“The more time women are compelled to spend fighting their own bodies, the less they have to fight for anything else.” Michelle Goldberg ponders the rise of surgical alterations of women’s bodies during what I guess we’ve decided to term “the aughts,” suggesting that we’re not much further ahead at dispelling the beauty myth than we were in 1991. In fact, we might be much further behind.

“The Bush years may have been one of the worst times for those of us interested in gender equality.” Suzanne Reisman also has some sober reflections about what the past ten years have wraught, along with a few things she’s grateful for (and more reflections promised in January).

“If you don’t want to be accused of indecent exposure and ‘traumatising’ young children, cover up or install curtains.” Carnal Nation reports that a man in Virginia was convicted of “indecent exposure” for being naked in his own home.

“It is inaccurate to view all sexual activity among young people as intrinsically negative.” Carnal Nation reports on a new study from the University of Alberta that suggests a positive relationship between emotional maturity and satisfying sexual experiences. While I have questions about who’s defining “mature” vs. “immature” I appreciate that the researchers are pushing back against the idea that all young people are unprepared to be sexually active.

“I clearly remember the sexual anxiety from my undergraduate days. For one thing, I had no real idea of what my sexual needs were; I knew they weren’t being met, but I tried not to think about it because I didn’t even know where to start, so thinking about how I wasn’t getting what I wanted just made me feel awkward and confused.” Clarisse Thorn writes about BDSM, radical feminism, and sexual availability. She also notes that the post is “a bit feminist-theoretical.” For those whom such words cause hives, you have been warned.

“Birth films tend to be very romantic or absolutely terrifying. I wanted to juxtapose real and fake births and let people make up their own minds, and I wanted to make it funny, because the subject can be so intense.” Film-maker and childbirth educator Vicki Elson discusses Laboring Under An Illusion, which explores the way childbirth is depicted on television in sitcoms, dramas, “reality” television, and documentaries.

“Because seriously, what’s more fun than thinking of virgin/whore visuals?!” Jessica Valenti’s latest book, The Purity Myth is going to be reworked as a documentary.

“Clearly, the objection to strawberries is that they’re so pleasurable, and someone on food stamps is viewed as someone who doesn’t deserve even the smallest pleasures.” Amanda Marcotte writes about economies of pleasure, and the way in which Americans — and social/sexual conservatives more specifically — view pleasure as something to be “earned” and “granted” by some sort of authority, and pleasures which are free and private (sex), or which are viewed as unearned (a marijuana high) are treated with suspicion and folks who engage in them often downright vilified.

“This was a bad policy that had a good point at the heart of it. The loss of troops from vital places is an important point to ponder — but a policy that targets women, whether intended to do so or not, isn’t the way to get the mission accomplished.” Brandann Hill-Mann at the Women’s Rights Blog discusses the recent news story about a General in Iraq who was court-marshaling women who became pregnant serving under him (and, where applicable, their sexual partners).

“Modeling for Playgirl doesn’t make Levi a model for decorous fatherhood, but it’s hardly enough to strip him of his right to help make decisions about his son’s life.” Emily Bazelon discusses why Bristol Palin should not be awarded sole custody of her son Tripp.

“Why, today alone I have endangered my 15-week-old fetus by taking a warm bath, painting my nails green, eating Parmesan cheese that I’m not SURE was pasteurized, and struggling to install a new cable box . . .!” A pregnant woman writes to Lenore at the blog Free Range Kids to ask “How about a companion website: Free-Range Fetus?” as a way of counteracting the culture of perfectionism that currently pervades every aspect of reproduction, from pre-conception through post-college parenting.

And finally, Elyse at Skepchick asks “What information do you wish you had about sex back in the day? What information do you wish you had about sex now?” The comments make great food for New Year’s thought.

*image credit: nude aqua by linda boucher @ Flickr.

News flash: women no longer have “hymens” but “vaginal coronas.” Why, you may ask? Ann Bartow @ Feminist Law Professors explains.

