooms and with one another. I want to challenge the ideas that we learn the best and most useful knowledge from a "book." Incorporating films, poetry, testimonios, sculpture, cartoons, photography, and TV (to name a few) are what I enjoy included in my classes. What are some other resources you use? Do you have thoughts on using these resources? Please share!
Mira gente, this week's Sunday Night Common Sense was just as much for me as it was for you! I'm struggling. My heart broke and I'm quickly putting the pieces back together and happy doing it this time around! In between talking with my homegirls Erika Lopez and dopegirlfresh and ME, I realized a thank you letter is what I will write to my last/past/ex/lover. As Erika said to me last night, I did dodge a bullet with this one!
Today I've got the courage up to work on the Crafty Chica Love Shrine I purchased on my trip to Arizona in February! Yes, the box has been looking at me for that long. It's time. So I'll work on my Love Shrine, when I'm done I'll post the pictures and share the process. Just so you know, I'm also reading this book to review for my editor which definitely speaks to the space I'm in right now!
In the meantime, here are some links that really helped me reflect and challenged me this week:
My man Marty Klein is at it again! His latest article Oprah: Anti-Vagina, Anti-Sex (which was published again this week) came off a bit harsh at first as someone who believes that acupuncture, massage, ritual, and other non-traditional medications and practices DO work for many people, he's on point (as usual) with O's discomfort on the topic. Check it out and tell me what you think!
My article on the Top Sexiest Songs (to get it on to) was published with audio! Which reminded me of how fierce the film Amores Perros is (and can't believe it's almost 10 years old!) and how this song is one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack!
Elena picked me up from the Sex Conference on Friday and we went straight to the Heard Museum to hear a panel on art, gender, and sexuality. I was just really excited to hear women of Color speak on these topics, especially from after the last session I attended at the conference. I was also super excited to hear the Crafty Chica. Some of you may not know this but there are some folks who are just famous to me, she is one of them, so when I saw her walk in I got all uber nervous and chickened out on talking to her! For those of you who have received my gifts of candles, it was her book that inspired such art!
There was the gorgeous DJ Brazillia spinning great music prior to the talk. I saw my favorite Mexicans who I had not seen in years! And we took our seats for the presentation. I rather not hash out the specific discussion of the panel, but I do want to add that Crafty Chica was the best on the panel (of only 2 women of Color out of the 5 women). I asked a question about how women can control the gaze and make choices to engage their sexuality through performing their gender expression in a particular way and two outspoken panelists were very condescending in ways that I wish I could forget from my days as a graduate student in a Women’s Studies program.
They argued that women can not control the gaze when working in particular spaces. I found this ironic for second wave feminists to state since choice and agency are at the heart of that time period. They tried to “school” me, but what they really did was misunderstand what my question was. When I didn’t back down, and told them that I’m asking about “next steps” from the “not controlling the gaze” to a space where women have choice and agency, then what? Can they speak more about that? Only the Crafty Chica did.
What does it mean that in a space devoted to this topic, a field of which I’ve been an active part of for over a decade, two panelists can so comfortably tell me I’m wrong and do not know what I speak of? What does it say about them, as women, as artists, that they cannot allow themselves to imagine a space where women do and can have such choice and agency?
After the session my hermanos y hermanas said they “understood my question” and that it was a “good” question. As if I were a magnet, two White women approached me and said they agreed with what I had to say, that they appreciated it, and wanted to engage me more. I shared what I wrote above. I also wondered to myself why they hadn’t said these things within the group versus with just me on the side. To be fair, one woman had spoken briefly about her courtship practices, but at the time I could not see the connection to my query.
This always seems to happen to me. Folks approach me after the conversation is over to tell me they agree with me. They appreciate my comment. They like my perspective. Yet that support, encouragement, community is not there the moment shit hits the fan and I get all the backlash. Does it matter that people approach me after the verbal lashing?
If you follow me on twitter you know I already asked this. But it is one of the reasons why I came to this field, not to see my work being ignored, my lives work at that. Either way: I wonder why one of the "nationally recognized sex toy boutique" provides a list of Sex Goddesses, but they are all White.
I say we come up with a list of more inclusive Sex Goddesses. Send me your suggestions and I'll compile the list and forward it to Babeland, who originally compiled the colorfree list.
Share anyone and everyone because as people of Color, as women of Color, communities that are under-resourced, I know we do sexuality education on a regular basis just not with a publisher, in front of a camera or with a huge budget. Here's your chance to mention a Sex Goddess in our community. Let's recognize one another and add our voice.
