Scarleteen: Help Lift Sex Ed to a Higher Plane
Posted on November 17, 2009 in activism | 2 Comments
I’ve written about the sex education network Scarleteen before, calling for support and donations to help keep this invaluable resource going strong.
I’ve been following Scarleteen and the work of its Executive Director, Heather Corinna, since probably around 1997 or ’98, and have been enamored especially of her photography and her work on her site femmerotic.com. Seems she’s not doing quite as much photography these days as she used to, though perhaps that’s partially because she’s working full-time AND running Scarleteen. (Yeah, sounds like something I would do, I know.)
Scarleteen’s had a big year – it’s now part of The Center for Sex and Culture out of San Francisco. But it still needs support, by which I mean DONATIONS.
Corinna also released her book S.E.X. in 2007 – “the in-depth and inclusive sexuality guide! Covering everything from STIs to sexual orientation, body image to birth control, masturbation to misogyny, the anatomy of the clitoris to considering cohabitation, and written for you whether you’re male, female or genderqueer; straight, gay or somewhere in between, this is THE everything-you-need, comprehensive, progressive sexuality handbook to get you through high school, college and the rest of your life.” Donate more than $75 and get a copy of the book.
Please consider passing on $5, $10, $100, $500 to this fantastic resource. You can also follow Scarleteen’s blog to keep up with some of the discussion.
More information about the site and its activism follows.
You probably know Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998. We have consistently provided free inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and support to millions for longer than anyone else online. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have remained online for nearly eleven years to sustain, refine and expand it.What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.
You also might not know Scarleteen is primarily funded by people who care deeply about teens having this kind of vital and valuable service; individuals like you who want better for young people than what they get in schools, on the street or from initiatives whose aim is to intentionally use fearmongering, bias and misinformation about sexuality to try to scare or intimidate young people into serving their own personal, political or religious agendas.
To try and reach our goal, we’re asking supporters to consider a donation of $100 or greater. If that isn’t possible for you, whatever you give will still help and will still be strongly appreciated. To donate now (or to view or link to the rest of this email online), click here. If you’d first like more information on why we’re setting the goal we are, what Scarleteen has done in the last year and during the whole of our tenure, our plans for 2010, and what the scoop is with our budget and expenses, keep reading.
National Coming Out Day & Matthew Shepard
Posted on October 12, 2009 in activism | 2 Comments
October is my favorite month – I’m going to state it officially for the record. It’s got some significant gay activist dates, like October 11th (in the US – apparently it’s the 12th in the UK), which is National Coming Out Day, and the whole thing is LGBT History Month. And October 12th is the anniversary of Matthew Shepard‘s death.
And this year, I’m sure you’ve heard, was the National Equality March on Washington, and news about its success has been streaming through my reader all day.
Last year, on National Coming Out Day, I wrote about where I was when Matthew died (in the same city as he was, actually) and shared the poem I wrote about it years later.
I still think coming out is one of the very most important things we can do, as queers, as dykes, as butches and femmes, as andro genderqueer gendernonconforming gender rebels, as trans folks, as kinksters. Coming out claims the space we rightfully stand on, and says we accept who we are, and if you don’t, that’s your goddamn problem. Coming out is visibility, and completely overrides whatever the lesbian uniform currently is.
Whoever you are, I urge you to come out to just one more person this week, this month, this year. Come out as whatever particular identity you happen to be. Come out in support of gay rights, come out by calling your coworker on their homophobic jokes. Come out and claim your space.
I ran across this clip of Judy Shepard visiting The Ellen Show last week, on October 9, 2009. She talks about Matthew’s death, her own subsequent activism, what a hate crime is, and the amazing news of the US House of Representatives expanding the Hate Crime definition on October 8th (I know, I don’t usually report on current events, but this is important and relevant to the October Activism).
PS, check out Ellen’s short hair! It just keeps getting shorter! I would love to talk to her someday about her gender and how it’s evolving – has she always been butch, and now that she has some solid fame and notariety she finally feels comfortable expressing herself? Is it Portia’s influence? Is she a reflection of the current culture? (Seems like she always has had very timely hair.) I’m curious, I’d love to hear what she says about it. And I just love that she’s doing more gay activism through her show than she ever has.