While the idea of re-naming the hymen has a certain amount of political merit, I’d say the same does not hold true for calling the vagina a “baby-making hole” (aside from being clunky, it’s factually inaccurate people!). Check out the sex education book that used this term at beyond birds and bees (via aag, who provides the book illustrations for the visually-inclined).

Artist Zina Saunders is doing a series of portraits of “long-standing gay couples” in response to New York state’s recent failure to pass a gay marriage bill.

I’m equal parts gleeful and creeped out by this story of the “ex-gay” organization Exodus International severing ties with a Michigan-based affiliate after allegations of homoerotic abuse. Most puzzling to me is why any group would name itself “Corduroy Stones” (outside of the emo rock band context) and what that could possibly have to do with sexual orientation therapy.

Ann at Feministing offers yet another perspective on the abusive relationship dynamics of New Moon, pointing out the normalization of violence in the Native American community depicted in the book and film.

On Wednesday, Jessica, also at Feministing, solicited peoples’ stories about Women’s and Gender Studies programs in an open comments thread.

I enjoyed Hanna Rosin’s book God’s Harvard which I reviewed here a couple of years ago. However, sometimes her op-ed pieces cause in me a “what the fuck?!” sort of reaction. For example, her recent ruminations on her husband’s behavior in the kitchen, titled The Rise of the Kitchen Bitch. As my friend Joseph sarcastically commented, “I so appreciate her writing a piece about men doing more cooking and describing them as bare-fisted, potty mouthed, and (my favorite) testosterone-fueled assholes.” I mean, really, I could spend paragraphs dissecting harmful class- and gender-based assumptions being made in these two sentences alone:

I first heard this term in Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent Atlantic story about her divorce. She used it to describe a friend’s husband who was anal and fussy and altogether too feminine—he belonged to an online fennel club, for God’s sake.

While we’re on the subject of harmful stereotyping, Dr. Marty Klein describes how our cultural terror of online sexual predators effects the ability of consenting adults to role-play sexual fantasies online in “Fantasy On Trial (Again)”

In an instance of entirely tone-deaf wording, the BBC online forum “have your say” published a piece this week it titled “Should homosexuals face execution?” (since changed to “Should Uganda debate gay execution?“) The simple answer to that, boys and girls, is no. The more nuanced answer is fuck no. (via Cruella-blog). Journalists and the public complained, and the BBC has since apologized. Hanna and I have been debating between ourselves the effectiveness and legitimacy of the headline; she thinks the first version got the response the BBC wanted, I think the second is more accurate. Either way, it’s an interesting case-study for how these international issues are framed and reported on by media outlets.

In another instance of media framing, I’ve been seeing various iterations of this headline the past few days: “topless teen causes auto accident” or, as DigitalSpy.uk put it, “breast-flashing teen hit by car.” A New Zealand teenager who was dared to flash oncoming traffic was fined for supposedly distracting one driver so badly that he veered off the road and ran her down. Okay: flashing traffic is possibly not the brightest idea going (akin to mooning someone out the window of your car, right?: stupid prank) But I’m irritated by the way no one is asking why a woman’s breasts were so distracting to a driver that he hit her with the car — and if, indeed, that’s the case, why it’s somehow her fault and not his.

Lots of folks weighed in on a recent study that concluded young people who engage in casual sexual encounters do not necessarily experience adverse effects. Brandann Hill-Mann @ Women’s Rights Blog announced “this just in: sex isn’t going to destroy you!“; Thomas @ Yes Means Yes wrote about “the absence of harm“; Amanda Marcotte, writing @ Double X concludes that “the kids are downright boring.”

And finally: speaking of sex, as opening lines go, Rachel Kramer Bussel definitely takes the cupcake this week with “I lack sexual restraint. Philosophically, I don’t see the point in it.”

*Image credit: PICT1897 by Always Rain @ Flickr.

The links list in which I indulge my interest in things sex and gender related that I’ve read around the internet.

First off, from the fabulous Fug Girls comes this PSA: “EVERYONE’S VAGINA IS FINE. WORRY ABOUT THE CLOGS.” Best advice in, like, forever. Although I doubt clogs really need worrying about either. Mostly, I find they’re pretty low-maintenance footwear.

