Archives for November 2009

I am not a religious person. Any of you who have sat with me in a class discussing religion and sexuality might have guessed this by the pained look on my face that looks like a cross between the Joker, the Cheshire Cat, and a hernia victim. This is not to say I am anti religion, anti christian, or anti god; some of the people in my life who I love and care about the most claim a religion or christanity as a part of their identity and I would defend these people their rights to believe how they want to the death if need be, but these people who I love that claim religion or christianity also do not push their beliefs on me, nor do they agree with promoting hatred towards groups of people based on sexuality or sexual practices.

So what I am is anti ORGANIZED religion. More specifically, anti ORGANIZED, CONSERVATIVE, FUNDAMENTALIST religion. You know what I'm talking about; they claim to follow the words in the bible ("thou shalt not kill. . ."; "he who is without sin. . ."; "love one another. . ."; "do unto others. . ."; I attended vacation bible school too!), but then preach about the evils of homosexuality, the evils of masturbation, the evils of pre marital sex, the evils of short skirts and cleavage, the evils of unwed mothers, the evils of. . . you get the point (and I bet if you look not so closely, you see a theme too). They don't just preach, they shove it down your throat, they try to impose their beliefs onto others, and they...

December 1st is World AIDS day and SFSU is holding an all day event on campus planned by various student organizations. The organizers of the event got in touch with the South-Asian queer group that I'm a recent recruit of. We've been asked to talk about the various sexual health issues that effect South-Asian LGBT individuals living in the bay area.

There's an obvious lack of dialogue in the South-Asian community as far as discussing pleasure and sexuality is concerned. Sexuality is too personal and private to be discussed in a social situation. Cultural norms and taboos limit sexuality to be discusses or acted only behind closed doors under a heterosexual marital union.

In this situation, how is one supposed to 'admit' to their sexual escapades and get tested? LGBT folks have to deal with internal feelings of shame and guilt and added fear of being ‘outed’ while pursuing testing or education. Then we also run into the issue of lack of familial support for HIV positive folks. There are certainly no arenas for South-Asian folks to seek sexuality information from. Parents don’t talk about sex with their kids; it’s a hush-hush topic at school and no priest or swami talks about sexuality in their pravachan (religious discourse) assemblies.

Our...

The internet shows a huge preoccupation with the issue of semen taste -

even though condom use is recommended during fellatio.

There is also a great deal of "folk wisdom" about why semen tastes bad and

how to make it better.

This quickie survey gets at some of the basics: who is worried and why, 

how big a "deal breaker" is "bad tasting" semen, what do people believe will

improve or worsen the situation and where do they get their information.

Feel free to take this survey and add your comments.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vr74WBIwTLCog12sXJ0v_2bw_3d_3d

I'm the mother of a trans kid, and trans issues and gender expression issues are hot topics of conversation in my house. Even though I am a sexologist by trade, training (and inclination), I can scarcely keep up. I keep learning more from my son and I look forward to this constant learning process. 

Even so, I was moved to write this column on Carnal Nation, to pay tribute to some people I knew personally, and others I gaze at from a distance.

I think it's a good read, and if you have comments, please let me know!

http://sf.carnalnation.com/content/39286/999/reflections-gender-mandala

Jezebel posted the most adorably bizarre video of a penis doing its best Teletubbie impersonation (NSFW). I immediately reposted onto my Facebook because, you know, sharing is caring. And I care enough to subject my friends to my strange sense of humor.

While I get that not everyone finds a penis playing peek-a-boo with its own foreskin as funny as I do I did not anticipate the response left by a male friend:

Surgically altering babies should be outlawed. That is an adult decision. Otherwise it’s mutilation. Period.

The issue of circumcision is always one I avoid. I do not have a penis and will not have children so I get to steer clear of this hot-button sexual values issue. But, as I repeatedly read his comment, I realized what was bothering me about it: I prefer a foreskin-free penis.

Typing that sentence makes me wince. Who am I to have a preference for cut cock? Is it shallow? Destructive to men? I try to rationalize my desire via the freedom of personal choice.

Then I realize that this choice is not as personal as I would like to believe. I live in a culture that regularly circumcises boy babies. Nearly every penis I have seen up close has been sans-foreskin. The penis in its given state looks as alien to me as the unmodified female form looks to so many guys raised in a Maxim world.

