Then, join in on the Sunday Share. What does sexual freedom mean to you? Where do you feel you, or we, need more freedom?

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I’ll go first. Sexual freedom, to me, means the ability to participate in sexual behaviors that I want to participate in, with the partners I wish to be involved with, in a consensual manner. It means the choice to do what you want in bed.

I think freedom is needed in sexual education. Abstinence only doesn’t work. We should know that by now. We need the freedom to teach young people what they need, and want, to know. Also, I think the queer community as a whole needs to be more free when it comes to talking about safer sex. And I think we need to be more free to talk about kink and BDSM.

That’s not to say there aren’t things I want to change. Indeed, there are so many things I want to change.

That brings me to this week’s Sunday Share. What do you wish was different in our higher education system? What topics would you like to see enter the realm of academia?

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I’ll go first.

I wish our higher ed system put more emphasis on exploration and research at the lower levels. I feel like I spent too much of my undergraduate career regurgitating information, and now I’m expected to suddenly do independent research.

I wish their was more acceptance for diversity. As a TA, I’ll make sure to ask my students what names and gender pronouns they prefer, and then address them as they wish to be addressed. I want to foster an atmosphere of respect for everyone, whoever they are.

I wish there was more research on health issues, especially as they relate to transgendered people and, to a lesser extent, women. I think the health field is doing a better job at researching women’s issues or with female subjects, but that there is still a long way to come. Additionally, I wish “pop culture” was considered a more respectable area of study in Women’s Studies, Sociology, and the like.

1) Body image of female gymnasts, not only at the elite level, but at the recreational, pre-competitive, compulsory, optional, and collegiate level. What do gymnasts think about their bodies? How do they compare themselves with other gymnasts, other athletes, and their peers in general? In what ways do they worry about their bodies? In what ways are they empowered by their bodies? Is there a standardized measure of body image that I can use to compare gymnasts with the larger female population? How does this compare with the representation of women gymnasts in the media (both “insider accounts” and popular media- like Make It Or Break It and youth fiction). While we are at it, how do gymnasts thoughts on their bodies differ from what coaches and/or parents expect

Challenges: human subjects approval, sample size, statistics.

2) The peformance of gender roles in the circus. Compare historical roles in traveling circuses to those in modern circus arts, a la Cirque du Soliel. Strong men v. graceful aerial artists. Was this intentional or coincedental? Did/Does this reflect society or shape society, or both? How does this clear deliniation of gender roles among circus artists compare with the bearded women and such of the traveling sideshows? What was the appeal of each? The beautiful and the grotesque?

Possible resources: Janet Davis (UT Austin) “The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top” 2002, John Kasson, Peta Tait “Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance” 2005.

Consideration: UT Austin American Studies PhD? Someone in NC is doing work on this too.

3) Representation of transgender or non-”gender-conforming” individuals in popular media. It’s hard to think of trans- characters in mainstream media, but when they exist how are they shown? More interested in fictional characters than reality shows and talk shows.

Examples of the top of my head: Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Moira/Max from The L Word (is The L Word over-analyzed already?), Transamerica, Degrassi, Boys Don’t Cry. Do these representations reinforce stereotypes or show a range of expierences?

Possible resource: GLAAD

4) The discourse over “butch flight.”

Ah, maybe I can go back to sleep now.

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I love kids. I love the brutal honesty of kids. And I love how sometimes kids have things better figured out than adults. If you’re anything like me, the blog most “In which I’m renamed by some kid” on “Can I help you, sir?” will bring a smile to your face.

Best part, “You’re not, like, a regular girl. You look like you’d want a cool name instead of a pretty one.”

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I’m never a fan of lunatic, homophobic protesters, so I almost feel bad for even featuring this picture. On the other hand, as justlikejessejames blogged, it’s a sign of the times.

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As reported on RNW (Radio Netherlands Worldwide), Dutch textbooks will soon feature same-sex couples. While Dutch schoolchildren learn about homosexuality in subjects like biology and history, same-sex couples will now be featured in the background of other school materials, just like people of different ethnicities or ability levels. Thus a math text might feature a same-sex couple shopping for groceries. I know I would have loved to see that ever in a school textbook.

