Archives for September 2009

The four year old i nanny was recently found naked with her four year old friend, also naked. They were engaging in the revelation of their different bodies, different genitals. They also touched one another. The mother shared this story with me. It is a common tale. More interesting to me... How to respond?! The mother told her daughter that it is ok to touch yourself (yay!), but that touching other people or having other people touch you in your privates is not ok (hm). i firmly believe in helping children to know boundaries and enabling them with the strength to set them. In such, i agree with everything the mom said, I think. How old is consent? What is the sentiment revealed that is not ok to be touched? I wonder what is internalized from the four year old vantage? I imagine thinking... Didi I engage in something wrong? Why is my body private there? i honestly have no real answers on this one. Only questions. Such a touchy subject, shall we say. On the one hand, I really know that youth need to feel safe, and need to know what safety is. How can we ensure this and normalize this natural exploration? Thoughts?

I read a lot of news. I'm kind of addicted to news like I'm addicted to coffee and cigarettes, which is not to say that I read the news because I enjoy it, but because it's a necessary part of my day. I start with news from the Northwest so I can keep up on the happenings back home. I then expand to cover a variety of mainstream national news stations, including Fox (I like to know my enemies), followed by more obscure news. 

This week, I payed close attention to "Everything but Marriage" and Wal-Mart. If you don't know, "Everything But Marriage" was a bill introduced in Washington that was supposed to expand rights for same-sex couples giving them basically equal rights compared to married heterosexuals, except no marriage certificate. I believe the logic went something like this: religious conservatives, believing non heterosexual relationships to be the epitomy of sin and moral collapse and certainly not worthy of acknowledgement in a kind, loving way, get quite stingy and selfish with the word "marriage", claiming it is a special religious "right" that only a man, a woman, and their government can participate in (personally, I think this makes all heterosexual marriages a little closer to polyamory than anyone is willing to admit, but that's another story). So Washington State said "fine, you religious conservatives can keep your word, but we'll extend the rights to same sex couples because after all, it's only...

One of my cousins back home is looking for a bride. Well actually, his parents are looking for a bride for him. For those of you who're not familiar with this concept, it's called an 'arranged marriage'. It's called 'arranged' because it’s the parents who decide who their daughters and sons should marry. It's a cultural thing. My parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends and pretty much everyone else I know (except my sibling, who got married to the guy she was dating in college) had an arranged marriage. No dating, no courtship, no "pre-marital sex (:P)" - Just a few lunches, dinners or family events followed by a wedding ceremony.

It was actually a few years ago when I first started thinking about issues of consent, love, marriage, agency, family structure and gender roles in a "traditional Hindu marital union". To be honest, I was quite disturbed by the whole idea!

"How can someone decide to spend the rest of their life with a person they've just met?" or,

"Why would she/he agree to a marriage like that? It's insane!" or perhaps,

"Wow! Didn't they at least wanna...

My defense was held on September 9th, 2009, and my dissertation, "Turning Points in Identity: Bisexual Women Choosing Between Monogamous and Polyamorous Relationships," was passed without revisions.

(Originally posted on wiqaable.com)

One of the few things I can't handle is people's injury stories. People talk about their injuries and scars as if they would make them more brave or honorable or whatever, but frankly, I think it's disrespectful to talk about painful stories in front of a person who just can't handle it. Is it about masculinity? Do you need to talk about your scars to prove how "dangerous" or "strong" you are? Well, I don't care. So next time you see me, please don't talk about breaking your bones.

This is because I've never had any big injury since I was born. I've never broken my bones, I've never gotten into car accidents, and I've never fallen down the stairs. I've been so fortunate that I don't know how painful it would be to get your bones broken, and I would imagine the most extreme pain possible right before I pass out. That's a painful imagination.

I've never been really sick either, except for occasional skin problems I always had growing up. I've never gotten a flu, I've never had food poisoning, and I've never been hospitalized. I'm not saying that I've always been healthy, but if health is determined, simplistically, by the absence of disease or injury, I've always enjoyed my health.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why I don't like going to a hospital. I'm so unfamiliar with that super clean and slightly sorrowful atmosphere inside the...

