Tag Archive for "Sexuality"

Posts Tagged Sexuality

By Juliana Britto Schwartz • 9 years ago

Feministing Readz: Daisy Hernandez’s A Cup of Water Under My Bed

As soon as I finished the last page of A Cup of Water Under My Bed, I pulled out my phone and searched the words “card reader” into Yelp. Then I tried “mãe de santa,” then “candomblé” then “santería,” but none of the terms really summed up the kind of guidance I had brushed up against through my mother, my cousins, my aunts. In her book, Daisy Hernandez reminds us that often, we do not know how to name or thank the women who shape our journey. The women her parents sought out for spiritual support were referred to as simply “las mujeres que saben,” in her house, the “women who know.”

I eventually found a woman named Yolanda ...

As soon as I finished the last page of A Cup of Water Under My Bed, I pulled out my phone and searched the words “card reader” into Yelp. Then I tried “mãe de ...

By Mychal Denzel Smith • 9 years ago

Nicki Minaj’s butt and the politics of black women’s sexuality

Over at Ebony.com, Jamilah Lemieux has a good summary of why Chuck Creekmur’s open letter to Nicki Minaj raises a number of red flags.

Creekmur, owner of AllHipHop.com, penned the letter in response to Minaj’s cover artwork for her next single, “Anaconda.” She’s sporting a thong and a pair of Air Jordan sneakers and… not much else aside from her tattoos. Her ass is on full display. Creekmur was disturbed. Not that he thought Minaj was being exploited or that she felt this highly sexualized image was distracting from her talent. He was concerned for his daughter. He wrote:

“I’m trying to raise a young girl that will eventually grow into someone greater than the both of ...

Over at Ebony.com, Jamilah Lemieux has a good summary of why Chuck Creekmur’s open letter to Nicki Minaj raises a number of red flags.

Creekmur, owner of AllHipHop.com, penned the letter in response ...

By Executive Directors • 9 years ago

The dramatic history of American sex-ed films

Ed. note: This story is by Bitch Media’s online editor, Sarah Mirk. It is part of a joint reporting project on reproductive rights in pop culture that includes Feministing, Bitch Media, and Making Contact. This work is part of a Media Consortium collaboration made possible in part by a grant from the Voqal Fund. Read the other stories in the series here and here.

In 1948, in a seventh grade classroom in Eugene, Oregon, a teacher dimmed the lights and flipped on 16mm projector. A film called Human Growth began to play and for 20 minutes, a fictional teacher explained the human reproductive system while animated sperm and ovum flickered on-screen.

The presentation of these simple facts of life was so ...

By Sesali B. • 9 years ago

Let them live: Josephine Baker, Maya Angelou, and Rihanna as erotic and holistic

Last week when I wrote about women telling their boyfriends to “check their bitches” my ending bio included an exasperated “Maya Angelou didn’t die for this shit.” And I meant it. When it comes to black women, the “shit” I’m referring to goes beyond the defense mechanisms of scorned lovers on Love & Hip Hop. The “shit” is the continually devaluing of black women and the rejection of their sexuality and bodily autonomy. She didn’t die for us to uphold false dichotomies about the character and worth of black women.

When Rihanna shut the CFDA Awards down in her dazzling sheer gown by designer Adam Shelman, I was expecting some thot shaming. We all know how everyone ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 9 years ago

Ladies, you should probably masturbate more

Women. It’s time for your semi-regularly scheduled reminder that masturbating is fun and healthy and will not, in fact, cause hairy palms or whatever the hell the anti-sex brigade is claiming these days. Because if these numbers don’t lie, you could probably stand to be getting yourself off waaaaay more often…

Women. It’s time for your semi-regularly scheduled reminder that masturbating is fun and healthy and will not, in fact, cause hairy palms or whatever the hell the

By Katherine Cross • 10 years ago

Shattering the sexual skyhook: A review of Numenera’s Love and Sex in the Ninth World

For a genre made up of nothing but imagination, many roleplaying games (RPGs) have shown a startling lack of it when it comes to reimagining social relations. Instead of giving players something wild and new to sink their teeth into, the escapism has always had a rather reductive and puerile bend to it at its worst when it comes to gender, sex, and even race. The construction of all the foregoing in most roleplaying games takes the shape of what I call a “skyhook society,” a world with social relations that are not well supported by what the history, lore, magic, or culture of the setting would make possible. If the world is clearly patriarchal, as many are, ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Quote of the Day: “Being who you are can take practice”

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Brittney Griner fan. And she continues to impress with this lovely piece in Cosmo — an excerpt from her new memoir — about her “big, long process” of coming out and growing into her own identity.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Brittney Griner fan. And she continues to impress with this lovely piece in Cosmo — an excerpt from her new memoir — about her “big, long process” ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Photos of the Day: “A celebration of those who choose to exist outside of the binary”

I’m loving this portrait series by photographer Meg Allen exploring “the butch aesthetic, identity and presentation of female masculinity” today. The project began with photos of her friends in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, and Allen describes her motivation like this:

It is a celebration of those who choose to exist and identify outside of the binary; who still get he’d and she’d differently throughout the day; who get called-out in bathrooms and eyed suspiciously at the airport; who have invented names for themselves as parents because “Mom” nor “Dad” feels quite right; and who will generally expect that stare from the gender police trying to figure out if they are “a boy or a girl”. It is an homage ...