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Sometimes A Softer World is just funny:

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Finally, my best friend recently made me an amazing CD entitled “Gender is Fun.” As I embark on the journey that is a graduate degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, I’ll need that reminder.

This song has been stuck in my head, not only for its catchy tune, but also its honest truth. “God Bless Ye Femmy Lesbians” by The Kinsey Sicks:

The pop-up-video thing is sorta amusing, but I think the song on its own is more amusing.

I excitedly showed it to my mother. “Look what I found,” I said, “This is going to be awesome.”

She picked it up, flipped to the front cover, and laughed,  “My mom and step-dad had this on the bookshelf. My sisters and I would steal it and look things up.”

I expected some major differences. After all, this book was written in the pre-AIDS era. It was published the year of the Stonewall Riots. Sodomy laws were still on the books in every state except Illinois. It was before Roe v. Wade. The pill had been on the market for less than a decade.

In some ways, I was impressed. Reuben said that sex was three different experiences: a means f  procreation, a means of expressing love, and fun. Throughout the text, he encouraged sex for pleasure as a natural part of the human experience.  He argued that there was nothing wrong with the elderly having sex, and that it might, indeed, be beneficial. In some ways he was incredibly progressive, for example, suggesting that prostitution be legalized and monitored. He called modern sex education a joke and called for sex ed that included information not only on the physiology of procreation, but the physiology of orgasm. He viewed masturbation as a normal part of life, saying the only problem with masturbation  is our shame in it. Furthermore, he adamantly supported the availability of medical abortions and a strong supporter of a variety of birth control methods. Indeed, he even predicted the future, saying:

“What is needed is a retrospective method of conception control. In Japan, where birth control pills are not available, legal abortion fulfills that need. Modern chemistry is struggling to come up with a better way. The ideal drug is a morning-after pill. Taken anytime up to a week or so after intercourse, it would prevent the implantation in the uterus of the fertilized egg. With seven days to think of over, reason might prevail, parents might be a little happier, the children who are born might be loved a little more, and the world might be a little less crowded.”

But that is where my positive review ends. Even for being written forty years ago, some of the information is quite offensive and biased, not to mention downright wrong. I dog-eared the corners of the pages that hit a nerve. Probably half of the book is marked.

The male-bias is un-ending, the anti-women comments are rampant, and all homosexuals are promiscuous, danger-seekers who want to be women.

A few favorite bits:

“If the woman finds that achiving orgasm is only a matter of finding the “right” penis, she may decide to do something about it. The common name for this is nymphomania. The woman, unaware of the real nature of her problem, goes from man to man, cocktail party to cocktail party, looking for “real satisfaction.”

“Homosexuals thrive on danger. It almost seems part of their sexual ritual.”

“There is even a subcategory of homosexual know as the “S and M.” This is the one type of gay guy the others fear. Rarely will any homosexual knowingly pick up an “S and M. (“S and M” ? What does that mean?) Technically, sadist and masochist. Literally, trouble. These who combine homosexuality with sadistic and masochistic aberrations are among the cruelest people who walk this earth.”

I could go on with racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks from the book, but I will stop.

While I have not purchased the updated edition, and likely will not, I did browse through it on Google Books. While there is far more accurate and updated information on some topics, like abortion and STDs, the homophobic and sexist language remains. Clearly free speech is free speech, and a book can be biased against homosexuality. From an academic perspective, the 1969 text and the changes that have and have not been made say a lot about our society.

And so, this brings me to my Sunday Share. This book was a huge hit in its time. According to the all-reliable Wikipedia, it was the most popular non-fiction book of its era. For those of us in our 20s now, our parents would have been older children or teens when this book came out. How do you think the sex education your parents grew up with differed from the sex education that you received? How does this help explain, or complicate, the differences in you and your parents sexual  attitudes?

Note: The Sunday Share is a new idea of mine. I want to hear your thoughts, and this is to encourage you to share, whoever and wherever you are. Share publicly, share anonymously, or share under a fake name. I don’t care. Just share.

She writes:

“I was left with only questions. To Be or Not to Be: black, Negro, African-American, feminist, femme, mulatto, quadroon, lesbian, straight, bisexual, lipstick, butch bottom, femme top, vegetarian, carnivore? These political identities let me into the maze of American identity politics, and hopefully out the other side.”

