The Blog

By Kate Sim ’14

Texas turned down $35 million in federal funds for Medicaid Women’s Health Program. This means that at least 300,000 low-income and uninsured women in Texas will have no or greatly-reduced access to basic reproductive health care. A proposed bill in Arizona requires women to prove to their employers that they need birth control in order to treat a medical condition if they want their prescription to be covered by their insurer. Today, women pay 50% more than men for the very same health coverage. Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition.

These proposed bills have real-life effects. Last week, an article written by Soraya Chemaly from The Huffington Post recounts many unbelievable ways women’s lives are affected by the “personhood movement”:

“Ms. Rowland was charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn, allegedly as a result of her decision not to have cesarean surgery two weeks earlier. Yes, you can be imprisoned like Bei Bei Shuai, a woman living in Indiana who attempted suicide while pregnant (committing suicide is not a crime, by the way). Friends managed to save her, and although Ms. Shuai did everything she could, including undergoing cesarean surgery, her newborn died shortly after birth. She was arrested and charged with murder and attempted feticide and locked up without bail. (A Free Bei Bei petition was recently launched on Change.org.) Your 11-year old daughter, if raped and pregnant as a result, would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term or face criminal charges. I don’t have the time or space here to go into what happens to a pregnant woman who is already incarcerated. Consider Amanda Kimbrough, a woman struggling with meth addiction, convicted of chemical endangerment under a statute making it illegal to bring a child into a meth lab. She is only one of more than 40 women in that state alone imprisoned for substance abuse while pregnant. The salient aspect of their persecution is not their drug use, it is their pregnancies.”

Personhood USA defines “personhood” as “the cultural and legal recognition of the equal and unalienable rights of human beings.” But, as stories of Melissa Ann Rowland, Bei Bei Shuai, and Amanda Kimbrough show, the equal and unalienable rights of mothers, daughters, and sisters are in jeopardy. From unwanted cesarean sections and murder charges to transvaginal ultrasound probing and employer permission to use birth control. Enough is enough. This has got to end. 

When women are likened to farm animals and caterpillars, we cannot wait for lawmakers to come to their senses. We have to act now. On April 28th, women and men across the country will unite for reproductive justice. Unite Against the War on Women is a national grassroots movement happening in the capitals of all 50 states across the country on the same day. The goal is to show the legislators that we will not stand by and let them pass laws that limit and restrict the lives of women in this country. We have a voice and we are going to use it to put an end to body policing. Here in Massachusetts, the demonstration will take place at Boston City Hall at 10am on April 28–I hope to see you there. Meanwhile, here are a few things you can do:  

1. Call your state legislators 
2. Publicize the rally: distribute posters and fact sheets in your community. 
3. Educate: organize a forum on women’s health 
4. Donate to organizations that support women’s reproductive freedom, such as Unite Women and Planned Parenthood.
5. Join the movement: bring at least 10 people to the rally. Here is the official MA demonstration event page. 

We need to act now. See you on April 28.

Note: Thanks to all our guest bloggers! If you would like to submit a guest blog entry, email sexweek@hcs.harvard.edu.

Sex Week was such a huge success! THANKS to everyone who supported us! We wanted to let everyone know about Take Back The Night at Harvard, which is an entire MONTH. The program looks amazing. TBTN is sponsored by OSAPR and Response. Check it out here:

Take Back The Night 2012

TBTN Kickoff and Saturday Night Launch
Sunday April 1^st
5-7pm
Ticknor Lounge

Kickoff Take Back the Night 2012 and launch the 6th edition of Saturday Night @ Harvard! Enjoy Spoken Word and A Cappella performances, Saturday Night magazines and readings, and some delicious food including pizza, burritos, and a dessert table.

 
The Price of Sex
A documentary film investigating sex trafficking by Mimi Chakarova
Tuesday April 3 @ 6pm
Fong Auditorium

The Price of Sex is a feature-length documentary about young Eastern European women who’ve been drawn into a netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse. Intimate, harrowing and revealing, it is a story told by the young women who were supposed to be silenced by shame, fear and violence. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes us on a personal investigative journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe. Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how even though some women escape to tell their stories, sex trafficking thrives.

Queer Sex Etiquette Dinner
Wed April 11 6-8pm
Leverett Private Dining Hall

Is there such a thing as too much lube? What’s the best way to ask for consent? Where exactly is the G spot (and what do I do once I’ve found it)? How do we open up our relationship? Where can I learn more about the kink/BDSM?

We all have questions about sex, and often desire a non-judgmental, open, and honest space to get those questions answered. Sexperts and sex educators Shana Natelson and Lyndon Cudlitz are here to answer your questions about sex, queer sexuality, and sexual etiquette. Join us in a comfortable, queer-positive space to have a discussion about sex, relationships, desire and so much more!

 
Hard Bodies, Soft Lights: Sports, Media, and Gender Performance
Professor Kerey Luis, Lecturer on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Th April 12 @ 7:30pm
Harvard Hall 201

Sports, particularly professional sports, are often considered masculine in the United States (as the advertisements for the Super Bowl constantly remind us).  However, female athletes both challenge and support traditional heteronormative discourses about sports as a male activity, and sports as constructed for a male gaze. Media portrayals of athletes, particularly female athletes, use gender, the body, and sexuality to reinforce common cultural discourses about male and female bodies as essentially different, heterosexuality as “normal” and desirable, and particular body forms as able, beautiful, and healthy.  The media normalizes these ideas and images, writing them on and through the bodies of female athletes, although the athletes themselves may paradoxically defy such stereotyping.

