Archives for November 2008

MIldred and Richard Loving. (Loving vs. Virginia, 1967)

In 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving committed a felony when they traveled from their native Virginia to Washington DC in order to marry one another (at the time it was not legal for them to marry in Virginia because they were not of the same race). A few days later, back in Virginia, they were arrested in their own bedroom in the middle of the night by police claiming the two were guilty of marrying the wrong kind of person. Eventually they were found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison or 25 years exile from their home in Virginia. The Lovings chose exile, got a good lawyer and sued for marriage equality all the way up through the U.S. Supreme Court....and in 1967 won their historic case, Loving v. Virginia....

It is...

Blogging is an interesting idea to me. I have read a few. I have followed fewer. At the end of the day, I am impressed with those who have managed to make a name for themselves in various e-communities posting their ideas and thoughts, be they actually interesting or amazingly pedestrian. Presently, I find myself in a professional situation where blogging will be an integral part of my life. Here goes. My first blog will be about my experiences in San Juan Purto Rico where I was fortunate to attend the conference for The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality or Quad S. It was, simply put, an amazing experience. First of all, the intensity of being in the presence of so many scholars dedicated to thinking critically about sexuality, sexual health and sexual literacy was exhilarating. There were more presentation that interested me at this conference than many others I've attended before. Since so many fabulous presentation were occurring simultaneously and since I felt a bit stressed out that I needed to make a blog entry while in PR I could hardly sort my thoughts out for the sensory overload. However, I managed to not feel guilty and here is my entry. I attended many different presentations and had the chance to table with members of SFSU where a banner for CCSL was featured (: I will talk closely about one of the presentations that stood out most to me and briefly about a couple of others...

Female genital cosmetic surgeries are suddenly big business, promoted by doctors who see a lucrative cash business and sought out by women who think that their genitals are unattractive.  The only images of female genitals in our culture are those in pornographic media; thus their invisibility forces women to rely on images of genitals that have been surgically cut or digitally reduced.  Hence, women are unaware of the wide range of normal of the appearance of female genitalia.      For release November 10, 2008 http://www.newviewcampaign.org/fgcs.asp   Research and Monitoring Needed for Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery- NYC protest set for November 17, 2008, 12-2PM   New View Campaign demands Government and Medical Associations Examine Effects of Unregulated Surgical Procedures on Vagina and Labia marketed as “Laser Vaginal...

Heading to the airport before sunrise on a chilly San Francisco morning only to endure 12 hours of travel was surprisingly exhilarating with the knowledge that Obama creamed McCain in the 2009 presidential election. It was a great start to a trip to San Juan Puerto Rico to attend the conference for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. At the conference I heard bits and pieces of pro-Obama sentiments among the sexuality researchers �€“ most seemed to be from the United States. It was stimulating to be around people who felt that change was underway, particularly toward a direction of funding more sex-positive research and comprehensive sex education initiatives.

In addition to some great panels (and a couple of not so great panels) there were some pretty cool social networking opportunities at the conference. For example,  on Saturday The NSRC staff, Sexuality Studies grad students, and Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy leaders and sexuality research hot shots from other organizations and universities sat together for the beach front awards luncheon. The food, the weather, and the company were warm and unforgettable. I enjoyed the background tap tap taping of rain on the patio cover during lunch. The pounding rain complemented the echo of voices from the various discussions. It was an intersection of the personal and professional with sexuality at the center of each...

A few nights ago I attended the midnight release of the new World of Warcraft expansion pack: Wrath of the Lich King. Yes, I’m a big dork, and I promise this blog has a point besides that. One of the events going on for the release party was a face painting booth where you could get your face pointed to look like your favorite WOW character. A friend and I decided to go ahead and get our faces painted, and were each taken to director-type chairs where two ladies were equipped with all the face painting gear you could ever need. As I sat down, my friend was already embarking on his transformation giving the woman about to paint his face instructions for a more feminine version of the character he wanted. This sparked a conversation between the woman working on my face and I about gender and face painting.

She described a young girl in her neighborhood that whenever she did parties or events in the area would always ask for a scary dragon or bloody skull on her face, designs one might consider strictly for little boys. She mentioned how the girl was otherwise totally feminine and gender typical, and how she loved that the girl could play out whatever it was that she wanted in that moment. For her...

I returned to San Francisco from Puerto Rico on Wednesday filled with a sense of accomplishment from the SSSS meeting and relaxed and slightly sunburned from the last few days of lying on the beach in Vieques.  Oh yeah, I'm also now a married man - a title that I never really thought that I would hold - having gotten married to my partner of seven years on November 4, Election Day, and the last day that same sex couples had the legal right to marry in the State of California.  For the record, I am proud to be married to my husband and to be redefining marriage, and I hope that my marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage and causes many people to rethink what it means to be in a legal partnership that is much more than about being in love with another person.  And I do think that school children across the country should be taught about same sex couples in much the same way they learn about any other family - in fact, I demand it.  We exist and will continue to exists despite all of the horrible, hateful efforts to stop us from existing.  But I digress...