When I first moved to San Francisco two years ago and threw down all of my remaining money on a deposit for an apartment, I found myself broke and desperate for work.  After several failed attempts to get a restaurant or cafe job (most of my work experience in the past had been in the service industry), I quickly took the opportunity to work the counter service at one of the remaining all male strip theaters in the city.  Aside from putting on live nude strip shows, the establishment also catered to male public sex with its basement video porn arcade.  At first I thought this would be an interesting experience in working male public sex industry (and interesting it was indeed) because I had believed that male public sex spaces might serve as places of empowerment for validating gay sex.  What I found however was that the space sometimes functioned off of implicit principles of internalized homophobia.  Interestingly enough, I began to question the notions of solely ascribing a liberatory status to institutions that provided spaces for what appears to be non-heteronormative sexual experiences and instead began to understand the ways in which shame, anger and hatred were also inflected in the daily happenings of these establishments.  Allow me to give a few examples:

During each eight hour shift, my job primarily consisted of managing the strip performers, selling porn videos, sex toys or novelties at the front counter, or exchanging...

As it has been explained to me by my Catholic girlfriend, the goal of marriage is procreation. If a heterosexual couple is barren or past their child-bearing years, the ideal goal of the marriage (according to my Catholic girlfriend) is still procreation because “miracles can happen.” 

When I brought up this point of miracles yesterday to a group of sexuality masters students, an intriguing question was proposed: Why couldn’t the same be said of non-heterosexual couples, most notably same-sex couples? We all had a good laugh and someone said, “Well, I guess I should start trying!” but then today I started thinking about just how amazing and bizarre such a “miracle” would be.

First of all, it would force everyone, religious, non-religious, sciencey folks, medical professionals, the average Joe, to question how the world works. Second, it would make the religious Bible-thumpers either cower in defeat or come up with a conspiracy theory to explain it all away. Third, it would be absolutely awesome. The fact that my girlfriend and I cannot combine our DNA to make a child (and that neither of us has a brother in order to have DNA that is at least close) is heart-wrenching to us. Sometimes when I am envisioning our future theoretical children I think, well, obviously the kid’s going to have this physical or personality trait because we both have it,...

National Sexuality Resource Center is pleased to announce a fabulous new resource, the Black Youth Project Website. Here is some info about their work:

Black Youth Project Website

Our goal for the site is to generate new media information, blogs, art, conversations, webinars, data, research, policies and movements that will expand the human and social capital of young black youth, facilitating their empowerment through highlighting their voices and experiences.

We hope you’ll visit and use the site today and frequently in the future. And please let others know the BYP site . It’s truly a first-of-its kind online resource that explores the attitudes, actions and decision making of black youth by including their lives, ideas and voices.

There are a number of features on the site that we invite you to explore:

• Black Youth Blogging – daily blogs by black youth on important and controversial topics and links to black youth bloggers
• Rap Lyrics Database – the first public searchable database of rap music lyrics based on Billboard charts
• Curriculum Workshop – teachers, social workers, community activists, and artists can download and add to curriculum centered on the experiences of black youth and use data from the Black Youth Survey.
• Black Youth Create! – uploaded...

This morning on twitter, I saw a tweet from a blog I like to follow, @afterellen (news and media by/about lesbian and bi women) that read ‘The only “Playboy" playmate to ever come out as gay is reportedly engaged to a man’. The subsequent article describes how this particular model came out in 2004 as a lesbian, and began to publish, speak, and do activist work around LGBT issues. The article cites the New York posts description of her recent engagement to a man. Stephanie Adams states that she will “retire from being a public persona so that we can settle down and have children ... Life is good ... I have no regrets for anything.”

Maybe this is the sexuality studies student in me, or the fact that I have friends that identify in fluid and plural ways, but, what’s the big deal? I wanted to write about this post after I read Gabe’s blog describing the comment section from an AOL story about a 77 year old trans woman, also a veteran, that finally got the gender confirmation surgery she had been wanting. Both of these articles deal with the story at hand well-enough for online news...

In prepping for a graduate class I'm teaching on sexuality education and social policy, I recenlty reread Kristen Luker's book, When Sex goes to School, in which she analyzes and describes the 100+ interviews she conducted over twenty years with individuals on both sides of the sex education debate that have been warring for the past half century.  I think she does a good job summing up the history of these battles as well as provides some interesting insight into the players, particularly how they became passionate about this issue, on both sides. The only major problem I have with her books, and one she points out as a major limitation to this work, is the lack of non-white voices and an analysis of race and ethinicity - I think this is highly likely due to the fact that issues regarding race and ethinicity are often excluded as are voices from communities of color and other so-called "minority" groups when it comes to sex ed.  Having worked in sexuality education for almost twenty years, I can honestly say that there wasn't much that was surprising or anything that I hadn't heard before, at least until I reached the last chapter. "Chapter Nine: Sex education in America and whether it works or doesn't -- and why that's not the right question"

While reading it, I came to a realization that answers a question that I've been...