Can someone explain to me why “sexting” somehow more lewd and/or potentially dangerous than writing love letters or having flirty phonecalls? I don’t get it. Emily Bazelon over at Slate suggests there might be some truth under the hysteria while Ani DiBranco over at the Women’s Rights Blog asks whether “sexting” is the biggest problem facing teenage women.

(Personally, I think maybe we should be worrying about that giant octopus off the coast instead. . . but that could be me).

I have a few links related to trans issues this week. First up is Laurie Penny over at the UK-based F-word argues for the death of transphobic feminism in Moving towards solidarity. “Not a single person on this planet is born a woman,” she writes, “Becoming a woman, for those who willingly or unwillingly undertake the process, is torturous, magical, bewildering – and intensely political.”

Next comes Helen G over at Questioning Transphobia has a post up about “psychiatry’s civil war,” or the politics of revising the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (currently in-process), particularly when it comes to gender identity.

And finally, on a similar — and no less contentious note — The Bilerco Project published an opinion piece this week by Ronald Gold in which he took a stance against the concept of “transgender,” going so far as to question the very existence of trans folks (obviously very hurtful to people for whom this is lived experience). The post has since been removed. These situations are, I think, complicated, emotionally fraught for everyone involved and I don’t know enough about this one to pass my own personal judgment on the rightness or wrongness of pulling the piece. But what I actually want to link to this morning is the original response written by Bil Browning (founder of the Project) about why he decided to publish Gold’s piece in the first place, which I found thought-provoking as an example of how to handle these struggles over what does and does not appear in (online) print.

Liz Kukura @ RhReality Check and Rose @ Feministing wonder about the validity and usefulness of “generational divide” talk around reproductive rights.

Also on the subject of reproductive rights, Michelle Goldberg at The American Prospect reports on a case before the European Court of Human Rights that has the potential to recognize women’s universal human right to reproductive freedom.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, anti-choice activists increasingly invoke the concept of “choice” to bolster their own political aims. Amanda Marcotte over at RhRealityCheck weighs in on the trend.

Two stories on public breastfeeding this week, one from sexgenderbody about a Target store in Michigan (oh, the shame!) that called the cops when a woman refused to stop feeding her daughter (Woman’s Rights Blog also weighs in) and another from Her Bad Mother at BlogHer about ads in Chicago proclaiming breasfeeding “tacky”. Her Bad Mother writes:

This question should be settled, as settled as not refusing to serve same-sex couples in restaurants, or ensuring that public places are accessible to disabled persons. You have every right to be discomfited by public breastfeeding. You just don’t – or shouldn’t (depending upon what state or province we’re talking about) – have the right to protest or disparage it publicly.

Well . . . um, yeah, actually I believe you do have a right to “protest or disparage” it (although, please, people, get over it already). What you do NOT (or should not) have the right to do is discriminate by such methods as requiring someone to feed their infant in a restroom (ew!) or calling the fucking police when someone engages in a perfectly legal activity. This is why many nursing mothers and advocates have started pressing for legislation specifically protecting their right to feed their children in public. Because apparently it’s something they can’t take for granted.

Essin’ Em at Sexuality Happens muses about whether it’s always important or necessary to come out (and, conversely, why straight, monogamous, “vanilla” folks never feel the pressure to come out about their own sexual proclivities).

Why do we have this default of “you should only come out/express your sexuality if you’re not the norm?” I mean, really, what’s wrong either with no one having come out, or having everyone come out? Why is it so specific?

Also on the subject of language and communication, Hanna mused at …fly over me, evil angel… about the power of words, and what happens when people shift from highly emotive words like “rape” to (possibly technically more accurate but nonetheless distancing) phrases like “sexual- and gender-based violence.”

Lisa at Sociological Images offers a lovely set of real-life portraits of phone sex workers, juxtaposed with images taken from phone sex adverts (nsfw).

And finally, on a mildly celebratory note, congrats this week to the Episcopalian church here in America which just elected its second openly gay Bishop. See the New York Times and The Guardian for more.

*image credit: Ture Ekroos, posted at The Art Department by way of the Tor.com Cthulu art thread.