“Do I make babies in my mouth? … cum somewhere else… and I’m not suggesting it… I’m telling you…”

My trip to Colorado this week was amazing! I had a screening at University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley, a town made famous by the cow dung aroma described in Fast Food Nation. I stayed with Professor Nick Syrett, author of “The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities” who in his previous life was my travel partner in far flung adventures in the Middle East, Maghreb and the hallowed halls of Tina Turner concerts. The film was the kick off event for UNC SAFE week, sponsored by the Women’s Studies Department, The Assault Survivor Advocacy Program, the prestigious gentleman of Nu Alpha Kappa Fraternity, the local police, and more. Had the pleasure of meeting Historiann there, too.

I was told that the student body leaned toward conservative and that many of the students were married. I cringed through the dirty parts of my movie and hoped I wasn’t traumatizing anyone. The screening had over 80 students in attendance, folks asked great questions… and as evidenced above, they were not shy about speaking their minds!

Barnard College 3/5/10.

There is no actual harm in one man telling another man that his mother sucked his cock the previous night. It is just an invitation to dance

He shoved you and you put your hands up but you did not walk away. We take shoving to be a provocation after which one is justified in committing violence.

What the shove says is, I love you and I want to feel the violence of my love for you by having some contact. The shove says, I want some pain inflicted, will you please engage in some mutual infliction of pain? I need some pain. The shoving says, here, look at what I am willing to do: I am offering myself to you, to be beaten.

Will you please attack me so I feel whole again? Here, look, I will shove you again. That is my request. The shove says, “I want you. I want you to beat me.”

He might as well say, you know, I really love you and want to be intimate with you by fighting. Will you join me in a fight? Will you please slake my thirst for violence? I am attracted to you; I think it would be a deep, erotic pleasure to be beaten by you. Would you please? May I have this dance of violence?

These are film stills from “The Hurt Locker,” and the words are excerpted from an advice column by Cary Tennis of Salon.com.

Last year I was a baby at Sex::Tech. I soaked up the intersections of public health, youth sexuality and technology for the first time. Scribbling in pen (pre-twitter!) notes on HIV/MSM/CDC/STI/SMS in my notebook… my mind buzzing from meeting like minded people using tools I hoped to access. I screened a rough cut of THE LINE during an unconference session and started to think critically about designing an outreach campaign to talk about sexual consent. @vniow introduced me to twitter, and I had yet to meet @melissagira who would work with me on creating this campaign. On my way out, I struck up a conversation with a woman on an elevator, and we discussed a critical missing element to our experience: the discussion of self-esteem, self-regard, and the emotional state of the subjects profiled. Basically, the “why” behind the what.

Flash forward to this year where Sex::Tech 2010 was a messy & complicated affair. In my opinion, this is a really good thing. There were major disagreements in style and approach to Sex Ed (mainly SexReally’s video: sexist and stupid v. funny and effective), frustration about whose voices are amplified, who can access technology and why we need to talk about pleasure.  Here are some highlights from the keynote and twitter:

Queer youth get stuck figuring it out for themselves, since no one wants to answer our questions!” Include us!

Queer sex ed should be part of all sex ed, why not? We’re all in the same classes together at school!”

Salon rightfully slams that horrid “Guys are a@#$%^&” PSA from @SexReally seen at #sextech last weekend. http://bit.ly/csCgx3 (@vniow)

As Queer young POC at #sextech we did not feel acknowledged around our intersecting identities (@colorlatina)

Missing from sex ed: talking abt what to do w/feelings of lust, or love, that may come w/sexual intimacy. Not *just* abt condoms, STIs, etc (@tallanna)

I had the honor of presenting on two panels this year, and I was both excited and nervous, about the first one especially. “I Am A Feminist Sex Educator” moderated by Scarleteen’s Heather Corrina, with Dr. Jess Fields, author of “Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality”, Educator Cory Silverberg from About.com and Come As You Are, Third Wave Foundation’s Melissa Gira Grant and me. As a filmmaker and activist, I was uncomfortable with the official-ness of the term “educator” but there were drop-outs in the room, and voicing my anxiety helped!