If you happen to be in San Francisco the first weekend in October, do yourself the favor of a lifetime and go and see the Sins Invalid performance at Brava Theater. A quick word of caution though: you need to buy tickets soon as the show will likely sell out each night.

The press release mentions Sins Invalid and NSRC's cultural consulting partnership and describes, "Sins Invalid is a performance event celebrating the power of embodiment and the tenderness of struggle, stripping taboos off of sexuality and disability and offering a vision of beauty that includes all bodies and communities."

            The current ACORN scandal says more about our assumptions of sex work and class than it says about the organization itself. Consider the whom and how of those breaking the story: two white, middle-class conservative students, both with a marked disdain for the organization, decided to expose the criminal mentality of ACORN by seeking advice on the financial side of prostitution. James O’Keefe, the man who posed as a pimp in the videos, even appeared on Fox’s Morning News show wearing a “pimp” costume while discussing his expose.  

            Aside from the questionable journalism ethics, which James Rainey discusses in the LA Times, there is something insidious about the way these activists decided to expose what they called a “thug mentality” in ACORN. I try to picture how this scenario would play out if activists were trying to expose criminal compliance in organizations for the wealthy, but any conservative figures have been ousting themselves so...

The setting was the same as always. A dark dance floor with a disco ball slowly twirling above casting speckled white light on the walls and floor.  The dancers wore the same clothing, polished boots and belt buckles, occasionally a cowboy hat.  There were some in classic cowboy shirts with pearl buttons, others wore t shirts with beer logos blazoned across the front.  We all stood in a group, eagerly awaiting the dance instructor’s direction. And with one word, the instructor created a safe and welcoming environment. 

“Leads.  Raise your hand.  If you would like to lead the dancing tonight, please raise your hand.  Okay follows, find a lead.”  We all paired up and got ready for the next instruction. 

I was relieved to hear the instructor’s word choice.  For four years of lessons in partner dances, this is what I had always heard:

“Men line up facing me.

Grand Opening of the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health Censored by Pawtucket, RI Mayor in Response to Anonymous Email

By Rebecca Chalker, author of The Clitoral Truth and articles on sexuality and women’s health.

The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, new non-profit educational organization focusing pleasure and sexual advocacy issues, was scheduled to hold its Grand Opening in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Saturday, September 26. The Center’s Director is Megan Andelloux, a graduate of the University of Rhode Island (1997) and a Certified Sexuality Educator of the American Association of Sexuality Education, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) and a Board Certified Sexologist by the American College of Sexologists.

Last week Andelloux, learned that the Pawtucket City Council had received an anonymous email “warning” about the Center’s opening and premier event. “I was then informed that without proper zoning and event licenses, I would be arrested if I held the event in Pawtucket,” she says. “Although I had landlord approval and the building is zoned for retail, business, entertainment, and office use, I was told that I had to get a special zoning application for ‘education’ and approval,” which typically takes up to two months. She had to scramble to find alternative space in which to hold the Grand Opening event and retained a...

I've been reading a lot of information about the creation of adolescence, and how this grey area between childhood and adulthood has been constructed, particularly with regard to sexuality education. Being both a self-disclosed sex nerd and naval-gazer, it's caused me to be reflective about my own upbringing; my introduction to sex and sexuality; the narratives & identity construction that took place around those first young, dewy moments of lust; the paths that branched out from each additional experience and how they led me to where I am today. It doesn’t help that I’ve been terribly sick the past few days and, being stuck in bed, I finally submitted to starting to watch my girlfriend’s copy of the American version of Queer as Folk–what can I say, I watched the original in England & I’ve found that so many of these shows get lost in translation (*never* see a British production of Rent, let me tell you), so I resisted!

