22nd Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy

The Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy features blogs which promote the sexual rights and freedom of women.

Sex Positive Feminism is 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, undermine their freedom and infringe upon their human rights. Instead we promote sex workers’ rights, sex education in schools, and the free expression of sexualities.

In this edition of the Carnival you’ll find opinions on topics as diverse as  sexual pleasure, butch identity, film censorship and erotic dancing. Learn how women express their strength through preparing their own food, being in charge of family finances and negotiating sexual submission.

Read, enjoy and leave comments on the authors’ blogs.

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On Getting Girls Off

Part of my point here is, nobody’s journey to sexual empowerment is easy. Just because Kristen’s or mine or anybody’s appears to be “ideal” doesn’t mean it hasn’t had its problems and complications. In fact, one of the reasons I started Sugarbutch to begin with was because I was not having the kind of sex I wanted, and craved, and I didn’t know how to get it. (Can I just have a moment, a smile, at no longer having that problem? Hell yeah.) But getting the kind of sex that you want means you have to figure out a) what it is you want in the first place, b) how to ask for it, c) how to turn down sex that isn’t it, and d) how to keep it alive and growing. Those are fucking hard challenges, way harder than they sound, and they sound pretty hard.

–SugarButch
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Black Rope

“But you’re a butch,” I replied. “You need a black rope.” She was unconvinced.

“Do you have someone to use this on?” I asked, and her eyes lit up with wickedness. “Yeah,” she said, looking off into the distance and imagining scenes I could see reflected in her face.

Ivan Coyote had performed his “Butch Roadmap” the night before and so I looked at her with mock seriousness and asked, “do you have a pocket knife?”

She pulled it out and flipped it open. My heart nearly stopped right there, but I think I covered well – I only gasped slightly as I drooled on the floor.

–Uncommon Curiosity
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The OFLC Bans “Matinee”

It’s depressing but not surprising that Matinee has been banned. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that our country’s ridiculous censorship laws are applied in an ad hoc manner and that they are out of touch with what most Australians think.

How is it that grown adults are prevented from seeing a film because it contains sex? And why aren’t we up in arms about this?

–Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog
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Pro-Choice

But not all men and women were created equal. Now that women have the choice, they pick varied careers. Women choose to be doctors and lawyers and teachers and rock scientists. If women choose varied careers, it makes sense they would choose varied lifestyles. A myriad of personalities and ideals dictate that women would choose different paths. And one of those paths is traditional gender roles. I enjoy a whole host of traditional gender roles.

–Neamhspleach
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Birth Control For Men – not a chance — In Depth Sex Toy Reviews By Toy With Me

It’s a harsh reality that women have been saddled with bearing the burden of birth control since it became available back in the 60’s. Let’s face it, once you reached a point of monogamy with your partner that made condoms a less economical choice (and often so inconvenient for the MAN), it became time for YOU to get to the gyno and get a more consistent form of contraception (which also happened to let your dude off the hook completely when it came to worrying about getting knocked up). Fair? No, not really. But what else were you going to do?

–In Depth Sex Toy Reviews By Toy With Me

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Assertiveness and Submission

Assertive behavior can pretty much be defined as stating that this is what I am, what I think and feel, and what I want. It’s a non-egotistical, active, rather than passive, approach to a situation that results in open, direct self-expression of your thoughts and feelings; allowing others to choose for themselves; and mutual satisfaction at achieving a desired goal. If D/s relationships are to be mutually beneficial, then both partners need to be able to express their thoughts and feelings so that the desired goal of a satisfying D/s dynamic and relationship between the two can be reached.

–Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless
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Feminist adventures in food preservation

I think the politics of food are pretty clear. The way we eat is manipulated and controlled by big business, the media, the fashion industry, television, advertising companies, even the government has a say. Feminists have long been pushing back on the representation of women’s bodies in pop culture and the pressures we face to look and eat a certain way.

Food has historically been a woman’s domain–at least the preparation of it. Part of the feminist revolution was challenging the inequitable division of household labor–including food preparation. Convenience foods, prepared dinners, are all linked to the new reality of multiple working parents

–Feministing
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The Saga of Nipples

My body is my own and I am proud of it. I’ve lived for too many years under those restrictions of what I wore and how much I showed. I love now that I am my own person who can choose what I wear and how much of my body I show. I am finally able to celebrate and embrace the freedom of my sexuality and running up against people and companies that put restrictions on those bugs the hell out of me.

–Debauched Domestic Diva
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Erotic Pictures for Women: Still Leaving Me Cold

If I were 18 or 20, I’d probably find the first two images attractive though not outright inspiring. But not all women are young, and we don’t automatically lose our libido as we age. To be fair, I know that some women really enjoy looking at younger men. I also admit that as a college instructor, I automatically de-eroticize men young enough to be my traditional-aged students. Even so, I’m pretty sure I’m the only woman who strongly prefers men who aren’t just of legal age but well into adulthood. Solidity and experience are sexy; so is the occasional wrinkle. And body hair! Bare, slender chests signal “teenager” to me. I get more heated looking at close-ups of flowers.