Pioneers, Visionaries, Safe Havens, and Glitter
Posted on June 19, 2009 in activism | No Comments
My article on the 2009 Lambda Literary Awards is up on CarnalNation, and I’m proud of it. I loved going to the awards and I am grateful to CarnalNation for sending me – and to Seal Press for sending me a couple of the books that were finalists!
It’s amazing how little news coverage the awards got, really. I was looking around as I was drafting this and all I saw were bitty little mentions on blogs, no major news coverage. I guess that’s not surprising, just a little sad.
Here’s the beginning of my article, to entice you to read it:
The 21st annual Lambda Literary Awards returned to New York City for the 2009 ceremony at the New School for Graduate Studies in midtown Manhattan, after presenting last year’s awards in Los Angeles. It seems appropriate that the awards would come of legal drinking age in Gotham, amidst solid grey skies and a drizzle, where writers stoop over bourbon in dark East Village bars. Writerly brooding just isn’t the same on the beach with bikinis and sunshine.
The Awards began in 1988, and though the specific categories have evolved since then, with the addition of bisexual and transgender categories and, eventually, the fizzling of the AIDS-related category, the Awards reflect the movements of the queer community for the past twenty years, and the best of the best new and seasoned authors are recognized and awarded. It is one of my life-goals to read all the winners—at least for the lesbian fiction category, if not all the others.
As someone whose life was changed and saved by queer books, I was thrilled to be attending the awards ceremony. I sat in the back so I could see the authors jump up when their name was announced after “and the winner is…” so I could see their lovers’ and friends’ faces as they hugged, clapped their hands, kissed on the cheek. And then the long walk to the stage and the acceptance speech: “I know it’s cliché to say that I didn’t prepare anything because I didn’t expect to win, but it’s true!”
Read the whole thing over at CarnalNation.
The complete list of winners is at the end of the article; pick out just one of them, at least, and read it, will you? These are amazing books which have been honored, and deserve reading.
Let’s Get Gay Married!
Posted on May 6, 2009 in activism | 6 Comments
I’ve been wanting to write a post about the changes in gay marriage legistlation that have been happening in the US lately. I’ve even started drafting some notes. But by time I get back to writing it, I find that yet another state has put something new into law.
Suddenly, it’s like a domino effect: Yesterday, the Maine House of Representatives voted to legalize same-sex marriage.
Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and now Maine; DC also passed legistlation to recognize gay marriages performed in other states (something New York and New Jersey also do).
Plus, there’s Massachusetts, which was the first state to let gay couples marry in 2004, who is I’m sure just sittin’ back going, “Whut? What’s the big deal? Oh, gay marriage? Yeah, we did that like five years ago. You guys haven’t done that yet?” (Apparently Massachusetts speaks in a lot of slang.)
Oh, and Connecticut, which began performaing gay marriages last fall.
Not only that, but Nate Silver, genius statistician behind FiveThirtyEight (which kept me sane during the 2008 election, along with Dr. Maddow), developed a model to estimate when other states will follow suit and pass gay marriage rights: “The model predicts that by 2012, almost half of the 50 states would vote against a marriage ban, including several states that had previously voted to ban it.” He recognizes that there could be a backlash, or a paradigmatic shift in favor of permitting gay marriage, and these could be completely off, but it seems quite possible that they are at least going to be partly accurate. And seeing it all in print like that is just … thrilling.
Sugarbutch is definitely not a news source, really, but as long as we’re making some serious headway, I think it deserves mentioning.
Wait, what? Sorry, what did I just say? THE number one gay civil rights issue is … succeeding? I feel like I’m in a cartoon where I have to shake my head and it gets all blurry. Really?
So now we’re equal, right? We’re the same, we’re going to be treated with respect, 11-year-old kids aren’t going to committ suicide because they are being bullied, taunted about their sexuality? Harassment is over, workplace discrimination is over – oh yeah, nobody can get fired for being gay anymore, right?
And don’t even get me started with the transphobia and genderphobia – where genderqueer folks are getting murdered through blatant hate crimes. At least “surprise” is less of a defense these days.