We kicked off by naming how we got to feminism, our backgrounds, experience, work and focus. Some highlights from the panel and the simultaneous tweets:

Two reasons to call ourselves feminists: 1) It connects w/history, movement. 2) It holds feminism accountable to represent us. -@JessFields

There’s no sex in #feminism? (like no crying in baseball) Bullshit! -@heathercorrina

Sexuality is such a racialized issue in USA and we don’t meaningfully talk about it in #sexed -@jessfield

Especially since I present as a man,” @corysilverberg says, I call myself a #feminist #sex educator cuz it REQUIRES explanation.

@melissagira suggests using “gender justice” along with #feminism when we talk about #sexed #sextech

Can BDSM be “feminist”? Does it matter?

Seems like there is still a lot to unpack re: #feminism, #sexed #gender justice & messaging when trying to reach #youth at #sextech

So there was the Twitter conversation and the public conversation. Confession: I actually tweeted during the Feminist Sex Ed panel, and another time I was called out for not posing my question to the group. Keynoter Beth Kanter discusses the back channel conversation. I personally love that you can pick up threads later, see what points resonate, or what pisses your audience off.  Should those of us using twitter speak our questions and issues to the larger group? Is that disruptive to the panel or the room, or does it facilitate more lively conversation for those not in the room? Are we hiding behind twitter or having multiple conversations?

Using the Twitter back channel following my second panel “Reducing Stigma Through Social Networking” I was able to track the points and themes that stood out the most for people. This panel highlighted Whereisyourline.org alongside the work of Exhale a private and secure online space for women to discuss abortion, and the St. James Infirmary Clinic a for sex workers by sex workers health clinic. This was a space to talk about stigma and how peers talk and support each other. Some thoughts that floated around (sorry @mkeagle, they’re mostly yours!):

We raise women to survive in a rape culture, but we do nothing to talk to men about not raping. wow. (@mindofandre)

Wondering if @thelinecampaign deals with male rape victims, rape within LGBTQ communities etc… (@mkeagle)

So many awesome points here: sex workers looking for services, not being “rescued” or “saved.” (@mkeagle)

Really great audience question- can we reframe “consent” so it’s not so much aggressor v. gatekeeper?

Yesterday we talked about the challenges of accessing closed online communities; Exhale is pointing out some real positives. (@mkeagle)

This panel was incredibly exciting for me – it was complicated, and dealt with shame, stigma and emotions. A young woman approached us after the panel and shared her personal story, one that included all of the experiences that we had just named. She cried and smiled, and expressed relief that she had encountered a space at Sex::Tech to do that.

Other parallel conversations happening during the conference or over drinks:

Feeeirce back and forth about “hook up culture” was happening: a monolithic and clumsy term? “adult”? madeup panic? Most recently sparked by Rachel J Simmons, Kate Harding, Amanda Marcotte and more… and always, our blogger Carmen’s first-person war story.

Poly Sex v. Casual sex: can you have real intimacy w/strangers? managing expectations, “About Love,” by Bell Hooks, “Trouble With Normal” by Michael Warner and pending research from Heather Corrina.

… oh yea, and BDSM and Feminism. Why label specific sex acts “feminist”? credit BDSM culture for how we talk about verbal consent, and oh man, let’s hope college students are engaging in BDSM while sober, using safe words and with care.

Ok, so why was Sex::Tech complicated? Because we don’t all think to address and challenge sexism in our approach to sexual education, because we’re not queer and trans-inclusive in our pedagogy, because we don’t address intersectionality and privilege enough, because involving men in gender-violence prevention is still a new concept… and on and on…

If you’re comfortable in your coalition, your coalition isn’t big enough. I’m thrilled that these debates were sparked, and here’s to making Sex::Tech even BIGGER next year!

Needed help with this equation? Me too – I studied art history in college. This lovely and intelligent Stanford physics major was one of the first students to raise his hand after the screening. He wondered why so many of his peers seem to lack basic “emotional intelligence.” We talked about the socialization of young men, lack of sexual education that includes communication, respect and pleasure, and a really low bar when it comes to young people’s expectations of sex and consent. His comments set the tone for a productive q/a.

This means:

My line = Change / Flux / Mood over Change / Time

Where ever I say it is… as I whisper it in your ear with your hands on my curves. Stanford University, 2/24 2010.

How can I possibly enjoy myself when I’m not even conscious? Please don’t be selfish. Make sure I’m awake. (via @HappyFeminist)

Two weeks ago, a friend told me that her boyfriend choked her while the two were having a fight. I was really upset for my friend, by this act of violence and violation, and also confused. This same friend has admitted to me that she enjoys being choked in bed. Her story prompted me to think harder about the way that an act like choking can oscillate between spaces of pain/pleasure, consent/force, play/violence, complicating these definitions and boundaries, while possibly challenging notions of feminism.

