Quickies

Quickies: Modern Sex Researchers, Virginity and Shame, and “Outrage Culture”

  • Meet the Modern-Day Masters of Sex – “Nobody plans on being a sex researcher when they grow up. Nobody plans to work a strain gauge between splayed legs as they measure changes in penis circumference during sexual stimulation. Nobody dreams to sit across from over-caffeinated college students who are looking to make a quick buck, having to prosaically ask, ‘When’s the last time you’ve had oral sex?’ and then wait for the answer to scrawl on a clipboard.” (Alternatively, read Mary Roach’s book Bonk.)
  • It Happened to Me: I Waited Until My Wedding Night to Lose My Virginity and I Wish I Hadn’t – The headline pretty much says it all. When we praise virginity to such an extent, we shouldn’t be surprised when women feel ashamed after having “legitimate” sex.
  • Tilting at windmills: “Outrage culture” and manufacturing enemies – “It’s also interesting how none of these people have a problem with outrage over, say, school sponsored prayer, or nativity scenes on public property. They’re probably fine with being ‘perpetually outraged’ about discrimination of nonreligious people, or about creationism and pseudoscience being taught in schools. They’re completely fine with this kind of outrage, because it benefits them and is directed at other people. But as soon as that outrage (or simple criticism, in many cases) is directed at them, they’re quick to cry ‘outrage culture.’ Apparently it’s only an ‘outrage culture’ if you don’t like what the outrage is about.” From Courtney.
  • ?Sarah Palin Hits Peak Palin and I’m More Concerned Than Anything Else – I’m not really concerned about Palin, but her speech does seem more word-vomity than typical for her.
  • #KnowYourHistory: Women of color have been moving beyond “pro-choice” for decades – “On Tuesday, the New York Times published a feature on reproductive health advocates moving away from the language of ‘choice.’ An important and interesting topic, the potentially illuminating piece instead served to obscure the history of the move away from choice language, completely erasing women of color’s crucial role in developing the reproductive justice framework that set the stage for this move by the larger and more well-funded (and, ahem, white-lady-led) reproductive health organizations. Since then, women of color in the reproductive justice movement have been hollering a collective WTF.”

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Mary

Mary Brock works as an Immunology scientist by day and takes care of a pink-loving princess child by night. She likes cloudy days, crafting, cooking, and Fall weather in New England.

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One Comment

  1. I always liked how Cecilia Fire Thunder put it in terms of the body as a place no one may invade. In doing so, she fits rape into the narrative in a way that isn’t just a Morton’s fork; moreover, she puts all manner of sexualized violence into this narrative.

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