At age 77, Renee Ramsey is being hailed as one of the oldest in the United States to undergo gender confirmation surgery. Identified as “male” at birth, a U.S. Navy veteran of 20 years, and married twice, Ramsey lived most of her life as a “man” and largely kept the fact that she has felt “different” from “5 or 6” years old onward to herself.

After her second wife passed away, Ramsey decided to seek out surgical intervention in order to match the exterior of her body to how she felt on the inside. In June of this year, the operation was completed.

In all honesty, it inspires me when I read stories about people who struggle to overcome unfortunate life difficulties and pursue lives of fulfillment. However, after reading a number of the comments following Ramsey’s story on AOL news, I am reminded of just how much people enjoy seeing others suffer. And not only this, but I am also reminded of how much people actively work to hurt others.

Comments include:

• “LMFAO ........... Now .. I think I'm gonna HURL .... !”

The women who are notorious for being "in love with the Eiffel Tower" and "married to the Berlin Wall" - activists representing a small group known as Objectum Sexuals and Objektophiles - have become easy targets for ridicule thanks to the internet, right wing bloggers, and YouTube videos. These women have been interviewed in print media and have appeared on numerous television shows such as the British "Strangelove" series, Good Morning America, The Tyra Show and others. 

However, there is very little understanding of Objectum Sexuality, as most sexuality and psychology professionals have quickly tossed this rare orientation into the catch-all category of fetishes and paraphilias and thus are inquiring no further. 

This is a pity for those folks, and yet it's been great for me, as I've been able to venture into very fresh, uncharted terrain. 

I was lucky enough to be the first person to conduct any type of research in this community, and my simple survey of 21 English speaking members of OS-Internationale revealed some very interesting features.

I've written a three-part series, "People Who Love Objects," as part of my Love's Outer Limits column on www.carnalnation.com. This series offers personal perspective and insights from the survey, as well as the intriguing theory that OS may be linked to Object Personification Synesthesia. This is interesting given the predominance of...

So while I was sick at the SSSS conference this last weekend, I still managed to make a friend, Dr. Jeffrey Abrasen. Thursday night, before I realized I had strep throat, I went to the opening getting to know you party (much apologies to anyone who managed to catch this from me pre antibiotics) and managed inspite of my introverted personality to be engaged in a conversation with a gentleman from Canada. We chatted for a good portion of the evening, being joined in conversation here and there by others. I find it fascinating that although I was not exactly feeling social, that even when I am being social half the time I don't know how to be, I managed to find the person there whose line of work actually fascinates me the most. In all fairness, I believe he started the conversation, and I have to say, he had me at essentially "I work with the worst of the worst sex offenders."

The topic of sex offenders I find generally leads many people I know to quickly change the subject. I've ascertained that the general population agrees that punishment for sex offenders is best served via a bullet, while media sources inundate the general population with so many horror stories (often the same horror story but with new details) that the general population feels that charged, convicted, and monitored sex offenders constitute a huge threat to the rest of the population. And people don't differentiate sex offenders. For example, a pedophile is actually...

Sitting at a hotel bar in Puerto Vallarta, chatting with a lively group of sexuality studies conference goers, the last thing I expected to find drawing my attention was grainy-single camera coverage of a congressional meeting. But as we lounged in the humid, open air tavern, my eyes slowly shifted towards the television hovering over our bartenders head displaying CNN's coverage of the House floor. While I had always imagined that some sense of joy would come with seeing that the health care reform bill passed through the House of Representatives, my imagined excitement was drowned out by the attachment of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the bill.

Having returned to the US and found myself once again within reach of a computer and an internet connection, I scoured the internet trying to make sense of this unfortunate piece of legislation. After perusing all variety of impassioned rhetoric and fuzzy claims about the amendment, I was able to find enough quality reporting to come up with a clear outline of the Amendment, its origin and its potential consequences.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment bans purchasing any insurance policy that covers abortion with a federal subsidy. In the new exchange program being proposed, most of the potential buyers will be using federal subsidies. In order for insurance companies to compete in this market, their policies will need to be geared towards customers using federal...