 
Epic Vagina
Jincey Lumpkin
Monday April 16 @ 8pm
Sever 113

Jincey Lumpkin, Esq is known as the “Lesbian Hugh Hefner”, but she was not always a woman in control of her own sexual destiny. Epic Vagina describes her journey from victim to victor and how she overcame a history of sex abuse in order to reclaim her sexual power and change the landscape of the adult entertainment industry. The talk features strong graphic imagery and frank discussion of sexual topics, so it is appropriate only for adults 18 and older.

‘Love the way you lie’: Reading Rihanna’s Political Response to Personal Assault
Kevin Allred
Thursday April 19 @ 8pm
Sever 102

Tracing Rihanna’s often overlooked responses in her music to her violent assault at the hands of Chris Brown, from Rated R all the way to the newest remix of the song “Birthday Cake” – featuring Brown himself – I argue for a politicized reading of the violence she has invoked since the assault occurred that takes into account the complicated, conflicted, and ongoing (even in its absence) relationship a woman has with her abuser.  Moreover, when race is centralized in the analysis, I argue that one can read complex statements about black women’s bodies as acceptable sites of abuse/violence in the U.S. and the media, as well as Rihanna’s own challenges to embodying that violence, both personally and more generically in the media, through her lyrics and visual images as attempts to reassert her own control personally, commercially, and politically.

 
Men Boys and Healing
Tuesday April 24 @ 7pm
Fong Auditorium

Boys and Men Healing is a documentary about the impact the sexual abuse of boys has on both the individual and society, and the importance of healing and speaking out for male survivors to end the devastating effects. The film portrays stories of three courageous non-offending men whose arduous healing helped them reclaim their lives—while giving them a powerful voice to speak out, and take bold action toward prevention for other boys.  The film includes a support group of men and is testimony to the importance of men finding safe places to support one another and share their stories together.

 
Haitian Panel
Date, time, location TBD

 
Candlelight Vigil
Wed April 25th @ 8pm
Memorial Church Steps

Join us as we close out the month of events with a Candlelight Vigil. This vigil is meant to literally and symbolically illuminate the darkness of abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Survivors and allies are invited to share their stories in this confidential and supportive space.

By Jose DelReal ’13

A lot of fuss is being made this week about the importance of talking about sex. One guy walked around dressed in a giant vagina costume yesterday to prove that sex does not necessarily need to be relegated to the realm of the taboo or cast into the social periphery. The work that the organizers of Sex Week are doing is incredibly important, and I think we all owe them a great deal of thanks for encouraging an open and honest conversation.

But there’s something else I want to say:

Oftentimes when the topic of sex enters conversations, it does so with an urgency that is framed largely as it relates to sexual health practices and general medical dialogue. This is done for a number of reasons, but I suspect that it is primarily because this depoliticizes sex in such a way that avoids the hard work of grappling with the deeply political nature of the body.

I tend to see the importance of frank conversations about sex, gender, and sexuality in a more political way, in a light that stresses the urgency with which these topics must be addressed as they relate to concealed forms of domination and structural oppression. It’s my view that we too often avoid hard conversations that come close to revealing the deeply political way in which the body is policed in society, the way in which stigma and taboo place constraints on acceptable ways of discussing our bodies and, ultimately, acceptable ways of being.

Why is it, for example, that women who enjoy having sex are still called sluts in 2012? Why is it that men who don’t fall under a certain model of masculinity are so often called faggots? Why is being gay a bad thing, or at least a less desirable thing than being straight?

Why does Rihanna bother us? Why does Lady Gaga bother us? Why are there so many fewer female faculty members than male faculty members? What is the experience of transgender faculty members and students on campus?  (“Are there any?”)

Here’s one example specific to Harvard: Why is it ok that the primary social organizations on campus (read: alcohol and parties) are only open to men?—Except of course on the weekends, when women who are dressed to the men’s liking are allowed to enter the social scene as guests? Why is this ritualized weekend after weekend if everyone has a snide thing or two to say about it during the week?

These things are all related, and I don’t believe it is an accident that instances of structural oppression often occur along the same fault lines as concealed discourses regarding sex, sexuality, and gender. The more comfortable we are talking about ourselves, the more readily we can begin to engage in the hard conversations that continue to elude us as a society.

This is all to say that conversation is important, and while words can be incredibly destructive, they also carry with them the possible function of liberating us. The conversation Sex Week has the potential to spark on campus is incredibly significant; we must all take it upon ourselves to really consider what is being said, rather than ignoring it while we pick up our free condoms.

I guess what I mean to say is this: Onward! Let the giant vagina dance!

By Sex Week Panelist Ned Mayhem

Our society’s hostility toward sex work is the primary cause of the exploitation and misogyny in the mainstream porn industry. Banning porn would only exacerbate the problem, and at the same time add a large group of marginalized sex workers to the ranks of our nation’s unemployed. Standing up for porn performer’s rights is the most effective way to address the problems with the adult entertainment industry.

Criticisms of the porn industry tend to focus on the perceived harm that porn inflicts on consumers, and by extension on society as a whole[1][2][3] [4]. We are encouraged to view porn as an inherently corrupt, tolerated evil. Capturing sex on camera in order to arouse people for profit is supposedly by its very nature synonymous with peddling misogyny. There is therefore no popular expectation that those who choose to profit from this industry could possibly adhere to any reasonable standard of ethics.

This attitude is reinforced by the staggering volume of misogynist, exploitative, transphobic, and racist porn saturating our sex shop shelves and search keywords. Instead of addressing these discrimination issues to create a just work environment and less offensive content, legislation of the porn industry focuses on limiting the damage porn can cause by censoring sex acts or restricting distribution. The loudest voices criticizing the mainstream adult industry are the ones condemning the very nature of porn and calling for the elimination of the entire industry.
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