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?
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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?
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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?
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More videos.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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…
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?
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More videos.
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
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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Quick salute to record 400,000 People’s Climate Marchers who turned out, yesterday. More about that, tomorrow, with an Op-Ed on what’s gone down today in Lower Manhattan many of these activists showed up to Flood Wall Street calling for corporate environmental responsibility. Naysayers who think that big marches don’t bring about real change fail to understand there is a pluralistic revolution already underway that will change the world whether they like it or not, divesting the world away from corporate rape of the world’s natural resources.
Future Feminist by Melissa Brewer
Flickr/creative commons
Today, we are pausing to give kudos to our United Nation Good Will Ambassador, actress and activist Emma Watson, for defining feminism for a new generation.
. . . [F]eminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.
… Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.
We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.
… I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.
Men had, and have, a lot to gain once they back away from the precipice of hyper-masculinity, something forced on little boys, practically at birth. We have highlighted how this overriding male privilege, machismo and masculine extremism, has led directly to today’s misogynistic rape culture. This hyper-masculinity has no peaceful end. It doesn’t drive good works. Instead it maintains a vicious and constant competition with other men to be the most extremely hyper-masculine among one’s peers beginning with the repression (and conquest) of all women and all (in their opinion) less masculine men, making them trophies, conquests, less than human. To the extent that this overpowering man-centric point-of-view disappears from the halls of power, within corporations, governments, and religious hierarchies, people-centric solutions emerge. Gradually, old coercive, inhumane systems are replaced by entirely voluntary, humane associations in part built upon everything that is good and salvageable we find around us.
Hospice care is an example of an existing human partnership worth maintaining. The idea of hospice care, where dying patients receive palliative care with dignity, was conceived in the 11th century and has remained an welcome and useful association, surpassing what any corporation or government could conceive or control.
Two good examples of the transition of leaving bad systems behind us and creating better ways of doing things are the military and reproductive rights. In the United States, mostly poor young people are not given the choice to go to college or serve in the military. If they want to go to college, the military gladly pays but with an awful codicil: you have to be willing to fill a body bag on behalf of your government’s wrong-headed, greed-motivated, big budget, militaristic pursuit of world domination. Instead, how about a Green Army that is called upon to full diplomatic philanthropy, disaster relief, and environmental clean-up?
Confining a woman’s abortion and birth control decisions in the hands our government’s old white men is driven by their hatred and fear of women’s power. As an issue it has to be removed from public discourse and remain solely with a woman, her family, and her doctor.
Learn more about this formula for progress, here. And salute all people and groups of people who have the means and the courage to speak truth.