–Kittywampus
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A new kind of date rape

In the good old days, roles were clearer because women wanted relationships and men wanted sex. Rape was easy to define. Now that women can and do seek out casual sex, everything’s a murky grey. This is how Stepp puts it: But those boundaries and rules have been loosening up for decades, and now lots of women feel it’s perfectly okay to go out looking for a hook-up or to be the aggressor, which may turn out fine for them — unless the signals get mixed or misread.

Yes, you heard it – women get raped because they enjoy casual sex and aren’t giving clear enough signals. Apparently, if you have a sex drive and want to satisfy it outside the bonds of matrimony, then it’s your fault if men can’t tell whether you want them or not.

–the hasarder diaries
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No, You Don’t Need to Speak with My Husband

My insistence (backed by my husband) that my name be first on the return had nothing to do with asserting our feminist principles to the federal government. It has to do with the simple reality that our relationship is egalitarian to begin with. Each of us have different strengths and interests, and based on those strengths and interests we divide up the household responsibilities. Sure, no one likes doing the dishes, so we try and do our fair share. However, when it comes to the economic front, I am the one that makes sure bills are paid and we are getting the best deal on our cell phone and internet contracts.

–The (not so) Little Things
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The Battle for Rhode Island(s sex life)

Their claims also ignore the fact that changes in prostitution laws do not have any real effect on trafficking, they just push it elsewhere. While the Swedish Model is sometimes trumpeted as a success in reducing the number of trafficked women in Sweden, a more holistic view reveals that although the traffickers have indeed reduced their efforts to bring women into Sweden, they haven’t reduced the number of women they are taking from the sources in Eastern Europe: they are simply going to other European countries where the profit margins are higher.

–A Femanist View
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Three Naked Ladies

I think there’s this myth among dancers that the industry is “going downhill” and that dancers across the board are expected to do more than they used to do. I know women who have been working since the 90s and refer to that decade as the “golden age of stripping,” when dancers got paid tons of money just to dance on stage and didn’t even have to touch the customers, but it seems, from what I’ve read on both your blogs, that dancers have been doing more than just dancing for a long time.

–Naked Ladies get around! Look for the Three Naked Ladies and a new topic every Wednesday on laurishaw.com, thedirtygirldiaries.com, and hoshookerscallgirlsandrentboys.com.  jodi sh doff : dirtygirl diaries
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Let’s Talk About Sex!

Too often the medical world turns it’s back on the pleasure-focused side of sex and the pleasure-focused world is totally bored by the medical world. But they need each other to survive! The Center will be a respectable entity for medical providers to work with and is already developing ties with Boston University, Brown University, Mass General Hospital and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schools.

Working with professionals in the medical field, and most importantly, with medical students, we can create change within the medical school curriculum. Some medical students are starting to chime in that they want more sexuality information. (The majority of med students have 12 hours of sex education composed of birth control, pregnancy, STD’s and sometimes, pregnancy terminations.) I am working closely with Boston University Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to develop sexuality curriculum with fundamental structural changes.

–Choices Campus Blog
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Graphic Sexual Horror: A Documentary

In one of the more outrageous chapters of Bush-era censorship, federal prosecutors were able to use anti-terrorist laws to enforce their version of sexual morality. A creative strategy was used against Insex—rather than go after them for obscenity, it came up with a story that extreme porn funded terrorist networks. Lacking a case that would hold up in court, the government confronted Insex’s credit card company with the allegations, and promptly got them to stop processing payments.

–CARNAL NATION
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Men Claim They Are Dumb Animals With No Ability To Control Their Violence

No, of course not. A woman shouldn’t be outside wearing a bikini in temperatures 40 degrees below zero. A woman should not violate dress codes at the place of her employment. A woman should not wear clothing soaked in gasoline, even if she’s not standing next to a burning building. And there are countless other situations in which women should follow rules of safety & convention. But “scantily dressed” or even “nude” does not mean that she has put herself in the path of sexual danger — the criminals stalk her down on her path, regardless of how she is dressed.

–Relationship Underarm Stick
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If You’re Forced To Have A Baby, Don’t Throw It Out With The Bathwater (Or, Of Margaret Sanger & Eugenics)

Eugenics should not be simply or only equated with racism or even a scientific excuse for racism; that fine institution, racism, had already been in long practice. Eugenics has been around since the dawn of man; ancient societies, of all races, practiced infanticide for such purposes and Plato advocated that human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state. At the root of eugenics is a drive to improve human genetic qualities, better sustain the species, which includes everything from prenatal care for mothers to euthanasia.

But, yeah; racism sure was a part of eugenics for many.

–Kitsch Slapped
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Racist

Privilege is everywhere, in everything. We swim in it every day. We can choose to be ignorant of it, but we cannot get away from it. Racism on the other hand is a choice in what we say and do. It comes out of you. If privilege is oxygen that we breathe in, racism is poison exhaled. It is conscious. It’s a decision–perhaps a decision based on years of indoctrination, but still it is a decision not to seek out other viewpoints. It’s entirely possible then, my friend, to have white male privilege, voice an opinion that demonstrates white male privilege and still not be racist.

–aag
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