I’ve been trying for months to come up with something clever to say about this essay I very much enjoyed. I’ve been searching for some intelligent discourse on the appeal and danger of identity politics. Something about how we are always more than we seem. How we each exist at the sum of all of our identities. Something about how making the boxes too small pushes others out.

I’ve been thinking about this more today, 9 years after the September 11, 2001. With a lunatic threatening to burn Korans and American up in arms over the place of Muslims in American society, it seems more important than ever to remember that people are more than symbols, or labels, or movements.

Needless to say, I still haven’t formed my coherent thoughts. Instead, I will just share the concluding part of her essay.

“…it is not my “half-breed” lipstick-carrying feminist muddle that is too complicated, but identity politics which are too simplistic, stuck in the realm of the body, not the realm of belief and action. I have become suspicious of kente clothe and womyn symbols, the sale and mass consumption of cultural artifacts. My yearning to be real has led me in circles, to red herrings called identity, those visible signifiers of liberation that can be bought and sold as easily as any other object. Breaking free of identity politics has not resulted in political apathy, but rather it has given me an awareness of the complexity and ambiguity of the world we have inherited- and the very real power relations we must transform.”

Lo was talking about her relationship and I noted that she kept using the term “my boyfriend.” I asked her why, and she admitted that she didn’t know what else to use.

We discovered a language problem.

In a relationship where one person identifies as something other than male or female, “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” do not work. We decided that the terms “partner” and “significant other” seem too formal and imply a degree of longevity or commitment that might not be there. Omitting the gender and simply referring to them as “friend” denies the shared relationship. “Special friend” sounds ridiculous.

And so, we are posing a question. What terminology exists to acknowledge a relationship with someone who identifies as genderqueer or otherwise outside of the binary? Is there a good word to say “Ze is my ____”? If not, let’s make one up. What would you suggest?

However, the mainstream media isn’t talking about how to be a good sexual citizenship. Thankfully, Carnal Nation is. Check out the article “Random Acts of Sexual Citizenship.”

Do you follow any of their suggestions? What else should a good sexual citizen do?

The essay “Femmenism” by Jeannie Delombard in the collection “To Be Real” by Rebecca Walker explored a little bit of all of this through the lens of femmenism, which she defines as “where the third wave of Western feminism and the third wave of American lesbianism intersect.”

She writes:

“Femmenism is nothing if not contradictory. Femmenism is looking like a straight woman and living like a dyke. Femmenism is being attracted to someone of the same sex who is very much your opposite. Femmenism is calling yourself a girly-girl and insisting that others call you a woman. Femmenism is playing up your femininity even when you know it can be used against you. Femmenism is using that master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. Femmenism is political but not correct.”

In a way, her story is also my store. Though I grew up a decade and a half later, I too wanted to spend my childhood in “pastel party dresses and Mary Janes.” My mom was not quite as politically correct as her mother, but then again, I was a child in the early 1990s, not the mid 1970s. While Delombard’s mother pushed “corduroys and hiking boots,” my mother merely suggested, “Don’t you think a pair of jeans would be more comfortable?” Art supplies were the ideal playthings in our household, and when I wanted Barbie dolls, I had to save up my allowance or take advantage of visiting grandparents.

Like Delombard, household duties were divided by ability, not gender roles. My dad loved to clean, and so he did. My mom liked to cook, but she hated getting up early, so dad cooked us breakfast and mom took care of dinner.

Unlike Delombard, I never felt like I had to fulfill a certain gender role due to parental expectations, lesbian community requirements, or anything else. Not to say I haven’t struggled with my sexual orientation or gender expression at times, but I’ve always been pretty comfortable in my own skin- or my own clothes: be that boys cargo shorts or a strapless polka-dotted dress.

Needless to say, I’m still uncomfortable with a femme identity. Is it because it is a label? Perhaps. Is it because it suggests that I am only attracted to its opposite [butch]? Perhaps also. Is it because I fear mirroring heterosexual society? Maybe a little.