I have issues with the marriage focus of the gay rights movement. I understand that marriage is pretty much the ultimate symbol of a legitimate relationship (in this culture & society), so I understand why it’s important to work for, and I understand that perhaps for many people, it will be an important symbol in the step toward acknowledging the legitimacy of homosexual relationships.
(I could go on here about other legitimate forms of relationships that also deserve governmental tax breaks, the normalizing and construction of monogamy, the question of where is the separation of church and state in this issue, the belief that marriage is the ceremony and civil union should be the legal part, that marriage is also a class and privilege issue … lots of people are having this conversation lately, it’s all been said before.)
BUT: gay marriage is not THE END of the gay rights movements. It really hurts to read that gay advocacy groups are closing their doors because hey, we can get married now! There’s nothing else to fight for, is there?
Look, don’t get me wrong, I am SO GLAD that we’re gaining movement with the gay marriage issue. Thank heavens. Maybe we can now move on to some of the OTHER issues of the movement, like, oh, I don’t know, PEOPLE DYING.
Part of me wants to be snarky and say, “So you think this makes up for all that discrimination? Huh? Huh?” But hey, you’ve come around now, and that’s what matters. So: thanks, Maine. And thanks, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, DC, and all the other states who are helping make history, create change, support equality, justice, and validate all kinds of love.
Save About Face Theatre
Posted on March 2, 2009 in activism | No Comments
One of About Face Theatre’s many supporters emailed me recently with this call for help to keep the theatre’s doors open, staff paid, and the youth theatre program intact. If you can help, please do.
She writes:
As a young femme fresh out of college, I interned at About Face and learned a lot about making queer art that’s accountable to the community. AFT was a great place to work, and I got to see first-hand the high quality of the shows they produced and the impact they’ve had on LGBT youth through their youth program. This is the theatre group that made I Am My Own Wife into the incredible show that it was by the time it hit New York.
Here’s the call for donations and support:
SAVE ABOUT FACE THEATRE!
“This is a space where youth can come and have so much love and support. This is a place for us to be heard” – AFT youth artist
About Face Theatre, one of Chicago’s leading LGBTQ institutions and the original home of Pulitzer-prizewinning I AM MY OWN WIFE, is in danger of closing.
To confront this immediate crisis, About Face has launched a national “FACE THE FUTURE” campaign to save the organization and ensure its future. The About Face Board of Directors is asking for immediate financial contributions in order to keep its doors open, staff paid, and the youth theatre program intact.
About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity If About Face does not survive, the country will lose one of the few high-profile theaters making new work by and about the LGBTQ experience. The award-winning About Face Youth Theater serves queer youth by providing artistic experiences and leadership training.
In response to the economic downturn and significant debt, About Face has reduced its budget by over 30% by implementing staff and production cuts while also postponing our third show. This is the responsible action to take, but it is not enough. If you help us raise $300,000, we will solve our immediate crisis and build a foundation for ongoing financial health. Here’s what you can do:
– DONATE NOW www.aboutfacetheatre.com
– PERSONALIZE THIS EMAIL AND FORWARD IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES
Donations can be made at www.aboutfacetheatre.com, by calling (773)784-8565, or by mailing a check to the theatre at 1222 W. Wilson, 2nd Floor West, Chicago, IL 60640.
POST A VIDEO Artistic contributions are encouraged as well, as About Face organizes a web-based video forum for testimony on the importance of About Face Theatre, of mentoring queer youth, and the vital need for innovative artmaking in today’s society. To participate, please email bonnie@aboutfacetheatre.com or call the AFT office.
Important Calls for Support: Home Alive & Scarleteen
Posted on February 18, 2009 in activism | 4 Comments
Two great organizations are in need of support.
I know there are dozens – hundreds – more organizations that also need support, but these two in particular are very dear and important to my heart, they’re community organizations that have provided so much help and support and information to underserved, underrepresented groups.
