Showing posts with label sex positive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex positive. Show all posts

Friday, December 17, 2010

I ♥ (Polyamorous) Nina Hartley - Let's Send Her Some Love!

I have been a big fan of former porn star and sex educator Nina Hartley for a long time. I'm pretty sure it was her girl/girl work in the 1980s that raised my awareness of my own bisexuality. Fast forward 25 years, and today I can call Nina friend, having met and gotten to know her as a sex/relationship ed colleague at Dark Odyssey Summer Camp.

Nina lives in Los Angeles, is in a polyamorous relationship with her husband, Ernest, and she is just as beautiful and lively and passionate in person as na educator as she is on film. She has the tremendous knack of putting people at ease about their qualms about their own sexuality.  I've attended several of her workshops and always leave with information I use to enhance my sex life in some way. 

As a testament to her sex education work, I recently hosted in my home a group of bisexual women for a monthly gathering, and we watched "Nina Hartley's Guide to Sex for the Bi-Curious Woman" on the big screen. Everyone loved it and left feeling much more confident about how to please the woman of their dreams.

So, when I learned that Nina is having surgery soon and that she is going to lose a lot of the income she needs to survive during her recovery, I knew I had to step up and make a donation to the fundraiser currently being conducted in her honor and for her benefit. Won't you make one, too? No amount is too small, and you can make it anonymously if you are shy. You will be supporting sex-positive sex education and sending some love and gratitude to Nina for all she does to help others have satisfying sex lives.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Woodhull Explains Position on Controversial Abercrombie T-shirts

A few days ago I posted a blog entry about a "buycott" call from the Woodhull Freedom Foundation to buy a certain group of rather silly sex-focused Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts, or at least let the company know it has the support of the sex-positive community, as a result of conservative/religious extremist attacks on the product. After doing so I received comments both here and on my facebook entry where the blog entry also appeared that expressed strong opinions that the shirts were tacky, sexist, and generally objectionable, this time from within the sex-positive community instead of religious conservatives.

Woodhull has posted an explanation on carnalnation.com, which says in part:

Like our past BuyCott efforts, our A&F BuyCott stirred a lot of emotion. Some of our constituents were quick to write (thank you!) and call to my attention the history of A&F, including successful lawsuits against them pressing charges of racism and sexism. This will remind me to keep a closer eye on A&F and other companies to detect such unacceptable behavior.

At the same time the issue on this occasion wasn’t the t-shirts or the retailer. The issue is that, popular or not, offensive or not, appropriate or not, the t-shirts are about sex and sexuality. Are they tasteless? Probably! Certainly a lot of people including many sexual freedom advocates think so. But does A&F have the right to market them? Woodhull says YES!

And that’s what the alert was about.

The attack on sex that fueled the assault on A&F was not stupid. It came from a well-oiled, well-researched, thoroughly entrenched message machine. It knew where to strike. It knew that there’s not much point in waving the hysteria flag around a shirt with pictures of flowers on it ...

You can read the entire commentary on carnalnation here.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Abercrombie & Fitch Pitches New Silly T-Shirts To America's Youth Angering Religious Right

UPDATE:  After a variety of comments on this post both here and over on my facebook profile where it was cross-posted,  I'm now convinced that this is a far from ideal set of circumstances to choose for a buycott on behalf of sex positivity.  Many thanks to all those who have offered sound and important observations. 

Woodhull's work is generally very good and worth supporting.  On rare occasions we activists can and do miss the mark, usually, or at least in my own case, due to haste to get a story out and move on to other pressing matters.   - Anita

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Thanks to the Woodhull Freedom Foundation for the heads-up on this one.

Join the BuyCott! Call Abercrombie & Fitch at 614-283-6500 (press "0" for a live person) and let them know you support their right to sell and their customers' right to buy their "sex can be fun" tee shirts.

Abercrombie & Fitch  is being attacked by the religious right for selling these three tee shirts as part of its "New College" line of T-shirts.


Abercrombie & Fitch does not merely sell a popular line of clothing - they sell a lifestyle. And because A&F clothing is popular among teens and college kids, the influence of their sex-as-recreation lifestyle is widespread. If you feel like encouraging this lighter side of sex and showing the religious right that this is a free country help the BuyCott--buy one or more of these shirts.

FACTS!
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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention reports that Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year- almost half of them among young people 15 to 24 years of age.

In the past decade more than one billion dollars in federal funding has been doled out for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. In contrast, there has been no federal funding at all for comprehensive sex education. Thus the raging STDs?

Whether you buy a tee shirt or not drop a note to your local school board, state legislators, and your Congress member and Senators, encourage them to fund comprehensive sex education!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Sugasm #81

Sugasm, for those unfamiliar, is a digest of sex blogs. My blog is more focused on relationship skills and activism than sex, so you don't see much from me here of an adult nature. But Sugasm is very cool, as it includes a section of the best of the week's blog posts specifically under the heading "Thoughts on Sex and Relationships", so that's where the posts I submit are categorized.

We polyfolk tend to be a sex-positive lot, so submitting my posts to Sugasm seems like a great way to reach polyfolk interested in poly relating. And we polyfolk almost always prefer to have some sex with our relationships. So, here is a repost of Sugasm's top sex blog post picks from all categories for the week, as well as all of the "Thoughts on Sex and Relationships" links. (You can find all of the week's Sugasm sex blog submissions here.)

I'll be posting this weekly - enjoy!

Sugasm: A Devilish Digest

Sugasm #81

Mon 28th May, 07

The best of this weeks blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #82? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

This Week’s Picks
Do / Do Not (lafillemariee.blogspot.com…)
“Do – stop in the hallway to kiss and fondle me before even getting to the room.”
The Red Cross of Fucking (perverselypoly.blogspot.com…)
“They can pay her a “finder’s fee,” and everybody will be happier.”
Review: The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (http://www.radicalvixen.com)
“When he first mentioned it he turned his disability into a fetish.”
Mr. Sugasm Himself
Meet Lin Chong, Dong Assistant (sugarbank.com…)
Editor’s Choice
Mothers day 3 (joeheather.blogspot.com…)

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm
See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday (Fleshbot.com)

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Alpha & Beta (smart-girls.blogspot.com…)
Defining Erotic (http://www.thenaughtychick.com)
Friday (sexcakes.blogspot.com…)
I loved this then and still love it now… (darkdaughta.blogspot.com…)
The Problem with Porn Part II: Manifestations Online (un-cool.blogspot.com…)
The Sex Kitten History; The Sex Kitten Future (http://www.sex-kitten.net)
Spanked by Robin Byrd, or not that innocent (lustylady.blogspot.com…)
A Strange New World of Emotion (practicalpolyamory.blogspot.com…)