Talk Sense with Brenda

Conflicts of Interest in the FDA

2012-01-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

I just read the scariest sentence ever. "Recently, lawmakers have proposed loosening conflict of interest rules for FDA advisers to make it easier to find qualified experts." Wow! just wow!

Admittedly, I don't know anything about exactly what the current rules are and what the proposed changes are but I do think that with the history of rampant conflict of interest issues concerning pharmaceutical companies and FDA review boards, I think we all ought to be very very worried.

It's a pretty common practice for doctors to present their clinical opinions about drugs that are up for FDA approval, and to have been directly paid to do so by the pharma that's applying for approval. All kinds of people are paid to present evidence on behalf of the pharma's and their drugs. They would have us believe that this is standard practice and they are merely paid for their work but let's take the rose colored glasses off for the moment - are these 'experts' really going to take money from a pharma to go to the FDA and tell them they don't think the drug should be approved. And would the the pharma pay them if they knew that's what they were going to say. No. Everyone knows how this game is played.

So now the FDA is actually talking about loosening up their conflict of interest rules for their very own panels. We are not talking about approval boards where a number of outside parties come in and speak to the FDA on behalf of other interested parties, we are talking about internal FDA processes.

I read this very scary sentence in an article about an FDA review of the birth control that contain drospirenone, including Yaz and Yasmin. The FDA review board had determined that the drugs were safe and should remain the market. But, oh wait a minute, three of the 26 advisers to the board had financial ties to Bayer which makes Yaz and Yasmin. Another one of the advisers had connections to Barr Laboratories. All four of them said that the drugs benefits outweighed the risks. Are we surprised?

Yaz is a nightmare. It has been linked to serious side-effects and even to deaths in young women. Yes, every drug has its side effects but Yaz is proving to be much higher risk than other drugs. But this panel doesn't agree. a 4% higher risk of blood clots than any other birth control pill is not significant, in their opinion.

The pharmas already have much more influence over what happens at the FDA than they should, relaxing the conflict of interest rules will only make it worse. I shake my head in despair.

Cookies for Justice - sweet!

2012-01-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

This is just a short post to encourage everyone to buy girl guide cookies. In fact, buy a dozen, or several dozen. Why, because Girl Scouts are the latest target of the Christian right-wing in the states. Yes, we are in Canada,and we don't have girl scouts, we have girl guides, but they are affiliated with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, and we can still show solidarity by supporting those little girls and their delicious cookies.

What's all the hub-bub? In October of last year, a girl scout troupe in Colorado reversed an initial decision to bar a 7-year-old transgendered girl from participating in scouts. This is, of course, the thing to do. She is a girl and she wants to go to girl scouts. They don't do strip searches for anyone else, why should what this little girl's private bits look like have any bearing on her ability to participate? They said no initially, there was a huge uproar and they relented and said yes.

Well, the vocal minority has lost their shit over it and there have been obnoxious blog posts and videos decrying how dishonest and perverse girls scouts of America is. They are demanding a boycott of girl scout cookies. How stupid is that? Who in their right mind doesn't like girl scout cookies?

It's wrong and bigoted, and just plain stupid. So even though we are not in Colorado, we can do something in support (tasty, tasty support) by buying heaps of cookies.

Sex Addiction is a Myth - that's what I'm sayin'

2012-01-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

Today I saw another article from Dr. David Ley about the myth of sex addiction. This is the second one I've seen in a couple of months. It's exciting to finally see some public counterpoint to this sex and porn addiction hysteria that's been all over the media for the past several years.

I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of sex addiction for a number of reasons. First, it concerns me when people are labelled sex addicts for simply having a lot of sex. There is absolutely no standard of what is a normal amount of sex or a normal amount of partners or normal things you should be doing with them. There is no objective way to say that this much sex or this many partners is unhealthy. So the decision to consider oneself or to call someone else a sex addict is totally arbitrary and is, unfortunately, usually based on someone's personal morals and values around sex. You could look at one person's behavior and consider it sick and dangerous whereas I might look at exactly the same person and think they have a healthy sex life. Who makes the decision and how?

I see this label thrown at a lot of people simply because they really love to watch porn and they do it a lot. That, in itself, is not a problem. What the real problem might be is society's trouble with porn and quickness to label it as perverse and unhealthy.

The second, and very much related, issue I have with the idea of porn addiction is when we label something natural, normal, and healthy as potentially addictive. Sex is a biological need, just as food and sleep are. When we start talking about these things as addictive, it's dangerous. The most common approach to dealing with addictions, the immediate response of most people, is to advocate complete abstinence. You can do that with cocaine or heroin or even alcohol because you don't need these things to survive. You can do it with sex too, but unless that is your natural inclination, it's not healthy. So where does that leave a sex addict? How are you supposed to live a healthy life and have healthy sexual relationships with yourself and others when you've come to believe that this natural part of you is bad for you? I think this messes people up in a big way.

The other problem I have with it is that is becomes an excuse. When people get caught doing sexual things that others don't approve of, often now they are quick to say that they are sex addicts. It's become commonplace for celebrities to do this - Tiger Woods would be a shining example. It's as if saying that you're a sex addict grants you absolution for all the things you've done that have hurt the people who love you. I'm sorry, but that's just not okay. It's not okay for any kind of addict and it's not okay for anyone who believes them self to be a sex addict. Even if you do have an addiction, you are still responsible for your actions. I do have a little more tolerance and understanding for people who are addicted to substances though because I understand that these are real, physical and psychological addictions that cause actual physical symptoms in those who suffer from them and these are incredibly hard to deal with and to think rationally through. In spite of what some 'scientists' would have you believe, sex addiction is not like that. We all make choices about our sexual behavior (not our thoughts and our desires, but our behavior) and we can choose to do something or not. Doing something that will hurt someone else is a choice, always, every time.

Dr. Ley points out that sex addiction is not acknowledged by the DSM as an actual mental illness and that "there is no evidence whatsoever that sex addiction is a valid psychiatric disorder. And there probably never will be."

Now people in my social work circles say that anything can be addictive and the way to judge that is whether the person is able to carry out regular daily life activities and if their work and home lives are disrupted because of the behavior. For example, if you have 6 beer every day after you get home from work but you make it to work every day and perform well and your home life is stable and healthy and you feel happy, then perhaps, in spite of drinking a lot, you don't have a drinking problem. In this same way, they would say that if you can't have a decent relationship and you miss work or get fired or miss out on other opportunities in life because all you want to do is watch porn and masturbate, then you are addicted to porn. That was a seductive idea to me at first - it's very social worky, isn't it? It's all up to the individual. And I do like that. Except what I would counter is that first of all, we can be pretty sure that even though you're living a good life, the 6 beers a day is probably not healthy for you so you may not be addicted but this behavior isn't good for you, where we cannot say that the porn and masturbation itself is actually unhealthy. Secondly, if you can't carry on a healthy work and family life because of your desire to watch porn and masturbate, I would venture to guess that the problem isn't the porn, it's other issues in your life that make doing this much more comfortable and perhaps comforting, than doing the other things in your life. And that is the issue, not the porn. You could say that about any addiction except that with substance addictions, the substance use itself is unhealthy and does cause physical and psychological problems all on its own. I don't believe that sexual activity does.

Dr. Ley's article in the telegraph is great. It's here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/relationships/8995815/Why-theres-no-such-thing-as-sex-addiction.html
if you want to give it a read. I am with him on this one. I think it's time to get over this idea and move to a place of acceptance about our sexual desires and behaviors. To me, this obsession with sex addiction has caused a lot more problems than it has ever solved.

Another Post from the land of 'What Were They Thinking?'

2012-01-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

I got an e-mail from the lovely Koko the other day alerting me to a product she had stumbled across on the net. Here's is yet another example of why we really need to question and research before purchasing crap on-line.

This lovely gem, called 'Secret Ceres' supposedly 'tightens and heals the vagina while simultaneously stimulating the body’s own cleansing mechanism as well as the regeneration of skin tissue in a completely natural manner'. What is this amazing product and how does it work? It's a pumice stone for your woohoo. No, I am not making this up. This little thing is actually a small phallic-shaped piece of rough clay which causes 'exfoliation of the callus inside of the vagina'. Insert it for 2 to 5 minutes, two to three times a week and you'll have a tighter, more youthful, more beautiful vagina!

The people who make this thing obviously have no understanding, or perhaps no interest, of anatomy and physiology. I don't care what you've been doing, you don't have callouses in your vagina. You just don't. The tissues inside the vagina are not the same as the epidermis. It simply does not develop callouses. The epithelium in the vagina behaves very differently than our skin - it's made for absorbing and excreting fluids. The vagina is, essentially, a self-cleaning unit. It does not need to be scrubbed down like your rough cracked heels. In fact, I think the only way you might be able to get a callous in your vagina is by using this crazy thing.

This thing actually scares the hell out of me. I can't even fathom the kind of damage you could do by putting something rough and bumpy into your vagina and moving it around. That is going to abrade and irritate the vaginal tissue which will not only be uncomfortable and difficult to heal, it will also create tears into which bacteria and viruses and easily enter the bloodstream. This thing, in my opinion, is a raging STI is a black velvet pouch. It baffles me how people can sell stuff like this. Please don't buy this thing. If you want to have a youthful, beautiful vagina, use a gentle water-based or silicone lube when you put anything inside it, put only body-safe toys and devices inside it, and go see your doctor for a pap test regularly.

An Excellent Example of Why We Have to Be Sceptical About Information on the Web

2011-12-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

I was just searching for information on research regarding the use of food oils as personal lubricants when I came across this gem of a website: amorepersonalubricant.com.

This is scary stuff kids! First of all, the reason I landed on this site is that google pulled this up under 'personal lubricants, medical references' - underneath the title in my search list was this 'The references below clearly show that natural personal lubricants that use plant oils and vegetable oils are recommended for all forms of sex play by Gynecologists, Obstetricians, Medical Research, Medical Hospitals and Universities and other qualified sex and relationship advisors.' So I clicked on it without reading the name of the website.

On this page are numerous 'medical references' which support the idea that food oils in the vagina are a good idea. I didn't even notice that this site is selling an oil-based lubricant until I read a few of the medical references. They all come from gynecologists and other health practitioners so one might believe that these people know what they're talking about. But I know from experience that just because you're a doctor, even a gynecologist, doesn't mean that you know anything about lubricants. In fact, I would venture to say that the vast majority of physicians know very little about the safe use of lubricants - they are usually coming to me for that information!

Here, on this page is the proof that some of them don't know what they're talking about. Here's a quote listed from The Virtual Hospital-University of Iowa "The use of latex condoms with a vegetable oil as a lubricant is suggested to protect your skin. Petroleum-based lubricants may affect the integrity of condoms when used for birth control or prevention of sexually transmitted infections. Our experience has not found this to be a problem with vegetable-based oils." Excuse me? I certainly have! If you put any oil on a condom, be it food oil or synthetic oil, it will break. Fortunately the virtual hospital adds this "However, the Centers for Disease Control recommends that condoms not be used with any oil based lubricants for birth control or prevention of sexually transmitted infections." Nice of them to throw that in there.

The site actually contradicts it's own claims by then including this note from gynecologist Dr. David Gerber "Please note: Vegetable oil cannot be used with latex condoms (causes breakdown of latex and the condoms break)."

There's also this gem "I think it's a good time to experiment with different products for lubricant. Some people use almond oil, coconut oil, or Crisco [oil] if you're not worried about condoms." Kara Nakisbendi, M.D. Board Certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Crisco? Crisco?????? Are you kidding me? But she is a board certified Obstetrician and if she tells you to put Crisco up your vagina, it must be okay, right?

They don't mention silicone lubes at all except on another page on 'nasty ingredients'. There, you'll find this warning 'Silicone, much like mineral oil, coats the skins surface. A product in the UK uses dimethicone to destroy head lice'. This makes it sounds as if silicone lubes have DDT in them. They don't explain why there is dimethicone in the lice treatment. If you go to the page they cite as a reference, you find out. 'Instead of poisoning the parasites by chemical means, the dimeticone in Hedrin lotion works by physically coating the lice. This stops them moving and feeding and also prevents them from being able to excrete excess water. Both actions kill the lice. Head lice cannot become resistant to the lotion because it works in this physical way.' So really, the dimenthicone is an inert, gentle, and safe way to keep to lice from feeding and procreating without exposing the person to harsh chemicals. The action of the dimethicone - coating and protecting, is actually something you might want in a lubricant. What's nice about dimethicone is that while it does coat the skin, it does not allow anything through while it's there, nor does it bind to anything, so it will not promote infection. They don't mention that on this site because they are trying to convince people not to buy silicone lubes.

They also list Polyquaternium 15 and Carboxymethylcellulose as ingredients in silicone lubes. I have never seen a silicone lubricant with these ingredients. Silicone lubes almost always contain only silicone - with the occasional exception of vitamin E or Aloe. If it has anything else, it's not a pure silicone lube. Apparently the people who make this lube don't know that.

There are dire warnings about how irritating carboxymethylcellulose is but really, it's a synthesized fiber that's considering safe for use in food products and even eye drops.

So do be careful about trusting what you read on the net. The thing that gives this site away is the roughness of the design (lack of professional presentation) and the fact that the references are so vague and spotty. But if you take just one glance at it, it looks like good information from knowledgeable sources - after all, all of their references are doctors.

A Gift List for the Kinky and Hard to Buy For

2011-12-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

My column in VUE this week is not posted on the website, so I'm posting it here so you can read it on-line - you can catch the printed version this week until Thursday.

It’s gift-giving season yet again so I spent this week searching for gift ideas for all of you who are stumped for something for that special, somewhat kinky, someone who has everything. If a gift card just isn’t going to make the lasting impression you’re hoping for, here are a few things that definitely will.

For the gadget lover, there is the Little Rooster vibrating alarm clock. This tiny clock actually fits right into your panties. Instead of awakening to a loud obnoxious alarm, you’ll feel a warm tingling between your legs. Press the snooze button and the vibration will continue just until your 9 minutes snooze is over. Somehow I’m thinking this would make you want to stay in bed rather than get up.

For the horror movie fanatic, check out the Fleshlight Freaks. This line of dildo and masturbation sleeves is inspired by our favorite horror movie creatures. There is the Zombie, with decaying flesh and open wounds. The Vampire sports a batwing vulva, or you can choose the mouth version with sexy pointed fangs. The Frankenstein models looks like they’ve been stitched together from many different body parts, and the Alien is blue with two heads instead of one. There is a female and male version for each monster. No, I am not making this up.

For the political junkie, why not pick up an official Barak Obama dildo? Shaped in the likeness of the president of the United States, these dildos come in your choice of presidential gold or democratic blue. You’ll be pleased to know that the ‘Head of State’ dildo is phthalate free. And no, I’m not making this one up either.

For the hard to buy for pet, why not their very own love doll? The hot doll is a soft and sturdy dog-shaped companion for your faithful friend to hug and love and, well…you get the picture. The hot doll comes in a variety of sizes from Yorkie to Golden Retriever.

For the festive fashionista, 3 Wishes has a variety of Christmas themed lingerie. Choose from sexy snowman with hat and plaid scarf, naughty toy soldier, or raunchy reindeer complete with antler headband and jingle bell collar. Just don’t go to Canada Post website for a link to the raunchy reindeer costume, they took that down months ago.

For the perfectionist, or perhaps the easily confused, Pipedreams has finally solved the pesky problem of losing your way when you’re going down. The Oral Sex Light looks like a microphone headset but instead of a mic, it holds a small light so you can see what you’re doing while you’re down there. This one would also be great for those with Rockstar fantasies or anyone who gets turned on by the guy who demonstrates the ShamWow at the mall.

For a great gift set, why not pair the Oral Sex Light with the Oral Sex Snorkel? This little gadget, consisting of a nose plug connected to two long tubes, allows you to “breathe normally while giving her a long lustful licking she’ll never forget.” Sexy!

For the fantasy geek, Bad Dragon makes a range of dragon-inspired dildos. You read that right. These are artist conceptions of dragon dicks. If dragons aren’t your thing, you can also get whale or dolphin penises, and even masturbation sleeves in the shape of horse vaginas. While it may sound a little out there, these toys are actually beautiful, in a disturbed sort of way, and they are all made of 100% silicone. They are definitely something the average dolphin-lover will not have in his or her collection and it’s much more useful than sea world snow globe.

Lawsuit Launched over .xxx

2011-12-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

Way back in July, I wrote a post about the potential launch of .xxx, a new top level web domain. In order to bring anyone who hasn't heard about this up to spead, here are the relevant pieces.

'So here's the deal. An internet domain registry service called ICM has been trying to get the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbering to approve their proposal for a .xxx top level domain, to be used solely for adult content. This idea has been brought forward to ICANN and others many times in the past, but this six year battle that ICM has engaged in is not only to have the domain established but for ICM to have exclusive rights over it - ie. if you want an .xxx domain, you'll have to pay ICM and only ICM. ICM, and the proponents of this idea claim that it will help internet users avoid unwanted adult content and will help protect children from incidental exposure. They say that it will make filters even more effective because parents can simply block the entire domain.

But if use of the domain is voluntary, will it really make a difference. A .com domain costs anywhere from $7 to $20 a year so what will likely happen is that adult site owners who have a .com right now will simply add a .xxx to increase their traffic. They won't drop the .com. So bam! We've just doubled the number of porn addresses on the web! Great way to control kids access to porn. Not only that, but then everyone will know that there is a virtual goldmine of porn over the .xxx rainbow. Type in anything.xxx and you're sure to come up with some porn. So does this make it easier or more difficult for kids to access porn.

It seems obvious to me that this is nothing more than a money grab. ICM has spent $10 million so far to make .xxx a reality. Yes, you read that right, $10 Million!! So guess how much they expect to make from it? As mentioned before, a .com domain name is, at most, $20 a year. ICM does not state, on their website, how much the domain will actually cost but a rep. from the Free Speech Coalition said she has heard estimates of anywhere from $50 to $275/year. Why so much more than .com? It's because you can only get it from ICM so they can charge whatever they want. The president of ICM did say in the interview that they expect to make up to $150 million a year from .xxx! He said that they already have 156,000 domain names parked - so if all of those end up paying their $50, that's $7.8 million in their pockets before they even start!'

Well, the establishment of .xxx went ahead - in fact, registration opened to the public just yesterday. But, as I could have predicted, the porn industry is fighting back. Some of the biggest on-line providers of adult content launched a lawsuit a couple of weeks ago claiming anti-trust and anti-competition violations.

I say good on them. It's obviously and patently unfair to open up this massive public domain but restrict access to the profit from it to only one company. I hope ICANN and ICM lose and lose big. The problem is that lawsuits take forever. In the meantime, ICM will make a boatload of money and owners of adult sites will have to make the choice of whether to put out or lose out.

Prostitution Around the World and At Home

2011-10-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about prostitution lately, mostly because it's been crossing my path a lot. In my circles, people have been talking about the Canadian court challenges to prostitution laws. Then there was my trip to Amsterdam - you can read more about that here http://vueweekly.com/front/story/the_red_light_keeps_on_burning/

And then, I had the chance to talk with Jessica Yee on Monday. Jessica is a self-proclaimed reproductive rights freedom fighter. One of the many things she works on is rights for sex trade workers.

The only thing I've learned from all of this is that no one is really doing it right.

I thought the model in Holland was pretty good but Jessica disagrees with me. She thinks that actual legalization is a problem because it puts too much control in the hands of the state. She is concerned with how the buying and selling of the red light rooms and valuation of the property affects how much sex trade workers have to pay for them. She thinks that having it legal only in those spots and the amount that has to be paid for those rooms, and that now, people must have an EU passport to work legally in the windows, bars a lot of women from working there. And as we all know, just because it's illegal, doesn't mean it's not happening. She worries that women will still work illegally and in unsafe situations with customers who want to pay less.

It's the same way in Sweden. Sweden plan to decriminalize the selling of sex but criminalize the buying has been praised by a lot of people, particularly conservatives who advocate the prohibition of prostitution. They think that this is a more 'humane' approach to the problem because it doesn't persecute the sex trade workers who they see as victims. It only punishes the people who buy sex. But it's not that simple. If you punish the buyer, you also punish the seller. Jessica told me that sex trade workers in Sweden are saying this does not work for them. It has only served to push prostitution farther underground where workers have less access to protection when they need it.

Jessica thinks that simple decriminalization is the answer. New Zealand is one of the few examples of that. Since 2003, brothels, escort agencies, and soliciting have been legal and unregulated there. This provides workers protection against prostitution but do they really have legal recourse if the need it? Are they taken seriously and supported if they report and assault. It's not just about whether sex trade workers and their clients are free to do as they please, it's about whether that activity can take place in a way that minimizes the risk of violence. Does this model do that? I don't know.

There is a lot of opposition to the Prostitution Reform Act in New Zealand. Ideologues and anti-prostitution advocates tend to have big mouths and lots of money. I think there's a good chance that they will force a change to this Act - either by pressuring the government to repeal it, or by just chewing away at it with small, probably local amendments, which is what they are trying to do right now.

The big question is, what will happen in Canada? With a Supreme Court challenge looming, there is a possibility that our vague and useless prostitution laws will be thrown out. What are we left with in that case? I'm guessing that the Harper government is crapping their pants about this one on a daily basis. The last thing they want is to be the government under which prostitution became legal in Canada. I don't think they would be for decriminalization and I certainly don't think they are ready to take on the task of how to legalize and regulate it. But I also don't think they want to be the ones to tackle this head-on and draft a new, clear law that actually makes prostitution illegal in this country. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one and it'll be interesting to see where they go with it.

One of these Things is Not Like The Others

2011-10-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

So today I'm catching up on everything I missed while I was away - which has included getting ready for the Taboo Sex Shows in Calgary and Edmonton coming up in November. I was reading through my exhibitor package and noted the very clear direction that nudity is strictly prohibited at the show. 'All models must be covered (ie. g-strings and pasties etc.).' This makes me reflect on my experience at the Venus Show in Berlin. Venus is Berlin's equivalent of Taboo - well sort of. It's much more focussed on video and on-line porn and less on toys than is Taboo. But it is mainly a direct to consumer sex show. Things are just a little different there. Trying to describe it is almost impossible.

When you walk into Venus, the first thing you notice is that there are probably 25 men for every woman walking the show. The next thing you notice is the throngs of men gawking and taking pictures and when you get closer to those clusters of men, you see that they are gathered around a woman or women doing a show. In Edmonton, the shows are mostly burlesque troops or fully-clothed pole dancers, or drag queens. At Venus, the shows are women doing full nudity strip shows, often with other women, often playing with a variety of toys and/or masturbating to orgasm. The women on the main stage often bring volunteers onto the stage with them and dance around them, blindfold them, grind on them etc. It's just a little different than back at home.

I have to admit, I did find it a bit shocking. The activity wasn't shocking to me as these things are a part of my life. But that you can do those things at a public trade show was the shocking part for me. One of our hosts from FunFactory said, quite succintly 'I don't think you could get away with those kinds of things in America' - or in Canada. The two things I was amazed by was the amount of picture taking - at every show almost every single man had a camera, or even video camera, and was busy snapping away. At one spot a woman was lieing back against a lounge chair with her legs spread open and several men held cameras no more than two inches from her naked crotch. It was full-on. The closest equivalent to Venus in the U.S.A. is the Vegas Show that accompanies the AVN porn awards. There, photography is strictly forbidden unless you've paid for a pass to take pictures. It does, after all, all come down to money.

The second thing that baffled me was the contact with consumers. As I said, men were often brought up on stage or approached in the crowd by the performers. You would never ever ever do this in North America. I was thinking about why that is and realized that it's not because this represents a line of safety and appropriate behavior that should not be crossed but rather because over here, we are deathly scared of a lawsuit. We are so afraid of liability issues - of the potential for someone to go over the line or to claim that they did not want to participate or that they got hurt - that we would just prefer that no one touch anyone ever. They don't seem to really care there. Now I noticed, of course, even though it wasn't really obvious, that there was a strong security presence there. If anyone got out of line, I'm sure they would be yanked out of there in a matter of seconds. In fact, I saw a guy try to reach over into a performance area to touch a woman who was performing - the guy running the tech equipment was close by and put a quick stop to that. It seems the performers say what goes. They do the touching. Everyone else has to abide by their wishes.

And that's just the point to me. We have so many rules about what you can and cannot do in public and seven ways until Sunday to stop people from getting out of control but is it necessary? The performers seemed pretty capable of taking care of themselves and the audiences seemed to be pretty clear on the rules although they weren't written or stated anywhere. This was, at least on the surface of it, a free-for-all. Yeah, it was pretty wild by our standards but did I see anyone who looked like they were out of control - hurting anyone else in any way? No. Not once. So do we need all these rules? Will we get out of control if we don't have them? I don't think so. I think we do have self- control. I actually think it's the rules that make us want to get out of control.

A Visit to the Happiest Place on Earth

2011-10-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from two weeks of trade-showing and sight-seeing in Europe and I have a ton to write about. The best part of the trip was far and away the visit with Fun Factory so I'll start there. Any fan of sex toys knows that Fun Factory was the first big manufacturer of top quality silicone toys. They are located in Bremen, Germany and they make all of their toys right there. My partner and I were invited to spend two days with them in Bremen and they took us on a tour of their facility.

First, they showed us their offices - which are all one big open space. All of the departments work together to share ideas and plan new projects. This is Verena, their head designer. She is responsible for the G4 line and the click and charge Ocean - so we love her. Verena was surprised that I was kind of star-struck by her. To me, she's a bit of a hero, having designed so much pleasure for so many.

After we saw the offices, we headed over to the production building to see how they actually make the toys. We were lucky to get our tour from the founder of Fun Factory himself. This entire company started with him and a friend and a bit of silicone at his kitchen table. The first toy they produced was a dildo named paddy penguin. Now they produce over 200 different toys and thousands of units a day.

All of the rubber parts of Fun Factory toys are made right there at the plant. The silicone is kept in large tank on the first floor and pumped up onto the production floor on the next level where it's mixed with color and the curing components that give it it's texture and density. The silicone is then poured into molds, either by hand or by machine, depending on how many units they are making. Most dildos are still produced by hand because they are made in smaller numbers. Many of the vibrator sleeves are done on simple machines that pour the silicone and pull it out of the molds mechanically. Each toy makes a satisfyingly loud 'pop' as it gets pulled out of its mold.

Everything that goes into a Fun Factory toy is made in Germany. Most of the components are made right there on the premises but some of the plastic caps and electronics are produced elsewhere and shipped into the Fun Factory. All the assembly is done right there by hand. Once the motors are together and the sleeves come out of the molds, the toys are assembled.

Every single toy is tested to make sure that it works. Then they are packaged up and sent out to distribution.

The site also includes a quality control section, where any toy that is sent back is disassembled and checked to determine the problem. If faults are found, the engineering and production teams are notified and changes are made to the designs.

After having spent a day in Berlin looking at all kinds of toys and talking to toy companies from all over the world - and then repeating the experience the next day in Hannover, I got a real appreciation for what Fun Factory does. There are many toy companies who don't design their own products at all - they simply buy products that are designed and produced by large manufacturing plants - mostly in China. Then they come up with the packaging and put their name on it. It's a cheaper way to run a company but it doesn't put you in the driver's seat in terms of the look and function of the toy. Producing all of the product right there also means that they know exactly what's in it and exactly how it was made. It's a much different story when you merely commissioned the production of a number of toys for which you only saw prototypes. Is it really a good product? You don't know for sure because you didn't make it. At FunFactory, every single toy was designed by them and produced by them. They put an enormous amount of care and attention into their toys and it shows by the number of copies produced by other companies. They even have a book in the Fun Factory office documenting all of the copies of their designs.

We were told that at one time, anyone could come into the factory and have a look at everything - because they are proud of their production and they want people to see what they do. In recent years though, they've closed off parts of their production in an attempt to keep some of the technology they developed themselves, to themselves. It seems there's a ton of competition in the toy industry. There are many toymakers who would love to duplicate Fun Factory's success. Copying the technology that they spent a lot of time and money on is a much quicker route than doing it yourself. They are well aware that they will never be able to stop the copycats, they just prefer to hold onto their own work for their own use as long as they can.

So that was my trip to the Fun Factory. The whole thing was like a really fun episode of that TV show 'How It's Made'.

Told You So - Masturbation is a good thing.

2011-09-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, somebody is studying teens and masturbation. A study published last month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reports on a survey of 800 American Teenagers. The survey asked them if they masturbate, how often, and then asked them other questions about their sexual activity and practices. What they found was that boys who masturbate are much more likely to use condoms. Health.com reports that 'Robbins (the study author) and her team concluded that “the association of masturbation with other sexual behaviors indicates that masturbation is an important component of adolescent sexuality rather than an isolated or transient phenomenon.” In that regard, they urge that teens be educated and reassured that the act is a “normal” part of growing up.' Yeah, score one for our team!

The study also found that, surprise, surprise, about twice as many boys masturbate as girls. They postulate on why that might be but they don't entertain what, to me, is one of the obvious answers, girls don't want to talk about it. I think that still, even after Sex and the City and the dawn of the age of the vibrator, girls still think that they shouldn't masturbate. So my guess is that the number who actually do masturbate is quite a bit higher than the number who said that they do.

I just love this study, especially because it was done in the states, but I'll just sit back and wait for the conserative backlash to this. The study found that the boys and girls they surveyed who said that they masturbated were more likely to have had sex with a partner than those who said they didn't masturbate. It just makes sense to me. If you masturbate, you are probably more interested and comfortable with sex than if you don't. And if you have had partner sex, I think you're quite likely to be interested in masturbation. But the abstinence only crowd will have a hissy fit, I'm sure, choosing to see this supposed 'negative' instead of the positive.

Here's a link to the study.

Yes, KY some women love women.