Today I rented a U-Haul.  Although the rental does coincide with the blossoming of a new relationship in my life, I am not taking the second date plunge described in the classic lesbian relationship joke.  I am, however, committing to a relationship with the city of San Francisco. 

Until today, I had been holding out on my commitment. I had been living in what some friends have called a bachelor pad, making it by with a spork and a plate.  But, I guess I was waiting to see if it would take, to see how I would feel, to see if this place was a fit.  It is. In fact, it fits in a way that no other place has ever fit.  It is a spacious fit with infinite room to expand.  It is a fit that has allowed my heart to grow and to overflow with pride in myself and my people.  

I am no contortionist.  Fitting back into my life in Durango would take all kinds of pushing, pulling, squashing and squelching.  My pride-swollen heart is far too big for that closet...

I attended the UCSF Student AIDS forum this past Saturday (apparently I am allergic to spare time--what is this thing you call a wee kend, you say?).

Anyway. The first break out session I attended was on HIV in prisons, which is a complicated & (at least for me) painful issue to contemplate. Beyond the general fucked up-edness of our prison system overall, the AIDS prevalence in prisons is more than 3x that of the general population.

Since prisons in our country are designed to break people instead of rehabilitate them, it is unsurprising that they completely fail to provide adequate conditions for the inmates, let alone proper medical care (see Plata v. Schwarzenegger).  Which means prisoners with HIV/AIDS are almost certainly not receiving the care they need--especially now with all the budget cuts.

In addition to the already saddening high prevalence & lack of medical care, there are many activities that happen among prisoners that increase risk of seroconversion.

One of these activities is sex.

But condoms are controversial in prisons, and rarely distributed...because this is a population where sex isnt supposed to happen& to distribute condoms would condone & promote sexual activity--sound familiar, SXS 805? In many jurisdictions sex is a punishable offense, I'll give you that--but when 30% of the population is doing it anyway with such a significant HIV/AIDS prevalence, it just seems...

As someone who struggles with meeting or attracting human beings in person, I often rely on online dating and hookups to meet and/or play with new folks.  I was thinking about a recent online correspondence with an older woman who, after I revealed the bombshell that I identify as bisexual (while I identify as queer specifically, for the sake of convenience and depending on my expectations of what someone may know about “queer” as a sexual identity that I identify with, I’ll often refer to myself as bi and decide to elaborate later), she very respectfully told me that she was not really interested.  To quote: “And the bisexual thing is also an issue for me. I understand you might play safe, but there are too many risks involved for me to be comfortable, and condoms break.”  (The other kiss of death having been my status as an occasional smoker.)

Fast forward to yesterday, I had a great date with this really cool girl I just met via a post I put up on CL.  I ended up spending the night at her place, and we had sex.  I realized after the fact that I had not disclosed my sexual identity and preferences on my ad, and I got really worried.  I have had a number of experiences where women will lose any interest in me that they may have had because of my status as...

Sex education is boring. I say this as someone teaching in high schools and I will say it again: the way we teach sex is boring and outdated. Sex education needs a makeover if it is going to remain relevant and effective.

I spent yesterday at a high school giving a talk about safer sex. Perhaps it was the sunshine or the leftover Halloween candy, but the kids were on one rowdy ride yesterday. Nothing could calm them down, not even the verbal castigation thrown down by a school director. There was only one moment when they paused and payed attention: during a video explaining viruses. I watched them with great fascination as they became focused on the information.

The school directors talked to me later and apologized for the students' behavior but I was grateful for the insight. I don't think we can use simple lectures to compete with the multimedia onslaught defining the new generations. One of my undergraduate professors was onto something when he divided his class between documentaries, online articles, academic journals and dynamic lectures. Simply stating a fact or idea will not make it stick, not when our minds are constantly processing high volumes of information presented in much prettier packages.

I want to mak sex education shinier. I want to use available media to explain complicated ideas about sex and create songs to make facts stick. Whatever we are doing to promote safer sex and sexual literacy is working but it needs to work...

hey folks,

per our classroom conversation, i though this may be interest...

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/npo/1443610633.html

HIV Testing Counselor

Founded in 1987, AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the largest specialized provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the nation. Our mission is to provide cutting edge medicine and advocacy, regardless of ability to pay. Through our healthcare centers, pharmacies, health plan, research and other activities, AHF provides access to the latest HIV treatments for all who need them. 

AIDS Healthcare Foundation is currently seeking a FT HIV Testing Counselor to work in our SF Public Health Division. The position will be located at 238 18th St., Oakland, CA 94606. The salary is $17/hr based on experience. 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: (Other duties may be assigned.) 