Puerto Rico is a contradiction.  The islands are gorgeous.  The extravagant hotels and resorts of San Juan are filled with obnoxious mainland American and European tourists dressed in their best "resort and cruise" wear and Crocs.  The beaches of Vieques were pristine with powdery white sand...

The Center of Excellence for Sexual Health

2009-2010 Health Scholars Program

Are you interested in becoming a community leader in sexual health? Are you committed to eliminating sexual health disparities?  

If you answered yes to these questions, the CESH Sexual Health Scholars’ Program may be the place for you!

Overview of the 2009-2010 Scholars’ Program:

The CESH Scholars’ tenure will run 10 months beginning August 3, 2009 and ending June 4, 2010.  Scholars are expected to reside in the Atlanta area for the duration of the program.  Each scholar will receive a $35,000 stipend plus health care coverage through Morehouse School of Medicine.  The scholars will be instructed by a multidisciplinary faculty of experts in sexuality, medicine, community leadership, and public health.

     On the plane, reading about feminist methodology and reflexivity, I am pushed to reframe the past five days. The SSSS conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico needs contextualized; pulling out one photograph of an entire experience, without any indication of the life history of a person critiquing it for a larger audience rather unfamiliar with said person, is limiting in its relevance and unfair to the object of the critique.

     I had joked, before leaving, that the conference would be indelibly marked by the results of the Presidential election. It was indeed marked, not only by the results for President, but also several state issues that would, at a glance, appear to be of high interest to a sexuality researcher. In particular, Proposition 8’s passage in CA, AZ, and one other state, as well as the defeat of controversial personhood amendments in South Dakota and CO. As an African American feminist researcher learning the rules of sociological inquiry, the election was a mixed bag of elation and crushing disappointment. And on reflection, for me, that was the lens with which I entered the airspace of San Juan, a land which I consider in the United States, but not of it.

     First, in not speaking Spanish, I was uncomfortable with just being there. I remarked in a phone call to my mother soon after arriving that I felt...

This is my silver lining.

                                                                                                                         I try to be a positive person, and with that, I want to talk about the session, or rather, presentation, I was particularly excited to see.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a student presentation on almost the exact...

It is raining now in San Juan, and yet…it is still San Juan. It will stop eventually, I’m sure, and I will be able to go lay out in the Caribbean breeze…but I digress.

Yesterday, I attempted to blog, but lost my post in Puerto Rican cyberspace. I took it as a sign to go on the rum factory tour and relax. I should stop paying attention to my signs. From a sociological perspective, this was a very bad tour.

We had heard that this tour delivered non-stop alcohol, so we wanted food to coat our stomachs. After trying very hard to find a place that served faster than molasses, we got to gobble down half a plate of cheese fries and rushed to board a bus that…broke down. After a delay to get another bus delivered, we got on the road and…stuck in traffic. When we arrived at the rum factory, they were above capacity, so we had to wait to deboard and enter the facility. This is when things got bad.

Our tour guide may have had translation troubles, or may have intended to explicitly say that Columbus discovered America, and brought sugar cane to the New World. Although several brown people in the crowd gasped or looked askance, our tour guide continued with a narrative of how Puerto Ricans, as a fusion of Indians, enslaved Africans and Spaniards, were like a cuba libre, the famous drink made with rum, coke, and a little lime. One big, happy family....

Pulling my attention from the ocean, the sky, the beautiful people out here on the lawn of the Condado Plaza is a difficult task indeed. Nevertheless, I persevere to commit myself to at least one morning with head buried in laptop to share with you a few thoughts from my very first SSSS meeting.  One thing that has struck me about this conference is it’s ability to pull together academics and activists from disciplines as disparate as psychology, health promotion, neuroscience, pharmacy, women’s studies, anthropology, and sociology, to name but a few.  The common thread amongst us �€“ a commitment to sex research and promoting sexual health and happiness – trumps disciplinary boundaries to an extent that I’ve rarely experienced.  I come from sociology, an academic tradition that has had to fiercely defend its epistemological contributions and methodological rigor against criticism from multiple directions.  An unfortunate byproduct of this boundary guarding is that this makes transdiscipline collaborations especially difficult.  Further, this disciplinary obsession with respectability has put sexuality research on the furthest margins of sociology.  So in this regard, I have found SSSS an especially refreshing experience.  

At the same time, however, I have found myself somewhat frustrated with the dearth of qualitative contributions...

Hello from San Juan, Puerto Rico!  Why, you may ask, would I be in beautiful, sunny San Juan in the middle of the school year?  Oh, just to hear and talk about sex �€“ sex, sex, and more sex!  I’m currently attending the 51st annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.  Attending last year, where it was held in Indianapolis, IN, fails to compare to this year’s meeting in Puerto Rico.  Let me be clear – the people are always great, and the work is always great – but things are so much better when you’re right on the beach.