Delombard writes:

“If lesbians see butch-femme as a capitulation to heterosexual norms, most of the straight world believes that butch-femme lurks at the core of every lesbian relationship, while the rest see it as a kinky, erotic sex game, better left in the bedroom along with the strap-on dildo, the handcuffs, and the edible underwear. Like pornography, everyone has an opinion about butch-femme, but no one seems very clear about what exactly it is.”

She talks about the feeling that her and her partner are “making up what it means to be butch and femme” as we go along. That, I can relate to. Whatever I am, I feel like I am constantly making it up.

I like this part:

“For me, being a femme means that I take pride in wearing just the right shade of lipstick (not true for me), drawing the perfect black line above my eyelashes (true for me), keeping my legs smooth (sometimes), and smelling good. Being a femmenist means knowing I am just as attractive when I don’t wear makeup, shave, or put on perfume (very true).

Being a femme also means that I want to be with a woman who appreciates it when I do these things; not silently, but openly and enthusiastically. A women who sends me flowers (yes), helps me out of cars (whatever); and know how to take care of all the details, like choosing the right wine, tipping the bartender, and calling a cab (eh). Being a femmenist means both making sure that I know to do all the things myself and getting an erotic charge out of having them done for me.”

To me, this last sentence is key. As politically incorrect as this may be, I fear the label femme because I feel it suggests that I am helpless. Delombard makes it make sense. I can do it myself, I have that power, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate romantic and caretaking gestures.

There is no great conclusion I’ll offer in this post, except that this essay made me feel a little less alone, though not neccessarily less confused. Still, it made me  laugh:

“The same thing happens when my love and I go out to dinner: no matter how we are dressed, invariably the server will take my order first, have my girlfriend taste the wine, and present her with the bill (even when I have requested it, credit card in hand).”

So true, so true.  As is this:

“On the one hand, being a femme increases exponentially my much-publicized invisibility as a lesbian. Almost every day, usually several time a day, all sorts of heterosexual men strike up conversations with me, comment on my appearance, or shout lewd remarks at me. Since to them I don’t look like a dyke or even a liberated woman, they automatically assume that I look the way I do to provoke male attention and approval. […] On the other hand, my lesbian invisibility is suddenly, dangerously, stripped away when I am with my lover.”

On this account, as well, Delombard couldn’t be more accurate.

I may be no closer to reconciling my identity with the femme label, but it’s nice to know I’m not alone in thinking about it. It’s also nice to read a well written personal essay. And it’s nice to remember that femme can still mean powerful, political, and capable.

Now don’t get me wrong, as in any anthology, some pieces are better than others. However, this one had a much higher good read to tedious read ratio.

Published in 1995 and edited by Rebecca Walker, this collection seeks to break down notions of what makes a feminist, showing the “infinite number of moments and experiences that make up feminist empowerment.” This is a collection that goes beyond experiences of being a women in a sexist society, and explores contradictions and ambiguity. It’s about lesbians embracing a femme identity, it’s about fulfilling a white wedding fantasy, it’s about male dykes, rape fantasies, and creating a sexy bachelor parties without female strippers. It’s about coming to terms with your feminist “failures” and knowing that those makes you no less of a feminist.

Though published 15 years ago (Was 1995 really 15 years ago!?), these essays are as relevant as ever.

In the introduction, Rebecca Walker writes, “A year before  I started this book, my life was like a feminist ghetto. Every decision I made, person I spend time with, word I uttered, had to measure up to an image of what was morally and politically right according to my vision of female empowerment.” A decade and a half later, young feminists struggles with this same dilemma. (Or perhaps I should say, me and my peer circle struggle with this same dilemma- I don’t know for a fact that other worry about the same thing, though I have a sneaking suspicion that they do.) I wonder how my sexual desires fit with a feminist identity. I worry that I am buying into mainstream culture too much as I write a fashion blog. I question my ability to be a “good” feminist because I’m spoiled with white privilege. This book explores the array of ways that feminism manifested during the third wave.

Essays I particularly enjoyed include “Femmenism” by Jeannine Delombard on merging third wave feminism with third wave lesbianism, “Identity Politics” by Jennifer Allyn and David Allyn on merging names in marriage, and “Close, But No Banana” by Anna Bondoc on coming to terms with ones political “failures”. Seriously, this collection is worth having on your shelf, or at least worth checking out from your local library.