In any case, I’ve been reflecting on my experience and trying to place that knowledge into making connections between the readings on adolescent sexuality and sexuality education, and the readings I’ve been doing on program planning and community involvement—specifically around Roger Hart’s modification of Sherry Arnstein’s ‘

Imagine a scene with two, or more, hot, sweaty men getting naked, kissing, giving each other head, and then  fucking without using a condom.  One guy might be a dirty pig bottom and only gets fucked - maybe by two, three, or more guys.  Or maybe they switch it up and take turns fucking each other.  There's not much talking - none of that "yeah, buddy, take that cock" stuff.  And there's no music. No lame house music track over the sex sounds or worse some cheesy porn muzak that is supposed to make you feel romantic. It's just fucking. Raw fucking. Grunting, moaning, sweating, skin glistening, turning red. sofly repeating "yeah, yeah, yeah" or "oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck" under the breath - the perfect soundtrack.  And then the cumshots. Some guys will pull their bare dicks out and shoot on the other guy's ass, back or face. Or he'll cum in the other guy's ass and watch as it slowly leaks out. Fantasy? Reality? Both? Does it matter?

Whatever it is, it would likely be labeled as "bareback sex" or just "barebacking". Just thinking about it gets me all hot and bothered and needing to cool off.  And, yeah, I think it can be a turn on, too, within certain contexts.  Mostly, I get upset at the linguistic and political connotations of this label more than I do about any personal or public health concerns that might arise. 

The term "bareback" came into use in the late nineties to describe men who actively sought...

(NOTE: I know that I should be posting on Monday, but a recent interaction is fresh on my mind and so I don’t see any harm in dong so a few days earlier.)

So I was drinking amongst friends and acquaintances at probably my favorite bar in San Francisco (coincidentally about a two-minute walk from my place, which has probably saved my life after more than a few games of beer pong as well as 50 cent PBR nights).  One of the guys at the table—a good acquaintance if not outright friend of mine—brought up a tale about a young man that I didn’t know, but that the majority of the table seemed familiar with.

My friend proceeded to talk about how he doesn’t really talk to this dude anymore, and in his defense, he said something along the lines of, “Dude, he’s a pedophile.”  “Child molester” was definitely another term he used to describe said estranged friend/acquaintance of his.  Let’s just refer to said-perpetrator as Chester for clarity’s sake.

To elaborate further, he explained the situation to my roommate and I (paraphrasing): Chester was 19 years old when he had sex with a 12 year old girl (I forget if she was his girlfriend or not), and how Chester had...

There is a resolute link between militarization, sexuality, and health dating way back to when the world began to war. The health of United State’s soldiers alerted a specific type of terror- venereal disease, or a weakening of  the front line of defense. In such, a distinct terror alert level on sexuality and health manifested, arming a culture of defense, fear, protection, violence, and an us/them ideology. “War fostered respectability for sex education...” (moran 76). I think this is a history that we must reckon with. i worry that we are not. For rhetoric surrounding sex and disease persists with protection, warning, disease, fear, self-defense, predation, and so on. 

In addition to militaristic nationalism and sex education, a liberal benevolent sense persists in sex education and I felt it most present in our classroom conversation. “How can we help them?” I easily slip into this paradigm of knowing that I have access to privilege and wanting to share such through education or volunteerism. However, I do feel that pause must ensue and i must ensure that i am not replicating systems of power so long at play in colonial,...

I have to admit I have a truly guilty habit of watching really bad tv sometimes. It's not entirely my fault; I have an unemployed roommate, who aside from going to yoga two times a day and doing volunteer tai-chi with AIDS ward patients at a local hospital, spends the majority of her day smoking pot and watching re-runs of "7th Heaven" and Maury Povich paternity test shows (just to give a few examples.) Together we discovered our sick fascination with Lifetime made-for-tv movies. The more I watch these horrendous productions complete with bad actors, poor screen writing and shoddy cinematography, the more I question what the producers of Lifetime are thinking when they commission this stuff. Perhaps I am making the assumption that the phrase "Lifetime: Television for Women" (and apparently Gay Men now that Project Runway has moved networks and taken Bravo's constituency with them) somehow is supposed to denote empowering programming for women. And yes, indeed, there are instances where Lifetime will air actual mainstream, Hollywood produced films that speak the romantic side of my inner feminist lesbian. Examples including "Boys on the Side," "Fried Green Tomatoes," and "Thelma and Louise." However, I'm constantly confounded by this former style of programming that deals not at all with issues that might empower women or imagine a world of gender equality but rather focus on extremely hyped up situations of all the reasons women...

