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Just a quick reminder that I will be doing my last Chicago workshop (while I’m still living here) tomorrow night at Early to Bed. Come out and learn about the magical g-spot and female ejaculation. Last I checked there were still spots open. 5232 N. Sheridan Rd. in Chicago 7:30 PM $15/$10 students and low income Hope to see you there! July 12th, 2010 | Share:
 Image from CNN article Q: You may have already seen this, but I thought you might be interested in this article on a female condom that is meant to fight rape. I wondered what your opinion on it was (would it actually help stop/prevent rape?, etc), or thought that maybe you would like to blog about it (or at least pass the link around). I have heard of the anti-rape condom before. It actually first surfaced under a slightly different name a few years ago. Then it was called Rapex and now it’s Rape-aXe. And believe me I have a lot of feelings about it. I want to preface this though with the fact that I know nothing about South African culture or any other cultures in Africa. I cannot even pretend to begin to know what is going on over there. That being said, I have to say that this is not treating the problem at all. It’s another case of the victims having to protect themselves by changing their behaviors instead of getting to the root of the problem. The people who need to change their behaviors are the rapists. They need to stop raping and not because they’re afraid that there might be teeth in a woman’s vagina. Instead, we need wide spread social change that creates an environment of respect for women and autonomy over their own sexuality and bodies. Rape-aXe is something that may or may not help in the short term, but it does nothing to effect the long term issues surrounding rape. I found it interesting that the creator said “Yes, my device may be a medieval, but it’s for a medieval deed that has been around for decades.” This evil deed has been around since before medieval times. In fact, it’s pretty much been around since the beginning of time, not decades but millennia. That is seriously long term and we need to think in those terms. Let us address the short term though. One side effect I see of this toothy condom is more violence. A man who has just raped a woman and had a sharp object embedded into his penis is probably extremely likely to lash out at the woman who was wearing it. And what about a woman who is gang raped? That is going to spell out even more violence for her. The rapists will probably beat her more severely than they would have. Also, there is more than one way to rape a person. It does not always involve penis in vagina. It could involve an ass, a mouth, and/or other insertable objects besides a penis. In fact, why not just shove a broom handle or something up there first to make sure she’s not packing a Rape-aXe? They say that this would help with rape convictions because a medical doctor has to remove the condom. How long until there is an underground removal service? Just because only doctors can remove them now doesn’t mean that they will always be the only ones to be able to do it. I also worry that it will hinder rape convictions if a woman isn’t wearing it. I can imagine it now. They accuse her of wanting it because she wasn’t wearing a Rape-aXe. Also, this condom doesn’t actually prevent sexual assault. It just latches on to a rapist’s penis after the sexual assault has already begun. Will it prevent rape if rapists think that women are wearing them? Well, do the sponges with razorblades prevent anything? However, I do not fault women for wanting to wear this to help protect themselves. It has to be better than shoving a sponge filled with razorblades into your vagina. That just sounds like a horrible idea. Although, at $2 a pop this may not be within most poor women’s means. And lets face it, the poorer you are the more likely you are to get raped and the less likely your rapist will be convicted. But there’s a desperation there obviously because the rape rates are so extremely high in South Africa. There just has to be a better way. We need to treat the disease, not the symptom. Women’s rights are human rights.
It’s geared more towards hetero/bi women, but they acknowledge that. It’s difficult to please everyone. They feature solo men, male/female couples, male/male couples, and threesomes. As far as I can tell, the pictures are more erotic than pornographic in the sense that they’re not really all that explicit but then again I’m sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with that definition. I’m going to have to pick up a copy to see what it’s all about. (via Jezebel)
The biggest shortfall of most sex guides is that they default to heterosexual sex and treat queer sex as if it’s this other thing that other people do, but obviously not the reader. They’ll usually include a chapter about homosexuality and bisexuality and another chapter about trans folks, but always from the point of view that they’re teaching us about a foreign concept. They couldn’t possibly be teaching anyone who actually is one of those things. That can really make LGBTQQI folks feel abnormal and like maybe something is wrong with them. And is it really a comprehensive guide if they’re cutting out a good portion of the population? Moregasm does not make this mistake. Throughout the entire book they address the reader as if they might be open to any kind of sex. This is not surprising given the writers. They are the founders of Babeland. As someone who works in a sex shop I know exactly how to talk to a customer without making any sort of judgments about who the person would be having sex with. I make sure to include all types of bodies in my discussions unless the customer makes it clear who they intend to use the object with. At the same time, sex shop workers are used to talking directly to a person whose gender we can usually assume from looking and talking to them. We rarely try to make assumptions about the person’s sex, only about what gender they are presenting. Because of this and many other reasons they decided to write the book from the perspective of a woman for women. It can be extremely complicated to write a book that makes absolutely no assumptions what so ever. I’d really like to see someone try to do it and come out with an amazingly fantastic inclusive book. I really would. But damn it would be difficult. So I gotta give Moregasm props for being inclusive even if they wrote the book specifically for women. At least they acknowledge that fact.