SAVE HOME ALIVE is a grassroots effort to save a grassroots organization, Home Alive, out of Seattle. They offer self-defense classes to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, in response to issues of violence and safety in communities. They are particularly aware of those marginalized groups who tend to be more often the victims of street violence, and actively work to call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. I’d love to see Home Alive classes in cities all over the country. Home Alive needs $25,000 to keep its doors open.
Scarleteen, which I’ve linked to here often and hopefully you already know about, is a sex education and resource center aimed at teens (though I go there – and refer friends there – all the time there to find information on STIs and sexual health). They have some exciting news – they’re now part of the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco! And rom February 14th through March 15th, one of their regular donors has agreed match the donations they receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total. Just ten bucks helps, people! Do what you can, please.
If you don’t have money, you can help in other ways: steal these banners and reprint them on your own websites. Write a post about it. Send an email to all your friends (especially those with money). I’m taking out a blogads ad, and if you’ve got blogads on your site and want to donate to the cause by sending me your free ad code, I’d love to put the banner on your site.
More information on both of these amazing organizations follows.
Home Alive’s Mission:
Home Alive considers all forms of oppression as acts of violence against individuals.Through our self-defense classes, we call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. We challenge participants to defend themselves and our communities from these forms of institutional oppression.
By standing up against these types of violence-both individually and collectively we an create social change. Home Alive believes that safety is a basic human right. Every member of our community has the right to a life free from violence and hate. We know that, working together, we can create safe families, safe relationships and safe communities.
About Save Home Alive:
Hi there. My name is Jen and I’ve lived in Seattle since 2000. A few weeks ago I found my way to a class at Home Alive and honestly, it changed my life. Read my story here. When I heard this organization was closing their doors I decided to do whatever I could to help. This is my grassroots effort to help save an amazing grassroots org.
“You are worth defending. I am worth defending. In my heels and in my running shoes, in my skirt and cleavage and in my drag king drag. We are all always worth defending.” (Home Alive)
Home alive is worth defending! This is a call for help.
Home Alive, the self-defense organization started by friends outraged at the rape and murder of Mia Zapata, has been deeply rooted in the Seattle community for the last 16 years. They offer sliding scale self defense and boundary setting classes to anyone that wants to learn, regardless of whether or not they can pay. Because of this the organization is dependent on community donations. Read more about the organization here.
Right now, Home Alive is 25k in debt and being forced to close their doors. Realistically they need more than that to recover and rebuild but this website’s goal is to get them back to zero, at least.
Sooooooooo, I’m calling on 25 thousand people to give $1 dollar or for 5,000 folks to give $5 or for 2,083.333 folks to give $12 or for 862 people to give $29… or any creative combination of this really.
C’mon people. Don’t you want to help Save Home Alive?
Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen!
From February 14th through March 15th, one of our regular donors has agreed match the donations we receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total.
This is a great opportunity to amplify your support! You can play a part in sustaining Scarleteen and all of the young adults who need and are helped with our unique brand of inclusive, progressive, holistic and accurate sexuality education. As we finish one decade of delivering the goods we so strongly feel have nurtured and continue to nurture the development of a healthy, happy sexuality for young people, I’m asking for your help as we enter another.
Scarleteen is now affiliated with the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. The CSC was founded and is directed by Dr. Carol Queen and Dr. Robert Lawrence. Their mission is to provide judgment-free education, cultural events, a library/media archive, and other resources to audiences across the sexual and gender spectrum; and to research and disseminate factual information, framing and informing issues of public policy and public health. We’re thrilled to be the first young adult sex education project they have worked with and are very glad for this partnership. Robert and Carol, as well as other members of the CSC, have been incredibly supportive of Scarleteen and sex education as a whole over the years.
If you haven’t kept up, here are a few pieces we added to the site in 2008 and 2009 to give you an idea of what we’ve been up to:
- Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer
- How You Guys — that’s right, you GUYS — Can Prevent Rape
- Birth Control Bingo
- Shown Actual Size: A Penis Shape & Size Lowdown
- Give’em Some Lip: Labia That Clearly Ain’t Minor
- Blinders Off: Getting a Good Look at Abuse and Assault
- I, Being Born Woman and Suppressed
- Be a Blabbermouth! The Whys, Whats and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner
- Let’s Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry
We have also had a handful of great first-person pieces added from users or volunteers in our In Your Own Words section. Our voting guide last year helped many users of voting age to find clear, balanced information about the Presidential candidates to best inform (and motivate!) their vote. Our archive of direct, in-depth advice to users who write in with questions is extensive. Lastly, our message boards, which we rolled out in the year 2000, continue to be busy, actively moderated and a place of bustling, supportive conversation (as well as a way to help users manage crises quickly) at a level many teens do not have other opportunities to engage in when it comes to such loaded subjects.