2011-09-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

Will wonders never cease? Today KY released a commercial for it's Intense arousal gel that features two women! An actual lesbian couple in a mainstream commercial! I'm not a lover of anything KY does, and I'm not saying this is a good product. But I am saying this is a good ad - it's just like all their other ads for this product that feature opposite sex couples. The video is available to view on YouTube. I'm not sure how much wide circulation this ad will get on TV and you can bet your ass, if it does, somebody's going to have a problem with it. But let's hope it makes it to TV.

The Furor Over Fluid

2011-08-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

I had planned to stay away from this one as far as The Tickle Trunk was concerned but it's become so huge that I just feel we need to say something. For anyone who hasn't looked at facebook, the internet in general, or touched a newspaper in the past two days, there has been an ongoing media frenzy about an ad campaign launched some time ago by Fluid hair salon in Edmonton. The campaign features women in violent and dangerous situations with fabulous hair and the tag line 'Look Good in All You Do'.

I'm not going to get into the comments that have been made about it or the salon's response to the outcry. Those things are available for view in various places all over the internet. I just want to say a few things about how the Tickle Trunk responds to this.

Fluid is our neighbor. They are across the alley from us. They operate within our community and serve our customers, our neighbors and community. We want to cultivate good relationships among our neighbors and are therefore loathe to criticize. We understand that we all work very hard at our businesses and that we face many challenges as small business owners. I do feel for what Sarah, the owner of Fluid is going through right now with such a huge unexpected firestorm of controversy around her. This could devastate her business and for that I am very sorry.

However, I am disturbed by the campaign. I want to see our community rally together against violence, particularly in light of some of the terrible violent incidents that have happened here, not make light of them. Various people have said the campaign, especially the image that has been all over facebook and the internet, could be interpreted in lots of different ways but it's quite clear what the intention was and how most people are interpreting it. Most people perceive it to say that getting beat up is something that's pretty common for women so hey, you might as well look fabulous while it happens. That's just not okay with me. I don't think violence against women, or against anyone, is acceptable, commonplace, amusing, or something that should be used to sell goods or services.

So as much as we love and support the businesses in Old Strathcona, and especially East Whyte where we are, The Tickle Trunk and I are not okay with this campaign. But we understand that business owners make mistakes. We've certainly made a bunch of them ourselves. When we find that we've done something that hurts our community, we seek to apologize and repair the damage. Our hope is that the owner of Fluid will accept that she made an error in judgement with this campaign. That even though it may not have been their intention, Fluid has offended and hurt their customers and their community with this message and campaign. We hope they will apologize and stop running ads that trivialize or glorify violence. And we hope that if and when they do apologize and change their advertising, we will all support them by using their services. This is how we grow responsible and respectful communities.

Restrictive Abortion Laws do Not Lower Abortion Rates

2011-08-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post a link to this article on RH Reality Check about abortion rhetoric in the USA. The stats cited come mostly from the states but they are backed up with stats from Canada and other countries. It seems when abortion is legal and affordable, abortion rates are actually lower than when it's not. This is important information for Canadians. We may think this doesn't concern us here as abortion is legal in Canada, but access to abortion is still difficult or impossible in most parts of the country. The writer of this article, Dr. Jen Gunter, states that abortion is free in Canada. This is not always true. It is covered by provincial health cares plans but if a woman is living out of her province of birth and does not have coverage in the province she lives in, she will have a difficult time getting the service covered. As well, many women in Canada need to travel to get an abortion - only those living in the largest cities in the country have ready access. This is a significant cost. I realize this is not the same cost as having to cover the procedure yourself, but I just want to clarify that it's not exactly 'free'.

Here's the article

One of These Things is Just Like The Other

2011-08-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

I was browsing toy catalogs today, as I do quite a bit and came across these two toys by California Exotics.

Can you see the difference between them? Neither could I. There are two differences. The one on the left is CalExotics brand pump. The one on the right is the Laura Berman pump, made by California Exotics but with Laura Bermans name on the package. The other difference is the price. The first retails for $39.99. The second for $56.99. Yes, Laura Berman's name on this product costs an extra $17.

It's Still the Same Old Story - Horrible Advertising that Makes Women Feel Like Shit About Themselves

2011-08-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

I was thrilled to hear the other day that L'Oreal got their fingers smacked for dishonest advertising. It's about time! The Advertising Standards Agency has ruled that the photographs of Julia Roberts' and Christy Turlington's faces in recent ads constitutes exaggerated and misleading claims. Turns out that beautiful complexion was not achieved by L'Oreal foundation - no, it was done by airbrushing. It's nice to see someone finally standing up and saying, 'no, that foundation will never ever make you look like Julia Roberts does in that picture because Julia Roberts doesn't even look like that - and it's not okay to make women think that she does'. I think all of us know this somewhere in the backs of our brains. We look at that smooth bright skin with not a pore to be seen and we know it can't be real. But after seeing this so many times, doesn't it sink in just a bit? Don't we, on some level, think that's what beautiful looks like? I would love for this to become a trend so that we can start seeing what normal, actual faces look like - but then maybe we wouldn't feel such a need for the makeup.

Summer's Eve is at it again too. I know a lot of people will have seen the 'Hail to the V' videos (the one with the talking hand pretending to be a vulva) because those got a lot of attention and even made it onto the Colbert Report. But I'm not talking about that hot mess. The mess that I'm talking about is the other 'Hail to the V' commercial - not the talking hand one. This one shows clips of women and men through history (supposedly), over heroic, dramatic music the narration says 'It's the cradle of life, it's the centre of civilization, over the ages and throughout the world, men have fought for it, battled for it, even died for it. One might say it's the most powerful thing on Earth." Then it cuts to a modern day women in a grocery store with a bottle of Summer's Eve wash and the narration says "So come on ladies, show it a little love." Sigh........

Okay, one could merely pass this off as mildly amusing or ridiculous, which it is, but really, I've had just about enough of this shit. I am so sick and tired of being told how amazing and incredible and strong I am as a woman and then told that I need to buy something because of it. Really, come on now. 'Your vulva is the cradle of civilization and the most powerful thing on Earth.' This is a great sentiment. And it's true - women are the ones who have the babies, we are the ones who actually bear life out of our own bodies. That is amazing and powerful. But what on God's Green Earth does that have to do with smelly pussy wash that we don't really need? 'You're amazing now wash your stinky vulva.' It's insulting and I'm tired of it. What we really need to hear instead is ' Your vulva is the most powerful thing on earth, it is unique and beautiful and it does not need to be cut or changed or shaped surgically to fit some unrealistic ideal. Your vulva is the cradle of civilization, it smells exactly as it should and does not need douches and perfumes. Your vulva is amazing so take care of it and make sure that it's healthy and happy by using dams and condoms when you need to, picking out contraception that makes sense for your health, and seeing your doctor regularly.' Using Summer's Eve is not showing your amazing vulva any love - it is actually bad for you. Strong fragrances such as are present in Summer's Eve can lead to allergic reactions and infections. That is not love, it's just wrong.

I am so sick of marketers trying to subvert our feminist and sexual revolution and turn it into an advertising message. Trust me, Summer's Eve has not one single thing to do with your sexual power - it's the exact opposite.

Whatever happened to objective journalism?

2011-08-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

There is so much more to be said, but this will be my last post about this NewsWeek thing. There's so many other things going on in the world that it's time to leave this alone for now. It will rear its ugly head in some other form soon I'm sure.

So another piece of this sad NewsWeek article is the utter lack of journalistic integrity displayed. Here are the things that really boil my potatoes about the way this thing was written.

First, there is a very obvious bias in it but Leslie Bennetts, the author, fails to declare it. This is under the 'U.S. News' heading. It is not an editorial. It is not labeled as an opinion piece. But it is actually an anti-prostitution diatribe that uses the 'just published findings' of this 'study' as the tiny little hook it needs to call itself news. Bennetts and NewsWeek should be honest that this is an opinion piece instead of trying to portray it as fact.

Second, holy lack of citations batman! Supposed facts are stated everywhere in this article with not so much as one single citation of where these 'facts' were pulled from. It is littered with the phrases 'estimates suggest', 'common estimates state' and 'leading experts suggest'. Wow, that's pretty darn precise Bennett! Whose estimates are these and how did they arrive at them. And exactly who are these leading experts. This is the big one 'The most common estimates, oft-repeated by major media, suggest that 100,000 to 300,000 children are trafficked in the United States every year.' That sounds very scary. But does it make any sense at all? In 2008, there were just over 8.5 million people under 20 years of age living in the United States. So by this estimate anywhere from 1% to over 4% of the young people in the USA are trafficked into the sex trade. Really? How can this possibly be true. We can't ask because Bennett can't tell us who actually came up with that estimate. Marty Klein can, he says the figure was first presented by University of Pennsylvania Professors - but there's so much more to it that Bennett doesn't explain. Here's a bit from Marty Klein's article in Psychology Today:

"When University of Pennsylvania professors Richard Estes and Neil Weiner invented the figure "100,000-300,000," they weren't referring to ACTUAL prostitution or trafficking; they said the numbers 'estimate the number of children AT RISK for commercial sexual exploitation.' And who's 'at risk?'Almost everyone except Beaver Cleaver: loners, female gang members, kids who run away for 24 hours, transgender kids, kids who live near international borders, and others. In response to a recent Village Voice interview, Estes says 'kids who are kidnapped and sold into slavery? That number would be very small...a few hundred people.' American law enforcement officials estimate the figure is less than 1,000."

Anyone with a few basic math skills can tell you that there a big difference between 300,000 and 1000. Is there no responsibility on the author of this thing to back up her claims?

Third - presenting this horrible piece of propaganda as a legitimate study in the first place shows an utter lack of either investigative journalism or journalistic integrity or both. It's pretty clear that Bennetts didn't even read Farley's study, because the article makes claims that even the study doesn't make. Beyond that, any real journalist should be scratching the surface of this thing, finding out who funded it, what their bias was, what their methods were, and what the actual results were before just taking all of these salacious sound bites to press. It get attention for sure, but it causes a panic and furor about something that isn't really even happening - at least not in the way that Farley and Bennetts claim it is.

All right - time to move on to other things, like why Summer's Eve and L'Oreal suck.

The John Next Door - Is Your Next Door Neighbor really a sex trafficker?

2011-07-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

So one of the major issues with the 'John Next Door' article in Newsweek is that they throw a whole bunch of things together and call them the same thing. The article starts out by describing the men in the control group of the study as 'men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute'. There are two huge problems with this. The first is that pornography and strip clubs are included. I'm willing to admit that the definition of what actually constitutes 'prostition' might be somewhat gray, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks that going to strip clubs and watching porn is akin somehow to visiting prostitutes. So why is it included in this group? And why does Newsweek emphasize the porn part of this so much?

The other huge problem with it is that Newsweek neglects to tell us that the reverse was not true. The group of men studied who 'buy' sex did not include any men who just went to strip clubs or watched porn, they all used the services of a sex trade worker in some sort of physical way - only the last part of the defintion 'purchased the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute' applied there. So Newsweek is leading us to believe men who watch porn more than once a month, go to strip clubs or use phone sex lines but have never used the physical services of a sex trade worker are a part of this study group. They were not. In fact, men who fell into this category were not a part of either the study or control group.

So why does Leslie Bennetts, the author of this peice, keep going back to porn? Porn is a major part of the argument made in Newsweek and yet it was not even studied. The authors of the study are not honest in this either. They have created a major selection bias - screening out all the men who watch porn regularly but don't participate in prostitution. And then they go ahead and say that porn is one of the main reasons that the men in the study group do what they do. How is it possible to draw that conclusion.

So they've got pornography and strip clubs all messed up in this 'examination' of prostitution. The other thing that both the study and the article do is make no disctinction whatsoever between different kinds of sex trade work and human trafficking. Bennetts devotes at least a good half of her article to anecdotes about child sexual abuse and human trafficking. The heavy emphasis on this strongly implies that there is no difference between say, an adult woman who provides sexual services through an escort agency and a 10 year old girl who was kidnapped and sold into prostitution (the latter is actually discussed in length, the former not at all). It's not even mentioned at all that there are many ways in which sex work is done, child prostition is really the only thing that is mentioned, plus some statistics with no citations that would lead us to believe that all women who work in the sex trade were sexually abused as children and started in the sex trade as children. This is simply not true.

Both the article and the study take the absolute worst-case scenario of children who were abused and forced into prostitution and then say that because this happens, prostition is a horrible thing. After all, who could say that the abuse and sale of children is okay? Well, of course it's not, but is this an accurate picture of the sex trade?

Child prostition is a problem. It's a horrible thing. But the people who put children on the street and the people who buy sex services from them are a much smaller subset of the entire population that's involved in the sex trade. And it's not really even the sex trade that's the problem here. The problem is the abuse of the children in the first place. The problem is that there are children who are not safe in their own homes, who need protective services, and who are not getting them. What is needed is more services to support and protect those children before they get anywhere near the street. Making prostition illegal will not do anything stop child prostition because having sex with minors is already illegal. If that was a deterrant, this wouldn't be happening. They are focussing on the wrong end of the equation and using these extreme cases to argue against something much larger and much more complex than this.

The other confusion going on here is the claim that prostition is so very dangerous and the people who engage in it are so very damaged that it should be eliminated. But this doesn't hold up. Bennett rarely cites any of her stats so it's hard to know if any of them are actually correct, but let's take it on faith that they are. She says that 'most' prostitutes have been sexually abused. I would guess that is probably true, but depending on which studies you look at anywhere from 25% to 60% of women in North America have experienced sexual abuse, so what is this really telling us. This is a sad fact, of course, but does it mean that prostitution should be illegal? Although I've never seen a study on it I would venture to say that the number of social workers and counsellors who have been sexually abused is larger than the general population. I would also venture to say that the number of women who work at minimum wage jobs who have been sexually abused is larger than the general population. That one just stands to reason - sexual abuse often goes along with a lot of other disadvantages and family problems and it's my belief that it's more those things that contribute to people ending up on the street than the sexual aspect of the abuse itself.

As far as the danger goes. Bennett makes again makes no distinction again between different forms of prostition in her claim that sex trade workers have the highest workplace homicide rate of any type of job. It is dangerous for sure but first of all, street prostitution is much more dangerous than other sex work so lumping them all in together is not fair. Secondly, the reason why most people get into street prostition as opposed to other forms of sex work is that they have no other choice. Third, if a type of work is dangerous, does it make sense to make it illegal. Liquor Store cashier was cited in the article as the next most dangerous job. Do we close the liqour stores because people are murdered there? No, we take steps to make it safer - we install security systems and alarm bells. If we want it to be less dangerous, doesn't it make sense to make it legal so that we can monitor people's activities and protect the people who do it rather than forcing it further underground where there's even less support and protection?

Underneath all of these exposition about how dangerous and exploitative prostition is is the seed that is planted early on by both Bennett and Farley that pornography is central to this entire thing, with an implication that if we banned pornography, we might be able to stop all of this from happening in the first place. This argument is tenous at best and not supported by anything reported in the study or the article.

It's hard to believe but there are still more problems with this whole thing. Next post will be about journalistic integrity and the lack thereof.

Are All Men Like This? No, They're Not

2011-07-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

I'm back after an extended family holiday. I would have liked to been posting about this NewsWeek craziness during that time, but playing with nieces and nephews is just more important.

So for those who haven't heard, there was an article published in Newsweek on July 18th which reported on a 'study' just released that seems to show that men who 'buy' sex commit more violent crimes and that actually, most men buy sex. It paints a very distressing picture of men in our culture as misogynistic bastards who see not just sex trade workers, but all women, as their objects to use and abuse as they see fit. The article has got a lot of panties in a twist - I have to admit it had me going at first. But something in the back of my mind kept saying 'This can't possibly be true.' I understand that human trafficking and the sexual abuse of children and adolescents is a horrifying thing that needs to be addressed - but this all just didn't seem right. And so I went in search of answers and I was right. What Newsweek would have believe was proven by this study is not true at all.

This thing is now such a huge mess of controversy and the study and the subsequent reporting of it is so rife with issues that I'm going to bite off small pieces of it and make several posts. It just can't be addressed in one post - my fingers will fall off from hours of typing.

So the first thing is, Are All Men Like This? That was the title of a post on Jezebel about the article. In the article, the author of the 'study' is quoted as saying that they had a hard time finding men who did not buy sex. That sounds awful. It makes it sound like most men are using the services of sex trade workers. And yes, that's what the study author wants us to believe. But let's take a closer look.

first of all, let's just be clear about this, the study was funded by an organization who's express purpose is to eliminate prostitution. Just a bit of a bias, wouldn't you say? Secondly, the lead author of the study is a well-known anti-prostitution and anti-porn activist. Again, a bit biased, don't you think?

Now, their definition of men who do not 'buy' sex was published in the Newsweek article. It was 'men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or the services of a sex worker, escort, erotic masseuse, or prostitute'. Okay - there are two big big problems here. First of all, why is the use of pornography and strip clubs included in this definition? How, in any way, are those things the same as prostitution. Secondly, and this is vitally important, what Newsweek does not tell you, is that the definition of 'buyer' was much more strict. It included only men who had bought a lap dance, or used the services of a sex worker. The Newsweek article leads one to believe that the buying group - which they then go on to talk about at length, also includes men who use porn and go to strip clubs but don't use the services of sex trade workers. This is where NewsWeek really loses their credibility. The alarm bells start sounding because they make it seem as if pretty much all men (because you find me a man who doesn't watch some kind of porn from time to time) are a part of this group that is then described as hating women, having violent tendencies, being more likely to commit crimes of all kinds but particularly violent crimes against women. But that's not the case. These things that they talk about are true only of the men in the buying group and those are men who actually used the services of sex trade workers.

The other major issue is, the selection process and criteria as well as the details of the study sample were not described. The sample was only 101 men and the control group was an additional 100 men. That's not a lot of men. Also, the men were recruited through an ad that asked invited them to participate in an interview about their sex lives for which they would be paid. Doesn't it make sense to assume that men who would respond to such as an would be men how are open and comfortable with their sexuality and have more liberal views on things like pornography and prostitution? It makes sense to believe that men with less open boundaries around sexuality would not be interested in participating in an interview like that. So there's a selection bias there.

As well, they do not disclose how many people responded to the survey as opposed to how many were selected into the buying group. The lead author simply says that they had a 'hard time' finding men who did not buy sex. But they don't say how many responded. If 200 responded and 101 used the services of a sex trade worker, that's one thing. If 2000 responded and 101 used the services of sex trade worker, that's quite another.

Another issue is that they do not disclose the questions that were asked. We have no idea what they asked these men in order to elicit the responses they got. They simply give us tables with numbers of men who had done this or that and a table of heinous quotes from the buying group. Oh, and about that table of heinous quotes, they also do not disclose how many of the participants made these comments. Again, if those 20 awful despicable things were said by 20 different men in that group of 101, that's one thing. If one man in that group of 101 said all of those things, that quite another thing.

The study, and particularly the NewsWeek article seem to want us to draw these conclusions:
- men who visit sex trade workers and men who never have but who watch porn and go to strip clubs are exactly the same and most men do at least some of these things
- watching porn makes men want to solicit prostitutes
- men who do use the services of sex trade workers (and who watch porn and go to strip clubs) are alarmingly more likely to commit violent crimes
- it is the prostitution itself that causes them to do these things

Not a single one of these claims about men is supported by the information in that 'study'.

Yes there are some men who do these things, but we know that already. The authors of this study set out to make us believe that most men do them and that they do them because they watch porn and use the services of sex trade workers. It's an insult to all men and it's an alarmist sentiment that it simple not true.

In my next post, I'll deal with the confusion and conflation of pornography, prostitution and human trafficking.

zombie sponge back for revenge

2011-06-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

It's the sponge that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend! In the summer of 2008, I joyfully wrote about the death of the Today Sponge - the company that had bought it had gone bankrupt. I have a (probably irrational) hatred for the Today Sponge so I was thrilled.

Well, that sneaky little sucker found it's way back onto our drugstore shelves without me even knowing it. I've seen it around now and investigated to see what the hell happened.

Seems that Mayer Labs bought it relaunched it in the US in the summer of 2009. In January of this year, they announced it's availability in Shopper's Drug Marts in Canada. Sigh......

So, Today Sponge, my old nemesis, why do I hate thee? Once again, let me count the ways:

1) The Today Sponge has a perfect use effectiveness rates of 89% to 91%. That means that even if you use it exactly as directed, perfectly without fail, every single time you do it, you have a one in ten chance of getting pregnant within a year. I don't know about you, but for this pregnancy-phobe, that's too damn high! One of the few reasons I can think that people would choose this is because it doesn't really interfere with sensation and pleasure at all which means they wouldn't be using condoms. Using this alone is pretty risky.

2) It's bloody pricey! A box of 3 sponges is $19. That's more than $6 per. That's fucking expensive! And expensive fucking!

3) and this is the big one. The Today Sponge is absolutely, and literally, soaked in non-oxynol 9. It contains the highest percentage of non-oxynol 9, by far, of any spermicidal contraceptive on the market. N-9 is an industrial solvent that causes major irritation for most women. Seriously, does it make sense to soak a sponge in an industrial solvent and shove it up your vagina? Not to me it doesn't. Studies that came out in the late 90's (read my previous post for more info. on this) showed that women who used products that contain N-9, if they used them frequently, have a much higher risk of contracting STI's, particularly HIV. The risk is higher the higher the concentration of N-9 in the product. For people who have many partners or who have partners who have STI's, especially if they're not using condoms, this much N-9 is a risky proposition.

Besides the increase in STI risk, N-9 is just nasty. Most women I know, including me react badly to it. To me, N-9 is yeast infection in a box. All I have to do is look at a spermicidal foam and I'll get a yeast infection. Wish somebody at the birth control centre would have told me that all those years ago so I could have avoided it and saved myself the trouble. Irritations and ph imbalances like that are not only painful, embarrassing, and major disruptions in your life, they do leave you more susceptible to bacteria and viruses.

I do understand the other side of this argument. Some people argue that it's important to have this available for women who don't have much control over their own reproductive health, can't insist on condoms, can't even talk about them, and for whatever reason, can't be on the pill. This is something they can do quietly and easily without their partners' knowledge.

But the big flaw in that argument is that the sponge costs $6 a pop! Are women that are in those circumstances usually able to afford an $18 box of contraceptives that might last them a week? No, they just aren't. The women who are using Today are not those women, they are women who have money and control over that money. And I just really wonder if those women know how truly ineffective and risky the sponge is.

Approval of Microbicide May Finally Happen

2011-06-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

After more than 15 years of research, there might actually be a microbicide on the market in the forseeable future. Microbicides are, simply put, substances which kill microbes, bacteria and viruses. For what seems like forever, a number of groups have been working on and advocating for the development of a microbicide that would be effective against HIV. The research was promising - we had all of the knowledge and tools we needed to develop something. The problem was that it was painfully slow because the big drug companies hadn't the slightest big of interest in lending their huge research budgets to this issue. This is something that would save millions of lives. Why doesn't big pharma want to be involved. Well, to be quite blunt about it, they're not the right kind of lives.

Microbicides would be used by people who cannot, for a variety of reasons, use condoms to protect themselves against HIV, or by people who can and do but want additional protection. The latter would be a small part of the people using them, the former, the majority. The would mainly benefit women in developing countries, women in the sex trade, and women living in poverty and/or in abusive home situations. These are not people with a lot of money to spend on drugs. Hence, big pharma doesn't see the payoff. Arrrgggghhhh.

But, finally, Tenofovir gel has been fast-tracked by the FDA for approval CONRAD and South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency have signed an agreement to manufacture and distribute it. It hasn't yet been approved but the fast-track means it shouldn't be long.

Tenofovir has shown to be effective in greatly reducing the numbers of both HIV and Herpes infection in women who participated in trials.

This has been such a long time coming - I'm so happy to see one of the many drugs and formulations that's been studied has finally shown decisive results and that there is hope that something will be in production in the not-so-distant future.

Growing Your Pubes for Cancer - or rather Trimming Your Pubes for Cancer

2011-06-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

Remember Movember? The cancer fundraiser that had men growing their mustaches to raise money for prostate cancer. Well, a group of women in the Toronto area have decided it's their turn. They have started Julyna - a month in which they will not grow, but rather trim and coiff their pubes to raise money and awareness for cervical cancer.

I found out about this through a post on the New View List Serve. The New View is a group of amazing people, mostly women, who are promoting a 'new view' of women's sexuality that is inclusive of the whole person and the diversity of women's experience. They are against the medicalization of female sexuality. They are unbelievably smart and active and strong women such as the likes of Petra Boynton and Leonore Tiefer. One of them posted about this campaign and a then a slew of responses followed, most of them questioning and criticizing it as silly, misguided, sexist,and potentially heralding the sexualization of cervical cancer.

I get where they're coming from and I admire and respect these women, but for the most part I disagree with them. What the hell is the harm here?

Okay - here is the potential harm and the things that they are criticizing - and that I question as well.
1. Why is it called Julyna? It's a contraction of July and Vagina. But we're not talking about vaginas here, are we? They are not trimming their vaginas because vaginas do not have hair in them. This is something that drives me crazy! The vagina is the canal leading from the vulva to the cervix, it does not encompass everything from the belly button down. So they are trimming the hair on the mons veneris or mons pubis if you lie, and the vulva and labia. So it should really be called Vulvy or Julybis. Please, we are adults, use the right language!
2. The guys grew their mustaches for Movember, why do the women need to trim? why can't we grow out our pubes too? The answers' easy, somewhere in the last about 15 years, we decided female pubic hair is disgusting. So even if it's for charity, we're not willing to grow it out and tell people we're doing that. I hate that. I hate the double-standard and the branding of something completely normal and natural as disgusting and unsightly. I think if they were growing it out, it would be a much more radical statement.

But do we really need to be so nitpicky? Chances are pretty good that the women who thought up these campaigns never thought of these things. The misnaming of female genitals is common parlance and trimming pubic hair is accepted in the mainstream so I'm sure it never occurred to them there might be political overtones to this.

One of the criticisms is that this is yet another thing that makes people feel like their doing something while diverting attention from the real issue and real activism. While that is an important issue to me (no, posting your bra color on your facebook status does not raise awareness for breast cancer), I don't agree in this case. The women who started this are actually asking people to donate to them so this does two things:
1. it raises money
2. it compels them to explain to each person they approach for a donation what they are raising money for and why - it's an opportunity for them to explain to other women how women get cervical cancer and how they can prevent it - if this makes any of the women go for PAP smears when they otherwise would not have, they could potentially be saving lives
This is hardly trivial.

So I say lighten up, give them a break, trim your pubes or let them grow naturally, donate to Julyna, and get yourself a PAP test.

German Sex Ed just a little different

2011-06-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

They handle things in Germany just a wee bit different than we do here. If you'd like some evidence, have a look at the sex page on Bravo, a popular German site for teens. It's a far cry from sexualityandu.ca with it's squeeky clean medical information (don't get me wrong, I think sexualityandu is a step in the right direction, but one look at Bravo and you see how different the approaches are). Bravo makes the assumption that teens are sexual beings and that many of them are having sex. It treats the like young adults and addresses their concerns directly without moralizing. It asks them fun questions and has ads for things that actually relate to their sexuality (no, not porn, condoms and tampons and things like that). If we are wondering where we need to go with sex education in our country, I think this is it.

If you don't read German, here's an article about the site that gives some good info and some examples from their advice column.

Retro show not so bad

2011-06-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've been watching some old episodes of the original Beverly Hills 90210 - ain't the internet grand? You can watch anything you want now! I used to watch this show back in the day but I've never seen the first two seasons because I was in college during that time. Thought I'd catch up 20 years later.

I remembered it as being smarmy and preachy - very 'after-school' special. In a lot of ways, it really is. Brandon is such a bloody upstanding kind of guy that it makes one want to hurl. But there is an aspect to it that I was surprised by - the sex.

They don't ever show any of it, of course, but they actually treat teen sex in a pretty mature way. I thought it would have been all 'don't do it until you're ready' and 'wait until you're older' in the first seasons, but it's not. Right from the first episode they talk about the 16 year-old characters having sex and there is no big deal made of it. In one of the earlier episodes, Brandon has sex with his long-distance girlfriend in his parents house. It's all rather matter of fact - just what they do because they're into each other. His mother has an issue with it because it's in her house, but again, there wasn't much of a big deal, just a passing mention that they 'were careful'. I don't like the fact that they never use the words 'condom' or 'abortion' even though they talk about both of those things, but hey, you can't have everything.

When Brenda and Dylan have sex for the first time, it's not a big deal either. They've been dating for a couple of months and they both want to so they do it at the hotel at prom. They are both happy and excited after - no angst, no long talks, no over doing the birth control discussions, they just do it and they're happy about it. Not at all what I was expecting. I figured an Arron Spelling show about teenagers would have been much more sex-negative.

Of course I haven't seen the second season and I know Brenda has a pregnancy scare so we'll see what I think after I've had a chance to watch that. Maybe the tune will change.

And another thing about victim blaming

2011-06-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've thought a lot about over the years of working with sexual assault and it's something that rarely gets brought out into the light. It's quite apparent to me that there's one important reason why we blame victims - it's so that we can find some way to make ourselves feel more secure that it's not going to happen to us. When we hear about someone being assaulted, it's fucking scary and often the first thing we want to do is find some way to make ourselves feel better. I really think that's why when we hear these horrifying reports of the women who have been raped and murdered and left in farmers' fields, the first thing we hear about the victim is that she was a prostitute. You can almost hear people breathe a collective sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god. I don't have to worry. That kind of thing won't happen to me - only to prostitutes". I know that's harsh to say but I also know it's true. It's like the media is trying to make all the 'good' people out there feel safe. Yes, there was this awful awful attack on a woman and the person who did it is still running around free but don't worry too much because it's only happening to prostitutes. It's the same thing with other types of assaults - why do you hear so much about where the victim was, whether she was alone or not, whether she knew the person? It's partly because we are looking for those clues that will tell us that the victim has some sort of culpability in it - she did something that put her in that position. That means that if I don't put myself in that position, that won't happen to me.

