Sex Positivity and the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy

This article first appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.

There’s a pattern that I’ve seen in some circles to assume that people who describe themselves as sex-positive will do anything and everything. And while that affects anyone who moves in these communities, there’s a way in which it has an impact on women that’s different from the way that it affects men.

Clarisse Thorn has a great post about this. She… Read the rest

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Vaginal Corona: The Updated Hymen

The Swedish Association for Sexual Education has just published an excellent info booklet about the hymen, which they have renamed the “vaginal corona”.

Apparently, the Swedish word  for hymen is modomshina, which is translated as “virginity membrane.” But as they point out in the booklet, there are many different ways that people define virginity and the presence or absence of a vaginal corona doesn’t reliably tell you if someone has had sex. Plus,… Read the rest

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Slut Shaming Doesn't Sparkle

A news report came out today that hits close to home for me. Literally, since it’s about something going on at my hometown high school.

It seems that an annual tradition has evolved in which the senior girls create a “slut list” of the incoming first-year girls. According to ABC news, the list names of the younger girls, along with something meant to be degrading. Some examples from the ABC article:

“I’m so

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