- We rank in the upper 25,000 of all sites online internationally
- We consistently rank in the top 11,000 – 12,000 of all sites in the United States
- 65 million page loads have occurred at the site from users since 2006
- We now have over 40,000 active message board users
Support Scarleteen now! Visit www.scarleteen.com or take a look at more information (and the rest of this letter that I’ve reprinted excerpts from here) at Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen.
Courage Campaign’s “Don’t Divorce!”
Posted on February 7, 2009 in activism | 3 Comments
“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.
Have you heard that Ken Starr — and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund — filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and attempting to forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year? The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days.
The Courage Campaign has created a video called “Fidelity,” with the permission of musician Regina Spektor, that puts a face to those 18,000 couples and all loving, committed couples seeking full equality under the law.
After you watch the video, please consider joining me in signing the letter to the state Supreme Court and passing this video on to your friends. The more people who see this video, the more people will understand the pain caused by Prop 8 and Ken Starr’s shameful legal proceeding.
Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy #15
Posted on January 27, 2009 in activism | 15 Comments
Welcome to the 15th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom & Autonomy! I’m your host, Monsieur du Sexsmith, as we wander around the sex, feminist, queer, and gender blogospheres to bring you some amazing reading, writing, introspection, self-reflection, and inspiration on the subjects of sexual freedom and sexual autonomy.
[If I missed your link, I'm so sorry - it was a challenge to keep all of these organized! Email it to me, aspiringstud at gmail dot com, or leave a comment with your link in this post. Thanks!]
I’m going to start with a reproduction of the entire poem from pomegranate pen called temararious. Don’t worry, I won’t reprint everything in its entirety, but this was particularly beautiful and I have such a soft spot for poetry. It’s so incredibly sexy and I really felt the inner conflict of BDSM, of coming to one’s own with power and surrender. Make sure you leave comments over on pomegranate’s blog. (ps: I had to look up temerarious. What a fantastic word.)
you make me want to do
what i shouldn’t,
which is to givein. to stay up all night
for the company of your warm and breathing body,
to keep my eyes open in caseyou should want to meet my gaze.
you make me want:
to succumb. to surrender, hands above my head.(reckless abandon,
they call it,
i think.) youforce me to my knees and
you
make me feel every second
in my body -
we are connected -every atom suddenly becoming
something of us
the sharp focus of my eyes
and your breath filling my lungs
my own blood pounding
faster with each place you touch and
my hips leaning slowlyin –
these are the things you do to me
from across rooms and rivers
(you make me want to do
what i shouldn’t
and you make me want to whisperplease.)
I asked some very specific questions about sexual freedom and autonomy, and these are the 18 particular responses to that question. I know that’s kind of atypical of these feminist carnivals, but I have long thought that this carnival was full of fascinating concepts and was hoping to get some of the folks in my queer sex & gender circles to participate.
I was incredibly touched reading each one, witnessing people’s stories of coming to their own sexual power and understanding their own sexual journeys. Writing and examining our own stories is such an incredibly powerful way to witness our own lives unfold, and that is one of the reasons I adore the writing medium of blogging so much.
I have so much to say about each of these contributions, each of which held revelations for me. But I’m going to let them speak for themselves, with a small excerpt from each piece.
Without more fanfare: let’s get on with the contributions and excerpts.
When or If: When Your Heart Holds You Back
A friend asked that I write about sexual freedom, and being as I am a pretty sex-positive queer kid I figured I’d write about how I got my freedom. What obstacles I’ve overcome to reach the place in my life where I feel free to express my sexual desire, show off my sexuality. … But I couldn’t. I can’t write about that, because it hasn’t happened.
