Videos

The Sexual Freedom Project: You Need To Explore

Scheyla knows about healthy sexual relationships. No rules. America differs from the rest of the world when it comes to views on sexual freedom. Too judgmental.

Are you burdened by too many rules when it comes to sex? Are Americans more uptight and behind the times?

Send us opinions, comment or send us your own video, essay, poem, a favorite visual image or even to put your original artwork on our platform. You’ll get a free VenusPlusX t-shirt as a thank you.

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The Sexual Freedom Project: Choose A Team

(También en Español)

The idea of two genders is out-dated and old-fashioned and remains to this day in order to simplify human life for the sake of politics, mass marketing, social order, you name it.

Should there be more gender definitions to categorize ourselves within or should we eliminate the need for gender definitions all together?

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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The Sexual Freedom Project: What is Class?

(También en Español)

Let us know what’s on your mind.

How have you deconstructed class, and what have you learned as it relates to your sexual orientation or gender expression?

Do you agree or disagree that subjects of race, socio-economics, class/privilege, and oppression must be addressed together to achieve understanding and acceptance of diversity?

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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The Sexual Freedom Project: Conforming is Like a Disease

(También en Español)

Yeah, it takes this kind of courage to answer male privilege.

Have you had experience resisting the box or boxes people try to put you in?

How do trends such as fluidity, pansexuality, and gender queer ideas help society understand itself and become more accepting?

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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Yes, it’s come to this

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

As reported last night by Rachel Maddow (see video below), at the urging of an anti-abortion religious group, the School Board in Gilbert, Arizona, is tearing out pages from a high school honors biology book. It is the first action taken after a law in Arizona passed two years ago that requires all textbooks “to present childbirth and abstinence as preferred options to elective abortion.”

The offending page, which simply discusses that abortion exists as a factual matter, something that is rightly part of the national curriculum for all Advanced Placement and other students hoping to enter college equipped with a complete education and able to compete on a level playing field.

Cutting out this page, retracting information previously available to students, is stupid and exceedingly counter-intuitive (see map below), whether in a biology textbook or in the context of sex education.

In this case, Rachel Maddow comes to the rescue by securing the domain, ArizonaHonorsBiology.com, to make this page available in perpetuity. But what about the next time and the next time after that?

This is similar to what we are witnessing in the state of Texas, where access to sex education is severely limited, and where social studies and history textbooks are being censored or in some cases rewritten to falsify facts (such as wiping out all mention of slavery, that it ever existed).

What will be next? Tearing out pages that mention homosexuality? marriage or cohabitation without children? the achievements of people of color? The answer is: Yes, more page-tearing and book-burning is in our nation’s future if we don’t start paying more attention to elections, starting at the local level.

We bring attention to this especially because it demonstrates the horrible repercussions of the theocratic fundamentalism now permeating American politics and law, retarding our progression towards a fair and just society.

These are not the first or only examples of censorship within our schools, and we are poised to see more of this retrograde behavior wherever right-wing nuts can gain a foothold, from local school boards to congress and possibly the White House itself someday.

These founts of poor decision-making are operating out of fear. They don’t believe women should ever have control over their reproductive health or equality rights, and think they are “protecting children” when they are actually hobbling them.

Complete sex education is the only thing that actually protects teenagers.

Center for Disease Control, 2012

Center for Disease Control, 2012

Free access to complete sex education is a human right. To withhold it is blatant child abuse when you consider the actual facts and repercussions.

Research proves that these programs are entirely ineffective. As a matter of fact, unwanted pregnancies and STDs including HIV are more prevalent in areas in the country that limit all sex education to abstinence-only programs. So these misguided lawmakers are not just wrong in purpose but wrong in deed.

Please go the polls on Tuesday (and every Election Day) and vote these people into the dustbin of stupid history.

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More on sex education here.

 

Ethical Prostitution

19th Century German Sex Worker, Anna Dorthea Hansen Flickr/creative commons

19th Century German Sex Worker, Anna Dorthea Hansen
Flickr/creative commons

As a follow up to yesterday’s discussion of the decriminalization of sex work, take a look at this video of a sex worker ally drilling down to the issues. While perhaps relying too much on sensational memes based on unreliable data that says most sex workers are sex-trafficked children, she makes a durable case for the complete decriminalization and legalization of sex work.

Social acceptance and legalization of sex work is the key to ending sex-trafficking, not its cause. Sex-traffickers are involved in organized crime and should be pursued and punished vigorously; if they disappear so will their victims. But unless society can recognize a separate and growing sex work industry based on voluntary participation, we will not be able isolate and end the scourge of international sex-trafficking.

The first encounter society has with a voluntary sex worker need not be the result of police and the court system, nor their only portal to adequate support, healthcare, and other medical social services (more here) .

Sexual healing from an out-of-the-closet industry is not a bad thing, and will go a long way to ending sexual oppression.

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Reminder: Win one of VenusPlusX’s prized t-shirts for making a video, writing a poem, or creating a work of art as part of our Sexual Freedom Project, on this subject or any other related to sexual freedom, contact: columbia@venusplusx.org. (More videos, here.)

 

 

The Sexual Freedom Project: Freedom vs Assimilation

(También en Español)

It is easy to fall prey to stigma, labels, and general assumptions about our own identity. How can you personally break through and define your own self and your own sexuality?

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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The Sexual Freedom Project: Birds and the Bees

Meet Ying, who doesn’t really believe in the abstinence-only approach, and tells us why. She received much of her formal sexual education in Catholic school, and shares with us some of the topics they covered. She tells us about her traditional parents and their expectations for her.  And she has some wisdom for us about bonding with and learning about our significant others.