When I was a little girl, I was told forthrightly by my mother to ask her any questions about sex that I wanted. My mom is a part of the generation which believes a fulfilled life is one that includes sexual exploration. Let me give you a couple of examples:

When I was a teenager, probably fifteen or sixteen, I said to my mom: “I think sex is gross. I don’t want to have sex until I’m at least twenty-five.” To which my mother replied with a gasp, “Oh, I hope not!” And then something to the effect of sex being fun and me missing out if I waited that long.

When I came out to my mother my sophomore year of college, she asked me if my best friend, who had come out to me a few months before (which I had told my mother), and I were “experimenting together.” (She also told me that she wished she were attracted to women because she believed women were much better communicators.)

Until I started to have sex, I did not see my mom’s point. In fact, I maintained into my early twenties that sex was something in which I had no interest taking part. Why did I feel this way? Did my mother’s enthusiasm for sex push me away from it? Should she have fast-forwarded through the sex and stripper scenes in The...

So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do once I graduate with this masters degree in sexuality studies. In thinking about that, I start to wonder what the ‘do’ would look like. Do I want to go for a PhD? Some sort of post grad fellowship? Or try and start working in the field? Keeping in mind each of these potential avenues, and the fact that they are of course not mutually exclusive or related in any linear sense, what role does ‘sex ed’ play in each of them? In each of these capacities, I think that I want my place in them to reflect a need for sexuality education to also occur outside of the K-12 classroom.

When I think about pursuing a PhD, I think about being both a product of sexuality education and the ways that with a PhD, and the research and teaching I’d be doing, how I could influence and change the field of sexuality. I’ve been living and doing sexuality education in one way or another for my whole life, and this is the point where I can potentially have more of an influence on the current conversations around sexuality education. As a naïve grad student, I do hope that I can have some positive impact on the academy, and translate that to the future of my own ways of teaching, writing, and researching.

What about a fellowship of some sort, a program...

In November of 2008, only three months after I began pursuing a master’s degree in the Department of Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University, tension and conflict between white gays and lesbians and both queer and straight people of color erupted after Proposition 8 passed. I was still adjusting to the stress of a graduate reading load and the fact that I was now living alone in a new city with no family and virtually no friends from back home when I realized that a racist blame game had manifested.

I’m sure readers are well aware of exactly what transpired. Frankly, white gays and lesbians unleashed a flurry of blame on people of color for the oppressive proposition’s success. People like Dan Savage blamed African Americans, calling them a “threat to gay Americans.” Others blamed Latin Americans, citing their “traditional family values.” And still others blamed Asian Americans. (Of course, in January 2009, Patrick J. Egan from New York University and Kenneth Sherrill from Hunter College-CUNY released a study titled “California’s Proposition 8: What Happened, and What Does the Future Hold?” that debunked the myth that race had much to do with one’s decision to either vote for or against 8.)

What does it mean to have a gay Korean American man as today's best-known face of so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" controversy?

In my narrow mind, rainbow flags don't match military camouflage patterns, and Korean blood doesn't mix well with American coca-cola. In front of my face, in a picture, Dan Choi (pronounced like che) wears a smile in a built body in front of a rainbow flag, out and proud and patriotic. I guess.

I have avoided talking, writing, or even thinking about him until now because I knew that if I had been to question him, I would have had to talk intensely to myself as an anti-militaristic Queer Korean man. Am I ready yet? Probably not. But I just couldn't ignore my inner questioning self.