Running Away with the Spoon: Crossing Over
Earlier in our relationship, after we have talked about fucking, we wander into a conversation about how I am her woman, and I say, uncertain of her response, “I want you to be my man.” She pauses for a second, a little surprised, and then says evenly “I am your man. You are my woman and I am your man.” My heart jumps. I have so longed for this, someone willing to cross over into that genderfucking territory with me. but I can see that this is new for her to vocalize, new words for her to speak. So we tread slowly.
Butch Girlcat: Sexual Freedom, Autonomy, & Stone
I accepted the label of stone around the same time I embraced the identity of butch. In both cases it seemed like a matter of accuracy. I’ve written pages and pages now about being butch but very little about being stone. Which only makes sense. We do silence well. She does give me pleasure, oh my god she does, but you won’t hear about it from me, not even if you’re standing next to the bed. I know my face gives me away to her. That’s my version of surrender.
Freedomgirl: Some Thoughts on Sexual Freedom
The word ‘freedom’ is incredibly powerful and meaningful to me, hence the title of this blog. I titled it, and myself, at a moment when my life changed completely; I was realizing just how unfree I had been, for a stretch of time in my relationship, and more largely during my whole life. Unfree to be me, unfree to want the things that I oh so much wanted, unfree to express my sexual desire. [...] it’s more than just opening the chains of my relationship; it’s also removing the limitations that I imposed on my own mind and my own desires. Sexual freedom is the new joy in my own body that I’ve found this year. It’s claiming my sexuality for myself, not for my partner or in opposition (or conformity) to some societal ideal.
Miss Avarice: Sexual Autonomy & Sexual Freedom
For me, Sexual Autonomy means having age-appropriate access to the wealth of information that exists about different types of relationship styles, different sexual activities, fetishes, and interests, as well as safer sex practices and contraception. I think this will only happen when we live in an environment that encourages open communication, mutual respect, and an understanding of the important role that sexuality plays in every person’s life.
Uncommon Curiosity: Straight Talk
At this point, keeping track of all the gradations of gender involved in living my life would take an accountant, three maps and a well-trained sheepdog. But I only say “pretty much” because there is still a small spot in my heart that yearns to join the club, to earn my queer patch – if only so the 11-year-old inside me could make it right.
Tina-cious: Freedom is Rarely Free
I thought, at first, [this was] a no sweat kind of question. Turns out, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Truth is — my sexual “freedom” hasn’t – for the majority of my life – been mine at all. What it had been was the will of my lovers. … All of a sudden I knew what it meant to be allowed to have a say in what sex meant to our relationship. My ideas for new things to try all of a sudden were met with enthusiasm. EVERY sexual deviance I could come up with was open to me for the taking. I just had to vocalize them. Games, role playing, toys, positions, apparatus, anything. All of a sudden I actually felt sexy. Wanted. Lusted after.
True sexual freedom came to me when I started fucking women. I was the initiator, the aggressor, the top. I felt like a whole new world of possibilities opened up for me and soon after, it did. I discovered the online queer community and before I knew it my inner perv resurfaced and I began to own my sexuality and my body once again. I started to come to terms with my gender identity and understand that sex was going to be something I would only enjoy if I was doing things that I desired. I realized that I could experiment with role play, kink, and even a bit of pain. To this day, there is still so little that I am not open to trying, and there is nothing about sex to fear because everything I do is on my terms, and I am 100% in control of it all, even when I choose to surrender that control.
When I came out in my twenties I felt myself very liberated. And in some ways I was. However, shame was certainly preventing me from exploring my sexuality freely and in its entirety. I did make progress in some areas though. … Now in my forties and in the ridiculously late flowering discovery of my essential sexual nature, I feel less shame than ever before. That is not to say I am freed from it, but it certainly withers as my confidence grows.
So what does “sexual autonomy” and “sexual freedom” mean to me? It means that I can enjoy, appreciate and express my sexuality and gender without fear of rejection or ridicule. It means that I finally have the access to knowledge, the experiences of others and the support to explore my emotions, fears and desires. It means that instead of standing still and stagnating, I can move forward, learning and growing as a person. It means I can be me.