What do you think about sex before marriage? Learning about sex from the Catholic Church? What parents should talk about with their kids? And how well your parents really know each other?

Send us your thoughts at columbia@venusplusx.org — we want to hear from you!  Make us a video, write us an essay or a poem, or create some original art — we’ll thank you with a t-shirt.

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TRANSCRIPT

Hmm… “Abstinence only”… Uh, I don’t really believe in that
because, I don’t know, I think that people
get really sexually frustrated so…
Like why? I don’t know. I actually went to a
Catholic school between kindergarten until twelfth grade, so…
Sex in religion, so they talk to you all about like the diseases that you can get and like,
the relationships that you should go through,
and like when you get into “walking on eggshells”
and it’s dangerous, but… I mean,I guess
they didn’t really stress out um, maybe, I don’t know, having sex with people or anything,
they just kinda talked about relationships.
They talked about um, you know, sexually transmitted diseases, what they look like, and how, yeah, how you get it,
how you prevent it. My parents um, are very very traditional,
so they don’t even talk like about, like, the birds and the bees.
They just kind of like hope that I don’t have sex before marriage so… yeah. It’s definitely about cultural taboos.
Cultural taboos really, I feel like um, you know, even today
my boyfriend gets questioned about sex by our cleaning person,
like, in the morning at Yaffa. They just like, he justasks him like how many times a day that we have sex,
or how many… like they have no idea.
And I mean it’s kind of weird and
I’m sure it’s very like they have no idea about it
because they ask about it, but it’s like
at the end of the day it’s like these people
don’t bond with each other until they get married. And how much, how healthy is that?
My parents… My mom didn’t even have sex with my father until they were married.
Like, to this day she knows nothing about him…

The Sexual Freedom Project: Gender Neutrality in Public Restrooms

(También en Español)

What is the purpose of separating bathrooms by gender? What is holding back large, well-known venues from installing stalls in every bathroom, making the experience private and completely gender neutral for everyone? Do you think gender neutral bathrooms should be the law of the land as it is in more and more municipalities?

Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

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We Are Here, We Are Here

Let’s talk about our part
My heart touches your heart
Let’s talk about, let’s talk about living
Had enough of dying, not what we all about
Let’s do more giving
Do more forgiving, yeah
Our souls were brought together so that we could love each other

“We Are Here” (by Alicia Keys, 2014, Listen here)

The 3rd Annual Global Citizens Festival in New York City’s Central Park is underway right now. If you haven’t heard, it’s a presentation of the Global Poverty Project which is committed to ending world poverty by 2030.

The Project’s goals aim to redouble the efforts and financial support of governments, corporations, and individuals in the areas of of education, vaccination, and sanitation and water. You couldn’t buy a tickets to hear Alicia Key’s, JayZ, No Doubt, and other headliners. You joined the movement by registering as a Global Citizen and then did something concrete to help end poverty. More than 80% of today’s attendees are these activists.

Prime Minister of India, Narenda Modi, speaking to the Festival on behalf of 800,000 young people in India committed to improve sanitation and drinking water, joined with representatives from Scandanavian countries, Denmark and Norway, and Caterpillar Foundation in leading the way towards increasing financial commitments and hands-on aid to areas of extreme poverty. But, just like these lucky concert-goers, you can do your own part.

If you are not here, you can tune in at globalcitizen.org/festival or to MSNBC on television, right now. If you missed Alicia Keys singing this song, we’re highlighting it here. Just consider what is taking place today.

Alicia Keyes Flickr/creative commons

Alicia Keyes
Flickr/creative commons

We are united more than ever before, singing along with Alicia: “Right now it don’t make sense,” “Our souls are brought together so that we could love each other.” We can help heal this world by working together. It’s within our reach, but we have to reach.

Almost half of the world, over 3 billion people, live in poverty. Fourteen children die every minute of every day due to poverty, hunger, and preventable diseases.

What will you do today to make a difference? Start by singing along with Alicia.

We are here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here, why we are here
We are here

Bombs over Baghdad, tryna get something we ain’t never had
Let’s start with a good dad
So real but it’s so sad
And while we burnin’ this incense, we gon’ pray for the innocent
Cause right now it don’t make sense
Right now it don’t make sense
Let’s talk about Chi town
Let’s talk about Gaza
Let’s talk about, let’s talk about Israel
Cause right now it is real
Let’s talk about, let’s talk Nigeria
In a mass hysteria, yeah
Our souls are brought together so that we could love each other
Brother,

We are here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here, why we are here
We are here

No guns made in Harlem, but yet crime is a problem
He wanna shine, they wanna rob him
Single mother, where they come from?
How we gonna save the nation, with no support for education
Cause right now it don’t make sense
Right now it don’t make sense
Let’s talk about our part
My heart touch your heart
Let’s talk about, let’s talk about living
Had enough of dying, not what we all about
Let’s do more giving
Do more forgiving, yeah
Our souls were brought together so that we could love each other
Sister,

We are here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here, why we are here
We are here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here, why we are here
We are here
Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh
Oh, oh

Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh, oh

We are here (oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh)
We are here for all of us (oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh)
(oh, oh)
We are here for all of us (oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh)
(oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh)
that’s why we are here, why we are here (oh, oh)

Cause we are here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here, why we are here
We are, here
We are here for all of us
We are here for all of us
That’s why we are here,
Why we are here

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