I understand why we do this. It's basic human nature to try to find some way to control something that feels out of control - even if that control is an illusion. But what it does is it blames victims. It causes us to concoct all of these crazy prevention tips in an effort to make ourselves feel safe. But it backfires because it leaves victims thinking that they should have some control over what happened to them and therefore should have been able to prevent it. And it de-humanizes the people who are victims. Why does it matter that a woman who was murdered was a sex trade worker? Why does it matter at all? What matters is that a woman was brutally attacked and murdered and that there are murderes running around free. The fact that the victim was a sex trade worker has little bearing on what the public needs to know about this. She did not ask to be attacked and murdered and the crime should not be dismissed as less important because of what she was doing at the time.

The scary and pathetic truth is that violence happens in our society and we cannot protect ourselves from it. The only way to stop it is to bring the people who do it to justice and punish them adequately. The only way to stop it is to make it unacceptable.

Is it right that I feel bad for Weiner?

2011-06-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, I saw the clip of Bill Maher and Jane Lynch reading Anthony Wiener's texts. I thought it would be hilarious because I love Bill Maher but I found myself feeling sad and embarrassed for Weiner.

I have conflicted feelings about this. Winer is a public figure and he should really know better than to do the things he did. You can't broadcast stuff through twitter and facebook and expect that no one will notice. Of course someone's going to pass that along and the great thing about the internet is that you have concrete permanent evidence of it. So yeah, what he did was very stupid. And it's compounded by the fact that he's married and although I haven't heard the details on this, and I don't think he and his wife have shared the details on this, I'm guessing his wife is not happy about this behavior. It's conceivable that this is an acceptable thing between them but since that's not the case for most couples, I'm guessing it's not the case for them. So the betrayal/infidelity/sending dirty pictures and texts to women who aren't your wife thing is not really cool. I've also heard rumblings that these pictures and comments were unsolicited - that he just sent them to young women that were following him on twitter without anything that might even be construed as an invitation. If that's the case, that's not cool either and he kind of deserves to be outed.

The texts that Maher read on his show sounded pretty consensual. It was a conversation in which both parties were exchanging explicit comments. And yes, Weiner should know better. When you're a public figure in our culture, you have to know that it will be next to impossible to keep this kind of thing a secret. And yet, listening to that, I felt bad for him. The texts were very graphic and when you read them on stage in front of a live audience in that way, they do sound crazy and salacious because we're just not used to hearing that kind of thing. BUT most of us have done something like that in our lives because, guess what, it's pretty normal human behavior. We are sexual people and we talk that way to people that we are having sex with or are interested in having sex with. That's what adults do. But we do it privately and it's very rare that anyone else would ever even hear us do it, much less read it aloud on a national television.

So even if I shouldn't, I feel bad for him. How would I feel if that happened to me? I would be mortified. Believe me, there are all kinds of things I've said, done, written about, texted, took pictures of, that I feel fine about having done because it was intended for a certain person in a certain context. But if anyone were to broadcast those things I would be deathly embarrassed. And I'm even more of an open book about sex than most people. But it would embarrass me because it's private. It's not meant for the world, it's meant for me and the person I shared it with. That's part of why it's hot - it's only for certain eyes.

It's odd to watch the smug smirks on Maher and Lynch's faces as they read this, when you know full well they've probably done pretty much the same thing. Why are they laughing at him when these are things most people do? They act like grade-schoolers taunting a classmate - it's only fun because you're not the one on the receiving end.

I get it, Weiner should not have done what he did because it probably violated his marriage agreement, because it may have been unsolicited, and because it makes him, as a previously well-respected public figure look like a doofus. But I do think it's sad that he had to resign over it because we are all such children that we can't stop making dick jokes every time he tries to open his mouth. Adults do this kind of stuff. Why not just get over it? He's obviously learned a lesson about keeping his private stuff private. Let's move on to more important things.

No! Not another sex toy ban!

2011-06-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

Here we go again! For those of you out there who think that all these obscenity laws are just holdover from a long-distant repressive past, think again. The remaining sex toy law in the states was enacted in 1998 and was upheld, yet again, in court in 2010. Now there's another one in the works, this time in the Phillipines. If passed, the bill would ban not only the sale and distribution, but even the ownership of sex toys. The representatives who brought the bill forward define sex toys as 'any device that can be used to stimulate human genitals'. So this begs the question, are they going to charge people for being in position of shower heads, cucumbers, electric toothbrushes and their own fingers? When you look at that definition, the attack on sex toys becomes very bizarre. Why are some things that can be used to stimulate the human genitals okay, but others not? Why are they drawing this line in the sand? And why do we have such a problem with people using devices to stimulate their own genitals? They are quoted as saying that sex toys can trigger 'sexually impure ideas' and can 'give room to sex-related offenses'. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to show that sex toy use is associated with sex-related offenses. In fact, a number of studies show that people who use sex toys report greater satisfaction with their sex lives and with their health overall. As for impure thoughts, it's usually the thought that comes before the purchase and use of the toy, not the other way around. But the idea that lawmakers should be concerned with controlling people's thoughts has very disturbing implications. Don't people in the Phillipines have the right to think whatever the hell they want? Their sexual thoughts are private and most people will never ever know about them because of that. So what business is it of the government? What would the penalty be if this bill becomes law? Up to one year in prison and $30,000 in fines. All that simple because you bought or sold a little vibe. It's easy to see things like this as silly little news stories. They seem funny. But I believe these types of laws are a fundamental violation of human rights. Sex toys are not weapons. They cannot be used to cause harm to anyone - except in the same way that a hammer or a spatula or any other every day utensil might. Governments have no right to limit people's access to something that will be used privately and poses no risk whatsoever to their own or anyone else's health. My wish for the people of the Phillipines is that this bill is dismissed and this idea never brought up again. And if it does pass, I would be more than willing to take the risk and send some care packages to the phillipines.

I'm Just Not That Into It!

2011-06-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

I'm so surprised and bitterly disappointed. I finally got around to reading 'He's Just Not That Into You' and it is not at all what I thought it was. I thought I knew so much about this book that I felt I had pretty much read it, even though I hadn't, but I was wrong. Let me back up for a minute.

I love Sex and the City. That's putting it mildly actually. I've watched the full series six or seven times. The 'He's Just Not Into You' moment is one of my favorites. I think Liz Tuccillo is a great writer. I thought, from knowing this series and this premise so well, that I understood what the book was about. Even after seeing the movie and hating it, I still thought so because a few of my friends told me that the book was totally different and I really needed to read it. So when I saw a hardcover copy at Chapters on sale for seven bucks, I picked it up.

First of all, this book that everyone has raved about and is supposedly the new 'rules' for women, is 185 pages long. And this is the new expanded edition. Not only that, but a good third of the pages are mostly blank. There's just not that much there.

Next, there is a co-authoer. I knew that. But it had been touted as Liz Tucillo's book so I thought that the guy, Greg Behrendt, was just a contributor to give a guy's perspective. But it's the other way around. He wrote most of it and Tuccillo just comments. Also, this guy is a comedian. He is now, because of this book that he admits in the new forward was meant essentially as some light-hearted fun, regarded as some kind of relationship expert and he obviously loves it and does nothing to discourage it. He writes in the forward about how much time he spends giving women advice. This guy has no business giving advice, all he has is a catchy little tag line that wasn't even written by him in the first place! (Tuccillo does credit him with the original idea but he was not a writer on the show).

But on to the part that really boils my potatoes. This book is really just thinly veiled misogny. He claims to be writing all these things because he loves women and he thinks they really sell themselves short and put up with behavior they don't deserve when it comes to relationships. But his advice is very condescending. He thinks he can wave that away with several well-placed 'you're too good for that, honey's' and 'believe it, hot stuff!'s' but it's pretty clear. He thinks women are too stupid to figure out any of these things for themselves.

He also has a very traditional view of gender roles. Women, he says, should never call a man and never ask a man out on a date. If he likes her, he will call her so she doesn't have to. And calling a man smacks of desperation. Men like to chase and if you call them, you deprive them of the chase and they lose interest. He seriously claims all of this and offers this as advice at the same time as he exhorts women to stop accepting manipulative tricks from men. But they should let them chase them, that's okay. Direct and open communication - just coming right out and saying 'I like you, when can I see you again.', is desperate.

He boldly claims that all men are alike. He does not accept the idea that some men might be shy or insecure and uncomfortable asking women out. He doesn't think it's possible that some guy might really like you but not have the guts to tell you that. According to Berhrendt, if a guy likes a woman, he will ask her out, he will want to see her all the time and he will not be able to keep his hands off her. All guys are exactly the same. He also doesn't believe that men can be conflicted about anything - they are always sure of themselves. If they say anything that might be interpreted as a mixed message or uncertainty it means that they don't want to be with you and are just too scared of hurting your feelings to tell you so directly.

While claiming to want to help women be strong and independent and good decision-makers around relationships, he paints a picture of woman-kind that is exactly the opposite. We are all stupid, insecure, clingy masochists who can't stand up to men.

I liked the original concept behind 'He's just not that into you'. I even liked some of what I saw in the movie. I do think there's some truth behind it. But the part that really resonated for me is how women do tell themselves all kinds of stories about why unacceptable behavior is acceptable - and we encourage each other to do it too. But I don't think it's because we're stupid. I think we know all these things, we just don't want to admit we know. It's just that for those women who are single and for whom marriage and children is a main goal, dating is really tough. We just really want it to be over. We want get past all of that initial stuff get to the part where we can be comfortable with someone - that nice companionship, don't have to explain ourselves anymore stage. So for many of us, if we reach that stage with someone, we don't want to go through all that work again, so we'll hang in there even when we know we shouldn't because we're hoping maybe it really can turn into what we want, instead of having to go back out there and try again. We are not stupid, we are simply hopeful, and perhaps also tired, and a little too forgiving and generous at times. I don't think these qualities warrant the condescending tirade that is this book.

We don't need men to tell us they are scum. We can figure that out for ourselves. And things are ever so much more complicated than this book would have us believe. It saddens me that, yet again, a simplistic book written by someone who is not qualified in any way to offer the advice he's offering, that provides nothing more than pithy catch-phrases and all-or-nothing thinking became a huge bestseller.

How ingrained all of this stuff really is.

2011-06-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so after vowing to write regularly, I disappear for more than a week. This is due to a heinous cold or flue or whatever the hell it was that knocked me on my ass for 3 days - and then various other work and family related things that seemed to just make the days fly by.

So, back to SlutWalk again. The Walk itself was awesome. The turnout wasn't what they were hoping for but I think we still had a good 400 people there - pretty darn good if you ask me. I have not been involved in something like that in a long time and it felt really good. The best part for me was the women who were not scheduled as speakers but came up and shared their thoughts and feelings. This is the reality and this is what we are all living with - it was very powerful to just hear why people were there and how this has affected them. I was also pleased to see a lot of men there. This is something that affects everyone.

There was one thing that bothered me and it really made me realize how deeply ingrained the victim-blaming in our society is. There was one amazingly strong woman who came up and read three poems about her experience. Just incredible and so brave of her to do that. She was so clearly making her claim for justice and refusing to accept the blame. But after a few other people had spoken, she took the mike again and advised the women in the crowd to fight back if they are ever assaulted because she didn't fight back and the police wouldn't believe the she didn't consent because she didn't fight. That broke my heart. I was sad for her that she was blamed and questioned and victimized all over again. And I was so sad that she had taken that so closely to heart. It was well-meant advice. But when we tell women that they need to fight back so that they'll be taken seriously, we are, once again, putting the responsibility on them. Why do we have to take on the burden of fighting to prove that we didn't consent? Why doesn't an accused have to show that there was consent? There are a million reasons why victims don't fight back. And what is fighting back anyway? What might have looked like submission to one person, might have felt like resistance to another? How hard to I have to fight? And how do I prove that I fought back? Isn't the only proof that I fought back injury to one or both of us? What if I don't want to risk that?

If I hear one more sexual assault prevention tip, I will throw up. If comes, often, from a good place - a place of wanting to help people stay safe. But really, it simply focuses the attention on the wrong part of the equation. Let's focus on why sexualized violence happens and how to really stop it. The only ones who can stop it are the ones who do it.

Here's a link to an awesome interview with Jessica Valenti of feministing. She thinks that SlutWalks are an indicator of a new kind of young feminism that is emerging and I think I agree with her.

Let's Get it Straight, Assault is Assualt. Period.

2011-05-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've had enough and it's time for me to actually start spouting off about the SlutWalk. Although I've been fairly involved in the event, I've not spoken publicly about it yet. But get ready because there's about to be a whole lot coming from my corner. I think this is the single thing that I feel most passionate about in the whole world and the SlutWalk has brought it front and centre in Edmonton right now. I am thrilled to see the issue of victim blaming getting so much media attention but the backlash that inevitably comes with it is at once infuriating and heart-breaking.

First of all, for anyone reading who doesn't know about SlutWalk, here's the deal. The concept of SlutWalk started after Toronto Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti told a group of students at York University that 'women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to avoid being assaulted'. In reaction to this comment and to call attention to the victim-blaming that, made evident by Sanguinetti's comment, is still rampant, women in Toronto organized an event they called 'SlutWalk'. It has caught on like wildfire and there have been SlutWalks all North America and even overseas.

The use of the word 'Slut' is controversial and has brought on many criticisms that the name of the event and the event itself is degrading to women. I have never felt that. From the moment I heard about this, I understood it. The word 'slut' needs to be used because that is the word Sanguinetti used and that is the word that is used and has been used for decades to dehumanize and to blame women. The point of this movement is not to reclaim that word or give women the right to be 'sluts', it's to call attention to that ugly word and the layers of hatred, shame and blame that lie beneath it. We do not walk as sluts. We walk as women who have been called sluts and are sick and fucking tired of it. We walk as women who know that we should be able to wear whatever the hell we want and walk wherever we want and act how we bloody please without the fear of 'provoking' an assault. Because that's just it, women don't provoke sexual assault. Sexual assault is an act of violence that has not one single thing to do with the way a woman acts or looks. It's something that is done to her by someone intent on causing harm.

I have worked with survivors of sexual assault for almost 20 years. I would venture to say that 99% of them blamed themselves in some way for the violence that was done to them. I know what that does to someone. It makes her question everything she says, every move she makes, every piece of clothing she wears, every relationships she starts or ends or continues, every sexual act she participates in, every thing she ever did or didn't do. It makes her wonder if at sometime, somehow something she does will again put her in the position where she will be assaulted. It makes her afraid to live her life. It robs her of her freedom to be who she is. And you know what? Every single woman in our society is affected by this to some degree and it's so insidious that many of us don't even know it. But we hear these comments like Sanguinetti's so often that it seeps into our consciousness. And if the day comes, and sadly if comes for far too many of us, that we are sexually assaulted, the first thought that will come into most of our minds is not 'how can I get some help?', or 'where should I go to report this?', it will be 'what did I do to deserve this?' and 'how could I have let this happen?'. Those thoughts carry with them an enormous amount of shame and they keep women from reporting sexual assaults. Heck, they already blame themselves, why would they ever want to share it with someone like Sanguinetti who's just going to blame them too? And THAT is what perpetuates our culture of sexual assault. THAT is what makes it easier for offenders to rape. THAT is what makes it easier for them to get away with it without consequence. and THAT is why we need to stop blaming victims.

That is why I am participating in SlutWalk. We are not sluts. We have no interest in reclaiming the word 'slut'. We are women. We want to live our lives and express ourselves in whatever way we want. We will not tolerate being called sluts and we will not tolerate being blamed for violence which we did not provoke, have never provoked and for which we are not responsible!

This is so very important, I can't possibly stress it enough. If you agree, go to SlutWalk. And if you or anyone around you is the victim of sexual violence, just love and support them and make sure they understand that it's not their fault.

Is it possible to raise a child without gender?

2011-05-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a long long time since I've posted in this blog. The daily tasks of running a business have kept me away for many months. But having been inspired by some amazing bloggers (who I'll probably repost her soon), I'm committed to coming back and posting regularly now. In an age of info. overload, I often feel like there's nothing more I could contribute, but there is so much going on in the world of sex that there is always something to talk about. This is a forum where I can freely share my thoughts and maybe people up on all of the crazy stuff that crosses my desk.

Today, I was forwarded an article about a couple on Toronto who have made the radical move of refusing to share their new baby's biological sex with anyone. They have name the baby Storm (how cute is that?) and have said that Storm will decided for him or herself when and what to share about his/her sex and gender. Not surprisingly, lots of people have come down on these parents as selfish and abusive - claiming that they are messing with the kid's mind just to make a point. I disagree. I think it's actually the opposite. I think they are making a valiant attempt not to mess with the kid's mind. This is not an easy thing to do. What is always the first question asked of new parents? "Is it a boy or a girl?" Always, without exception, that's the first question - usually even before the baby is born. To not answer that question is, I'm sure, difficult and uncomfortable. And yes, I'm sure, if Storm continues to go without a declared sex and gender, it will be difficult. People will be confused by Storm and Storm may have to endure some teasing and probably some mis-treatment. But is this any more difficult than what countless people who don't identify with gender norms have to endure every day of their lives? I think Storm's parents are just trying to give Storm a chance to be Storm for awhile - before too many people jump in their with their conclusions about what little girl Storm or little boy Storm should be.

I think it's a brave parent who dresses their little boy in pink. Imagine, if parents get flack just for that, what these parents will have to endure. I wish them and Storm the best. I hope we here more about what happens for Storm and what kind of gender identity emerges for him/her.

Isn't it ironic that it's almost impossible to write about this in a clear and concise way because our language around gender does not allow us to? We have no words to describe someone who is neither or both male and female. We have no pronouns to use in this case. Isn't it about time we got some?

Read more about this story here.

Not-so-great Christmas gift ideas

2010-11-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

The Christmas season is upon us once again. If you’re thinking of buying a romantic or naughty gift for your sweetie, we’d like to offer you some suggestions of what not to choose. There are some pretty wacky toys out there. Here is our list of the top 5 bad choices for naughty Christmas gifts:

1. The Vortex

This simple little gadget attaches to your vacuum cleaner hose and turns your vacuum into a powerful vibrator. Not to mention, noisy as hell! But perhaps if you’re planning on giving your woman a vacuum cleaner for Christmas, she’ll be a little less pissed off if it comes with a vibrator!

2. The Blowguard

This little marvel is designed to make giving a hummer a song. It’s a silicone mouth guard with a vibrator attached at the end. This one has to be seen to be believed so check out our site for a link. If retainers and bite guards turn you on, you’ll love this one.

3. The Colt Power Stroker

For the man in your life, there’s the Colt Power Stroker. The rubber masturbation sleeve is shaped like a grenade – and no, we are not making this up. Perfect for the guy who’s into war memorabilia! Or not.

4. Vulva Roll-On Fragrance

From the sound of the name, you might think this is another one of those products designed to make women smell ‘fresh’. But no, this is a fragrance that actually smells like vulva. It’s meant to be applied to the back of the hand so guys who loves the smell of a sweaty crotch can get a whiff anytime they want.

5. Hotdoll
And finally, let’s not forget about our furry friends. Hotdoll is a rubber companion for your horny doggie, allowing them to get out their pent-up frustration without the risk of new puppies.

Why You Should be Wary of Sex Information on the Internet

2010-11-19T18:33:00.001-08:00

I just stumbled across this post on yahoo from a few years ago, extolling the virtues of baby oil as a personal lubricant. A stellar example of why we need to be very selective about where we get our sex information from.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/54646/baby_oil_versus_ky_warming_lubricant.html?cat=5

Birth or Not

2010-11-19T17:15:00.001-08:00

Have you heard about this yet? There's a couple in Minnesota who claim that they are pregnant and are leaving the decision about whether to have an abortion to a public vote on their website. No, I am not making this up. Check it out at birthornot.com. Or don't, and refuse to give these people any more attention.

They have received a lot of media attention and a lot of hits - obviously because this is a pretty controversial concept. They claim that it is a true story and that the reason they are doing this is to allow people to have a real impact, a voice that actually counts, on an abortion issue.

It's quite clear that it is a hoax, and most likely a ploy by an anti-choice activist to gain sympathy for his viewpoint. The main reason why I believe it is a hoax is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that this couple would be so unsure about their decision to have an abortion - so ambivalent about it that they will simply go with whatever the majority decides. They say they can't make up their minds. But why are they so unsure about having this baby? They say that they've been pregnant twice before, both pregnancies ending in miscarriage. They are married and have been for quite some time. So why are they willing to abort this pregnancy? The father, Peter, says that he wants to have a baby but he knows that they can have another if they end this pregnancy. WTF? It seems pretty clear to me that he's painting a picture of callous, heartless people who conceive and abort babies carelessly - as if that's what people who choose to have abortions are like. It's seems obvious that it's meant to make people angry.

Here are some other questions:
- they are supposedly not taking sides on this issue and yet Peter has a track record of writing and working for extremely conservative religious groups with an anti-choice leaning
- why do we hear so much from Peter and not much at all from his wife, Alisha? all we get from her is posts about her baby's development along with ultrasound pictures - she doesn't sound like a woman who is seriously considering abortion - could it be perhaps, that all of the posts about exactly where the baby is in its development are meant solely to tug at our heartstrings and make us realize that it really is a baby?
- if this is just some social experiment in true democracy, where are there google adsense ads on their site?

There are only three possibilities here:
1. It is real and these poor people felt that this was the best way for them to get their 15 minutes of fame and possibly make some money in the meantime.
2. It is an elaborate anti-choice campaign.
3. Both

If it is an anti-choice polemic - which I'm quite certain it is - it's truly ironic. In attempting to prove that abortion is wrong, and perhaps that it should be illegal, instead what they've done is make it very obvious that having other people make a decision about your own pregnancy and your own life is ludicrous. Why on earth should others vote about this decision? And why on earth would they ever actually allow people who they don't even know to tell them what to do in regards to such an important matter? So thanks Peter and Alisha, you've just proven the point of all of us pro-choicers, abortion is and should always be a personal and private decision.

Another page from the 'What Were They Thinking?' files

2010-10-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

I saw this commercial through the Bitch website. I figured there was no way in the world this was real - had to be a spoof. But guess what? It's not. It's totally real and they totally smell this stuff. Now if it was a spray that makes your vulva smell flowery, I would have an issue with it any - those 'feminine sprays' are just nasty and who's to say your vulva smells gross? But this is not a spray to make your vulva smell nice. It's a spray that smells like vulva. No, I'm not kidding. It's a spray for people who like the smell of sweaty crotch to put on the back of their hands so that they can get a whiff of sweaty crotch anytime they like. I know, everyone has their kinks and their little turn-ons. But really? Do people really buy this? And I'm not even going to comment on the creepy guy creaping around the gym.

Purity's a Ball!

2010-10-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

I caught a show on Vision TV last night about Purity Balls. In case you've never heard of this phenomenon, Purity Balls are gala events, usually put on by Christian churches and organizations, in which girls pledge to remain abstinent until they're married. A particular feature of the Purity Ball is that the girls attend with their father who also makes a pledge to her to be her authority and protector. The girls actually makes the pledge to their fathers and to God.

Okay, I am totally on board with everyone's right to have their own values around sex. Some people believe that sex should be reserved only for marriage. I don't believe that but I don't have a beef with it. But I think this whole thing is completely messed up.

First of all, the condescending sexism is so blatant, it makes me nauseous. Why are fathers authorities over their daughters? If you believe that parents are authorities over their children, where are the mothers? Why is just the dads? Why on earth should a girl have to make a pledge to her father about her sex life? It's really none of his business. And where the hell are the boys? These things are for girls only. Do boys not have to pledge to preserve their purity? Why don't they take their mothers to dances and pledge before them to remain abstinent? Apparently it's only the girls that have to be pure.

It's a throwback to a much older time when women really were considered property. The father is the guardian of that property and ensures that it's not spoiled. In this video, which shows the actual pledge. http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=15156 The girl says that she is waiting until she 'gives herself to her husband'. So here's my question about that - are women simply things to be given away? And is her virginity, her sexuality the whole of her so that when she 'gives that away' she is also 'giving herself'? Some serious questions here that I don't think these girls have a chance to really look at.

The other thing is that this is all just ever-so-slightly creepy and incestuous. It feels a lot like boundaries are being crossed here. I just don't think a Dad should have his nose so deeply embedded in his children's sexuality. yes, it's a great thing for parents and kids to talk about sex but I don't think kids actually owe their parents information. They shouldn't be obligated to stay 'pure'.

They seem to focus a lot on the fact that girl's need positive attention from their fathers and that this ball is a great way to do that. She gets to feel special and she gets the undivided attention of her dad. That's great. But why do these too have to be combined? Is pledging not to have sex the only way for her to get attention from her Dad?

One of the men in this video claims that girls who have strong relationships with their fathers don't need attention from men. Hmmm.......that sounds all nice and good on the surface. It's a little myth we all like to believe. "The reason I so f'd up about men is because my Daddy never loved me." But think about that one a little more - what he's really saying is that the only reason girls have boyfriends and have sex is because they need male attention. Did it ever occur to this guy and girls need sex too? They do! Sex is a biological need and women have it just as much as men. We don't just want attention from guys, a lot of us want some action too! But I guess we're supposed to believe that women are not sexual and have sex only because it's part of the deal of being married and that's the way to get a baby.

The show that I watched last night put these events in a positive light, listing all of the many great things that girls and families get from it - a sense of purpose, support, feeling special and loved - but noted there is no proof that the purity balls actually work in delaying the age of first sex. But there's where it's wrong. There is proof. A 2005 study of 12,000 teens found that those who took abstinent pledges participated in vaginal sex later than those who did not, BUT they were much more likely to participate in anal sex and oral sex than those who did not take a pledge. There were also much less likely to use condoms, resulting in STI rates almost exactly the same as non-pledging teens. Perhaps they need to have a 'terms' section of the pledge that defines exactly what sex is. Oh wait, that's not possible, because the word 'sex' is never used in the pledge.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/21606.php

This is the main thing that drives me crazy about this whole thing. There's a massive public event focused on pressuring girls into not having sex, and yet I bet the vast majority of these families, even though they will participate in this public event, will not have a candid discussion with their children about what sex actually is and how it works. Some of the girls in the video look like their 9 or 10 years old. Do they have any real understanding of what they are agreeing too? Have they even start to have any real interest in sex? How can you say you'll never do something if you don't even know what that thing is? At 10, sex is icky! It seems like the most bizarre and disgusting thing anyone could ever do. At 16, not so much - it start to become pretty appealing. It's just not fair to make these girls pledge this so early. And if you're going to do that, then the terms should be spelled out - is a blowjob okay? is anal sex actually sex? can you even kiss? Just saying 'keep myself pure' doesn't do it because everyone thinks they're pure.

After the girls say their pledge, they get a ring symbolizing their pledge. On the show, it was tiara rather than a ring. This is a reminder of their pledge. I have a better idea. Instead of a ring, each girl should get a vibrator. That way, when she is 'tempted' she will have not only a reminder of her pledge, but a useful tool to help her stay abstinent.

legalized prostition in Canada?

2010-10-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sex workers scored a huge victory this week when Ontario's Superior Court of justice threw out three key prostitution laws..........or not. It will be interesting to see what happens now that Canada's out-dated and misguided prostitution laws are finally up for discussion. The three laws that were ruled unconstitutional were:
- keeping a bawdy house
- communicating for the purpose of prostitution
- living off the avails of prostitution (pimping, for lack of a better word)

The sex workers and their counsel, who brought the suit, argued that these three laws jeopardize the safety of sex workers, making it illegal to do the necessary things to protect themselves, such as pay security guards or managers, use the same premises for their work on a consistent basis, and contact clients to make arrangements and negotiate terms prior to meeting them.

The thing is, prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada. But these three things are. These laws create a strange legal limbo where it's really difficult to judge exactly what part of the activity breached the law, and those parts of the activity that may actually make it safer and more controlled are the parts that are illegal.
I understand that there are reasons why those laws were put in place - the communication law makes it illegal for people to solicit sex on the street and the pimping law makes it illegal for people to do just that, coerce or force someone into prostitution in order to make money. But they are blanket terms which catch many other activities that, in my opinion, should not be illegal. The laws need to be rewritten to serve the purpose they are intended to serve.

Does this mean prostitution will be formally legalized in Canada? I sincerely doubt that.

I think Stephen Harper is crapping his pants now at the prospect of having to deal with this. This is not something the conservative government wants to get forced into addressing. On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's exactly what they want. This gives them yet another easy law and order issue to pontificate on. They know full well that the majority of Canadians don't even know that prostitution is not actually illegal in Canada. They can do what they've done with the statutory release issue - simplify it to a single message that no one can argue with 'The Ontario Superior Court has struck down our prostitution laws. We know Canadians want to protect their children so we are appealing to keep our street safe.' Who could argue with that? No one, except those that know the reality behind it.

REAL women (you have to love REAL women, don't you?) is arguing that de-criminalizing prostition will make Canada a haven for human trafficking. Wow! Let's find the biggest alarm bell we can and push it hard! That's not what this is about. It's about recognizing that prostitution exists and will always exist and having laws that make it more dangerous for sex trade workers is not helping anyone. Striking down these laws doesn't invite human trafficking - we still have many others laws that address all of the different things that happen under that scenario - laws that relate to consent, assault, sexual assault, and unlawful confinement. And as far as the concern about children being led into prostitution, the same thing applies. The Canadian sexual assault laws still apply and having sex with a minor is sex without consent which is sexual assault. Although, to that end, the Ontario court has stated that their decision does not affect any provisions dealing with those under 18.