I’ve since recounted this story to others, listening to their opinions and reactions. Admittedly, I feel unequipped to negotiate and process this alone; my desire for closure is eclipsed by the value of showing people that my friend’s story is linked to larger issues of violence, abuse, pleasure, and ambivalence. This includes my own ambivalence; I consider myself a feminist while also enjoying what I define as rough sex. So am I empowered, degraded, or both? It’s damn hard to tell.

I conducted an informal survey of my peers and friends, including a queer female studying sadomasochism, an East Asian Studies straight male graduate student, a queer female peer health educator involved in the Columbia/Barnard BDSM community, a black feminist who write, engages, and thinks about sex and racialization, a straight white female who had her first sexual experience with a woman, a straight female in a five-year long monogamous relationship, a straight male in said monogamous relationship, a straight female who proclaims a love for rough sex (but absolutely refuses blood play), a straight male writer in a two-plus year long relationship, a gay male in the midst of his first sexual relationship, and finally, my partner, a straight male. All the people I spoke to have been or currently are sexually active. The youngest is 21 years old, the oldest 25. In total, I spoke to ten individuals, often alone and online but sometimes in person and/or in groups. I asked:

What do you define as rough sex?

How do you set boundaries?

Can you be sexy and set boundaries?

Do you define yourself as feminist?

Though everyone gave me varied responses, I noticed consistent patterns emerging from them as a whole.

The first thing that everyone agrees on is that choking a person, no matter when or where, is extremely dangerous and needs to be considered carefully before enacted. My medically trained friend encouraged me to look up some statistics on fatalities in the bedroom via sexual fetishism. I Googled sexual fatalities; the first resource that popped up was a paper on accidental “coital deaths“. The abstract notes that accidental deaths are common and remain unreported, as they are “an unfortunate and embarrassing complication”. I feel like the stigma also relates to the taboo of publicly discussing kinky sex and fetishization. David Carradine, anyone?

The second thing that everyone agrees on is that individuals are entitled to decide for themselves what counts as sexually pleasurable. One gay male friend asserts that

Gay guys enjoy being manhandled!

while a straight male friend believes

Choking a person is psychologically equal to violence…  more like a turn off

When I asked if he has or ever will engage in rough play during sex, he said no, absolutely not. My friends’ comments made me realize that for this group, real pressure does not lie in conforming to others’ sexuality but instead in figuring out one’s own preferences and communicating that clearly.

The third thing that everyone agrees on is the need for “a conversation” to happen, despite the difficulty of starting one and defining its exact terms. The black feminist writing her thesis on sex and racialization believes that rather than detracting from sexual excitability, communicating one’s desires sets up a framework of security and control:

so the actual sex becomes much better and therefore sexier

But as another friend astutely notes (and here’s where it gets sticky),

Permission isn’t always premeditated… permission often comes after the fact, even if there’s extensive discussion and planning before engaging in certain behavioral contexts, sexual or otherwise

Suddenly, this made me recall the first few times my partner and I started having sex. Without my permission, he pulled my hair, pinned me down, and used handcuffs. I’ll admit, I was surprised at first, because I’d never engaged in rough play, and we never had a discussion about this. It took time, energy, and sexual comfort to figure out that I like rough play, but I didn’t enter my relationship knowing that I wanted these things. I didn’t have a conversation. It’s troubling to realize that now, because I don’t know what I would have done had I felt violated. (A conversation w/my boyfriend about this is next, and I will post it here!)

The way I see things, violation can occur between the lines of sexual and nonsexual settings (in romantic relationships, casual hookups, flirtation), between premeditation and unexpectedness (rape fantasies, surprise seduction). This doesn’t mean that one should ever stop trying to communicate his or her own do’s and don’ts.