So, what doesn’t Moregasm do well? The thing about publishing a book is that the publisher has to approve it and that means they have to approve the look of it. This can be extremely difficult if you are trying to create an all inclusive guide to sex. This book is filled with beautiful pictures of beautiful people. There are some pictures of different types of bodies, but most of them are thin, young, white, and cis-gendered. There are a few different races sprinkled around in the book. There is one picture of a trans man pictured next to a write up about trans, genderqueer, and intersexed folks. Although, I do credit them for picturing a few more androgynous women throughout the book. There are two pictures of older people, but those are tucked in the back amongst the questions about sex when you get older. And while the models aren’t all super skinny, there isn’t one person I would categorize as fat in the whole book. There is also not a single picture of anyone who is visibly disabled. This is all important because I feel that it is necessary for everyone to see themselves in a comprehensive sex guide in order for them to feel included in the discussion and because it is important for everyone to see that people of all types are sexy and beautiful in their own ways. But like I said before, this can depend hugely on what the publisher okays. The other thing that I didn’t really like about Moregasm is that I felt that it was constantly trying to promote Babeland. This is probably going to keep this book out of a lot of other sex shops that are just as good as Babeland is. Why would a shop owner want to sell a book that is constantly telling the reader to shop at Babeland? This is especially poorly done in the section on lube. Every single lube that the book recommends is a Babeland brand lube. There are lots of good lubes out there that aren’t made by Babeland, but they aren’t mentioned. Probably because Babeland makes more money on their lubes, especially if you have to buy them from Babeland. So overall, this book is fun, sexy, and educational. It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but it delivers where a lot of books don’t. I definitely recommend this book to all sexualities, but would recommend other books for information on sex with disabilities, aging, and trans identities. I’ve been doing my daily tips Monday through Friday on Twitter ( I found it too difficult to remember on the weekends) and because I only have 140 characters I can only say so much. I encourage you to ask questions if I give a tip that you need more information on. I had one reader do just that. The tip was: Smoking cigarettes can lead to impotence in both men AND women. And his question is: What exactly qualifies as impotence in women? Low sex drive? Low lubrication production? We all know what impotence means for men. Afterall, there are tons of commercials for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, etc on TV all the damned time. Although, they usually call it erectile dysfunction these days so as not to upset the men folks, but I wanted to use a single word to describe what it is in both men and women. Granted, it actually is the same thing in women as men: erectile dysfunction. Although in women it is rarely called that. In women its called Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. I don’t know about you, but erectile dysfunction is a much nicer way of saying it. In fact, I think I’d prefer calling it impotence for everyone than calling women’s inability to get an erection Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. That sounds horribly sex negative. Enough with the rant, what does it mean? People spend so much time talking about the differences between men and women that it almost seems like we’re two different species. But the reality is that we all start out female in the womb and either continue to develop as a female or the course gets altered and we become male. This means that our bodies are pretty much made up of the exact same stuff. Heck, why do you think men have nipples? Sure, our genitals look pretty different from each other, but they’re actually strikingly similar. There is erectile tissue in both the clitoris and the penis and when any healthy, able-bodied person becomes aroused they sport an erection. Its just that some of ours are smaller and more internal than others. Its hard to ignore a man’s erection when its sticking out at you and its pretty obvious when he is having a difficult time getting or maintaining his erection. Sexual partners often take it personally or think that he is not a “real man” and the man with the limp dick often freaks out about it and starts asking the wrong questions of himself. Instead of asking things like “Am I really attracted to her? Am I gay? Am I not virile enough?,” he should be asking “What is different? Am I on any new medications that cause side effects? Have I changed my diet recently? When is the last time I had a prostate exam? Have I been really stressed out lately? Am I in bad health?” When a woman becomes sexually aroused, we don’t think of her as having an erection, but she really does. Maybe its because our society focuses on one side of sex and not the other? Arousal in women is often judged by how wet she gets, not how big her clit gets. But if her clit does not become erect, it will be very difficult for her to have an orgasm, just like it is very difficult for men to have an orgasm when not erect. So while it is obvious when men experience erectile dysfunction because their cock isn’t waving at you, it becomes a bit more obvious when a woman cannot have an orgasm that she can normally achieve. However, it isn’t obvious as to what the reasoning is. A woman may still feel pretty aroused despite her clit not being erect. Or she may just feel her sex drive drop. And there really aren’t any pills out there for women to help with this dysfunction. But I don’t really think Viagra for women is going to fix the problem either if a woman doesn’t know why she isn’t becoming aroused or orgasmic. First, women need to learn more about their bodies in order to understand the way it changes. So smoking effects the ability for both men and women to get an erection because nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, which means that it tightens blood vessels and constricts blood flow. This obviously has a big effect on how the blood flows into the genitals. |
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Under 18? Get your sex-ed at Scarleteen instead. ----------------------------- 
 
 
   
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