So the protestations are a smoke screen thrown up by those who don't want to recognize the reality of the sex trade in our country. It's here. It will always be here. Our lack of action on this issue put the men and women that work in the sex trade at risk - not to mention those that use their services. It's time that we either simply legalize it, or replace these laws with some that address the real social and safety concerns instead of the imagined ones.

The Next Entry in our Series of 'What Were They Thinking?' toys.

2010-08-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

I got an email today about this new toy from Topco. Look closely. No it's not an actual hand grenade, it's a masturbation sleeve. Do you really want to masturbate into a grenade? What is the appeal, wondering if it's going to be you or the toy that explodes first?

Score one for free speech in the US!

2010-08-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

John Stagliano, famous porn producer and head of Evil Angel productions, will not be going to jail for violating American obscenity laws. There were two movies he was charged for as well as for having a trailer on his website for one of the movies, which supposedly could have been accessed by minors. Stagliano has been fighting these charges for 3 years, and last month, they were thrown out of court because the judge was not satisfied that Stagliano could be conclusively linked to the production and distribution of the two videos.

I'm not a fan of Stagliano. What I've seen of his stuff is certainly not my cup of tea. He has produced some pretty famous movies, but he presents images of women that I'm just not comfortable with. However, I am fully in favor of his right to do it and for the adult consumers right to choose to watch it or not. He's been in the porn industry for many years and he knows the rules. The performers in his videos are all over 18. There are no illegal acts portrayed in the movies. There are warnings and age requirements on all of his websites. He is following the laws and community standards of practice.

So why was he indicted? It is not because the two movies (Milk Nymphos and Storm Squirters II - ridiculous? yes, obscene? by who's standards?), were particularly offensive, or because he produced and distributed something that actually violated any other law. These are not hard core violent films. They are your average, smutty movies that are being churned out by the thousand every year. So why go after Stagliano for producing the kind of movies that have become commonplace in America? It's because Stagliano is one of the biggest porn producers in the USA right now. Anti-porn groups are looking for a precedent to go after the porn industry and Stagliano would be one hell of a precedent. The stuff he makes is a pretty easy target too, because there are a lot of people who would find it offensive.

But does the fact that some people find his films offensive mean that he should be denied the right to produce them and even jailed for doing so? The American obscenity laws a vague and very subjective. The main two standards by which material is judged to be obscene are whether it 'appeals to purient interests' and 'serves no artistic merit or purpose'. Who makes the call about those two standards. Who is to say whether a movie has artistic merit or not? Who is to say that a video appeals to purient interests?

This is the first obscenity trial to take place in Washington in 25 years. The charges were laid in 2007, during the Bush administration, during which time the number of obscenity charges more than doubled. It's not hard to see that a campaign against porn was being launched. I'm not a fan of slippery slope arguments but here is a bonfide slippery slope. If Stagliano were convicted, who would be next? Once a precedent is in place, it's much easier to go after all kinds of adult film producers. And where does it stop? Would we start seeing mainstream film producers, Hollywood and independent film producers brought up on charges because their movies were deemed to appeal to purient interest and have no artistic merit?

It would be nice to celebrate Stagliano's victory but unfortunately, it's a bit of a hollow one. He did not 'win' the case. It was not determined either that his movies did not violate the law or, better yet, that the law itself should be challenged. The charges were thrown out on the technicality that he couldn't be conclusively linked to the videos in question. So is it a victory at all? Is there another charge for another big public figure in the offing?

Only time will tell is Obama will have as much interest in porn as George W. did.

GOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLL!

2010-07-08T10:17:00.001-07:00

I heard yesterday that dutch porn star Bobbi Eden has pledged that if the Netherlands wins the World Cup, she will give each one of her twitter followers a blow job. Not surprisingly, the number of her followers has jumped from 5000 to 30,000. Adam of the Unknown Studio asked me what I thought of this? Well, what is there to think of it? Is it shocking? No, I don't think so. I think we are so far beyond something like this being shocking. Adult actors have been doing these kinds of things for a long time now. Those who don't have any exposure to the world of porn just might not be aware of it.

In 1995, Annabel Chong was the centre of a firestorm of controversy when she and director John T. Bone staged an event where Chong would have sex with 300 men in one day. It didn't actually work out that way but the entire event became quite infamous and brought out severe criticism on both sides of the porn debate. Questions of exploitation and safety come up. Was she actually choosing to do this, as she professed, or was she pressured? Was it safe? What kind of image of women was she promoting?

Since then various kinds of things like this have been staged and these types of videos abound on the internet. It's become commonplace. Is it exploitation of women? Well, I kind of think it is. But each woman involved in these types of things has to know for herself whether she is truly okay with it or not - we can't really know that from looking at a video or reading about it. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for women to enjoy sex like this and to want to do it. Does it perpetuate a negative image of women? I think it does. I think, regardless of how the women involved see themselves and whether they are coming from a position of empowerment or not, our history of objectification and exploitation of women makes it hard to see these kinds of things as anything but that.

But back to Bobbi Eden. Is this particular offering of mass sexual acts shocking? No, not at all. It Bobbi exploiting herself? I don't know. She has sex on film for a living. That's her job. So perhaps not. I couldn't find out a lot about Bobbi in the brief web search I did but it does look like she's quite well known and somewhat accomplished - she's been in a music video and she's written for some fairly well known magazines. We have entered an era where many female adult film actors are taking charge of their own career in the industry and actively marketing and managing themselves effectively becoming successful business women. Bobbi Eden may be one of those.

So this World Cup thing is a very clever marketing strategy, in the least. It's certainly garnered her a lot of attention from people who didn't know who she was before. Will she goes through with it if the Netherlands win? I doubt it. How could she? It's not physically possible. But I bet she will do some sort of staged event like Annabel Chong and film it for distribution. The opportunity is there, why not make some more money out of it?

Sugar Babies?

2010-07-08T09:23:00.000-07:00

I caught a bit of the Tyra Banks show yesterday afternoon. I haven't seen her in a long time so I thought I'd see what she's up to now. Looks like the same old thing....judging women for their choices around their sexuality. This show was about 'Sugar Babies'. These are women who hook up with very rich men to get their financial needs met. Of course, this is nothing new. This has been going on since before recorded history. But what is new, or at least somewhat new, is a website and service devoted specifically to helping men and women connect for this purpose. I believe there are actually a few such sites but she had the owner of a particular one on the show, as well as two women who claimed to be sugar babies.

I have to admit, I am torn by this phenomenon. Part of me wants to say 'Hey, if everyone is consenting, where's the problem?' But the other part of me sees the gender inequity that leads to this kind of thing. Why is it mainly women who do this and very rarely men? She did actually have two men on the show that were self-professed 'him-bos' (that name and the blatant misogyny behind it something I'm not even going to get into here), but it's quite clear that it's mainly women who participate in these types of relationships. The reasons are obvious, I think. There are far more men in positions of great wealth and power than there are women. As well, I think that men are much less likely to believe that finding a rich and powerful person to care for them is the easiest way for them to get their financial needs met or to live a wealthy lifestyle. The first assumption by men is that the way to wealth is to build it yourself, not to ride on the coattails of someone else. Historically women have had to depend on men to survive because they were denied the ability to own property, to accumulate wealth of their own, and to participate in most trades and professions. Their only option for wealth was to marry well, if that was even an option for them. Although that has changed, we still do not have equal access and that history still carries on in our psyche. A lot of women still believe that their financial security depends on men.

Here's a case in point. My mother was always very clear with her three daughters that we should have jobs and careers of our own and that we should plan to take care of ourselves. Although my mother married in her early 20's in 1962 and had three children, she always worked. She worked because she wanted to and because she was contributing financially to the family. My sisters and I did not grow up with the belief that we were just waiting to get married so we wouldn't have to work anymore. All of us have professional degrees. However, a few weeks ago, I was having dinner with my sister and her family. We were talking about trades because we had just been to an Alberta trade fair. My 11 year-old niece mentioned a friend of the family who worked in the oil field and made a lot of money. 'That's what I need to do,' she said, 'I need to marry someone who does what Bob does.' I was shocked. Here's a girl who was not raised with this type of value and expectation and yet still, her first thought about how to make money is to find a man with money. I said to her 'No sweetie, you need to find out if what Bob does interests you and if it does, go do it yourself. Make your own money, honey.' This little girl is smart, really smart - she'll be able to do anything she wants. But that thought had not occurred to her.

So my feminist soul has a dilemma here. I actually do support the right of these women to do what they're doing. According to them, they are completely forthright with their 'sugar daddies' and they with them. They both know the parameters of the relationship and the expectations. The men are not being used because they know exactly what the woman expects. The woman knows what the man expects and makes a choice as to whether she accepts it or not. If there is upfront knowledge and informed consent, I don't think anyone is being abused or exploited. If that's what they choose to do, it's their business. I do not believe that they are necessarily exploiting themselves, or devaluing themselves. A major point of contention on the show was whether this was prostitution or not. I don't think it matters. If everyone agrees, it is an agreement. I don't believe that taking money for sex, if that is a part of what they are doing, is necessarily wrong. So I don't judge them like Tyra Banks and her 'expert' do.

But it does make me sad that so many women still feel that their most valuable asset is their sexuality. And maybe that is judgmental of me. Who am I to say that's not okay? I just wonder if the women who make these kinds of choices do it because they feel that's the best thing for them, that they know they could make the money themselves but they just don't want to, or if they feel that even now, they will never be able to achieve the kind of lifestyle they want without the help of a man.

Do we need .xxx?

2010-07-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

I was driving home last night when a piece on CBC radio caughty my ear. They were reporting on the progress of an application to have .xxx established as a new top level domain name. Although this application has been in process for the past six years, this is the first I had heard of it. Knowing the potential implications of this, I stopped to listen.

So here's the deal. An internet domain registry service called ICM has been trying to get the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbering to approve their proposal for a .xxx top level domain, to be used solely for adult content. This idea has been brought forward to ICANN and others many times in the past, but this six year battle that ICM has engaged in is not only to have the domain established but for ICM to have exclusive rights over it - ie. if you want an .xxx domain, you'll have to pay ICM and only ICM. Other domains like this exist but they are small and not widely used.

My concern, the second I heard this was that if such a domain was established, attempts might be made to make a .xxx domain mandatory for all adult content on the net. Given the climate in North America around sexuality and pornography, it's not a stretch to be concerned about this. That could put my website and my business, and those of my fellow business owners in the industry in jeopardy. How does one define ''adult content'? I've been lumped in with random porn sites and other adult content industries and denied business services before so this makes me vary wary.

However, after listening to the interviews and doing some digging around, I don't think we need to be concerned about that........yet.

So what is this all about? ICM, and the proponents of this idea claim that it will help internet users avoid unwanted adult content and will help protect children from incidental exposure. They say that it will make filters even more effective because parents can simply block the entire domain.

But if use of the domain is voluntary, will it really make a difference. A .com domain costs anywhere from $7 to $20 a year so what will likely happen is that adult site owners who have a .com right now will simply add a .xxx to increase their traffic. They won't drop the .com. So bam! We've just doubled the number of porn addresses on the web! Great way to control kids access to porn. Not only that, but then everyone will know that there is a virtual goldmine of porn over the .xxx rainbow. Type in anything.xxx and you're sure to come up with some porn. So does this make it easier or more difficult for kids to access porn.

It seems obvious to me that this is nothing more than a money grab. ICM has spent $10 million so far to make .xxx a reality. Yes, you read that right, $10 Million!! So guess how much they expect to make from it? As mentioned before, a .com domain name is, at most, $20 a year. ICM does not state, on their website, how much the domain will actually cost but a rep. from the Free Speech Coalition said she has heard estimates of anywhere from $50 to $275/year. Why so much more than .com? It's because you can only get it from ICM so they can charge whatever they want. The president of ICM did say in the interview that they expect to make up to $150 million a year from .xxx! He said that they already have 156,000 domain names parked - so if all of those end up paying their $50, that's $7.8 million in their pockets before they even start!

In a totally transparent and somewhat smarmy move, he mentioned that 10% of the cost of each domain would go towards child protection charities. What does that have to do with anything? The only reason ICM wants to make that so public is to try to win people over to the idea that this is good for everyone. 10% is nothing to them when they're making that kind of money.

Do I think .xxx is a bad thing? No, not really. My only concern is that we will get some right-wing crazy group lobbying ICANN and their governments to make it mandatory for all adult content. I know how difficult that would be to enact and enforce so I don't think it's something we need to be worried about for now. I don't think it's fair business practice to allow it to be exclusively owned. Website builders know that they'll pretty much have to get the .xxx name for their site or they'll lose a huge amount of traffic and revenue to someone else who scoops it out from under them. It's basically strong-arming them into paying for an extra site. Other than that, is it damaging? No, I don't think so. Will it help to prevent incidental exposure to porn on the net? No, I really don't think it will. Will it line to pockets of some brilliant, but pretty clearly unscrupulous business people? Yes, most definitely.

Sexual Compatability

2010-06-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

I spent a lovely evening last week driving to and from a party in Airdrie listening to Savage Lovecasts all the way. Anyone who's read this blog knows that Dan Savage is my hero. I love the way he's able to draw out the hidden agendas in his listener's questions or their partner's actions. I love that he will unabashedly call some right-wing conservative hypocrite a 'lying piece of shit asshole'. But I found myself really questioning one of the main ideas he was espousing that became a theme in the string of podcasts I listened to. He said many times that he thinks it's very important for couples to have sex before they decide to get really serious, get married or have kids, so that they know if they are sexually compatible. I completely agree. I agree with him that our society belittles the importance of sex in a marriage and that lack of sexual compatability can, and often does, destroy a relationship. However, through the course of these podcasts it seems that he was saying that couple's just need to 'get that out of the way' - that they just need to have sex once or a few times to know if they work togehter. Then that question is answered and they can move on to other things. This is where I disagree.

When couples first start dating, sex is usually pretty good. Unless there's something wildly different about them (eg. I actually like men and you don't have a penis, I know I need to be beaten soundly to get off and that clearly scares the hell out of you, I'm afriad of semen and you expect regular blow jobs... or something of the like), and they like each other and attracted to each other, they're probably going to have really good sex for the first little bit. At the beginning of a relationships, we're in that lovey dovey, let's-make-out-in-the-movei-theatre phase. And we're also usually not particularly honest about what we want and how we really feel about our partners sexual abilities. It's not until we've been together for awhile that the bloom starts to come off the rose and differences in our wants and needs start to surface. Sometimes that can be many months or even more than a year down the road! That's why I believe that people need to spend a lot of time together and wait until they've really been through some things before making a serious committment. Either that, or they need to be the kind of person that can make a committment to work through things and stick to it no matter what, so that when those issues arise, and they usually do, they will be serious about working them out. People who can do that are truly rare.

So yes, I agree that sexual compatability is very important but it's not something you can ascertain after a couple of dates.

Oh So Cosmo!

2010-06-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

Once again, a new channel showed up on our TV - Cosmo Television. Yeah! Now I can finally get all of the insightful and profound social analysis offered by Cosmo magazine on TV! As promised, Cosmo TV is very much like Cosmo magazine. Loaded with gender stereotypes and sexual misinformation. The worst has got to be 'Oh So Cosmo' which is supposed to be a dating and relationship advice show but basically seems to be about telling women what to do. About every 30 seconds, 'stats' flash up on the screen letting us know how 'guys' feel about various things that 'girls' do. These kinds of 'stats' make me crazy because of course, the implication is that if a large number or majority of people think or act a certain way, then it's normal. Who are they actually asking? If it's guys that read cosmo, you know that they didn't get a very large sample. And really, why do I need to know that 57% of men prefer blondes? Obviously the point of that stat is, if you're blonde, rejoice! And if you're not blond, get blonde.

The episode last night had their female host, Josie, dramatizing Cosmo's advice for making a good impression on a guy. What we learned here was that we should approach him first, we should show interest in what he's interested in, and we should buy his friends beer. Oh, and that we should have sex with him because '90% of guys believe that a hook-up can lead to a long-term relationship'. Oh, how I wish I had cosmo TV before when I was dating. It would have been so much easier!

After this advice, came the cosmo quiz in which we learned whether we are mysterious enough to capture the attention of a man. The results of the quiz revealed that I give away far too much and will easily get myself hurt because of it. You don't want to give away too much but you also don't want to be so much of an enigma that you're playing games. It's a fine line we gals have to walk in the dating world! The quiz made me nauseous because it's that same old 'play hard to get' advice that we've seen over and over. We should never tell a man exactly how much we like him, we should never appear to be clingy or needy, and we should make him come to us. Does this game really work for anyone? If might work at first but if your goal is to develop a real relationship, at some point, you're going to have to drop the game and be who you really are. If you've played the game long enough, that's going to come as a real shock to your partner. Isn't it better just to be real from the start? In fact, I got the result I did because on every question I took the most direct and real answer - I would just tell him what I'm feeling and do what I feel I'd like to do. But then again, I'm far too open.

To me, the message of 'Oh So Cosmo' is that women should never ever trust their own instincts in the dating world. If they do, they'll never get a man. Instead, they should seek out every opportunity to find out what other people think, and ask any dating expert they can find. That way they'll know how to behave and won't doubt themselves in these situations. Hmmmm.......there's something wrong with that logic but I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe if I watch some more Cosmo TV, I'll figure it out.

In spite of everything you've heard, Canadian teens are becoming more responsible.

2010-05-28T10:35:00.001-07:00

The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality has just published a study showing that the number of pregnancies among Canadian teenagers dropped by 36.9% from 1996 to 2005! Who would've guessed? It seems all we hear about in relation to teen sexuality is how over-sexualized they are and how they are getting involved in sex earlier and earlier every day. If that were true, one would expect that the numbers of teen pregnancies would be increasing right along with all that horrible, early risk-taking behavior. But they aren't. In fact, teen pregnancy rates are down significantly in the last ten years in most developed countries, including the USA (their drop was 25%). Alexander McKay, co-author of the study and research co-ordinator of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of Canada says that the number of teenagers having sex has remained essentially stable, over this time period, with somewhere around 50% of those 17 or under having been sexually active. McKay says “Teenage women in Canada are not more or less likely to be sexually active than they were 10 or 15 years ago. The difference is that we have seen a steady increase in the percentage of sexually active young women who are using contraception. That comes mainly in increases in condom use but also increases in birth control.” (quote taken from Globe and Mail, May 26th). So in spite of all the public bemoaning about 'those girls growing up too fast', it appears that all the evidence tells us that:
1 - the numbers of teenagers having sex has stayed pretty much the same since 1996
2 - the ones who do have sex are making good choices about contraception
3 - far fewer of them are getting pregnant

But there are still some, that in spite of all of these good news fact, hold steadfastly to their belief that Canada's sexual morality is going to hell in a handbasket. Point in case, Barbara Kay, of the National Post, who is quickly becoming one of my least favorite wingnuts, published an editorial on Thursday entitled 'Teen Pregnancy Study Fall Prey to Wishful Thinking'. In it, she asserts that the decline in teen pregnancy rates is mainly due to a decline in birth rates in Canada on the whole. How this follows, I simply cannot understand. She also asserts that the general decline in birth rate is due to a huge increase in the number of abortions, with 47% of the decline in births being attributable to abortions. Huh? How she is getting this stat is not at all clear to me. How in the world can you determine that 47% of the decline in births was due to abortion? But I had a look at some statistics directly from statistics Canada to see what I could find. First of all, the number of live births in Canada did take a dip in the 90's but has been steadily climbing again since 2001. So the decline in birth rates is nowhere near as dramatic as she claims. Secondly, the number of abortions has been steadily decreasing. Since a highpoint in 1997, with almost 112,000 abortions, it has dropped by a little over 12% with less than 97,000 abortions in 2005 (I personally wonder is this is due, in part, to the decreasing access to abortion services in Canada). So really, Barb, what are you on about? The stats show very clearly that although our birth rate has declined, it was actually on a slight increase throughout the period of this study. And it shows that fewer people are getting abortions (the teen rate for abortions reflects a similar trend and has been dropping steadily since 1996).

However, good old Barb states that "The bottom line is that fewer young people are having early sex, slightly more of those who have sex are using contraception, and a critical mass of those who are having sex, in spite of a tsunami of education, prefer not to use contraception, but have no problem with abortion as retroactive contraception. It seems to me on the evidence that western sex ed programs must be something like dietary information programs to combat obesity that present a list of healthy foods on one side of a blackboard, and a list of practices like anorexia and bulimia on the other side, making no moral distinction between them." Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Again, why focus on one, clearly biased editorial? Because it reflects the views of too many people in Canada who still cling to their ideas and opinions in spite of the overwhelming evidence that sex education in Canada is working and that our teenagers are making better choices about sex. The proof is in the comments on Barb's article. Here are just a few:

"First, SIECCAN has an agenda to push. If wonder [sic] what it is, check the report their sister-organization in the US (SIECUS) prepared for the UNESCO last year: It advocates "sexual education" at the earliest possible age including teaching kids aged 5-to-8 about masturbation, "gender stereotypes," and the rest of the closet pedophile agenda." - yes, those SIECCAN researchers are really just closet pedophiles out to lure children into their trap!

"In any study one has to look beyond the author's conclusions to find the real reasons for same. Today 90% of abortions are either a method of birth control or sex selection....Our first step as a nation is to defund abortion from the healthcare system for anything other than medical necessity including rape/incest. Let those on welfare or unable to afford it go through a course on responsible sexual relationships before any state funding is provided. Make it clear the funding is only provided once." - so really, this whole study just shows us that we need to stop funding abortions - how did this get to be an abortion debate? And only those on welfare should get not only abortions, but also sex education. Talk about an agenda!

It's people like this, who have not taken the time to understand the issues and clearly don't care to, who influence the actions our government takes regarding these matters.

So even though all evidence points to the fact that sex education is working, that not only teen pregnancies but also teen abortions are on the decline, our federal government still makes the outrageous decision to underhandedly completely obliterate funding for the Canadian Federation of Sexual Health (formerly Planned Parenthood) and to try to put legal abortion back up for discussion.

We need to take a giant step into the world of reality and start listening to the people who are actually in the know about these things, like Alexander McKay and SIECCAN. Because opinions and fact are not one and the same. You know what they say.......opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one.....

You'll really get a bang out of this toy!

2010-05-15T13:21:00.001-07:00

I just got a notice about this new toy. I'm not even joking - this is a real toy! This is from a line of toys 'inspired' by the porn movie 'Pirates'. In case you can't tell from the picture, that cute pink thing branching off of the toy is a cute pink elastomer GUN. Yeah, I really get off by masturbating while staring down the barrel of a gun. Who thinks of these things?

More on the shameful spectacle of the Ontario sex Ed program

2010-05-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

I am currently attending the Western Canadian Conference on Sexual Health where I got to hear directly from members of the Canadian Teacher's Federation who were involved with the development of the Ontario sex Ed curriculum. Imagine my surprise to hear from them that, before the program became public, it was reviewed AND APPROVED by the Ontario Catholic Bishops! Did we hear that in the media? No, certainly not. What we've heard is them loudly and publicly proclaiming that they do not support the implementation of the full program in Catholic Schools. Whether or not they actually approved of the full program including the grade three section regarding differences and homosexuality is unclear to me. But what is clear to me is that they seemed to do their best to make sure that there participation in and approval of the program was not public and that their objections to it, whatever they are, are not. All of the details and subtleties of this issue are being lost and all we are really hearing is that there is massive outrage about this program. In actual fact, this is not true. It was set for implementation in the Catholic school system with their blessing and the blessing of the bishops. What we are also not being told is that the program was developed in order to bring Ontario into line with other provinces and the recently developed Canadian guidelines on school-based sexual health programs. The international declaration on sexual and reproductive rights guarantees the right to accurate sexual health education and it specifically identifies the things that are taught in this new program. And guess what? Canada signed this declaration. Canadian children are promised access to this information by international declaration. The Catholic bishops clearly know that. It's time for them to tell the whole truth and publicly stand up for a program they supported in private.

Ontario Fails the Public School System

2010-05-01T09:16:00.001-07:00

Last week, I heard on the radio that the Ontario School System was introducing a new sexual health education curriculum. This new program, which covers grades one all the way to junior high, has been in the works for two years. It includes, among many other things, basic health education in grade one, mainly learning the proper names for all the body parts, including sex organs. In grade three, children will learn about the concept of sexual orientation and preference - understanding terms like 'straight' and 'homosexual'. The topic of puberty will be dealt with in grade four and five. In grade six and seven children are taught about different types of sexual activity and they learn what oral and anal sex are. I was thrilled to hear this. Studies have shown clearly that comprehensive sex education programs are more effective in reducing early pregnancies than abstinence-based programs. The radio story also noted the outpouring of objection from religious groups. I wasn't surprised by that, anytime you even say the word 'sex' in public, someone objects.

But sadly, the very next day, the news came that Ontario premiere Dalton McGuinty had caved in to public pressure and put the program on hold. He stated that there had not been enough public consultation on the issue and that more time was needed to consider those views. Does this make any sense at all? Why in the world is he allowing anyone, much less conservative religious groups to dictate what is taught in public schools?

Those who object to it make it sound like a bunch of gay teachers got together and decided they should tell grade 3 children about sodomy. This is not at all what this is. This program was developed by educators and experts in sexual health education over a two-year period. It is based on other programs in Canada and around the world that are considered best practices in sexual health education. What makes Dalton McGuinty, or anyone else for that matter, think that these lobby groups know better than actual researchers and educators? Why is this open to public consultation at all?

If the Ontario school board came up with a new curriculum for Math or Language Arts would we even know about it? No. We would simply trust that teachers and the school board know what they are doing when it comes to education. But when the topic is sex, suddenly that confidence in teachers goes out the window.

The pressure groups, including the Canada Christian College and the London Islamic School, are objecting, in part, to the fact that the curriculum was not initially made public, but rather quietly rolled out to public school employees in January. It was only recently made public. Conservative MP Christine Elliot says that the Ontario government 'got caught trying to sneak the curriculum through'. Really? Are they under any obligation to clear this curriculum with anyone? They didn't get caught doing anything. What happened was that this coalition of religious groups caught wind of it and threatened to pull their kids out of school. Then it became a media story.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College has accused McGuinty of listening to special interest groups with an agenda in allowing this curriculum to go through. Wait a minute? What are you Mr. McVety? Hmmmm.......you are the head of a conservative religious group that lobbies the government. Wouldn't that make you a..........special interest group? And you oppose comprehensive sexual health education and you strive to promote 'family' values. Wouldn't that mean that you have................an agenda? And yes, Dalton McGuinty listened to you. So yes, he did listen to special interest groups with an agenda. But only when he choose to put a hold on the program!

What makes me so angry about this is that I'm sure if you could do a poll of all Ontario parents, the vast majority of them would say that they support sex education for their kids and that they want the new program. But those are the ones that are not speaking up because they don't think they have to. Are they going to sit back and let these people determine how their kids are taught? Are they going to stand by and allow these groups to push their religious agenda on their kids in the public school system? It appears that they are because I haven't heard anything about protests from the other side.

I haven't seen the details of the curriculum but I bet you anything that children are sent home with a note about upcoming sex education portions of their health program and an option for parents to pull them out of the class. This was the way it was when I was in elementary school many years ago and I'm fairly certain they are still doing that. If you don't want your kids to hear that information, pull them out of that class. It's as simple as that. Don't tell other parents what their kids should and should not learn.

The fact of the matter is that kids learn about sex before they even hit the school system. They have already heard a lot about body parts and oral sex and who's gay and who's queer. This is not new to them, even in grade three. The point is to take the opportunity at school to give them accurate, more objective information so they can better understand what these things actually mean. And they can make choices based on all the information that's coming at them, not just what they get from the net or from their friends.

People say that it's not the business of the schools to teach sex ed. That parents should teach their children about it. But what do parents know about sex? Many of them don't know a damn thing and that's because they never learned it in school either. And a lot of parents are just too embarrassed, to unsure, or perhaps just too disinterested to teach their children about sex. Should the kids miss out on vital information because of that? If you want to keep sex education in your home, that's fine, do that. Keep your kids out of the classes and teach them at home. Or better yet, let them go to the class and then discuss it with them at home. But don't deprive other kids from learning information that could very well save their lives.

Shame on you McGuinty. I wish you had the balls to stand up to these groups. I only hope that in the end, you will give them only lip service (pun intended) and put the curriculum back in place.

Is It Addiction, Is It Self-Help, or Is It Just Schadenfreude?

2010-03-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

In searching my usual spots for new sexual health news, I came across this article from women's health . Yet again, another angle, another spin, another reason to write about Tiger Woods. I am sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods. I couldn't care less about Tiger Woods. For his family and friends, what's going on in his life is vitally important, but why should the rest of us, who have never met the man, even know about any of this?

And yet the media seem to be mesmerized and will use any excuse they possibly can to write about it. I hesitate to write even one word about Tiger Woods but this article really caught my eye as being particularly ridiculous. The article quotes Mary Canning, a marriage and family therapist as saying “Woods has created a dialogue among couples, giving them a definition for a serious problem that’s plagued relationships...Women are finally realizing, ‘I’m not the only one.’” Come on now? Are we really saying that it never occurred to women that other husbands cheat until this story broke? Couples never dealt with infidelity and never talked about it until Tiger Woods cheated on his wife? This is the saddest excuse I've seen for continuing to report on this story and continuing to invade Tiger's and his family's private lives. It's helping people? No one ever talked about this before and now they recognize that it's a problem? No, cheating has been going on for centuries, millenia, really, and people have been talking about it that whole time. We do not need to hear about Tiger Woods to know that we are not alone with our problems around trust and fidelity.