[H]aving sex with girls has given me the freedom to access other aspects of my sexuality. Because coming out as gay was easy, but being gay is what gave me the ability to come out (at least to myself) as slutty, kinky, and maybe a little less than gay.
Butchtastic: Don’t fence me in
For me sexual/gender autonomy and freedom are ultimately about self-determination. We should each have the freedom to not only choose our identity labels at any given time, but change them as we wish. I don’t know about you, but my notion of who I am has changed a helluva lot since I came out as a lesbian at seventeen. For the first part of my sexual life, that label and the expected behaviors associated with being a lesbian fit me. I had no desire or need for men in a sexual way. At the same time, I also didn’t relate much to ‘butch’ because of what I saw as a restrictive set of behaviors associated with that label: being less open sexually and emotionally, and taking on what I saw as mostly negative masculine behaviors.
The Verbosery: Finding my Pieces
A woman who personifies the masculine spirit but still craves being fucked like a woman? To me, personally, that’s just about hotter than the surface of the sun. … Part of my journey in understanding my personal relationship with femme was coming into the realization that the stereotypical femme bottom role did not apply to me. I had to come to terms with the fact that femmes top, too. Not only that, but I had to revisit my own personal understanding that I don’t, have never, fallen neatly into given categories. I have always endeavored to forge my own trail, to find the pieces that fit best and felt right for me, personally.
Three-hole Punch Me: On Sugarbutch Chronicles, Sinclair Asked …
To me, sexual autonomy and sexual freedom are synonymous with “owning” my sexuality. This means that I am responsible for putting myself into sexual situations as well as removing myself from those situations when I need to. It means that I decide when I want to have sex, and what kind of sex I want to have. No one else pressures me into it, and I am not forced to do things that I don’t understand or don’t want to do. It means that I am honest with myself and honest with my partner(s) and that we communicate openly and honestly about what we will do together and what the boundaries are. It means that my partner asks for my CONSENT and I do the same for the other person.
Green-Eyed Girl: Sexual Freedom
If asked a couple of years ago what my thoughts on sexual freedom were, I would have laughed and said, “A whip, silly. A whip in one hand and my fingers wrapped around your hair, pulling tightly – that is when I feel most sexually free.” That’s the person I used to be – very much in control & a touch on the violent side (sexually). I don’t know when it changed, I can’t give a specific time when I came to the realization that I am no longer that person. I am fully aware of it though, this huge difference in my sexual behavior. I am also fully aware that it is because I trust her and that is the reason why I have shifted from being a top to a bottom.
A Feminist View: Freedom & Autonomy, Part 1: All Places are Not Alike
[M]y journey to sexual freedom (and autonomy?) is synonymous with my discovery of consensual and safe BDSM sex, and of consensual D/s relationships. With reference to my own past, it is clear that I had no freedom or autonomy as I grew up, and it was only when I came to understand other ways of seeing what was innately in me that I came to have any sense of having control over my own sexuality – that I could own it in every sense of the word. [Also check out part two.]
Sugarbutch: Sexual Autonomy & Freedom
I’m supposed to be writing about sexual autonomy and freedom – so let me tell you this: I cannot untangle gender from sex from power. They are all the spiraling sugar-phosphate backbone in the DNA of my sexuality, and it wasn’t until I unlocked my gender that my sexual liberation truly lived in my body, that my sexuality was truly realized and in practice. It wasn’t until I had a cock – no: it wasn’t until I had a girl who knew what to do with my cock. My gender is the language of my desire, my attraction. The ways I communicate physically. Say gender is a drag, but also say this: I wasn’t me until I discovered my own gendered space.
… and yes, I know this is the longest post in the history of long posts on Sugarbutch, but it’s worth it, I promise.
Read about 20 more posts after the cut.
Blog for Lesbian Health Day
Posted on January 5, 2009 in activism | 9 Comments
Let’s talk about our health.
Personally I am extremely grateful to have grown up in a culture where the women’s health movement had already had significant effects and waves. I went to teen-positive health centers for my first annual exams and birth control prescriptions, I went to queer-positive centers after I came out who didn’t blink twice when I checked “lesbian” on the forms.