-Upholds and ensures code of confidentiality relative to the clients and the testing program. -Interfaces with other senior staff within the prevention department and makes recommendations for department policies. -Assists with the observation and training of new counselors as assigned. -Documents findings and submits reports to Program Manager. -Conducts additional training for counselors as needed and assigned. -Knows and understands...

When I first took my partner down to meet my parents, we were returning from a weekend getaway in Monterey. We went out to a nice dinner and then headed to their house to relax & socialize for a bit before continuing our journey back home to San Francisco. The conversation (inevitably) turned toward my childhood & whatever embarrassing pictures could be displayed or stories related.We ended up focusing on my early childhood years...

I was lucky to go to an awesome preschool. I don't have many concrete memories of it (I'm more of an emotional memory kind of kid--I remember how things *feel* rather than how they actually *were*), but I remember it being one of the happiest times of my life. Getting messy, learning new information about the world, hanging out with all my besties, climbing anything in front of me, having camp-outs, playing with animals, roughhousing...you get the idea.

One of the things the preschool did was have parents create scrapbooks for their kids--one of the coolest things ever, in my humble opinion. I mean, not only capturing pictures of me at that age, but my artwork & words put down verbatim--oh the things I said! And man, that tendency to tell stories? Definitely inborn. Also inborn? We chuckled at the part that described my personality: 'Shy, strong-willed, aggressive' (yep,...

While I was somewhat disappointed that I was laid up in bed sick for the festivities of the Halloween weekend this year, I was somewhat relieved that I decided not to venture beyond my home for the holiday. I tend to love Halloween because I love to dress up in ridiculous costumes, although I hardly restrict myself to one or a few days a year to engage in this activity. I'm always somewhat ambivalent about Halloween due to a sexualized phenomenon that by now has become an American cultural cliche. Taken straight from a line of one of my favorite 21st century teen cult classic movie "Mean Girls": 'in the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In girl world, Halloween is the one night of the year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.'

Don't get me wrong. I'm of the opinion that women and anyone for that matter should be able to wear whatever they want without being held to a sexual standard. I also personally abhor the blame the victim rhetoric of sexual assault that claims: 'well if she was dressed like that she must have been asking for it.' But there's something that makes my stomach turn when I see streets flooded with women in costumes that consist mainly of 'some form of lingerie and animal...

I won’t lie – I pride myself on my pro-feminist ideology, further extended and nuanced through a black queer lens through which to view the world.  I spend a considerable amount of time agonizing over the privileges that have been bestowed upon me because of what is assumed to be between my legs and its extension into my self-presentation to the world.  I am aware that, even with a genderqueer identity, my masculine gender expression, especially in terms of clothing and name, grants me an indefinite number of conveniences, leg-ups, head-starts, and other forms of unfairly distributed advantages that are denied to women and transpeople.  But, no matter how hard I work to recognize and reject my male privilege, there will always be a block of privileges that are unknown to or unseen by me; hence, this is how privilege sustains itself – it is invisible to its beneficiaries, even those who fight to challenge inequality.

Again, another admission: I wish I could dress and behave in ways that more accurately express my genderqueer identity.  But, I’m both too comfortable in boys’ clothing and too afraid/unmotivated to deal with the expected harassment, violence, outcasting, and discrimination that I would face if I were to stop dressing in masculine clothing.  So, dressing in feminine or androgynous attire for Halloween is the next best thing.  This year, I donned a feminized and sexualized army uniform. ...

This is not my blog, but something I wanted to share. I first read this in my sophomore year of high school around 1993. As I keep just about everything, I recently came across it again while going through my old peer educator packet. I personally feel it still holds up, and as a Sexuality student whose focus is on sex education, I also feel it is still important 20 years later.

WHAT THEY LEARN IN SCHOOL

    By Jerome Stern.  This monologue aired March 17, 1989 on All Things    Considered, National Public Radio's daily news broadcast.  Stern is    a professor of English at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

In the schools now, they want them to know all about     marijuana, crack, heroin, and amphetamines, Because then they won't be interested in marijuana,     crack, heroin, and amphetamines, But they don't want to tell them anything about sex     because if the schools tell them about sex, then they     will be interested in sex, But if the schools don't tell them anything about sex, Then they will have high morals, and no one will get     pregnant, and everything will be all right, And they do want them to know a lot about computers so     they will outcompete the Japanese, But they don't want...