When I’m not sleeping in, recovering from the previous night’s festivities, I try to attend as many sessions that relate to my interests as possible.  Kicking off the conference experience, I attended the Student Award Finalists session on Thursday afternoon.  Needless to say, all of these students deserve the award – there is such great work that researchers at all levels of the pipeline are doing.  Of course, erotic plasticity, sex work, internalized homophobia, and cybersex are always a great start to a great weekend.  Thursday night ended with the pool party and welcome reception, sponsored by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at my home university, Indiana University.  The lines for the open bar were too long, but by the fourth rum and Coke, I didn’t mind...

I just returned from the plenary session titled Risky Sex and Beyond: The Ecological Context of sexual risk for heterosexual active black men and women.  I found the  session presented by Lisa Bowleg Ph.d from Drexel University both enlightening and inspiring.  She discussed black sexualities from a multi-level approach that involved the historical context of black sexuality to current injustices and inequalities pervasive throughout black communities. 

Dr. Bowleg gave us many "take homes," and one that still resonates with me was the discussion on relationship power between heterosexual men and women.  Bowleg's research depicted the uneven levels of power between men and women in regards to condom-use moments leading up to intercourse.  She talked about the different ways in which women negotiate talking to their partners about using protection through individual narratives.  For women, a lot is involved in the negotiation, "convincing the partner to put one on," negotiating her pleasure, desires, and rationality in what the condom use means overall.  These ideas were highlighted throughout the presentation and it gave the audience a lot to think about in terms of analyzing and understanding the "full scope" of Black sexualities. 

Original post date: 08/13/08

So the Democratic Party has come up with new wording for its "abortion plank." I would be happy with it... except. Except what the Washington Post today called the "left-leaning opponents of abortion rights" are happy with it, too.

Okay. If I made new year's resolutions (and if I made them in say, August), then one of mine would be to stop seeing everything in such a polarized fashion. Do I want to find common ground with progressive Christian folks who write blogs called God's Politics , don't believe in abortion but do promote social justice (though I'm struggling to see how those two stances co-exist)? Theoretically, sure. Are they making it hard for me? Yeah.

First, here's what the 2004 language was:

Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

...

Original post date: 7/23/08

A few days ago I was upset that McCain didn't really have any answers when it came to contraception. Now the Bush administration is doing what they do best: when the facts don't match their agenda, they just make 'em up. The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing that many methods of contraception--including the birth control pill, the IUD and emergency contraception (aka "The Morning After" pill)--be relabeled as abortion.

Their explanation? That some of these forms of birth control (might) stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Never mind that these same forms of birth control prevent pregnancy through a bunch of different mechanisms, including making sure that ovulation doesn't occur, insuring that the egg never meets up with the sperm, and/or preventing a fertilized egg from embedding in the uterus. So no one, not even the DHHS, can get all up in your business and figure out exactly why that pregnancy never occurred. In fact, the National Institutes on Health birth control descriptions, which DHHS links to as its primary source of info on contraception, don't even mention that birth control pills...

Brave New Films, who create funny, well-made films on a bunch of progressive issues, has an amazing site called The Real Mccain that envisions a Brave (make that Cowardly) New World a la McCain. McCain, who last year admitted he's "stumped" on whether or not contraceptives help prevent the spread of HIV, has also voted against access to abortion and emergency contraception, against health care access for low income and immigrant women and numerous other progressive sexuality issues. Not so surprising for a Republican candidate, but it's a little disconcerting when he a) doesn't know if there's a connection between contraception and HIV prevention and b) has to ask his aide what his position on the issue is. Alright, maybe it was kind of a trick question: contraceptives are technically anything that prevents pregnancy--and though all condoms are contraceptives, and male and female condoms prevent HIV transmission, not all contraceptives (like the pill or diaphragms) prevent HIV transmission. This is called a fallacy of composition, for anyone who cares anything about math or is about to take...

Greetings and salutations from San Juan, Puerto Rico�€”the site of the 51st annual Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) Conference. SSSS has been in the business of encouraging the rigorous, interdisciplinary study of human sexuality since 1957. “The Cultural Dimensions of Sexuality” is the 2008 conference theme and Puerto Rico could not be a more perfect place to explore it! Today, NSRC Director of Education and Training, Chris White and I will lead a 3 hour interactive workshop called “Reframing Ethics and Practices: Using Sexual Literacy as a Model for Sexuality Education and Research” designed to introduce conference participants to a new, more holistic approach to doing our work…one that prioritizes the inclusion of traditionally excluded cultural groups and their own definitions of what sexual literacy means in their communities and lives….there are many unexplored cultural dimensions of sexuality indeed and we’re looking forward to exploring them a bit today. In addition to cutting edge workshops, plenaries and poster sessions, there will also be many opportunities for fun in the sun with colleagues—old and new this weekend. Tonite the conference officially kicks off with a poolside reception and party following the presidential plenary. Tomorrow evening there is a Bacardi Rum Factory Tour….and Saturday a beach-side awards luncheon. There is also already talk...