The funniest part of it is that, after trotting out this quote, the author of the article lists 4 other examples of wayward husbands who attracted huge media attention when their affairs became public. Wait a minute, I thought no one had a definition for this until Tiger ended up in the news.

The article purports to be about the concept of sex addiction and whether it is simply an excuse for cheating. What I would contend is that this article is simply an excuse to write about Tiger Woods, yet again. The fact of the matter is that the media loves a feeding frenzy and they want it to continue for as long as it possibly can. It sells magazines and TV ad spots and they like that. But they want to tell us that all of this perverse voyeurism is actually good for us. They try to make us believe that it's okay for us to pry into people's private lives because we are learning from it and people are being helped.

The sad and plain fact is that all of this is nothing other than making entertainment out of the mistakes and miseries of others. Is Tiger Woods the only person to ever cheat on his wife? Of course not. Have a million men done exactly what he did? Of course. So why are we supposed to be shocked and appalled by it? I'm not excusing his behavior. It's abhorrent, for sure. But it's not news. Not by a long shot.

Idealizing the Innocence of Girls

2010-03-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Before Telus decided to kill our SEX TV Channel, I caught an episode of 'Sex TV' entitled 'Girl Power'. I'm not a fan of Sex Tv at the best of times. It oversimplifies and over-sensationalizes. This episode was no different.

It started out with a backstage look at a Spice Girls tribute group (shows how old the episode was) as they got ready for a show, interspersed with scenes of the teenage girls in the audience waiting for the show to start. The voice over at the beginning explained how the image of female sexuality has been changing, with more and more representations of women who are both strong AND sexual, rather than there having to be a choice. It talked about the stronger presence of images of powerful sexual women. This got my attention and I kept watching. Perhaps, I thought, we'll see some discussion about a newer feminist paradigm around female sexuality.

Not so much.

It turns out this opening narrative had nothing to do with the show as those statements ended with a 'BUT......are young girls becoming too sexual too soon?' And so here we go again. The rest of the show talked about how girls are maturing much faster than they used to, and are bombarded with images of sexuality everywhere to go. Is this forcing them to grow up to fast and to have sex too early? According to this show, yes it is.

What really boils my potatoes about this old saw of an idea is that we are trying to pretend that girls are not sexual beings - at least until they become adults. It's just not true. Just before this show was a little montage of women confessing when their first sexual thought was. They all shared memories from their early or late teens. Come on already! My first sexual thought would have been somewhere around age 4 or 5. It's not that I wanted to have sex but I certainly thought about and was curious about things related to bodies and sex. We all are. Sexuality is not a separate little compartment in our lives that suddenly pops open at puberty. Girls are sexual from the time they are born. So if that's the case, why are we so terrified about them expressing that part of themselves?

It is only in much more recent times, around the turn of the century, that we have held these kinds of ideals around innocence and purity, and yet shows like this and people who share these views distort the historical facts by claiming that girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier and that they are being 'thrust' into the world of sexuality when they are so very young. In fact, this same show, after reporting 'alarming' statistics how the age of menarche has become progressively younger, suddenly switched gears and reported that in ancient Rome, girls were normally married between 12 and 14 years of age. How does this make any sense at all? Since the main reason for marriage at that time was creating families, those girls would most certainly have not been married had they not reached menarche and been capable of having children. So what is really going on here? Clearly, throughout history, it has been understand that women mature physically at a young age and that they are ready to take on adult responsibilities of sex and child-bearing. So why now, do we treat girls so gingerly and make such an effort to protect their innocence? Why is female sexuality so precious and yet at once so threatening.

Don't get me wrong here, I really don't think that girls should be getting married and having babies at 14. But the reason that I believe that is because we our society is not set up to prepare and then adequately support girls to do that at that age. Come to think of it, I don't think our society is set up to support women to make good sexual decisions and to bear children at any age. But that's another story.

The fact of the matter is that both girls and boys are sexual. They are not innocent. The innocence we work so hard to protect is an ideal created by adults who find it easier to pretend their children are ignorant than to deal with the realities of their lives. This idealization and refusal to deal with reality has some dire consequences. Why are the vast majority of teens afraid to talk to their parents about sex and contraception? I think a big part of it is that they are afraid they will destroy their parents image of them. Most parents think their children are perfect and in our society, a perfect child does not have sex, and doesn't even think about it. How can a child talk openly and get good information from a parent who idealizes their innocence? The result is children who hide their real lives from their parents and parents who have no clue what their children are really doing.

There was a very strident young woman on the show who had written a book that I've since forgotten the title of. She believes that sex is sacred and that girls in our society are tramps who have lost all respect for themselves. She shared a story that she heard (she could give no real information to support whether this story was even true or how often something like this might happen)about an 18-year old girl who had planned to go to a motel to have sex with her boyfriend. This plan came about because both of them lived with their parents and had no privacy. The girl needed a ride to the motel so she asked her Dad take her. On the way there, she discovered she had forgotten her birth control pills. The father drove her home to get them and then back to the motel. We were clearly meant to be horrified by this story. I thought it was an example of a nice father. This is an 18-year-old girl who can make a decision about whether she wants to have sex or not. She'd thought it out and planned for it because she was already on the pill. She told her parents what she was doing instead of sneaking around. And her father helped her out with her good choices. I think this is how we all ought to behave where our sexual choices are concerned. But in this looney woman's mind, the idea that parents would be that open and accepting with their children was abhorrent. It's ass backwards - rewarding ignorance and decrying honesty.

So for the end of the show, we cut back to the Spice Girls concert and watch 12 to 14 year old girls mouth the words to 'Stop Right There' as they dance around in their boas and satin shorts. Exactly what we are meant to feel about this, I don't really know.

Why Women Studies?

2010-01-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday on CBC's 'The Current', one of the topics was the number of 'Women's Studies' departments in Universities across Canada that have changed their names to 'Gender and Sexuality Studies' or something of the like. The guests, strangely enough, were columnists from the Toronto Star and National Post rather than directors of or professors in women's studies departments. Barbara Kay, columnist for the National Post, spouted off her view on why women's studies programs are unnecessary and, she seemed to say, actually dangerous and unethical. Having taking many women's studies classes, studied feminism and women's history, worked for many feminist organizations, and being a proud feminist myself, I found her viewpoint absolutely stunning. I kept shaking my head wondering where this woman actually lives. It certainly isn't our planet. But the sad fact is that her view is one shared by many women today. So many women today think that feminism is about hating men and trying to prove that women are better. They believe that feminism is no longer necessary as we've achieved the equality the feminists were fighting for. It would be great if this was true, but it's just not.

Although, as The Current always does, they had an opposite viewpoint, expressed by Catherine Porter of the Toronto Star, I was still frustrated that Barbara Kay was not challenged even more vigorously on some of her arguments. It's clear to me that she is a product of her society who is so immersed in it that she cannot even entertain the idea that perhaps things could be different.

She maintains that women's studies programs are merely a recruitment camp for feminists that teach biased information and that they are not places of serious study. This is ridiculous and unfair. The purpose of the women's studies programs is to bring into the universities viewpoints and information that are not taught in other courses. It is a fact that regular history courses all but ignore the contributions of women throughout history unless those women happen to have become world leaders. There is no discussion of the contribution of women in society, politics and economics. Almost all the information covered relates to the contribution of men. And if anyone would like to argue that with me, I welcome it because I majored in history and I can tell you what I learned. Women have contributed and truly changed the course of history in many ways but those things often happen in the sphere of the home and community, not on the grand stage of world politics. And because of that, they are ignored. Women's history courses seek to teach that. They don't alter history or teach a biased view, they simply provide a place to learn about vast chunks of our human history that are ignored. Of course, there are may other aspects to women's studies courses than history but this is what I know so that's what I can talk about more easily. The same can be said of economics (I took a course that looked at alternate views of what actually constitutes 'work' in our society - utterly amazing because we never get to hear these ideas), and philosophy, and sociology, and political science. Barbara Kay maintains that the courses she took in University were good 'objective' courses free from the bias that is found in women's studies, but that is utter bullshit. Every course has a bias, the only difference is that women's studies programs are usually clear about theirs.

She also talked about how feminism is not relevant to women today because we've already acheived equality of opportunity. Women, she says, can have any job they want and the only reason for the vast under-representation of women in our government, in the head office of our corporations, and among the partners of our law firms is that women self-select out of those positions because they don't want to put in the hard work and hours required. She doesn't even consider the idea that maybe the fact that those crazy hours that preclude having and raising children are required for those types of positions is actually the problem. When Catherine Porter raised the idea that perhaps those things needed to change, perhaps we needed to change the values of our system so that wanting and needing time to raise a family is not considered a career liability, she was accused of being an idealist. Why? Why is not permissible to posit an alternate way of doing thing? Why should we simply accept that the way it is is the way it must be? Women do not self-select out of these positions, the system selects them out because they cannot participate in the same way men can. And if they choose then, not to have children or not to spend any time with their children, they are forced into making a choice and a sacrifice that men simply do not have to make. And yes, men have children too but the vast majority of child-rearing is currently done by women. It just is not the same.

She also said that feminism is no longer promoting equality but rather women's interests and that men are suffering because of that. That almost made me puke. I am so sick of hearing this. She accused feminists of setting up and 'us' and 'them' mentality and then went and used the same argument herself. Boys are suffering in schools because there's so much emphasis on education for girls. Bullshit! Why does the advancement of women have to hurt men? And if men actually are falling behind, they need to do exactly what women did, and fight for their rights WITHOUT taking away rights from women.

She mentioned that feminists are so concerned about violence against women but they don't care about violence against men. Says who? Pretty much all of the feminists I know who are concerned about violence against women (and I know a lot of them) are against violence in general and are peace activists on many levels. She questioned why there are no men's shelters. I'll tell you why there are no men's shelters. It's because we don't need them. Yes, I'm fully aware that there are some men out there who are abused by their partners who have nowhere to go but it's a small number. Most of the men who experience abuse in their homes will either not be forced to leave their home or if they are, they will have the resourced to pay for a place to stay because they have more economic power in their relationships (ie. they are usually working and not staying at home with their kids). The fact of the matter is, domestic violence happens much more to women because of the inequality of women in our society. Men who experience it usually have more options. and if they don't, they should be working together and making the shelters happen, just like the women did! Don't whine that you don't have a shelter and the women get all the shelters, make it happen! Women didn't just get shelters, they worked hard for them and they continue to fight hard for their funding to keep them.

Women everywhere, and particularly young women need to understand that feminism is not a question of 'us versus them'. It's a question of valuing, protecting, and nurturing women's contributions to our society and to our world. We have come so far in Canada to making that happen but we're not done yet. And their are women all over the world who are just beginning and deserve our support. Feminism is not a relic, it's alive and vital. And women's studies programs are not recruitment camps for feminism, but they are an important part of the effort to value, protect, and nurture women's contributions. Because if we don't know what those are, how can we ever nurture them and how can we move forward?

Birth Control for Breakfast

2010-01-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

I have taken to watching Rachael Ray in the mornings while I have my breakfast. The only reason for this is because I have a bit of an addiction to TV and she seems to be the only watchable thing on. I like her. She's fun and harmless and sometimes really funny.

This morning, the first thing on the show was a bit on how to choose the right birth control. And, surprise! It wasn't all that bad! The first thing the guest doctor said was that women need to realize that the only contraception option that protects against STI's is condoms. So, for a lot of women, condoms are an important choice - even if they are also using another method. Yeah! She also said that she and her husband of 14 years use condoms as their primary method. Yeah! Score one for the lovely and much maligned condom - saver of lives and preventer of unwanted little ones!

The whole thing was actually very good - she covered several different methods including two which are not hormonal: diaphragms and condoms. It's nice to hear someone talk about methods that don't screw with your body chemistry. They are very effective, inexpensive, and virtually free of side effects, and yet, we hardly ever hear about them when contraception is discussed in the media. Pills always seem to be the answer - and if not pills, some other method of getting hormones into your body.

The one thing I would have liked to see was more discussion about side effects. The doctor very briefly touched on the fact that hormonal contraceptives have side effects - with a fleeting mention of low libido. Women really need to know that these drugs (yes, virginia, they are drugs) have a lot of side effects that are very common and some of them are very serious. It's extremely important to talk to your doctor about whether you smoke, what other drugs you take, and if you have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, or migraines before you decide to take the pill or use the ring or patch. They never tell us that hormonal contraceptives can make you batshit crazy, or that they can kill your sex drive, or all of the other even more serious things that can happen. It's up to us to ask those questions and to run back to our doctors and demand answers if those things happen.

But, in the meantime, score one for Rachael Ray for a passable piece on sexual health. I thought it was kind of funny that after the birth control segment, she was going to show her audience how to make stuffed hot dogs. Too bad I missed that.

Sometimes Desire doesn't come before Arousal

2010-01-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

I love Dan Savage. I adore him. So when I got my iPhone and discovered I could download his podcasts, I was over the moon. I spent an entire drive to and from Calgary listening to SavageLove podcasts. Awesome! He had one question that I wanted to call in and respond to though. A woman was calling because she was taking meds for a serious problem with depression and found that it had destroyed her sex drive. This is a pretty common problem for people who takes SSRI's like Paxil and other drugs in that family. I've lived through this myself and suffered a severe lack of sex drive due to other circumstances too.

Dan and the doctor who was his guest were very sympathetic to her and gave her great advice about dealing with the drugs. But they didn't deal with the sex drive issue. No one ever does. They just look at whether you can reduce or change the drugs and hope for some relief. But often, that doesn't change anything. And for many people, getting off the drugs completely is not an option. So what do you do?

Here's something that I have discovered that perhaps many people know but no one ever talks about. Desire doesn't always precede arousal. We are taught that the way people have sex is that they feel desire (ie. something turns them on), then excitement and sensation starts (ie. they start getting down to it), and then the excitement builds and they have an orgasm. Even those who criticized Master's and Johnson's sexual response model still concluded that sex usually start with desire. But actually, it doesn't have to.

Sometimes sex starts with willingness instead of desire. Sometimes it starts with just wanting to give a partner something or just wanting to want to have sex. Then, when you get going and get hands and lips, fingers and tongues involved, the desire kicks in. Our bodies are wonderful and they will usually respond no matter where our head is at. So if you want to do it, let your body take the lead. Quite often, it will get you there.

We're so conditioned through everything we see and hear to think that great sex starts with being so turned on you just have to have it. You know, those movie scenes of people ripping each others clothes off in elevators? Well, it would be nice if we could all have elevator clothes-ripping sex - but for a lot of us, it's not like that. And if you're not feeling like ripping your partner's clothes off, it doesn't mean you're not going to enjoy sex. It starts will being interested and willing and then allowing yourself to get into it once it's started. It's like the jump-rope games you used to play as a kid. You may not be the one that starts turning to the rope, but once it gets going, you can jump in and really enjoy the game!

Women are not supposed to do this. Goddess-bless all the wonderful feminists that fought for us to have the right to say no to sex when we didn't want it.....but I think it's gone too far the other way. Now we think that if we are not 100% into it, if the desire isn't totally there, we shouldn't say yes - or that if we do it's bad or inferior sex. It really doesn't have to be. You can say yes for all kinds of reasons, not just because you're so turned on you can't help yourself. And if the willingness is there, it could end up being great sex. If you are suffering from a total lack of sex drive, this may be exactly what you need to do in order to have any satisfying sex at all. It sucks that you never feel horny anymore. But you don't have to be horny to have a good time. It just takes a change in the mindset.

New Year's Resolutions for the New Decade

2009-12-30T12:17:00.000-08:00

Everybody makes New Year's resolutions - I've certainly made a few this year. But have you ever made a resolution about sex? Sex is something that we often think of as only a small part of our life - sort of an add-on. We think about what it wants when it comes to our careers, our finances, our relationships, our families, our health, even our weight and our wardrobe - but do we ever focus specifically on what we want for our sex lives? Maybe it's time we did! Here are my New Year's sex resolutions for women:

- we resolve to spend more time thinking about what we really want and need when it comes to sex, than about what others need from us
- we resolve to allow ourselves to be sexual people and to reflect that in all aspects of our lives
- we resolve to stop trying to look and act the way we think we should and start acting and looking the way we want to
- we resolve to love all aspects of our unique sexuality, even the ones that we might wish we could change
- we resolve to ask for what we want and to say no to things we don't want
- we resolve to be proud of and open about our sexuality in front of young women in order to teach them that female sexuality is not a shameful thing
- we resolve to teach our daughters that sex for pleasure is a good thing!
- we resolve to tell our daughters the truth about sex, STI's and contraception and not attempt to scare them into not having sex
- we resolve to stop feeling guilty about enjoying masturbation
- we resolve to love and respect every woman's sexual expression, even if it's very different from our own
- we resolve to allow ourselves to search for and to have good, satisfying sex, whatever that might mean for us

I hope these resolutions resonate for men as well - as they too are often victims of the destructive and confusing values our society holds around sex.

Here's to a happy, healthy, sexy New Year for all of us!

Sex toys on Oprah, What's Next?

2009-12-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, I missed the Oprah show a few weeks ago where she featured different types of toys and talked about porn. Bummer. I did however, get a chance to read the summary of the show on her site. Hooray! She finally recommended some good toys - not just the typical Laura Bermann crap. She has the We Vibe, Layaspot, and the Fukuoku all pictured and mentioned. Great toys! I don't know if there was anything else discussed, but those are excellent starters. Perhaps she had someone who actually knows about toys producing and advising on this episode. The excerpts from the women who own the G Boutique in Chicago sounded like they certainly knew their stuff. It's a new era in attitudes about sexuality when good quality toys and what they can actually do to benefit your sex life and life as a whole are discussed on the most popular talk show in North America.

There was also a segment on about porn and how the porn industry has changed to include a growing women's market. So nice to see that she interviewed Violet Blue and acknowledged that yes Oprah, some women do like porn, and that's okay! She also interviewed Jenna Jamieson, one of the biggest porn stars in the world. Thankfully, it seems that the interview was about how she created her business and made her choices in the industry rather than simply berating her for being a sexual object (unlike some shows I've seen). Although I don't necessarily love some of the images Jenna puts in her movies, and I'm not a fan of the type of mainstream porn she makes, I do defend her right to do it and applaud her for taking control of her own career and her own life. I think we need to respect the choice of women to be involved in the sex industry, or to not, and to watch porn and erotica, or to not.

Of course, some viewers out there don't agree. In reading the comments about the show, I saw two distinct sides that were almost equal in comments. One that praised the show for being honest about women's sexual desires and one that decried Oprah for saying that porn could be beneficial. Many posters claimed that porn had ruined their marriages and should be identified as the evil that it is. With all respect to women who've been hurt by partners that cheated on them, porn did not and never does destroy marriages. It's the person who's using the porn and how they use it that destroys the marriage. Getting rid of the porn will not solve the problem - it's merely the symptom of a relationship and perhaps a personal problem that runs much deeper.

I'm excited to see sex toys and pornography discussed on mainstream TV in an open way and acknowledges all of the good things that are out there in the sex industry. I think big TV shows like this that are seen by so many can encourage women who are curious but hesitant to realize that exploring your sexuality is normal and healthy.

Are TV Doctors Getting Better?

2009-11-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

I was home last week, writhing in pain from a back injury, so I figured watching TV was the best way to kill 10 hours of lying motionless on the floor. I saw the Dr. Oz's show was on and he was talking about women and sex so of course, I flipped to that channel. I'm not a huge fan of Dr. Oz. I'm generally not a huge fan of anyone that's made their fame on Oprah. I find him to be arrogant, with his sparkling clean scrubs that he wears to prove to us that yes, in fact, he is a doctor, and his obvious belief that he is an expert on every area of medicine, including sexual health. The basis of this segment was that new statistics have come out showing that teenagers are having more sex and having sex earlier. They didn't bother to explain what these statistics are and where they came from - they never do. It seems that one of these alarmist studies comes out every year. I was sure I was in for another show about how 'these girls just need to learn to have more respect for themselves' and 'parents have to be aware of what their kids are doing!'. But I was pleasantly surprised. Dr. Oz had Dr. Laura Bermann on the show. I've taken a lot of shots at Bermann, but if given enough time to really communicate, she actually has a great attitude about sex. So instead of just crazy alarmist talk, the show was about how to really educate your kids about sex. Imagine that! They talked about explaining the risks of STI's in a real, non-sensationalized view, and prevention strategies that include more than just abstinence. The part that I loved the best was when Bermann suggested that parents take their pre-adolescent girls to get the HPV vaccine. Dr. Oz interjected and said he wouldn't do that. I thought he was going to say that he wouldn't do it because it has too many side-effects or because it would send his daughter the message that having sex is okay. But no. He said that he wouldn't simply take his daughter to have the vaccine because he would want to talk to her, explain what it was about, and have her make the decision as to whether she wanted to have it or not. I almost fell off my chair (well, if I had been able to sit in a chair at the time, I would have fallen off of it). We rarely get to hear famous TV personalities talk about allowing teens and pre-teens to make their own decisions around sexuality. It was beautiful. So props to Dr. Oz. for that. It's a small thing. But at least it's something.

I also watched a bit of 'The Doctors'. I hate this show. I just flat out hate it. Have a look at my previous post on this show for more on that. But again, the show descriptor said they were talking about women and sexual satisfaction so I had to check it out. The little 'news' bit that they were talking about was the study that claimed to show that women with a smaller distance between their clitoris and vaginal opening experience more orgasms during sex (they never elaborated on the word 'sex' but obviously they meant 'penis in vagina' sex). No props to the producers for research because this study actually came out in early 2008. We're not exactly talking cutting-edge news here. But there was one little ray of light in this whole discussion. The female doctor, (yes, in a cast of five, there is only one woman) Dr. Lisa Masterson, took over on this discussion and said that the point is not really to figure out if you have the right or wrong body, but how to work with the body you have and make sex happy for you. Wow! What an idea! She used the word 'sex-positive' about 20 times. I'm not completely sure she knows what it means but it was nice to hear that word on television. It seemed that what she meant to say by using that word was that the emphasis does not need to be on a particular act or a particular goal but on enjoying sex in and of itself - and enjoying any particular type of sex you have rather than trying to make yourself enjoy the type that everyone says is the right type. Indeed, that's a big part of being sex-positive. What a change to hear that as the bottom line, on a show full of medical doctors. Then they switched to a segment on surgeries to make your butt look smaller. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Does organic really mean anything?

2009-10-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

It seems these days that the way to sell a product is to slap the word 'green', 'natural' or 'organic' on it. I'm seeing these kinds of products popping up all over the place - new lubricants, lotions and potions, and even toys with those words on them. Does it really mean anything? Here are some fun examples of 'natural' or 'organic' products I've come across lately.

There is a health food store in the city that sells the line of vibrators called 'Natural Contours'. Those vibes are pretty good toys - they are made by Candida Royalle's company. The term 'natural' refers only to the fact that the designed to work with the curves of the body. In terms of ingredients, there's nothing natural about them. They are simple plastic vibes like any other toy. But 'Natural' on the label earns them a spot on the health food shelf.

There's another company that's relatively new that has been doing a huge marketing push on their 100% organic products. I got some samples sent to me the other day and had a good look at the ingredients. Their bath gel contains sodium laureth sulphate and artifical dyes. I'd like to know how they find organic sources for those. Plus they also sell g-spot enlarging creams and anal desensitizing sprays. What's natural about that?

I've also seen a number of companies starting to put '100% vegan' on their labels. That's all fine and good but when it's a product that wouldn't naturally contain any kind of animal product anyway, why do you need that on the label. Methinks it is to sell more products.

The thing is, natural isn't always better anyway. There are a lot of natural things that can kill you. There are also many products that sound like they are synthetic but are actually produced from natural sources. So it's important just to be aware of what really should be in something that you plan to put inside your body, and what should not. In general, as far as lubricants and lotions go, the fewer ingredients, the better. There's just no reason to dump a lot of stuff into a lube or lotion so why do it?

In the meantime, I think I'm going to start promoting that The Traveling Tickle Trunk is 'green'. As those of you who've been in the store know, it really is (painted green, that is).

Should You Take Your Daughter to A Lingerie Show?

2009-09-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

Apparently, David Hasselhof is in the entertainment news because he took his 17 year-old daughter to a lingerie show at a sex shop. Why do we care about this? Is this really such a horrible thing? It's a fancy West Hollywood sex shop and it sounds like it was a fancy, celebrity-filled fashion show. Do we really think that this 17-year-old young woman has never seen lingerie or vibrators? She's almost old enough to go in on her own, so what's the big deal. Who knows why this happened, maybe she wanted to go and asked him to take her so she could get in. Now if she was 12 or if he was helping her try on lingerie, I'd probably feel differently. But really, is this something to be concerned about with all the other problems in this world. Go ahead, take your daughter to a sex shop, it's so much better than a lot of other things she could be doing without your knowledge.

Why Self-Help Doesn't Always Help

2009-09-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

I've just read a little article by Marty Klein that describes exactly what I've thought about the whole sex advice industry. He explore why all of this advice can actually hurt. I couldn't say it any better than him so I've included a link to his newsletter.

Disrobing a Biased Documentary

2009-09-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

It must have been porn night on SuperChannel. They had three sex-related 'documentaries' on in a row. One was the extremely entertaining and somewhat enlightening 'Inside Deep Throat', which I have already seen. Another was a really very good British doc called 'Transvestite Wives'. The third was called 'Adult Entertainment: Disrobing an American Idol'. I have to admit upfront that I missed the first half an hour of it, so I probably am not getting the full effect. What I did see was upsetting to me. The purported purpose of this film was to show the effects of pornography on its consumers and their families. Its actually purpose was to attempt to prove that pornography has negative effects on its consumers and their families.

So let me just say right up front that I'm not really an advocate of porn. There is a lot of stuff, (and I mean a lot, I have access to numerous extremely large video catalogues) produced within the porn industry that I think is degrading to women and that sends a negative message about women and relationships between men and women. I know this and I do not like it. However, there is a lot produced within the bounds of the porn industry that I don't think is degrading or negative. And this is my first criticism of this film, it lumps all pornography together. There is no distinction between types of films, their content, their producers, and the circumstances under which they are produced. Heck, there are entire production companies now that are owned by women where all of the actors in the movies choose exactly what they want to do and who they want to do it with. There are a lot of movies that simply film people having sex they would probably be having if there were no camera. Pornography is a blanket term and it really behooves the maker of this movie to explain exactly what type of material he's talking about.

The film goes even further and includes strip clubs, prostitution, toy stores, and fantasy and SM clubs in its 'study'. Attempting to examine all of these things together is preposterous because they are totally different things with different purposes and different modes of use. As a toy seller, it disturbs me to see my industry and profession equated to prostitution.

So this 'documentary' attempts to show the effects of porn consumption by taking three subjects - a single man, a married man, and his wife - who profess to not use porn at all, and ask them to watch porn or visit a strip club or other venue for at least an hour a day for 30 days (the wife did not do this, only her husband, but she was also studied). They were given several surveys throughout this period to see how their beliefs and relationships might have changed. More on that later.

The part that I found so disturbing about this film is how the 'experts' were used. Nina Hartley and Dr. Sharon Mitchell were two of the experts. Some of their 'expert' opinions were excerpted directly from one of their videos about being in the porn industry. This made me wonder if all of their soundbites were taken from other media and not procured from actual interviews with them. The clips made them sound as if they were discouraging everyone from being involved in porn and talking only about the negative. These are two extremely sex positive women who have both been in the industry. Nina Hartley is still in the industry as a producer. The clips were simply their discussions of some of the hazards of the industry. They are not anti-porn - far from it!

Another distressing moment was when Marty Klein was 'interviewed'. Marty Klein is a certified sex therapist and a well-known and respected educator, writer and civil liberties activist. The clip of him was 15 second long and showed him saying that watching porn together may, in come cases, be helpful for a couple's sexual relationship. The director cut out the rest of the interview and said simply that Klein has no research to back up this claim. However, the director has no research to back up his claim that it is detrimental.

The 'expert' who got the most airtime was 'Dr.' Judith Reisman. Reisman is, to use an objective and technical term, a crackpot. She has, for many years, waged a one-woman war on Alfred Kinsey and his research. She has accused him, without any evidence whatsoever, of being a child molester and has called for his posthumous conviction on child abuse charges. She has been key in stirring up the controversy about his research findings with the clear goal of disproving his claims that roughly 10% of the American population is gay and that many of us have some element of homosexuality or bisexuality within us. Reisman is a homophobe and a right-wing conservative. If you don't believe me, consider this fact - Reisman was one of the key advisors to the George W. Bush administration on matters to do with sex education.

At the end of the 'study' that was documented in this movie, many results from the subjects' questionnaires were shown as proof that the porn consumption had a negative effect. Here is an example: after the study, the married man was 13% less attracted to his wife. There are so many things wrong with this that it's difficult to detail them all. Firstly, they used a 10-point likert scale. What that means is that he may have answered a 9 the first time and a 7.7 the next time. That would be 13% less. Does that really mean he's less attracted to her because of porn, or just that, on that day, she was wearing jeans that make her ass look fat? Secondly, perhaps a part of the reason he felt less attracted to her was because his wife did not like him watching porn, was very uncomfortable with the study, and became more unhappy and uncomfortable with it as it went on because it violates her personal belief system. There was a ton of stress put on that relationship by making him do something they were both uncomfortable with - he did it, she got suspicious and resentful, he hated that she was unhappy and resentful but still felt he should keep doing the study, he liked what he saw and felt bad about it etc. etc. That probably accounts for the change in the relationship rather than the porn itself. Had I been involved in this study, since my values are different, I'm sure the results would have been quite different. Thirdly, once again, the study makes no attempt to detail exactly what it was that he watched so it simply says that all porn and sex-related industries are bad for marriages. We have no idea what he was watching - was it romantic 80's porn films or was it triple X snuff movies? There's a big difference.