And, honestly, Lesbian Health and Women’s Health are big – huge! – topics on which I am not so well-versed. Breast cancer, cervical cancer, HIV prevention, the myths around lesbians being less susceptible to STIs, safer sex practices, gender discrimination, transphobia … these are huge topics, each of which are worthy of their own examination.
And lucky for us, there are many wonderful people working within these fields to make it more lesbian-inclusive, queer-inclusive, gender-inclusive.
Today is Blog for Lesbian Health Day in honor of the upcoming National Lesbian Health Summit taking place March 6 through 8, 2009, in San Francisco. It’s only $30 registration for both days.
(Anyone have any plane-fare hookups? I’d love to go, but can’t afford to actually get there. Note to self, get an airline sponsor.)
I’ve been in touch with Cat, one of the organizers of the conference, and she writes:
Instead of it being just a boring conference, we want to use it as a place to build grassroots, community-based conversations on our health and what health issues affect us. AND most importantly, how we can be leaders in championing our health and getting TPTB to pay attention to our health. This is a critical moment in our nation’s history and we want to make the most of it.
The thing that is probably #1 on my list about health, as a, ahem, sexually active queer person, is STIs and safer sex. It’s something that I always intend to write about more here, to address issues how to keep your toys clean, reminders to wear gloves and use dams and condoms, but it’s a topic that – again – is HUGE, and I tend to feel like I need to do a whole bunch of research on something before I write it up, and I can’t seem to make the time to do the research. (I do practice safer sex, and I try to include it in my write-ups … but that’s not quite the same as opening up a specific dialogue about it.)
So let me take this little opportunity to say: EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT SAFER SEX. There are many ways to do this. I recommend Scarleteen – though it is geared toward teenagers, the information is clear and straightforward, basic, and in-depth, and I often use it as a resource when I come across health questions that I can’t answer.
So, instead of writing about my own experiences with the healthcare systems (which have been mostly positive, actually) or speculating too much about the community questions, I want to ask you:
What health issues are you concerned about? For yourself and for your community?
What information do you need to make better decisions about your health?
And what experiences have you already had with your health and the healthcare world (the good, the bad, the ugly)?
What do health issues do we need to take on and how?
How can we better grapple with how we form who we are (allowing for all of the ways we see ourselves) and let that lead our conversations on health?
What do you want to see this summit address?
Do you want to take them to task for calling it the Lesbian Health Summit? Is it welcoming to your particular identity?
If you’d like, leave your stories in the comments, or write it up on your own blog – and please do leave a link to what you write here.
Register online for the Summit now, or visit their website for more information.
this is what your heart tells you to do
Posted on November 14, 2008 in activism | 13 Comments
This has been played & overplayed on the blogs I read this week, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you must. I love the conviction in his voice, the passion, the drive. Bottle just a thumbnail of that and keep it wrapped in your chest when you need respite.
We can do this, we can get through this, we can fix this, we can change this.
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Photo by Bill Wadman
Sugarbutch Chronicles is an online writing project (aka “blog”) which explores sovereignty, healing, and communication through the personal examinations of sex, gender, and relationships, while celebrating queer sexuality, gender, culture, and identity in ways that are expansive rather than restrictive, liberating rather than limiting.More of Me
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Want me for a workshop or event? Contact PhinLi, my booking agent, and see my upcoming appearances here.
My Work Elsewhere- The Center Hosts Lesbian Erotica at the LGBT Center in NYC Saturday, April 28, 2012
- A Leather Conversation with Sassafras Lowrey and Sinclair Sexsmith on Lambda Literary Tuesday, April 24, 2012
- Sinclair Sexsmith on “Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica”: The Autostraddle Interview Sunday, April 8, 2012
- Mr. Sexsmith Says: Strapped On Blow Jobs Are Deeply Pleasurable on SexIs Magazine Saturday, April 7, 2012
- Say Please: An Interview With Sinclair Sexsmith About Kinky Lesbian Smut on Good Vibes Magazine Thursday, April 5, 2012
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