Sex-Positive Feminism Is Being Misunderstood

I was surprised recently to see at least a few people condemning sex positive feminism as being in line with the kind of “feminism” that focuses on a raunchy form of girl power based in a sexualized culture that tends to degrade and abuse women.  This “feminism” is the “you go girl!” hookup culture that [...]

Children and Adult Sexuality in an Activist Context

When sex positivity comes up, I think one argument that is often made by those who don’t want a culture where sex is positive, natural, okay, and moral is the “what about the children?” argument.  I’ve been thinking about that argument for the past few days and trying to understand its purpose.  I came up [...]

Coming Out Kinky

Recently on Fearless Press, Viola wrote a post called Pissing on the Oyster about the idea that kinky people should come out as kinky to increase acceptance of kinky sexualities.  Viola does a great job in that post of covering the legal and lifestyle ramifications of coming out as kinky, and I wanted to add [...]

Does Sexual Identity Make Physical Attractiveness Less Important?

I’ve been asking myself this question, because I’ve been thinking about the difference in how I’ve seen people relate, and go about dating, in the “vanilla” world versus those who claim a queer or alternative sexuality.  My theory is limited at best, I know, but I think that the more of those badges you put [...]

Poly Holidays and the Difficulty of Telling Half-Truths

Around the holidays, you tend to get a spike of interest in your family, spurred by that oh-so-popular “what are you doing for Christmas?” question (regardless of your actual religion, I’m guessing the question gets asked).  I find this frustrating because in choosing to only be selectively out about my polyamorous status, it means that [...]

Polyamory, Marriage Rights, and Social Control II

So, part two.  Part two is about socialism, among other things. But let’s start with capitalism.  What are capitalist values?  Well, capitalism encourages things like individual achievement and responsibility.  It also encourages competition and jealousy as byproducts of the achievement value–your goal should be to outperform your peer, and if your peer is doing better [...]

Polyamory, Marriage Rights, and Social Control I

So as same-sex marriage and same-sex partnership rights spread, there has been a lot of talk about benefits.  People in queer relationships, like those in heterosexual ones, now have the dubious privilege of being able to marry for health insurance.  And of course, there’s a big valid point here about equality. But I’ve been thinking [...]

Southern Women and Sexual Communication

It’s difficult for many women to communicate about sex.  No big surprise there.  But is it more difficult for Southern women? I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer were yes. Of course, you have the obvious reasons.  Little or no sex education means that people are just assumed to know how to have sex, without [...]