If this guy is as off-his-rocker as I think he is, why am I getting my panties in a knot over this? Here's why. This kind of misrepresentation of the sex industry causes two major problems. First, there are so many of us out there who have natural inclinations to explore sexually but are scared because of all of the things we've been programmed to believe as children. This kind of portrayal of how damaging feeding those natural urges can be just makes people scared of their own sexual feelings. That leads to more repression and more broken relationships, not less. Second, there are lots of people out there who have never taken even one baby step into the various sex-related industries and don't know a thing about it but, because of their 'morals' want to deny everyone else the freedom to explore these things. They will use any little bit of 'evidence' they can find to back up their convictions. And unfortunately for us, many of those people have the power to curtail our freedom. 'Documentaries' like this give them fuel for their political fires.

I did some net research on the director of this film, Lance Tracey. He has publicly admitted to being addicted to internet porn and has been on several TV shows talking about his experience. He is also Christian and produces Christian movies. I don't have a problem with either of those two things but I do have a problem that he neglects to apprise viewers of the film of these potential biases. Clearly, Tracey feels that his life and relationships have been damaged by porn. That's his experience and I wouldn't ever say that he's wrong about that. But perhaps he should let others decide for themselves if it is damaging to them instead of trying to make that decision for them.

It's all very simple, isn't it?

2009-08-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

So after my little post about "Sex Advice in 20 Words or Less" I went and checked out Dr. Sari Locker to see how she's able to offer these 20 fabulous words of wisdom. Turns out, she's really good at giving short and sweet sex advice. Her website is littered with it. She has an impressive bio - she has a Ph. D. in psychology and a Masters in Human Sexuality Education. So the woman is clearly well-educated. Better educated than I am, it's true. It seems that her advice overall is okay. But it's so short! Perhaps this is a flaw of mine, not hers. When I answer questions from people, my answers are usually very long and include all kinds of options and possibilities - as I recognize that sexuality is so very individual. I think it makes me thorough but perhaps it just makes me long-winded.

However, after perusing her advice columns and reading a lot of responses to a lot of questions, it seems to me that short and sweet is not necessarily good. What is left out of her answers may actually be important than what is there.

Here are two examples that really had me wondering.

"Q.If I use a vibrator all the time, will it make sex less enjoyable for me?

Dr. Locker. Yes and no. If a woman relies on a vibrator in order to orgasm every time, then she may not be able to orgasm any other way… (ellipses hers, not mine)because her body gets so used to the electric stimulation. Will this make sex less enjoyable for you? Well, no, if you and your partner don’t mind that you’ll have to use the vibrator every time you want to orgasm when you are intimate. But if you want to be able to orgasm while you with your partner, without having to use a vibrator, then you would most likely need to entirely stop using the vibrator in order to get over it, and re-sensitive your body to your hand (or his hand, or rubbing on his body, or oral sex) in order to orgasm. By the way: There are some toys that the man can wear (like a “vibrating ring”) and that also provide stimulation for the woman, so you can use a vibrator with your partner in a more discreet way."

Essentially, what she's saying is true, but there's so much more to it than this. Firstly, there's a hidden bias behind her answer that I don't think is fair. The use of the 'rely' and later 'having to use a vibrator' makes it sound like using a toy is a secondary, less desirable form of sex play. It's a major bias that a lot of people have and it's just not really true. If you like the vibrator, why in the hell can't you use it without feeling like you're 'relying on it'? It's not so much that you have to use it but that you want to. Secondly, Dr. Locker doesn't try to clarify the meaning of 'use a vibrator all the time'. Does this mean that she uses it some of the time, most of the time, or every time she has sex? Does this apply only to solo play or does it apply to partner play too? Does she even have a vibrator or is she just wondering whether she should get one because she's worried it will have a negative impact on her sex life? If she doesn't have one yet, she should most certainly go for it and see if she likes the sensation and how she can incorporate it into her sex life. (there is also an assumption that this is a woman, which is not expressly stated in the question and an assumption that her partner is a man, which is also not stated in the question but I will go along with that assumption just to make this easier) If she is using the vibartor only during solo play, she'll probably find, as many women do, that sex with someone else is so vastly different than sex with one's self that it's good with or without the vibe. Women are such lovely and amazing creatures that we can respond to all kinds of different types of stimulation and can, indeed, orgasm through many of them. 'Habituation' (a word I stole from Carol Queen) to the feel of a vibrator can happen but it usually only happens when the person masturbates a lot in exactly the same way with the same toy. It just means that the body and brain have gotten so used to that type of stimulation that they both have a hard time connecting other types of stimulation to the path that leads to orgasm. This happens to men who masturbate a lot in exactly the same way, but you rarely hear anybody tell a man that he's addicted to his hand. The solution, if that actually happens, is to switch up your play - that could mean using a vibe sometimes and not others, it could mean using different types of toys in different ways, it could mean using the same vibe in a different position with different speeds or settings. It's not that you will get conditioned to vibration in general and not be able to do without it.

And lastly, for some women strong sensation on the clitoris is necessary for an orgasm and fingers, tongues and other body parts might just not be able to provide that strong sensation. So if that's what she really needs, what's wrong with using something that makes that happen? It's not a lesser form of sex, it's a superior form because it feels better and leads to better orgasms. Sometimes what's necessary is not 'learning not to rely on the vibe' but rather learning not to believe a nonsensical bias that playing with toys is an unnatural or lesser form of sex.

Here's one more that got me a little riled:
"Q My penis is small. Please tell me what sex positions can make my girlfriend feel tighter during sex.

Dr. Locker: If you feel like you’ve pulled your Miata into the center of a three-car garage, there are things you can do to make those walls close in around you. First, a drier vagina feels tighter. Many post-menopausal women naturally lubricate less, but if your girlfriend is younger and lubricates well, then there are other things you can do. You can enter her before she is fully lubricated (if she's okay with this idea). Or use a non-lubricated condom to increase dryness and tightness. Also, there are certain times of the month when a woman is naturally lubricating less, so have your woman take note of these and alert you." She goes on to talk about positions that help in this situation.

What she does not tell this man here is that penetration without lubrication is, at best, uncomfortable and at worst, painful and dangerous, for a woman. Not only does the friction hurt but as a woman gets aroused, her vagina widens and lengthens, making it easier for her to accept the penetration. Without that, it can hurt quite a bit. The absence of that widening and lengthening might be more pleasurable for him but it won't be for her. Lack of lubrication during sex can also cause abrasion which can lead to an uncomfortable itchy feeling and can actually provide opportunities for bacteria and viruses to get into the body. So really, her suggestion here is not particularly great for the woman. Her advice on positions is probably a much better option. He could also try things that make his penis feel a bit larger and more sensitive like a constriction ring. She could work on her kegel exercises which may give her more muscular control to be able to actively tighten around him more. There are a lot of better options than the first thing she went to here. It's something a person could definitely do, but again, the short and sweet does not outline the problems with going with this solution.

So I'm not able to give sex advice in 20 words or less except when the questions is "I've never had a vibrator should I get one". The answer is yes!

The Ugly Truth

2009-07-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

My partner and I went to see the movie 'The Ugly Truth' the other night. I see a ton of movies and I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to big studio romantic comedies. I thought this one was pretty good, if a little predictable. But there was something in it that I just have to take a moment to bitch about. For those of you who haven't seen this movie and want to, you'll probably want to stop reading now. I'm about to spoil a scene a bit.

In the Ugly Truth, there is a scene where Abby (Katherine Heigl) is gifted with some vibrating panties. It's made very clear that this is the Dr. Laura Berman Astrea Remote Control Panty. There is a close up of the box and the name and Katherine Heigl even says the name. So fine, Dr. Laura Berman managed to get herself another high-profile product placement. But here's my beef, if you're going to go out of your way to put that toy in a movie so everyone knows what it is, you should at least use the actual toy in the movie and not misrepresent what it is.

We know what the joke is going to be practically before she even opens the gift. Somehow she's going to end up wearing the panties in an inappropriate situation and someone is going to get a hold of the remote. Of course the remote does get away from her into the hands of a young boy who's busily trying to figure out what it is. He's interested in it because it's big and has all kinds of lights on it with names like 'ecstasy' written next to them. I've never ever seen a toy that has that kind of remote so I checked it out, and sure enough, the Astrea remote looks nothing like that. It's small and black and looks like a garage door opener and it has ONE SPEED!

The Astrea was obviously chosen because they are actually very pretty lacy panties - we could totally see Katherine Heigl wearing these (and some of us would like to). But to make the joke work, it needs to have the different settings on it and 'ecstasy' written across it. Yes, I understand that it's just a silly joke but what cheeses me is that the name of the toy is so obvious because clearly Laura Berman and California Exotics want people to rush to buy the toy that was in 'The Ugly Truth.' She even has it written all over her website that the toy was in 'The Ugly Truth'. But when people buy the toy and get it home, they'll realize that it's just a big plastic bullet with a boring one-speed remote. What also bugs me is that people will come to me, because I sell toys, looking for that 'Ugly Truth' toy and I have to explain that we don't have it because it's nothing like the one in the movie and it's just not really worth the price of it. But why would anyone believe me when I say that, when they say the toy right there on the screen?

There is a Berman toy that does all of those speeds and functions but it doesn't come with the fancy panties that are necessary for the joke. And the batteries only lasts for 15 minutes - which also doesn't work for the joke. But I'm sure they could change that too.

Why not just use a fake toy? Years ago, the movie 'Not Another Teen Movie' that used a fake toy because they needed a huge toy that rotated and pulsated and squirmed and basically looked like Barney on crack. But then again........ people still ask me where they can get that toy.

Sex Advice in 20 Words or Less

2009-06-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

This was the title of an article in Cosmo last week. This is where the sex advice 'sound bite' culture has finally led us - you can get everything you need to know in 20 words or less! The article was a bunch of questions followed by a quick (20 word or less) answer. Q. What's the best form of foreplay? A. 90 seconds of oral followed by a quickie. Q. Does condom size matter? A. Most condoms fit most men. If the width feels tight, try one with an “easy-on” shape, wider base and head. Q. How do I handle an uncircumcised penis—literally? A. When erect, you may not notice much difference, because the foreskin retracts automatically. When limp, enjoy playing with the foreskin!

These answers are written by Dr. Sari Locker, sexologist. Her answers are actually just fine. The problem is in thinking it's a good idea to provide sex advice in 20 words or less at all. It contributes to the idea that sex is the same for everyone which then makes those of us (those multitudes of us) who don't fit the mold, feel like we're broken. How I wish we could just stop it with these pithy little sex advice columns and just print things that are more in-depth and varied. But of course, you can't read a 2-page sex advice answer while you stand in line at the grocery store!

Tired and Haggard

2009-06-30T12:25:00.001-07:00

First, I must apologize for my long absence from this blog. The Tickle Trunk store has kept me a long way away from the sex advice of others for quite some time. But I vow to do my best to keep watching for those sex things of interest. I've found a few of them this past week, and although only one of these posts really has to do with sex advice, they all have to do with sex and they piqued my interest.

I haven't watched Oprah in forever but I watched it in it's entirety yesterday because Ted Haggard was on it. I just had to find out what this man could possibly have to say for himself. For the few people out there in the universe who don't know who Haggard is, he was the founder and pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado and one of the most powerful Evangelical leaders in the US. Haggard and the New Life Church were very public about their position that homosexuality is a sin and dedicated opponents of same sex marriage. In 2006, Haggard was exposed as having an ongoing secret relationship with a male prostitute, among other things. He made an agreement with New Life to leave his leadership position and Colorado.

Haggard was a key figure in the right-wing religious opposition to homosexuality. He was very vocal in his opinion that homosexuality was deviant and not of God. And yet, clearly, Haggard was attracted to men himself. I wondered what he would have to say about this obvious conflict and if he now, after being exposed as having had sex with men, would change his position on the matter and apologize to the millions of gay Americans who were shamed and deeply hurt by him and his Church's teachings.

Not so much.

During the first part of the show, I thought he was being quite open about his history and the fact that he had lied and deceived people and was deeply conflicted. But after the dust settled on how sorry he was for covering up his behavior, it appeared that this is, in fact, all he is sorry for. He stated several times that he is not gay and that although he still has thoughts about men, he doesn't act on them. This gave him and his wife the platform from which to express that worn-out idea that homosexuality is not wrong, it's only the expression of it that's wrong. That argument has been used by homophobes for decades to try to make themselves appear loving and accepting while allowing them to continue to exclude and judge people. The message is - "I don't care if you're gay, just make sure I don't see any evidence of it". Which, I guess, explains why Haggard thinks his only sin was in lying about his homosexual affair - although one wonders if the sin was in lying about it or in getting caught. After all, it was only getting caught that brought shame on his family and his church.

So after all of this, Haggard continues to hold to his beliefs that homosexuality is deviant and can be controlled by simply not acting on one's feelings. I wonder how conflicted he really is still - not being able to fully acknowledge who he is. I don't know if Ted Haggard is gay or bisexual or just happens to like having sex with men on occasion, but I do know that he's clearly not being honest with himself or anyone else. He explained the extensive therapy that he's been through but it was clear that this therapy was with other evangelical leaders and counselors who have the same view of homosexuality - how likely is it that they will truly help him come to grips with the fact that he might actually be gay, rather than work on helping him rationalize his behavior?

The worst part of the whole thing is that the real apology that needed to made, the apology to the millions of gay people who are stigmatized, traumatized, judged, abused, and discriminated against every day, was never made. He was clearly in it for himself. It was obvious that we were meant to feel sorry for him and I for one, do not.

Let's clear up the silicone lube question once and for all!

2009-05-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

I love lube! I absolutely love lube! Some people love golf, or model trains, or cars, with me, it's lube. I know it's weird but it's my thing. I find lubricants fascinating and I spend a ridiculous amount of time reading about them, buying them, trying them out, and studying them. Lubes are fun and they are all very different. With everything I know about lube, I find there's still more to know. And because I am so passionate about personal lubricants, it pisses me off when people dis a lube that I love.

The 'other' sex toys shops in my city seem to love to tell people that Silicone-based lubricants and not condom-safe and should not be used internally. They tell people that silicone lubes are made only for massage and hand jobs. Let's be clear about this. This is not, I repeat, NOT TRUE!

And here are the many reasons why silicone lubes are safe and actually better, in most cases, than water-based lubes:
1. the three types of silicone used in lubes, Dimethicone, Dimethiconol, and Cyclomethicone, are completely inert. That means that they will not bind to anything, including bacteria or fungus. Therefore they do not promote bacterial growth. Some of the additives in water-based lubes, and some of the oils in oil-based lubes can promote bacterial growth.

2. silicone lubricants are much less likely to drastically change the PH level of the vaginal enviroment - other types of lubes can do this which can potentially lead to infections and can interfere with conception

3. although silicone lube does not wash off with water, there is no causes for concern with that inside the body because while it remains in the body, it is inert, not causes irritation or infection, and then is naturally flushed from the vagina as are other foreign substances

4. women experience all kinds of microscopic damage and trauma to vaginal tissues during sex. Those small tears and irritations can create openings for viruses that live in the bloodstream, such as HIV. A personal lubricant helps to reduce the friction and therefore the amount of damage. Silicone lubricants are even more smooth and slippery than other lubes and are thus even better at this.

5. Because silicone lubricants do not wash off in water, they are perfect for play in the shower or other wet environments.

6. Silicone lubricants are not thick and sticky and so they don't leave that awful gunky I-must-shower-right-now feeling after sex.

7. silicone stays on the surface of the skin for a long time which makes it the perfect handjob lube - ever so much better than the Jergens which has to be constantly reapplied, truly ruining the mood!

8. silicone lubes are super-slippery so, as Cory Silverberg write on about.com, "If you live in an area where there is snow in the winter, silicone based lube is great for putting on the bottom of a sled or toboggan and going down hills!" They are also great on a slip-and-slide.

Silicone lubricants are used by many manufacturers of lubricated condoms, so the claim that they are not condom-safe makes no sense at all. Really, the only danger you're likely to face from a silicone lube is slipping in it and cracking your head open on your bathroom counter.

For more info., check out these links:
http://tantusinc.com/content/silicone-lubricant-vote-safer-alternative

http://sexuality.about.com/od/sextoybuyingquicktips/a/silicone_lubric.htm

Marriage Uncensored?

2009-04-29T13:20:00.001-07:00

I don't know why we even bothered to get cable TV. Over 80 channels and there's nothing good on. On Sundays mornings, there's even less on. Which explains why, now that Ru Paul's Drag Race is over, I've taken to watching a show called 'Marriage Uncensored' on Sunday mornings. The hosts, Dave and Christie, are mercilessly perky and smiley as they interview guests 'experts' about the many aspects of staying happily married. Clearly, these people mean well so it's hard to take offense to them. In fact, they are obviously working very hard to make sure that no one can take offense to them, so watered-down and generalized is every piece of advice and information given. It's also pretty clear that it's a Christian show but they don't beat anyone over the head with that so I will give them credit for that.

Last Sunday they were talking about sex - so of course I had to watch the whole thing. It was fun to watch them delight in how 'salacious' and 'uncensored' they were being. It was about as salacious as the Sears catalogue underwear section. But for that show, it was quite risque. Their quest speaker, who's written several books on marriage and sex, was very funny and did get just a little bit graphic a couple of times - to the hosts' evident horror. But it was mostly pretty tame and seemingly harmless. 'Men are physical, women are relational.' 'Men want to feel needed, women want to feel loved'. 'Men need sex, women need romance.' We hear this stuff all the time. So often, I think, that most of us believe it. And though it seems pretty benign I do think there is real danger in this kind of 'Men and from Mars, Women are from Venus' , John Grey view of relationships.

The value, to me, is that this method of understanding relationships encourages individuals to view their interactions from the other person's perspective rather than interpreting their actions based on their own needs and feelings. For example, when I leave a room in the middle of an argument, it may be because I am pissed beyond words and I am ready to rip my partner apart. If my partner does it, it may be because he's very deeply hurt by something I said and can't face me. I need to learn to interpret his behavior based on his needs, feelings, and behavior patterns, not mine. That's a valuable concept with practical applications. I do think that Dave and Christie are proponents of this kind of examination of behavior within a relationship. The 'men are like this, women are like this' model takes it too far though. So usually, instead of being encouraged to look at the person our partner actually is and what his/her behavior means based on who s/he is, we're encouraged to intrepret it only as a typically male or female reaction. Based on that model, my partner is walking out because he's pissed because that's what men do. Men aren't in touch with their feelings, so he can't be hurt. It encourages me to miss the point and misintrepret my partners' actions.

But there's something much more insidious about the Mars/Venus approach that really worries me particularly when it comes to sex. Whenever you hear these Mars/Venus people talk about sex, they always say that men need sex more than women, women need love and romance in order to have sex, women need lots of foreplay, women have to feel satisfied in their relationship in order to have satisfying sex. Dave and Christie and their guest said them all, just as we've always heard them. So what's the message? I think the message is that women are not truly sexual beings. These platitudes are telling us that women only have sex as an act of love for their partner and that they don't enjoy sex for pleasure alone. What does that mean for women (the legions of them) who do enjoy sex for pleasure alone, who couldn't care a wit about romance, and who don't need to feel loved and cared for in order to have great sex? It means that they are acting like men. It means that they are not real women. It's a subtle way to tone down, dampen, and dismiss female sexuality.

This model also gives men license to ignore and dismiss women's pleasure. If you just love and care for her, the pleasure will be all taken care of. But that's just not true. Loving, caring men can still be clueless about how to pleasure their female partners. But this model is telling them they're already doing everything right - that he doesn't need to be concerned and that she doesn't have a right to complain.

We think with the feminist movement and the sexual revolution that we've moved so far from the old views of female sexuality, but the abundance of this mars/venus advice proves that we haven't. Newsflash Dave and Christie and all of you other John Grey enthusiasts, most women like sex just as much as men and they care much less whether you gave them a rose before than whether they had an awesome orgasm.

What the Hell is a Hymen?

2009-04-21T15:18:00.001-07:00

Here's another post that's not specifically related to sex advice, but in a way, sort of is. In response to a comment/question here, I snooped around to see if I could find out what people are saying about hymens these days. It seems that while everyone loves to talk about them, there are very few people who really know anything about them. So after a search which was, admittedly, not at all exhaustive, here's what I've found and what I think about hymens.

First of all, not everybody agrees that they exist in the first place. While it would seem that the hymen is a simple, biological fact, there is some controversy. A nurse and doctor in Sweden studied the evidence and anecdotes about the hymen in 2005 and concluded that there has never been any accurate medical descriptions of what the hymen is and what it consists of. They believe that the hymen is simply a part of the vaginal opening, is not distinct in and of itself, and that the use of the term should be discontinued. Hmmmm.......who knew? I tried to find this study but so far I can only locate the Swedish version. Sadly, my Swedish is not good enough to understand a medical study.

Second, depending on who you talk to and which 'statistics' you read, between 30% and 43% of women report bleeding the first time they have penetrative sex. That's not all that high. So it seems to me that the idea that every woman has a hymen and that it stays intact and then 'breaks' when she has sex, cannot possibly be true. I often hear that a hymen can be 'broken' during horseback riding or exercise but I don't really buy that. I've been horseback riding and I've done vigorous exercise and neither of those involved anything pushing into my vagina. I understand the idea but it doesn't make sense to me. The concept that you can 'break' your hymen by using tampons, does make sense because at least that involves putting something inside the vagina. I think the whole point behind these oft-stated 'facts' is to protect women who may be found to be hymen-less and thus assumed to be non-virgins. And to me, that's just sad.

What I did not know is that, according to some of the medical literature I read, in babies and very young girls, the hymen is quite thick and, due to hormonal changes, it thins considerably as women age. It may disappear almost completely. There is also the theory that the hymen is very elastic and may stretch a lot during sex which would account for the lack of pain and bleeding.

To me, what is important is what the hymen represents. The concept of virginity has been used to control women and their sexuality for millenia. The hymen is a symbol of that control. To this day, women are subjected to virginity tests to prove their suitability for marriage or their fidelity. Now women are undergoing hymenoplasty to artificially restore their hymens and re-virginize themselves. Why? Underlying this hymen-hysteria are two very clear messages. First, women's sexual 'purity' is much more valuable than her own sexual experience or freedom and must be preserved. Second, women cannot be trusted to tell the truth about their sexual past and must provide proof.

Why do some women experience pain and bleeding during their first penetrative sexual experience and others don't? Here's a radical thought. Perhaps it's not because they've broken their hymen. Perhaps it's because the women that don't experience pain are having good sex! Perhaps it's because they are relaxed, fully consenting, prepared, fully aroused, and fully wanting and ready to be penetrated. Maybe, just maybe the reason why so many women have pain and bleeding the first time they have sex is because it's rushed into too quickly without any sort of knowledge about the value of foreplay. If we're not ready to be penetrated, it flat out hurts when we are. And it's not unusual to cause abrasions during sex that one is not prepared for. It's just a thought.

As far as advice about this goes, I did find a few gems of advice for women who were having pain during sex, or were worried about their first time. One woman felt that her partner could not break her hymen because it was still painful. Advice to her (from the public, not from a an advice columnist) was to take some pain medication and have her partner push harder.

Laura Berman's advice to a woman who was worried that sex for the first time would be painful was that she needn't worry because she'd almost certainly already broken her hymen during exercise or horseback riding. She also recommended she use lube. That's not a bad peice of advice. But there is a key part here that she's missing. What I've never seen anybody talk about in these discussions is that when a woman is very aroused, her vagina widens and her cervix and uterus pull upwards. Her vagina is getting ready to be penetrated. Being aroused is not just about getting wet, it's also about this process called 'ballooning', which makes it so much more comfortable, and pleasurable. When you rush into sex before this happens, the vagina is too tight and too short to accomodate and it hurts!

No one has ever been able to show a medical reason why the hymen exists or why it's physically important. I think it's high-time for the concept of the hymen to stop tryannizing women and die a quiet death.

And for a laugh, check out this awesome video that lampoons the idea of preserving your virginity for God. It's called Saving My Hymen for Jesus.

Do's and Dont's, Mostly Dont's on going Down

2009-04-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

I was asked to take a look at Eden Fantasy's on-line sex magazine 'Sex Is'. They thought perhaps we had similar views on sex. I've only had a chance to take a quick peek, and this is the first article that I pulled up. 'The 25 Hallmarks of Bad Cunnilingus'. It's freakin' hilarious! It's all of those things that women all know but are just too polite to say. Thank you, Lindsay Lewis, for saying it for us! What I particularly like about this piece is that Lewis, the writer, is an unabashedly sexual woman. She doesn't apologize for wanting to have sex for pleasure and for having her fair share of it.

I highly recommend checking it out. I guarantee you've experienced at least half of this list!
http://www.edenfantasys.com/sexis/sex/the-25-hallmarks-of-bad/

Viva La Vibrator!

2009-04-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

I missed an Oprah show on Thursday about talking to girls about sex. Damn! I haven't been able to see the show but I did talk to someone who watched it and read the summary on oprah.com. From what I saw and heard, I'm impressed. I've certainly taken my fair share of shots at Laura Berman but I do admit that she is a qualified sex therapist and she gives pretty good advice without a lot of bias. What I was particularly impressed with on this one is that she recommended that moms give their daughters vibrators. Thank you Dr. Berman!!!!!! I agree 100% that teenage girls should have vibrators. And here are my top ten reasons why - many of which were echoed by Berman.

1. young girls deserve to enjoy sexual pleasure and should learn what it is and how to appreciate it at a young age - vibrators are not the only way but to do that but they sure are one great way
2. being able to touch your vulva and put your fingers in your own vagina is an important aspect of self-health care, but many girls are hesitant to do that - a vibrator is a way to help girls ease into the idea of touching themselves, first with a toy and then hopefully with their own fingers
3. most girls are curious about sexual pleasure but have not tried or have tried and not been able to have an orgasm just with their fingers or other methods - vibrators work for almost every woman so they help her to understand what an orgasm feels like
4. giving your daughter a vibrator tells her that you are not ashamed or scared of her, or your, sexuality and that sexual pleasure is a good thing
5. using a toy helps gives girls the message that they don't have to rely on someone else to give them sexual pleasurem they can do it themselves
6. experimenting with masturbation early in life helps girls to understand what sexual pleasure, and hopefully orgasm, feels like and reduces the curiosity and the feeling that they are missing out on something
7. masturbation is healthy- it helps to reduce tension, it increases endorphins which ease feelings of anxiety and depression, and it reduces sexual frustration and tension - all of which are things teenage girls deal with on a regular basis
8. girls are told so often and so early in life that they will 'just know' when they are in love, girls who don't have a lot of experience with sexual excitement and sexual pleasure can interpret pure physical excitement while with a partner as a sign that they are 'in love' (ie.' it's just the way he makes me feel') - girls who have more experience, particularly when they are by themselves, understand that this wonderful feeling is actually something their body does, not something that person does for them
9. trying a lot of different things on her own can help a girl understand her body better so that when she does have sex with a partner, she will know how to be a more active participant in her sexual activity and sexual pleasure rather than simply accepting sex that may or may not be pleasurable
10. giving your daughter a vibrator gives her the message that it's okay to talk about sex with you and with the people she may choose to have sex with, it helps her get more comfortable with the idea of being open and in control about her sexuality which in turn can make her more likely to say no to sex she doesn't want, and to have conversations with potential partners about birth control and STI prevention

So yay to Berman and to Oprah for saying having the guts to say on TV that young girls should masturbate and should use toys to do it. Apparently many in the audience were aghast at such an idea, and Berman was quick to state that she doesn't think girls should have penetrative vibes. That's just going too far. I'm not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps it's because of the fear tha, if girls use vibes to penetrate themselves, they're not really virgins anymore. Perhaps it's because of the fear that if they do that, they will want to have sex. I don't believe either of those things. In fact, I think it's the opposite. I think they should use penetrative vibes if they want to. I think it can help get over the fear of what sex with a man might feel like, and help understand that it's not as super-fantastic as everyone makes it out to be. It's always the forbidden and the unknown that peaks the interest. If you take that away, often there's very little desire left.

So yes, please buy your daughter a vibrator. I think every girl should get a vibe for her 13th birthday. But please don't buy your daughter a Laura Berman vibrator, she deserves so much better than that!

Lust versus Love

2009-04-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

I caught an episode of the talk show 'Three Takes' a couple of days ago. Josey Vogels was on discussing the topic 'How do you know if it's Love or Lust?'. I don't always love Josey's stuff but I thought she was pretty good on this. It was a completely vapid segment, obviously devised simply to allow them to use the word lust in the promo, and to fill time. There was no real information or even any real discussion. But Josey was good in that she did not condemn people who have relationships that are 'only' physical. She didn't even make it sound like that type of relationship is worth less than a 'love' relationship. So for that, I commend her. This show is pretty mainstream so it would be easy to sink into the simple value system that we are all taught to believe in.....sex for pleasure is bad and sex because you love someone is good.

But there is another, more serious part of this conversation that was just briefly touched on but not really explored. I think it's worth talking about. That is, the damage that holding to that value system can cause. It is perfectly natural and healthy to want to have sex and to not necessarily want to get into a serious relationship with someone. But, for the most part, our society still considers that a bad thing to do. So what often happens is that women will try to create a deeper relationship with someone to whom the attraction is solely physical. They do this because it makes them feel like it's okay for them to be having the fantastic, lusty, awesome sex they are having. I think we still have a hard time feeling 100% okay about just doing that. We are worried that means that we are slutty or that we are using the other person or he is using us.

But what is worse? having great sex with someone you just like but don't love, or trying to make yourself love someone when there's nothing really there? Many times, I've seen women stuck in a relationship that makes them miserable because, without even realizing it, they tried to turn a great physical attraction into a great love. And so many of us, once we are in a 'serious' relationship, are loathe to leave it even when it's not good. Instead of just having some great sex, we've compromised even that because we are trying to salvage a relationship that never should have been in the first place.