In discussing rough sex, unsurprisingly, no one agreed on what exactly constitutes the act. Some mentioned concrete methods involving handcuffs and spanking. Others got theoretical, discussing its ability to “blur the line between pain and pleasure”. Its meaning got clearer as I asked people to juxtapose rough sex against violence. Nearly everyone agreed on differences of intent:

Rough (consensual) sex is about mutual pleasure; violence is about one person’s assertion of power over another

No one could answer whether enjoying and engaging in rough sex is compatible with American feminist ideology, but I found an article on Heather Corinna’s Scarleteen immensely helpful in dissecting this question. Corinna writes:

I think it’s important to remember that at the heart of feminism is the goal for women to be able to have enjoyment of our lives and the freedom to make our own choices and take our own journeys. We all also get to have our own ideas and opinions about what feminism is or should be: not all feminist women agree that this thing or that is or is not feminist. It’s a movement made of people, and people vary and also adjust our ideas, and thus, the movement itself, as we all go through our own processes.

It’s frustrating to know that there isn’t always a universal, empirical way to categorize rough sex, violence, or consent, but it only drives me further to find answers. Aside from THE LINE Campaign, I’ve discovered resources that tease out so many facets of safe, consensual, kinky sex, a learning process that is both liberating but also confusing. Some resources, like Sinclair Sexsmith’s The Sugarbutch Chronicles, or the work of Ignacio Rivera, and various BDSM groups highlight individuals who think and rethink such issues on a daily basis. My queer friend who is involved in Conversio Virium, Columbia/Barnard’s BDSM Organization, feels like her BDSM peers are the most sexually open and communicative people she’s ever met.

I wonder if, with sexual preferences that are more unconventional and alternative, is it more necessary to be transparent in order to create consent? She brought up “Yes/Maybe/No” lists, in which people imagine different sexual acts and decide their desire to do each one. With all the sexual variety out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if no two lists match up entirely. I also can’t help but wonder if our sexual culture would improve if everyone created these “Yes/Maybe/No” lists.

Could a campaign to let our individual sexual preferences out in the open create alienation and separation, or foster empowerment, solidarity, and understanding?

Wow, got totally confused with how to write the title and the letters backwards. Love the DIY nature of this submission. Keep them coming! Write about your line on your body, or download a card on our newly tweaked submit page!

Sunday was the premiere of MTV’s Sexting in America special, but I didn’t get to catch it until this morning due to not having cable, homework galore and a 24 hour stomach virus that snuck up on me yesterday.

While the special was interesting, well-made and featured a bevy of professional folk (an internet lawyer, anyone?), I was disappointed in MTV for not embracing teenagers and their emerging sexuality. I feel that adults are not comfortable with acknowledging the growing curiosity with sex amongst young people. That’s one of the biggest issues here, adults want to ignore – the fact that we are experimenting with sex. They assume that they know everything and want to protect us from irresponsibility, but they don’t realize that if they just spoke to us on a ‘real’ level, we would be more comfortable with what we did with our own bodies. And by adults, I mean ALL adults, not just your parents. Just like what Jaclyn Friedman says in her article, “When Sex is Normal, Normal People Will Talk About Sex“, instead of changing our persona “to conform to cultural norms,” we changed “the norms to conform” to our reality.

My generation is the technology generation; when I was thirteen, I registered for my first MySpace account. Everybody had one and altered their page to represent who they are (or who they wanted to be) through layouts, graphics, music, photos, etc. Your e-world revolved around comments, friend requests and number of hits your page received. You knew you had a hot photo when you received 10+ comments on it, and for a young teen, it was definitely a confidence booster. Showing off your abs, flexing your muscles or flaunting your curves was virtually accepted, and if people had a problem with it, then they were considered haters.

Of course, it’s not a smart decision to send a provocative photo of yourself to anyone, particularly an ex-boyfriend (you’re not going out with him for a reason), because it can end up being seen by e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. However, we shouldn’t start victim-blaming; with each sexting case I come across, the problem starts with the person receiving the text who ends up forwarding it to all his contacts. Then she gets blamed, and the entire school calls her a “slut”, “whore” and “ho.” Here is where the issue of GENDER ROLES come into play. If a guy showed his junk to the entire school, people wouldn’t be calling him a “ho” or a “slut”. They would mostly likely give him props and all the girls would be trying to get with him. But when Ally’s topless photo circulated around the school, she was getting bashed by everyone. One of the name-callers even appeared on the special, claiming that she wanted to fight her because Ally’s boobs appeared on her man’s phone and she was jealous. Girl, don’t you think you man has a collection of playboys under his bed that he peeps every so often?

Not being in high school makes everyone forget how important your reputation meant to you, but once you graduate you realize how pointless all that bullshit was. We should think about why we call a girl a “ho” and “slut” for doing exactly what everyone else is doing. That’s natural… its the shaming that isn’t.