In case you haven't noticed, I believe that everyone should be discouraged to join military, whether Queer or not-yet-Queer-minded. I also believe that everyone should be encouraged to develop critical thinking and anti-oppression ideology. If one is to call "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy oppressive, one shall also point out the oppressive nature of militarism. Therefore, my brain refuses to accept any ideas but "Don't Serve, Don't Kill." And of course, I'm particularly against U.S. (and Japanese) military because of its past and ongoing wrongdoings in various world regions like East Asia, Pacific, and Southwestern Asia (aka Middle...

Since I was a little boy, Ive had a penchant for dressing up in outrageous and flamboyant outfits - Halloween and costume parties have always been my favorite celebrations!  Maybe it's the gay gene or the fact that my parents and grandparents felt comfortable with me slipping on a pair of vinyl go-go boots or making a dress out of sheer curtains with a little dab of red lipstick to complete the look that got me started, but I love getting dolled up and gender bended and heading to a party or out on the town. It's so much more fun than wearing an Abercrombie t-shirt, a pair of designer jeans, and flip-flops (and who wears flip-flops to a bar anyway? unless, of course, it's a dress made out of flip-flops a la Priscilla Queen of the Desert!).  of course, there's always risks involved in dressing up to go out, usually involving drunk frat boys looking to start a fight or the occassionally inappropriate or ill-chosen outfit for the occasion - the latter can normally be overcome with a little chutzpah and a drink or two. A few weeks ago, I headed out for some barhopping in San Francisco with some friends wearing a vintage sailor's top, jeans, and a pair of candy apple red, knee high, lace up platform boots that I'd recently purchased at the marine surplus store in Provincetown.  We had a great time laughing and  making new friends, until I learned that a lack of practice walking in platforms combined with a few beers and a spilled drink can lead to what...

An experience I had at a training entitled- Essential Skills and Practice: Developmentally Appropriate Sexual Health/ HIV Prevention Education

It felt like the room had disappeared to only the trainer and me. The video on the screen was a video used for 9-12 graders, and it consisted of a teenage couple that had sex without protection and thought that the girl may have gotten pregnant. While they are waiting for the results of the pregnancy test, a helpful citizen separates the couple and takes them to two different houses. The male goes to a house to visit a single father. As the father explains that his son was born when he was a teenager, he wishes his girlfriend at the time and him had opted for abortion or adoption….. all while his son is in the background fiddling with some toys. The female teenager visits a young mother and her baby, as the young mother explains that she is trying to finish school and work full time, so she had to work from three until twelve and wake up at five in the morning. She explains how hard it is to be a teen mother.

The video cuts to a new scene. The couple is immersed in a pediatric hospital...

Before I dive into what can quickly an essay on the social, not biological, construction of “sex”, I have to give credit to Professor Martin Weinberg, with whom I have taken the course Constructing Sexuality and will hopefully work with more throughout my graduate training.  My undergraduate training in sociology and gender and women’s studies provided me the skills to articulate the perspective that gender is not natural, rather it is a social construct; we as humans come up with the categories of “woman” and “man”, determine the criteria for appropriately falling into either category, and have in place a number of consequences for failing to be a woman or a man.  But, I must say, I was at first confused by Martin’s scheduled lecture on “the social construction of sex.”  At that point, I thought we had given sex over to biology and would settle for the nagging reminder that there’s not just male and female – there’s also intersexed.

I can relate to some of the disappointment with either the inaction, slow action, or counteraction of the Obama administration regarding sexual and gender equality.  Over a year ago, then-candidate Barack Obama made a number of promises that he, now as President, has either backed down from, disregarded, or moved in the opposite direction (like on the Defense of Marriage Act).  While it’s nice to have a friend in the White House, we need not forget that much of the work it will take to realize full equality in a legal, social, and cultural sense will be our own doing.  Though my generation was not around for the Stonewall riots and gay liberation, and was too young to understand any of the emergence of AIDS and the mobilization for better treatment and prevention options, we have to remember the power we hold as people to create change for ourselves.

My concern is that we’ve become increasingly obsessed with making changes...