I believe we would all be better off if we just separated the idea of sex and love completely. Sex is one thing. Love is another thing. Sex with someone you love is yet another thing. And you can have any or all of them at different times in your life. And all of them are good things. And you are not necessarily lacking if there is one or all of them that you don't have. This value system that seems to stil be so predominant in our society just doesn't fit with our actual needs as human beings, the state of our society, and the way most of us seem to behave. So let's just save ourselves the heartache and do what we really want to do.

Dr. Phil wages a One-Man battle to Save our Children from Prostitution

2009-03-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

On my day off yesterday, I was flipping channels and noticed the programming notes for Dr. Phil said it was about internet prostitution. So of course, I had to watch it. Wow! I'm very easily provoked. There are so many things on TV that make me crazy. But this was above and beyond. And what really makes me angry and so very sad is that very few people who saw that show will take a step back from it and really think about what was going on there.

So my first beef is a simple and kind of comical one. He started the segment I tuned in on by saying that he has 'made it his business' to make parents aware of the things that are going on on the internet so that they aren't 'the last to know'. Gee thanks Dr. Phil! Most parents are so stupid and clueless, they would have no idea their daughters are prostitutes if you didn't tell them! He called the show 'The Dark Side of the Internet'. As if these kinds of things are happening only because the internet is around. There's a reason why prostitution is called the world's oldest profession. It's been happening since before recorded history and throughout all that time, people who want or need to do it and people who want the services of prostitutes have been finding whatever means they can to meet up. This is not something that has suddenly just started happening because Craigslist came into being. The sex industry has always been a major driver of technology. Those in the sex industry are early adopters of new technologies and figure out quickly how to use them to their advantage. It's just the way it is!

On to the more serious issue on this show. The second segment was about a young woman (early 20's I think) who got into prostitution through Craigslist because she could not find a decent job when she finished school and could not afford to make her student loan payments. I thought she presented herself as very thoughtful, intelligent, and together. I was impressed with her ability to sit there and admit to the things she was doing without letting Dr. Phil or the audience really phase her. She had made an arrangement with one man who was paying her weekly to be her companion. She said she was not having sex with him but acknowledged that might happen at some point. She felt she was better off in this arrangement because it was safer for her physical and mental health than having sex with many men and she wanted to continue this arrangement until she could find another solution to her financial problems. That's why she was on the show, she claimed - to get help.

Rather than help her, all Dr. Phil did was berate her about the choices she had made and tell her that she needed to get real. It seemed to me that she was very real. If it hadn't been so cruel and upsetting, it might have been laughable because he kept trying to confront her with the reality of what she was doing when it was quite clear that she was very aware of the reality. Here's a paraphrase of some of the exchanges I can remember:

Dr. Phil: You do understand that what you're doing is prostitution?
Woman: yes, of course I do.

Dr. Phil: You know that what you're doing is very dangerous?
Woman: yes, I know it could be dangerous and that scares me and that's why I want to stop

Dr. Phil: You know you have to tell your mother (I'm not sure where this was coming from because her mother was never mentioned)
Woman: yes, I am planning on telling her and that's part of why I came here, so that I'm forced to be honest with the people in my life about what I'm doing

Dr. Phil: You know you have to stop doing this?
Woman: Yes, I want to stop doing it. I'm just scared that if I run into money problems again, I'll go back to it because I know I can make a lot of money quickly.

He continued to throw judgements at her without allowing her the chance to explain herself. So here are my answers to his judgements and accusations:
He said 'I don't care what you have to do to make money, you sling hash at the burger doodle if you need to'. Mr. Millionaire here has lost touch with the fact that slinging hash at the burger doodle does not pay enough to cover living expenses much less a $1000 a month student loan debt.
'Just default on your student loan'. Yes, she certainly could do that. But she went to school for interior design and probably, once she can get herself going, she may be looking at starting a business down the road. You can't do that if your credit is in the toilet. And I know it seems strange that someone would choose to sell their body rather than ruin their credit rating but it's a choice to be made. And defaulting on a student loan, at least in Canada, is not an easy thing to do. It follows you for many years. Did she ever have access to people who could help her deal with her financial problems? Probably not.
'Go live on your mother's couch or live in the back of your car in the alley'. Clearly, mother's couch is not an option. And how exactly does Dr. Phil thinks it's safer for a woman to sleep in her car alone on the street than it is to meet men privately for sex (she was not hooking on the street, she was receiving calls from men and making appointments)? My guess is that the car would be more dangerous. And it's pretty rough to keep yourself in decent enough shape physically and emotionally when you are living in a car, to be able to land a job when the opportunity comes up.

They then had another woman with a horrible story and graphic gory pictures to go along with it, come on and tell her how she was brutally beaten, raped and almost murdered while she was working in the sex trade. This was done in order to scare the woman into quitting. It seemed to me she was already scared. Then a cop who was on the first segment who trolls Craigslist and busts women for prostitution was asked for his two cents. He was extremely crude and judgemental, and talked to both women as if they were children. 'I don't know how many times,' he said, 'these women have to get beaten and raped and almost murdered for them to figure out that this is dangerous'.

I think that is exactly the wrong question. My question would be 'How many times does a woman have to be murdered and dumped in a field for us to realize that prostitution is dangerous and that the women who do it need protection?' I don't understand how this becomes the woman's fault when clearly, it's the fault of the men who are committing these heinous crimes. In most cases, if a woman has a better option, she will not choose to sell her body for money. It's not an easy thing to do. They made it sound as if it was a glamorous wonderful job and they just couldn't hold themselves back from the intrigue of it. What they can't hold themselves back from is the money they need to survive. Prostitution has always existed and in most modern-day societies it has always been illegal. Making it illegal has done nothing to stop it. Maybe it's time we all 'get real' and look at how we can deal with the real problem - which is not that women are selling their bodies for money, it's that they feel they need to and that they don't have other options. Let's protect those who choose to do it from the dangers, which is not the act itself, but the health risks and safety risks that can go along with it. We can actually do something about that.

In the end, Dr. Phil promised to set the woman up with counselling so she could deal with her 'issues'. I think her real issue is that she paid for an education that she cannot seem to use for her benefit and she has to pay her rent and her student loan bills. I hope the counsellor will give her a job that pays as much as she's being paid by this man she met. Then she won't need to do something she clearly wishes she didn't have to do.

Have We Really Lost our Innocence or Have We Never Had it At All?

2009-03-07T08:18:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog, you'll have figured out that I'm a reality TV addict. I, like so many others I'm sure, find it fascinating to watch these shows that purport to portray 'real life' when we all know that having a camera in your face dramatically changes your behavior. Not to mention the editing and 'unscripted' scripting that goes on. Although they often show us the worst of human behavior, I do think that some reality shows can hold up a mirror for us to see what our society values - how are certain attitudes and behaviors portrayed in these shows?

One of the shows I watch religiously is America's Next Top Model. The show is diametrically opposite to everything I value, and yet I find it entertaining. But I think my love affair with that show may be coming to an end. I used to think that Tyra Banks was all right and had some decent values and was certainly entertaining to watch. Now that I've seen her talk show several times, my opinion of her has changed. On the premiere of the new season of Top Model, her attitude came out full force. For their photoshoot, the women (who are all over 18 but are always referred to as 'girls'), were asked to wear costumes that made them look like little girls and pose in a playground. In the background of all of the shots were three other women who were meant to portray 'bad girls' - one of them was pregnant, one of the them looked like a junkie etc. The idea, they were told, was to show how girls are losing their innocence. Tyra Banks told them that this is an important issue to her because she did a survey on her talk show that showed that 1 in 5 girls wants to be a teen mom and that teenage girls are 'out of control'.

So let's think about this. Tyra Banks left home and went to Paris to pursue modelling by herself when she was 16. Is that an innocent childhood? And more to the point is the fact that she is touting this idea of perserving the innocence of young girls when she has made her fame and fortune in an industry that capitalizes on the sex appeal of very young women. To get a foothold in modelling, girls really need to start in their mid-teens. 21 is considered old in the modeling world. They want very young girls and women working in the industry but they make up the 16 and 17 year-olds to look much older than they are and much more sexualized than they probably are. Talk about lost innocence! All of these ads end up in magazines and on TV for young girls to look at. Yet, we don't hear Tyra mention that the advertising and fashion industries are a major driver in the desire of teenage girls to look and act much older than they are.

The innocence she is attempting to portray is so idealized as to be laughable. She had these women in pigtails and short frilly dresses. It's such a narrow view of what a 'good girl' really is. I don't think very many of us wore pigtails and frilly dresses and played hopscotch in the playground every day. Sure, we may have done that sometimes, but we also studied math, played team sports, played music, hung out with our friends at the 7-11, talked about boys, flirted with boys (and girls), stole chocolate bars from the 7-11, felt lonely and depressed, snuck a taste of beer at a party, and maybe we had family lives that were pretty crappy and childhood was rough. No one has that kind of idealized childhood so why do we try to force girls to act like 'good little girls'? It's a standard that is not based in reality. And through that lens, a lot of behavior that is actuall pretty typical teenage behavior becomes 'bad'.

Girls are sexual beings. Tyra Banks of all people should understand that. Why are we so scared to let them be a little sexual? We portray images of sexuality all around them and then when, in real life, they start to let that out a little bit and feel their sexuality, we label them as bad girls and send them to counsellors to straighten them out. The whole thing just baffles me and I'm not the least bit surprised that so many girls are confused about sex and sexuality. I think if we could just allow girls a little room to be who they are - and that includes their sexuality - they might not feel so restricted and needing to break out and prove they can be themselves. If we acknowledge that girls are sexual and give them opportunities to express and explore that, they can take ownership over their sexuality and make decisions that make sense for them. It's so past time for us to stop treating teenaged girls like idiots with scary demons inside of them. Because the problem there is, when that's what they are told they are, that's exactly how they act.

Toy Reviews are Not All Equal

2009-03-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Nothing annoys me more than 'sex experts' who decide that they are also 'sex toy experts'. Even if a person is an actual sex therapist, that does not mean that s/he understands anything about toys. Sex and sex toys are two different things. So I get crazy when these 'experts' start talking about toys. Inevitably, people start calling me looking for these great toys and I have to try to explain to them that, no matter how much this expert raved about it, the toy is actually a piece of garbage. People are loathe to believe me because, hey, they saw that toy on TV. Shouldn't these people feel some sort of obligation to know what they're talking about.

Here are some prime examples:

Ok, Sue Johansen is an easy shot but I'm going to take it anyway. She does toy reviews often, in fact, she has a segment on her show for toy reviews. The first problem with Sue's reviews is that she willnever admit that she uses the toys - which she probably doesn't. It's not very informative or very genuine to simply talk about what 'your reviewer' thought of the toy. Why not bring that reviewer on? But even that isn't good enough. When they do have others on to review porn, they don't say anything at all. They don't tell you what is really in the movies, they just say whether they liked it or not, without even really saying why.

You can see some of Sue's toy reviews on oxygen.com. It's clear that she doesn't know anything about the toys. The one I particularly love is her review of a kit called the 'princess pleasure kit' which contains a toy from her 'Royal' collection. It's pretty clear that she's not even aware of the fact that the toy is from her line.

She gives a harness a great review even though it's got a horrible attachment mechanism, it's made of hard leather in a style that will clearly cut painfully into your inner thighs, and it has a nasty jelly rubber attachment.

Joy Davidson is another exmaple I've seen. Joy is a certified sex therapist and I actually respect her. She did a series of videos that you can find on her site and on youtube. Her toy session is laughable. She understands how toys work, but she doesn't know anything about what's a good toy and not. If you watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY0RSXLzXJ8&feature=PlayList&p=D560F571EE85BE93&index=8 , you'll see her demo the 'fluttering butterfly'. This is one of the worst toys I've ever seen. I actually have that toy in my bad toy box where it has been slowly melting to the point where it's almost disintigrated. Joy does show several items that are decent such as the Fukuoku, Liquid Silk, and a Sportsheets harness (minus the nasty dildo she's got in it). The problem is, she obviously doesn't know which is good and which is bad. You have to give people a little info on the toy itself, not just what it does.

Another great example is Laura Berman. I know, I take lots of shots at Laura Berman too but that's only because she's so out there. Laura Berman was on Oprah, again, several weeks ago. I missed it, but I've heard that she was promoting one of her toys. I know this becuase I had several requests for that toy. I can get Laura Berman's toys. And our policy here at the Tickle Trunk is that we will order toys for people even if we don't normally carry them. But I want people to be happy with their purchases and so I feel obligated to tell them that this Berman toy is a remake of the Hitachi Magic Wand. The Berman toy in question is made by California Exotics which is one of the biggest toy manufacturers in the world and produces mostly inferior quality plastic and jelly rubber toys. Why get that when you can get a Hitachi for the same price? It would be easy for me to bring in her toys because Laura's doing a great job of promoting them for me. But they aren't good toys. Again, the thought is there, the idea is good, but she doesn't know enough about toys to make sure that her toys are superior quality and to educate people about how to know that.

I have run across a great toy review site. It's a podcast called 'Sex is Fun'. One of my team members, Kristen, alerted me to this and it's fabulous. They review mostly top quality toys from smaller manufacturers and they really explain what the toy is all about. The reviewers use the toys themselves. They tell you what it's made of and what it can be used for and then they detail exactly how well they think it works. That is information you can actually base a toy purchase on! You can find sex is fun at sifreview.blogspot.com .

Science?

2009-02-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'm spending my afternoon immersed in 'sex research'. I'm a member of the New View listserve which is a group of people who are interested in women's sexual health and are concerned about attempts to over-medicalize it. Through this wonderful listerve with all of these fabulous, and very knowledgeable people, I'm learning a lot about research on sex and sexuality and how it's conducted. Every few days, one of the members will send out a link to an article in a popular magazine, journal, or newspaper about some new sex research. At first glance, these articles seem like simple lifestyle news pieces - just quoting some new study that's come out. But I'm learning to take a much closer look at what these articles are really saying and the effect they might be having on us.

If we think that newspapers and magazines are really there to inform us, we are kidding ourselves. Most mainstream newspapers and magazines are there to sell ad space and they do that by getting readers. They get readers by finding content that will grab reader's attention. And believe it or not, a lot of sex researchers want the media's attention so they want to present their findings in a way that will appeal to the readers of the media. So guess what happens? A study that may have shown some interesting findings, that are complex and nuanced, and certainly cause for further research, gets boiled down to a 10 word headline and a 500 word article that's easy to digest. Why? Because the media don't think their readers want the whole, complex, nuanced story. They think they want something they can read on the toilet in 10 minutes and feel like they learned something valuable.

So a study that looked at 30 women and found that many of them reported greater sensitivity in a certain area in their vagina under certain circumstances becomes 'Sex Researchers Find the G-spot'. And in the case of this last one I read, a study which looked at physical and psychological arousal in both men and women, and resulted in rather complex results needing much study and interpretation, got boiled down to 'What Do Women Want?'. And even though the article was rather long, it focused mostly on what the researcher looks like and what she personally thinks, rather than what she actually found. So much more interesting to read than a bunch of data. The story concludes that we can never know what women want. Then why the study and why the article about it?

The problem here is that for most of us, mainstream media is the only regular access we have to sex research. Most of don't actively seek this stuff out. We don't read medical journals. The only time we see anything about sex research is when some study makes it into the papers. When we see it there, the study and the researcher, and usually the university s/he works for is cited. It makes the conclusions seem ever so scientific and authoritative. But those conclusions often don't appear in the actual study at all. They are simply headlines and sound bites put together by the person who sent out the press release, or by the person who wrote the story. You have to go and find the actual study to find out what it was really all about. A newspaper article might say that a given study showed that 40% of women can't have a vaginal orgasm (there have been several studies that have been reported as finding such a result). What the article doesn't say is that the study only surveyed 40 women. It doesn't tell you that those 40 women were just given a self-report survey to fill out. It doesn't tell you that the survey did not ask them detailed questions about what they considered the term 'vaginal orgasm' to mean. It doesn't tell you that the women were never given any kind of physical exam and never underwent any clinical testing to see if they were having orgasms. So really, what the study tell us is that 16 out of 40 women who took a survey we know nothing about said that they believed they didn't have vaginal orgasms. And yet women everywhere read that only 40% of women can have vaginal orgasms. Now we all start thinking that we have a problem just like these women and we need to do something about it. Inevitably, the story will include, or be followed up by, possible remedies for this problem that 40% of us are now deemed to have.

We have to be so very careful about what we accept as 'science' and 'fact'. Whenever I see these types of headlines in the news, I try my best to find the original study and find out what it was really all about. There are so many agendas going on in the field of sexual health research, especially when it relates to women and their behavior. We have to be very careful that what's presented to us in the media isn't simply a convoluted attempt to make us buy a drug, or a product, or a cosmetic procedure, or to try to make us act in a certain way. We are constantly being told that there is something wrong with us. And there is always someone waiting there with the cure.

Doctor Prescribes Warm Water for Orgasms

2009-02-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

So last week I watched 'The Doctors' for the first time. If you're not familiar, this is a show that features several physicians (one of which was on the bachelor and, in my opinion, made the worst choice in bachelor history - but that's another story) talking about health related issues. It's produced by Dr. Phil McGraw and his son Jay - so that should give you a clue. I have heard many people in the last few months rave about 'The Doctors' and I got a message from Dorrie Lane, the maker of the Wondrous Vulva Puppet, that the puppet was going to be featured on last Monday's show. So I watched. But I was only able to catch the last half so either I missed the Vulva Puppet or I got the wrong day. What I did catch was very strange and very confusing.

The 30 minutes that I saw was a segment on 'The Most Shocking Health Care Trends'. One of them was the growing trend of taking children for beauty spa treatments. Clearly, years of selling sex toys for a living has upped the ante on what I consider shocking. Who really cares if someone takes their kid to the spa? It's their money to waste. What was weird to me was that this 'shocking' trend was obviously included so as to plug the spa for kids - which was featured very prominently. In fact, there were no less than 6 blatant ads for products or companies in this 30 minutes portion of the show. It's not an informational show, it's an infomercial.

I digress, the point here is that they did talk about something 'shocking' related to sex. Number one of the most shocking healthcare trends was the 'Orgasmatron'. This is a device that is surgically implanted into the back and sends electrical impulses into the sacral nerve, thereby creating the sensation of having an orgasm. 'The Doctors' talked about this for about 45 seconds - just long enough to make several lame jokes. They did not explain much at all about what the orgasmatron is, how it was developed and who it is best for. One of 'The Doctors' said that it is only for women who are able to have an orgasm. WTF? That made no sense. I think what he meant was that women who have severe nerve damage will not benefit from the device. But that's not what he said. His comment makes it sound like there are women who are just flat out not able to have an orgasm and this this orgasmatron that makes you have an orgasm will only work for women who already can have them. He also said it was a last resort option. At $23,000 a pop, I would guess so.

The second doctor (Travis, the bachelor) said that there are many options to try before doing something like this. Good point Travis! His solution. 'There are lots of stimulating creams available on the market'. Great idea Travis! Do you really think that if you have such trouble with sexual response that you're considering surgically implanting a device, a tingling lube is going to do the trick instead? These doctors clearly don't have the slightest clue what orgasm really is and how it works. Warming or tingling lubes don't make you have orgasms, they just make you feel all warm and tingly.

The third doctor's idea was the best. She suggested warm water. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what you're supposed to do with that water. My co-worker, Amber, thought perhaps she meant warm water shooting out of a handheld shower head directly onto the clitoris. In that case I can understand. That can definitely cause an orgasm.

I went and googled the 'Orgasmatron' and here's what I found out:
- it is, indeed, a device that was invented to help restore feeling for those with nerve damage and spinal cord injury
- the stimulation of sexual pleasure was a side effect found by many recipients and now the makers of the thing are looking at marketing it for that purpose
- the device does not allow to you have orgasms when you're having sex, rather, when it's turned on, it emits eletrcial impulses into the sacracal nerve and this can send a signal to the brain that's the same as the sensation of having an orgasm - this is not at all a device that will help you have an orgasm during sex, it does it all on it's own

I don't think there's anything wrong with what essentially amounts to an extremely expensive sex toy. Obviously, I'm all for sex toys. It's just that 'The Doctors' made it sound like something very different than what it actually is. And that's the problem with most of these shows. When they have to boil everything down to 45 second sound bites, the information is invariably ripe for misinterpretation.

If you think the Orgasmatron might be right for you, you'll need to google it like I did. It's not a toy we'll be carrying in the store.

John Gray is from Mars, or some other planet than Earth.

2009-01-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a great book about the self-help movement that devotes a chapter to the illustrious John Gray. It contained some excerpts from his book 'Mars and Venus in the Bedroom' which I thought were so laughable, I had to check them out.

So here, for entertainment purposes only, are some great quotes that I've pulled from 'Mars and Venus in the Bedroom' (which you can read vast excerpts of at harpercollins.com).

"Men need sex. Women need romance."

"For a woman to grow in sexual fulfillment, she primarily needs to feel emotionally supported in the relationship."

"Women enjoy conversation most when they are not required to get to the point right away...this is a perfect metaphor for how women enjoy sex."

"A woman is turned on when she feels her partner is confident that he knows how to fulfill her. A man is turned on when he feels a woman has confidence as well, but in a different way.....If a woman seems to confident that she knows how what to do him, it can possibly be intimidating....her greatest ability to fulfill him is through helping him be successful in fulfilling her."

"In polarity sex partners take turns consciously using these polarities to increase desire and pleasure. One partner gives while the other receives." guess who gets to go first? according to Gray, it's always the man receiving first

"A man wants to find a formula that will work each time so that he can relax in sex, feeling confident that he knows what he's doing."

"Trust is essential for a woman to continue getting turned on by her partner. "

"At the south end of the labia is the vagina which is the canal where the man enters her body. (because that's the only thing it's for). At the north end of the labia is the clitoris. Because it is so small and because he does not have one, a man doesn't realize how important it is for a woman to touch her there. As a general rule, it is very important for a man to remember to go north before he goes south." (better hope he can tell north from south - what if she's standing on her head?)

"When she wears silky pink or lace, she is ready to surrender to sex as a romantic expression of loving vulnerability......A cotton T-shirt with matching panties may mean she doesn't need a lot of foreplay."

I have go now, I think I just peed myself laughing.

I'm a Sex Expert!

2008-12-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

I was just doing an innocent little search on the web for the name of a woman a had heard was now the newest sex expert. Two hours later, I've surfaced from a sex-advice surfing session that took me through an absolutely crazy array of 'sex experts'. I know that everyone thinks that they have something to say about sex but are you really someone that should be giving out advice on the net? My search marooned me in AOL's 'coaches' section where I did not find any mention of the woman I was searching for but found no less than 12 love and sex experts and even more relationship experts. Do we really need this much advice? How could you possibly decide who's advice to take? The experts range from people who actually have education and professional experience in human sexuality such a Yvonne Fullbright, to people who have some counselling experience and seem to think that makes them sex experts like John Gray, to Star Jones who, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why she's there. Star Jones is a lawyer and a talk show host. Why on earth does she qualify as a sex expert?

So after sampling some of the pearls of wisdom from these 'coaches', I have some expert advice - on how to choose a sex expert.

1. Read their bios. What is their educational and professional background. Have they actually studied sexuality in the area that they claim to be an expert on? Do they have professional experience in sexual health research, counselling or sex therapy? Personal experience does not qualify you to give advice. Most of have had sex - are we all experts?
2. Do they give real, thoughtful answers rather than soundbites? It's hard to find good information in the sex advice world because most of the articles, particularly on the internet are very short and to the point. A soundbite is not going to tell you anything that will really help you.
3. Do they allow for differences in individuals or do they focus on generalizations and sexual stereotypes? John Gray has built an empire based on sexual stereotyping and people eat it right up. There is always a sliver of truth in a generalization but not all women are from venus and not all men are from Mars. A really good sex expert understands that people are unique and advice should either focus on the individual, or, when that's not possible, allow for individual differences amongst the generalizations.
4. Is their advice based on research and fact or personal values? Dr. Laura anyone? For some sex and love 'experts' their job as an expert serves no other purpose than to allow them to push their personal agendas. If an expert is constantly telling people what is right or wrong, they are more interested in their own opinion than on actually helping. Good sex advice offers suggestions, not moral imperatives.
5. Do their values and focus fit with yours? It's impossible to be free of values when you talk about sex. Every expert has their values around what sex means and what is and is not healthy sexuality. Some experts believe that open marriage is synonymous with infidelity, some think that internet porn is dangerous and leads to addiction, some actually believe that homosexuality is a mental illness. If you're going to go surfing for advice on the net, you need to realize that all of these experts have values around sex and you just need to pick out what those are. Don't take advice from someone who's values are not consistent with yours - you'll only end up frustrated.
6. Are they selling you something? Watch for subtle or not so subtle attempts to get you to buy something. Are they sponsored by a drug company or toy company? Are they pushing their latest book? It's not such a bad thing to buy books or toys to enhance your sex life but posing as a sex expert just so you can push a product is dishonest.
For more information on how to choose an expert, buy my book, 'Sexperts: How to Find the Best Bang for Your Sex Advice Buck!' ........ just kidding!

Blended Orgasms are the New Black

2008-12-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

Ladies, we have a winner! It appears a we have a new greatest sex thing that you simply must try. A few years ago it was female ejaculation. That's old news now. Now we have......the blended orgasm! I've heard this term several times in the last few months. Lots of women at my parties have been asking me about the blended orgasm and how to have one. I've heard that term in reference to a lot of different things so I didn't really think much of it and just talked about orgasms in general. But it appears that the Blended Orgasm has now been deemed by the popular media as a very specific thing, that being a combined G-spot and clitoral orgasm. Laura Berman was talking about it on Oprah about a month ago and today I found an article in Cosmo all about this latest greatest new orgasm. According to certified sex therapist Dr. Ava Cadell, quoted in the Cosmo article, "By simultaneously having your clitoris and G-spot stroked, you mix the unique sensations of each peak into one, resulting in a longer, deeper experience." Wow, who wouldn't want that?

So really, I have to admit, the article isn't so bad. For many women, rubbing the clitoris while stimulating the G-spot is very pleasurable - and they gives some good ideas for how to do that. My problem is this, the article and this 'blended orgasm' trend in general make women think we are all the same, and we just aren't. I have talked to hundreds of women in my eight years of work in this field and I have met women who have never had an orgasm, women who don't orgasm with partners, women who don't orgasm when they masturbate, women who only orgasm through oral sex, women who hate oral sex, women who have ejaculated, women who hate G-spot play, women who hate vibrators, women who love vibrators, women who have their strongest orgasms during anal play, women who can only have orgasms during penetration, and women who can have orgasms by just thinking about it. So how in the world can we describe one very specific sexual act and say that every woman will have a shattering orgasm from it? What happens then is that the women who try this and find it doesn't work for them think they are either doing it wrong or there's something wrong with them. It's just not a fair and accurate description of sexuality. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was framed as 'something to try' but these things never are. They are always presented as the very latest and greatest way to have sex that you simply must try now.

And just to be little picky here, trying to reach the G-spot with a penis is definitely possible but not easy. The fancy position described in the Cosmo article in which the woman dangles her legs off the bed and he stands between her legs can work, but usually only if maintains some distance and does not insert his penis all the way, or if he is careful to go more slowly so that there is movement of the head across the G-spot. The article doesn't mention the fact that this spot is located close to the opening of the vagina.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that this article assumes that all women have male partners. That's an entirely other issue.

Newsflash! Teenage Girls Have Sex!

2008-12-01T13:45:00.000-08:00

I was watching Tyra Banks' talk show a few weeks ago because she had a feature about a survey she had done on the behavior of teenage girls. Rather than being an informative discussion about teen sexuality, it was her usual fare of taking women onto her show, exposing their sexual behavior and then taking turns with her audience berating and judging them. So I didn't think too much about it and turned it off when the judgemental rants became too much for me to bear. But today, in sifting through my usual sites that I watch for sexual health news, I discovered that this survey that the Tyra Banks show did, is actually being reported as real news. Both the New York Post and MSNBC featured stories on the 'shocking' results of her survey. The Today show had an interview with Tyra in which she clearly positioned herself as an expert on this topic and offered her thoughts on the results and what should be done about them. What a sad state we have come to when we are looking to a supermodel with not one shred of experience in this area for comment about what to do about risky teenage behavior. True, they claim the survey had 10,000 respondents, which is a fairly large number, but I have some major issues with reporting this information as if it can be generalized to the whole population. I also can't stand the way it's being reported. It's framed as if it's legitimate news when really all it is is a simplistic and sensationalized attempt to get viewers for the Tyra Banks show and the Today show.

So here are my questions about this survey:
Why is it being generalized when the survey was conducted solely through the website for the Tyra show? Isn't it very likely that this is a self-selected group? These are obviously girls who watch Tyra, which has to represent a particular segment of the population. And I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that at least some of the girls who responded to this survey were looking for a chance to appear on her show - as a small group of them did. These girls are not stupid and would understand that they're not going to get on the show by saying that they are responsible young women who make careful decisions about sex and use condoms consistently. Who wants to hear that? No, they would know that their best chance of getting on the show lies in saying that they participate in risky, outlandlish behavior. I'm not saying that the young women that were on the show were lieing about their behavior, I'm just saying that the survey was likely to attract girls with 'a story'. Girls who don't have a story probably wouldn't feel so compelled to fill it out - what do they have to say?

Next, what's new about this? The 'stats' gleaned from this survey are not all that different from other national surveys that have been done in the US. It's being treated as if it's so new and shocking. Young people have always had sex and many of them don't use birth control. It's not new. And since this is not a controlled, representative study, there's no way to say that this indicates things are getting worse - which seems to be the implication Tyra is making. The survey indicated that 14% of the respondents had sex at school. This information brought gasps of horror from the audience on the show. But why? Where can you have sex when you're a teenager? You don't have your own place, options are limited, you spend a lot of time at school - why wouldn't that be a place you choose?

And why are we focusing only on the girls? These girls are having sex, not using condoms, and getting pregnant with someone. Why are the boys not on the show? Tyra likes to frame herself as an advocate of young womens' self-esteem and claims this is why she did the survey and the show. That would explain why it focuses on girls rather than boys. But does she really think it helps a girl's self-esteem to bring her on a national talk show and call her out as a violent, stupid, drug-addicted slut?

And finally, where does all this get us? The claim that this is done in an attempt to understand and helps girls is so paper-thin it's laughable. If it was an attempt to understand, she would have focused on the girls' stories of how and why these things happened to them and talked to real experts in teenage sexuality and counselling about what can be done to prevent risky behavior. Instead all she did was race through each girl, have them give an account of all the terribly slutty and horrifying things they did, ask them each why and then call down their explanations as stupid and immature. That's very helpful. I'm sure each of these girls has been reformed.

Triple O?

2008-11-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I missed Oprah last week when Dr. Laura Berman was on but I was alerted to it when someone asked me a question about the show. I'm very much aware of Dr. Berman. She has a background in social work, health education, sex therapy and psychiatry. She definitely does have knowledge and experience in sexual health, sex counselling and sexual pleasure.

I am little leary of some of the things Laura Berman does though because she's so very much in the media. She got famous through Oprah, who had her on the show many times several years ago, and she has been on countless TV shows, and in many magazines since then. The trouble with that is that talk shows and magazines are usually looking for the simple answers, the boiled down sound bites, the stuff that is easy to understand and easy to digest. Laura Berman is quite happy to provide that. I think it leads to a belief that sexuality is less complex than it really is. Whether she intends to or not, she does end up giving some over-simplified and stereotypical information. This was the case here.

The question I was asked was about Dr. Berman's explanation of the 3 different types of orgasm, and how exactly one can tell the difference between a G-spot and clitoral orgasm. I looked at Oprah's website and read the summary of the show to catch up. Again, I can see the truth in what she's saying but it so over-simplified that it becomes a problem.

The idea of three different types of female orgasm goes back to Sigmund Freud. He claimed there were only two though, because he didn't know about the G-spot. Later, when Grafenberg put forth the idea of the G-spot, we started hearing that there were three different types. Later still, we started hearing that a G-spot orgasm is accompanied by ejaculation.

There are two points that I think are very important for women to understand about this idea of three different orgasms. First, is that it is rooted in Freud's theories and when he came up with the idea, it was very thinly veiled misogyny. His idea was that woman can have an orgasm by clitoral stimulation alone, but this is a less mature, less valid type of orgasm than the vaginal orgasm - which can only be obtained through penetrative sex with a man. The second thing to understand is that this idea is not based on real scientific research but rather on surveys and on opinion. We don't actually know exactly what it is that causes a woman to have an orgasm. It's a complex set of factors including different types of physical and mental stimulation and emotion and environment. Women themselves have a very hard time being accurate about exactly what it was that made them have an orgasm - they might know the activity or the position but they usually cannot tell if they had an orgasm because the clitoris was being stimulated or because the G-spot was or because everything was. Separating it out like that is not really valid, and, I believe, not particularly helpful.

My concern with the idea of three different types of orgasm is that we are saying that one is better than the other. It sets women up to be unhappy with their sex lives and always wondering what they are missing out on, or if they are not good enough because they haven't experienced this or that type of orgasm.

My belief is that there are many different ways to have an orgasm and pretty much every one feels different, but there is no actual delineation of three distinct types. Bear in mind that this is my opinion. This is based on personal experience, years of talking to women about their experiences, and lots of research and study on sexuality.

The clitoris is an amazing organ. We used to believe that it consisted essentially only of the parts we can see externally. Medical study has shown that the clitoris actually has very deep nerve roots that extend from the glans all the way down either side of the labia, ending close to the perineum. It appears also that the clitoral tissue covers a much larger area than what we can see and extends down into the vaginal wall - this is new information that we don't have conclusive evidence of yet. So, based on that information, my belief is that the vast majority of physical sexual pleasure for women comes from either direct or indirect stimulation of the clitoral tissue. It may seem like an orgasm happened just from vaginal penetration but that action was creating stimulation of clitoral tissue. The same with the G-spot. I'm not at all saying that penetration and G-spot stimulation are not pleasurable on their own, I'm just proposing that the clitoris is often involved.

One last point I want to make on this - about ejaculation. It has come to the point now where the idea of female ejaculation has been accepted as a fact but the truth is that we still have no solid understanding of what this actually is. Again, my concern is that women are being told that if they have a G-spot orgasm, they will ejaculate and that this is the ultimate in sexual pleasure. It's just not true. Everyone is different. some women don't even enjoy G-spot stimulation. And ejaculation is not a common experience. Some women report that this has happened to them, and that's valid. But any of the theories on what female ejaculate actually is and where it comes from are exactly that, theories. I prefer a more open view of sexuality that says that there is no one thing to strive for, but rather to explore and enjoy what you find along the way. If you ejaculate, then that's what your body does, and that's wonderful. If you don't, then that's what your body does, and that's wonderful too.

I am also leary of Laura Berman because she has given California Exotics, one of the biggest sex toy manufacturers in the world (possibly the biggest), the right to use her name on a line of toys. While the toys are not the worst in the world, they are certainly not the best. Some of them, like the pelvic exercises and the clitoral pump are things that she endorsed in one of her books (before her toy line came out), so I can see the point behind those. But now the line also includes all kinds of generic sex toys that look the same as other, poor quality Cal Exotics toys, except that they have Laura Berman's name on them.

And here's my other concern about Dr. Laura Berman, she has given her name to a line of toys produced by California Exotic - one of the largest toy makers in the world and notorious for very cheap toys, often knock-offs of better quality toys. I know that I'm a toy snob, but I think that if you actually care about putting a product on the market that supports your belief of what toys should do, and supports your commitment to healthy sexuality, you should do it wholeheartedly and either go to a toy company that produces the best toys, or start your own manufacturing division. My suspicion is that she simply sold her name to Cal Exotics because they asked her to or vice versa.

Ding Dong the Today Sponge is Dead

2008-11-03T13:39:00.001-08:00

Okay, this has nothing to do with sex advice but I just cannot let this one go without commenting on it. In my routine readings of sexual health news, I discovered that the company that now owns the 'Today' Sponge has filed for bankruptcy. Woohoo!!!! Why in the world, you might ask, would that make me happy? Well, I hate the Today sponge. I know hate is a strong word but that is how I feel. I truly hate it.

Some women, and even some sexual health care providers think the sponge is great because it's so easy to use and it's great for women who have partners who wouldn't agree to using condoms. And that would be true if it actually was a good alternative.

But here's what I hate about the sponge. First of all, it's nowhere near as effective as other methods. It's actual use effectiveness rate for birth control is somewhere between 84% and 68%, with the lower rate applying to women who have already had children. The actual use effectiveness rate for condoms is 85%, for the pill, it's 92%. So relying solely on the sponge for contraception, is not really a good idea.

The main thing I have against the sponge is the unbelievable amount of non-oxynol 9 it contains. Non-oxynol 9 is a the most commonly used spermicide. It definitely kills sperm but it all kinds of other things. N-9 is an industrial solvent. Should we really be putting a sperm soaked with industrial solvent into our vaginas? I don't think so. I used to be a big proponent of N-9 because I thought it offered women more control and more options for contraception, particularly if they were in situations where they couldn't say no to sex without a condom. But after several studies came out showing the N-9 actually INCREASES a woman's chance of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, I changed my mind. There was a lot of controversy about this to start with, with some studies showing a potential protective effect, but with more studies done, it became clear that women who use products that contain a large dose of N-9, and use them often, have a significantly increased risk of contracting STI's. This is because N-9 is so irritating, that it will cause abrasions in the vaginal tissues that allow bacteria and viruses to enter. The sponge contains the highest amount of N-9 of any spermicidal product on the market, 1000 mg - almost 10 times higher than any other product.

Now I know it can't be proved that the sponge causes STI's, but I do think the evidence should give us all cause for concern. When Allendale Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to the sponge and began re-introducing it to the North American market in 1999, I wrote to their marketing director and asked if they had any plans to include the information about the clinical studies and risks in their packaging. He, of course, said no. He told me that the packaging clearly states that the sponge does not prevent STI's and that is sufficient. I pointed out that there is a big difference between not preventing STI's and helping to cause them and that perhaps a company that is planning to market a product that contains the largest dose of N-9 on the market should clue women into the fact that large doses of N-9 have been shown to increase the risk of contracting STI's. He did not agree. What about women who have HIV+ partners? Shouldn't they know this? What about women who have lots of partners or work in the sex trade? Shouldn't they know this?

In searching for more information on the joyous death of the sponge, I discovered that the company that bought the sponge from Allendale, Synova, had just begun a multi-million-dollar re-branding campaign to boost sales of the sponge, before they declared bankruptcy. They put out a 'hip' website and redesigned the package, to try to grab women's attention.

Here's an excerpt from a New York Times article from last summer:
Barry Schmader, executive vice president and creative director of Synova’s advertising agency, Dudnyk, of Horsham, Pa., said the new colors and graphics were chosen to create “high impact” and to help the Today Sponge compete on store shelves, especially with condoms. “We need to stand out on the contraceptive shelf space and compete for presence,” he said

The idea that they wanted the sponge to compete with condoms makes me want to vomit. When given the choice over using condoms or using a sponge, there is no choice. Condoms are much more effective and they provide excellent prevention against most STI's. The sponge has a poorer effectiveness rate and provides no protection, may even increase the risk, for STI's. The fact that they launched a marketing campaign to try to get women to buy sponges instead of condoms is unbelievable to me. If women want to use the sponge as a backup method to other contraceptives, that's fine, but they are no replacement for condoms. Women don't get enough information on how contraceptives really work and what the best options are in the first place. The last thing we need is more marketing designed to make up our minds for us!

So I celebrate the death of the Today Sponge. Clearly, several companies have felt that there was enough profit potential in it for them to invest ridiculous amounts of money in, so I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we see it again.

Look Mom, No Hands!

2008-11-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

If you aren't a regular reader of Andrea Nemerson's weekly sex advice column, Alt.Sex, you probably should be. Andrea is one of the few 'sexperts' that I think really has it together. Her advice is funny, direct, and she knows what she's talking about. You can find her in the Vue in Edmonton and on her site at altsexcolumn.com. This weeks' column was even funnier than usual and pretty good. But Andrea is not a immersed in toys as those of us who play with them for a living, so her advice to this frustrated toy user could have been a little more complete. The letter was from a woman who loves G-spot play but hasn't been able to have an orgasm because the sensations she creates with her toy are too intense for her to continue to hold on to her toy! There are a few really good options to get her where she really wants to be and unfortunately, Andrea's suggestion of the Rabbit Pearl, is not one of them. The Rabbit just isn't the right shape, size, and motion for the kind of G-spot action she's looking for. She also suggested a Snugglepuss. Although I LOVE, (did I mention LOVE?) the Snugglepuss, I don't think it's a toy this letter-writer would get the most out of. The Snuggle is inserted and then is moved by rocking back and forth. This gal likes to move her G-spot toy in and out at a very rapid rate. I doubt the Snuggle would give her the intensity she's looking for, although it could open up a whole new world for her.

What I would suggest is getting either a Thumbelina, which would give the constant G-spot massage along with strong clitoral vibration, and perhaps get the job done a lot quicker, or getting a base for her G-spot toy so that she can use it hands-free. Andrea mentioned a thigh harness - not a bad idea but a thigh harness is only large enough to attach to the arm of a chair, not to strap to a bed - so it might be difficult to manage. I would suggest the new Dildo Anchor Pad from Sportsheets. This is a velcro pad with holes in it that will secure a toy with a flared based. The pad is made to be used with the Sportsheets Bondage BedSheets but will work on any flannel or jersey material. This overtop of a firm pillow could hold her toy in place. The best suggestion I have is a new product from a company called Love Bumper. They make firm pillows for sex positioning. We hope to bring Love Bumpers in soon, but for now, you can get them at their site. The Love Bumper 'Lil Pony' would be perfect. This is a firm pillow that you straddle and you can fit a vibrator into the pocket on top. I think it's a perfect choice for this situation. Hands-free, restriction-free toy use. And thankfully, Love Bumpers are washable.

Surprise?

2008-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

I deliver sex toy parties for a living. In spite of the fact that this is my life, I've never actually been to a toy party delivered by any company other than my own, The Traveling Tickle Trunk. When I set up TTT, I did it based on some basic principles that are very important to me, rather than what anybody else in the industry does. These principles are:
- sell only high quality, safe products - don't sell garbage that your customers will be throwing out the next day
- don't bullshit people - tell them the truth about the products and let them decide for themselves if they want it or not
- let everybody see, handle and check out all the products first-hand (within reason of course)
- know what you're talking about when it comes to sex and give real information rather than the sensationalized stereo-typical crap that comes out of most 'sex experts'

So I've been following this model for many years and I hear from my customers all the time that TTT parties are very different, and much better, than the other toy parties they've been to. They will often give me examples of those differences. But I never get to see them for myself - I think it would be quite deceitful of me to host or go to another party knowing I'm only there to check them out, not to buy. That would certainly piss me off so I'm not going to do it to anyone else.

But today I was watching a show on Slice called 'Workout'. In this episode, the main character threw a Surprise Party for her girlfriends. If you're not familiar, Surprise Parties is one of the biggest adult home party companies in North America. So I got to see a few clips of how this particular sales rep. managed her party. Granted, it was on TV so it may have been a bit different. It looked like it was probably fun but I could pick out the products she had on the table and the things she was holding, and they were not good.

Here's some stuff that, judging by what they showed in that episode, Surprise Parties does that The Traveling Tickle Trunk would never do.
- deliver a party wearing an expensive suit and silk blouse - exactly who are we trying to kid here? you're selling vibrators in people's living rooms - for TTT, it's a comfortable casual setting and we dress to reflect that and that we see ourselves as on the same level as the people who are attending the party - who are usually very casual too
- call the vagina, vulva or clitoris the 'down there' or the 'hoo ha' - are you 5 years old? - there is no reason to use baby language. Everyone at the party is an adult and adults can handle the real words for their body parts - I sometimes see the initial shock on people's faces when I first use the word 'clitoris' or 'vagina' at a party but then they relax right away because they understand exactly what I mean, they know that I'm totally comfortable and that they can say whatever they want too and don't have to worry about offending me
- coerce or goad someone into trying a product - in this example, the hesitance on the part of the women was probably more for the camera than it was real, but I've heard stories from many people where they were told they 'had to' go to the washroom and try the arousal gel or they were made the one guinea pig for something that they were clearly uncomfortable with - if people want to try it, they will, it's never appropriate to embarrass or humiliate someone
- sell 'the tounge' - that toy is one of the most disgusting and most over-rated toys ever made - the sense of making a nasty cyber-skin toy that looks like a tongue is just beyond me - it looks like a cow's tongue - isn't that the sexiest thing you can imagine? - and just because it looks like a tongue, doesn't mean it feels like one - tongues feel nice because they are very warm, very wet, and very flexible and moldable - this ugly cyberskin cow tongue is none of those things.

Okay, that's my rant. If you want to see the clip, go to Slice.ca, and find the full episodes of the show 'Workout'. This was episode 9. (And yes, I do enjoy questionable reality shows. It's my thing. I have no defense for it. Everybody has their faults).

Panties in a Knot about Tieing People Up

2008-10-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

I was laid out for the last two days with a back problem and could do nothing but lay around and watch TV. Fortunately, you don't have to surf too many channels to come up with a show giving sex advice. On Monday, it was Tyra Banks. Tyra seems to be on a tyrade (I'm so sorry, I had to do that) lately about women who work in the sex industry. She's had several shows where she brings on women who are porn actresses, strippers or prostitutes and then she and her audience take turns berating them and trying to convince them to quit. She doesn't distinguish between any of these jobs - just labels them all 'sex industry'. I bet Tyra would say I'm in the sex industry too.

This Monday show was particularly bad because the woman she had on was a dominatrix. the point of the show was to try to make her see that she was humiliating her adult daughter and causing her untold psychological damage by doing this for a living. Important to add here that her 21 year-old daughter had no clue that her mother was a dominatrix until she decided to go on the Tyra Banks show. It was clear that her daughter, Tyra Banks, and the entire audience do not understand the psychology of BDSM and what a dominatrix does in spite of this woman's repeated attempts to explain it.

After 15 minutes of berating her, Tyra had a 'family counsellor' give her two cents. This counsellor, who gave no indication that she has an training or experience in sexuality, let alone kink and fetish, was able to diagnose this poor woman as having serious control issues resulting from her becoming a mother too early in life. That's why she needs to do this crazy job that allows her to feel in control. She was also able to tell her that she has a dominant/submissive relationship with her daughter that is dysfunctional. All this after only 15 minutes of knowing her - this counsellor is good!

I don't really understand what the point was here. I thought the woman was quite clear about what she did. She explained it, they showed a few little clips of some of her sessions (probably dramatized), made it clear that she actually doesn't have sex of any kind with any of her clients, and that she provides a services for them - a place for them to act out these fantasies and to get these needs met in a safe and controlled way. But there was no possible way that anyone there could accept that this might be true. Since it has to do with sex, it must be wrong.

They kept coming back to the point that her daughter was so distressed about it. I'm not surprised she was distressed! If I found out at 21 that my mother was a dom and was dragged to a national talk show and shown video of her whipping a guy in a mask, I'd be distressed too! But all she needs is a good heart to heart with her mother who can explain what's going on and allay any fears she has about her safety. If you don't have any exposure to BDSM, it can look very scary from the outside. You just need to have someone show and explain to you what's going on.

What really galls me about this whole thing is that Tyra Banks, of all people, stands there and judges women for using their bodies to get money from men. She even said several times that she thought is was so sad that they felt the only way for them to make a living was to get money from men by using their bodies. Exactly how did Tyra Banks make her fortune? She can try to convince herself that she made her money selling underwear and swimsuits but we all know that it's not women who buy Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and the Victoria's Secret Catalogue. She sold her body. She was selling a fantasy. She was selling sex. So exactly who is she to judge an exotic dancer or a prostitute for doing the same thing?

Some sense about porn from Josey Vogels

2008-10-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

I don't always love Josey Vogels' column, My Messy Bedroom, but I did like this weeks' column about heterosexual men and porn.

This is an issue that straight women usually have to deal with at some point in their relationships. Most men watch porn, at least a little. Particularly today because it's pretty hard not to, with so much of it around all the time. As I've said before, the woman who thinks her partner doesn't watch porn has a partner who is really good at hiding his porn. The common wisdom for women is that all porn is degrading to women and that a man in a happy relationship should have no need for porn.

These assumptions are both dead wrong. First, yes, a resounding yes, some porn is extremely degrading to women. In fact, quite a lot of it is. But certainly not all of it. And what is degrading is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. It's an extremely complex question of whether a particular depiction is actually misogynistic or degrading and part of the answer lies in the opinion of the person who looks at it. But films of women having sex are not, in and of themselves, degrading. That completely depends on the acts portrayed, the context of it, and the real-life situation in which that film was created. Some porn producers are quite respectful of women, and indeed are women who respect other women.

The second piece of common wisdom is the big issue. Many women believe that a man in a happy and sexually satisfying relationship should have no interest in porn. This could not be further from the truth. Any man, and indeed any woman, who is interested in sex will have some curiosity about porn. It depicts things that s/he may not be able to have in real life, but is interested in. Often it's not even that s/he wants a partner that looks like that or wants to do those things, it's just that the idea is interesting or exciting and watching a porn film is the only way to experience that, or more probably, the only way s/he would ever want to experience that. I am often surprised at the things that I am aroused by. I find it exciting to watch but would never in a million years want to do it in real life!

So I applaud Josey's take on this issue. If you look at the link you'll see comments from a lot of people giving her major grief about it. Oprah did a show about sex a few months ago and she had a woman on who expressed the same viewpoint - that in some cases viewing pornography and erotica can enhance rather than hurt a relationship. There was an absolute shitstorm rained down on her for allowing that opinion to be expressed on her show. The idea that porn is always bad is an ideological viewpoint that a lot of people are not ready to let go of. I believe it comes back to the fact that we have such a deep-seated shame about sexuality in our culture. And I also believe that the real taboo in our culture in not in the sexual things we do or do not do, but rather in being honest and open about it.

Talk Sex.......ual Stereotyping

2008-10-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is a note I wrote a couple of months ago after seeing Sue Johansen on the Tyra Banks.

So yesterday I watched Sue Johansen on the Tyra Banks show. I'm sure most people know who Sue Johansen is, but in case you don't, I'll enlighten you. Sue is a nurse from somewhere around Toronto (I really don't know exactly where she came from originally). She started a radio call-in show about sex many many years ago. Over the years it has taken on a life of it's own until it became a national show and then a television show. She now does the show only in the U.S.A., she does regular speaking tours, and she is often on these very big national talk shows in the states.

Everyone just loves Sue because she's about 178 years old, she's cute, and she talks about sex! The problem with Sue is that she doesn't really know what she's talking about. These are the three things, in summary that really piss me off about Sue Johansen:
1. she gives out misinformation, rarely seems to check her facts, and doesn't give a crap that she's doing it
2. she does not know one single thing about sex toys but she talks about them on her shows like she's an expert
3. and this is the one I have the biggest issue with - the advice and information she gives is absolutely rife with sexual stereotyping, personal value biases and judgments, and generalizations.

Even I have to admit that sometimes she says good things and that just talking about sex openly is a good thing. but people think she is the goddess of sex information and she's just not. I cannot even tell you the number I times, at toy parties and presentations, I have had to correct someone who says to me 'Sue Johansen says that .......'.

So anyway, there were many things she said on Tyra that pissed me off but this is the big one. She was talking about how guys falls asleep after they have sex and how this makes women feel used and lonely. According to Sue, there are five things a man has to say to his partner after sex and they are:
1. I love you
2. I needed you
3. I wanted you
4. I respect you
5. I will never leave you
What?????????

For the purpose of some further exploration about what sex is really about, let's break this wonderful instruction down. Sue is assuming many things here when she says this:
1. The woman needs to feel loved and needed and the man really doesn't give a shit and doesn't need to hear that from the woman.
2. The man is having sex with a woman, not another man who has promptly just fallen asleep as well and can't hear what he's saying.
3. Only men fall asleep after sex. Lots of women do too. It's a physiological response to the quick and extreme release of tension and endorphins that happens when you have an orgasm.
4. The woman wants to hear all that stuff. What if this is a booty call or a hot guy she brought home from the bar? That's the last thing she wants to hear! You don't want your booty call to tell you that he will love you and never leave you, you want him to say 'That was awesome. Where did you throw my underwear when you ripped them off with your teeth?'
5. Women are so insecure that they need to hear that after having sex. I think the underlying message here is that women don't have sex for their own pleasure, they do it because to feel closer to a man and to get him to make and keep a commitment to them. I have been in my current relationship for seven years now so yeah, I'm in a long-term relationship (and don't let this get out but I am actually married). I don't need my partner to say this stuff to me after sex. I already know all that stuff. Having sex doesn't make me feel insecure about it. It's just fun and a nice time with him. If he says stuff like that to me after sex or any other time, it's nice but I don't need it. Usually what I want to hear after sex is 'thanks sweetie - here's a tissue' (I'm usually saying the same thing to him). He oftens falls asleep right after because that's just what he does. Sometimes I do too. And that's just fine with me - I know that he's happy. and it give me some space to relax too.

Right after she dispensed this wisdom, one of the male viewers said that his girlfriend doesn't talk to him after sex and that he feels used when she does this. This totally stumped Sue. She said it's unusual and asked if he's talked to her about it. He said no because she just falls asleep. She was baffled and implied that there was something deeply wrong with this woman - that she had some sort of emotional block. 'Well, I don't know what could be going on there', she said. I do! Perhaps she is having awesome sex, is completely wasted when she's done, and she falls asleep. Maybe he's a really good lover! Or maybe he's a bore and that's all she wants from him. I don't know. But the point is, this isn't cause for alarm. And there is a very easy solution to it that never occurred to Sue. He could ask her, sometime other than when they've just finished having sex, why she falls asleep right after. He could tell her that he would really like a minute or two of cuddle time with her. If she can't do that, they can probably work something else out where they will both get what they need. It's called communication.

Clueless about Cowgirl

2008-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I saw few minutes of Talk Sex with Sue about a week ago. It baffles me that people cannot figure out from her answers that Sue really doesn't understand a lot about how sex works.

One question was from a woman who was concerned about causing her partner pain during their favorite sexual position. She enjoyed the reverse cowgirl position (on top of him but facing his feet), and she liked to bend her upper body quite far down and forward so his testicles rubbed her clitoris. She said that this made him somewhat uncomfortable and she wanted to know how to fix that.

First of all, Sue had a heck of time understanding what she meant and had to get her little dolls out to make sense of it. She said she'd never heard of this before. I have a hard time with that. It's a pretty common thing. Lots of women, and indeed, lots of men, enjoy that position.

Then, she focused on the fact that she was handling her partner's testicles. She was sure this was what was causing his pain. So she told her to stop doing that and use a vibrator instead.

She completely missed the point. What's likely causing the discomfort - and the caller may have even known this and just not wanted to say - is that when she's bending that far down, she's forcing his penis to bend back away from his body which is an unnatural position for it and it can hurt. There are two simple solutions. One is actually what Sue suggested. She can sit up and have him use her hands or other one can use a vibrator on her. Or he can sit up a bit so that the angle is less extreme for him. He can even prop an triangular pillow, like a liberator, behind him so that he can lean back and relax and still be comfortable.

This is not rocket science, it's simple anatomy.

Cheery O's

2008-10-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a repost of a note a wrote about an Oprah show last spring featuring one of the newer self-declared experts, Dr. Oz.

I was watching Oprah yesterday. This was a health show and they had an 'ask the doctor' question. A woman was asking if there was something wrong with her because she can have many multiple orgasms - anywhere from eight to eighteen! Of course there was raucous laughter and a lot of discussion about how this was not a problem. I'm not going to pick on that. I don't think it's a problem either - neither did she. She was just wondering if there was something weird about her.

What I did pick up on was that the doctor said 'only 15% of women have multiple orgasms'. Okay - I hate it when 'experts' trot out these kinds of statistics. They never explain the stat to you or where they got it from. This guy seems to know a lot, sure, but he is not a sex therapist. Contrary to popular belief, doctors, even urologists and gynecologists, get very little training in actual sexual health functioning. Pleasure and healthy sex is not their game. Bodies and whether they are working right is their game. So they actually don't know a lot about sexual response and everything that is involved. They often know enough to be dangerous and to spew meaningless and scary statistics at people. But anyway, my point is this, that is a stupid thing to say unless you are prepared to explain it.

I have no idea where he got that stat from (my suspicion is that it came from somewhere in the vicinity of his ass). But my guess would be that what it really means is that on that particular survey, 15% of women reported that they have had multiple orgasms. He made it sound as if only 15% of women can have mo's. My firm belief is that every woman can have them, the other 85% just haven't learned how yet.

Some women just have the brain and the body working for them right off the bat. They are comfortable and in touch and easily sexual. They have orgasms early in life and easily. Most women, however, have to learn how it works and have to practice at it to learn how to have orgasms on their own and with partners. It is not as natural as it's made out to be. Once we start learning how it feels and how it works for us, it becomes easier and more comfortable.

I think it's the same with multiples. There is an art to the multiple orgasm. Some women will just have an easy time of it and it will happen without effort. Most will have to work at it. And here is the key. If we want to have mo's with a partner, we need a partner who wants that to and is willing to work for it. I never had multiples until I was with a particular partner who knew (from previous experience) how it can work for women. If a partner pays attention, he/she can tell where a woman is at, what part of her rhythm, if another one is likely to happen, and what is needed to help it along. Of course, we can do this for ourselves, but it's important that the partner is wanting to go for this ride too. All it takes is some willingness to depart from the known and venture into the possible.

Now 18 orgasms in a row is a bit extreme. As she said herself, it's exhausting. So we may not want to aim that high. But certainly two or three is not too much to ask. Don't let anyone tell you that it's not possible.

Welcome!

2008-10-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Talk Sense! I'm Brenda and I am the owner of a sex toy party company in Edmonton, Alberta, called The Traveling Tickle Trunk. Our company focuses on honest, real sexual information free of sexual stereotypes and biases.

At my parties, I often hear questions and comments from our lovely party-goers about things they heard supposed 'sex experts. These 'sexperts' are everywhere, giving out all kinds of advice in magazines, on TV shows, and on-line. And yes, some of the 'sexperts' do actually give out good advice. But I've spent a lot of time looking at these things now and what I've found is most of the very popular, big name 'experts' have no education or work background in sexuality whatsoever. They just lucked into a good job and they can write well or make cute comments on TV. Their advice is rife with sexual stereotypes, and is often just a re-hashing of decades-old information and 'common wisdom'. Yet because they are so popular, and are tauted as experts, we think what they say must be true. I spend a significant amount of time at my parties talking with people about what they're heard from these experts and dissecting these pearls of wisdom.

And so, I've decided to start 'Talk Sense' to have a place to record these conversations and to give some alternate views to the 'common wisdom'. If you've ever seen 'Talk Sex with Sue', you'll know where the title comes from.

If you have a question about a piece of sex advice you've seen or heard, or if you want to give your viewpoint, write to me here.