Interesting posts, weekend of 4/3/10

04/04/2010 at 3:51 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: blogging, Feminism, news

Dear internet, what a week. Somehow we went from having months and months of heavy precipitation to beautiful clear skies & sunshine. Unfortunately before the sun could arrive, we needed to get through even more rain. The ground has been fully saturated from so much moisture over the last few months, and with nowhere else to go, the new rainwater caused flooding in some areas. Including my basement. What a mess! My family saw that the basement was starting to flood early on and so we were able to ‘manage’ the damage for the next 48 hours, but it wasn’t easy. We threw anything that could absorb water at it and got real creative. But it’s hard, physical work, so we’re exhausted! The water down there never got high enough to be measured in terms of inches, but there were multiple leaks coming up through the floor and especially the sump pump pit (We don’t have a sump pump, just the pit…) So that was just one of the worst things that could go wrong for everyone in my neighborhood.

Friendly reminder: I am looking for Guest Posters. We will be featuring a guest post this week.
I want to hear more perspectives on the themes dealt with here at Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction. Because I am dealing with such a sensitive topic, I don’t think I can actively recruit new posters, since if I went onto someone else’s blog and said something like, “Hey u wanna write a post about your sexual health and/or feminism on a public forum?!” that would probably be very invasive. For this reason, Guest Posters requesting to remain anonymous will also be taken seriously.
At this time, criteria for inclusion is, “If you think you would fit in here, you probably would.” This may be subject to change but for now we’ll try that & see how it goes.
In an attempt to preemptively fight spam and rude comments, this blog’s email is private. Please leave a comment on this post if you want to write something. I’ll screen comments so you can remain anonymous if you want. That way I’ll have your email and we can collaborate.
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Now then, on with the weekly blog link roundup. Posts I found interesting over the last week. Share links if’n you got’em.

First up relating to dyspareunia related news, and via multiple sources (but not the NVA, at least not yet.) Check it out! MTV and NVA!!! – I cannot confirm yet that the NVA has anything to do with this actually. But what’s going on is that, MTV is looking to interview participants for an upcoming program, True Life: I Can’t Have Sex. The bulletin from the Vulvar Vestibulitis Support Network says,

Producers from the MTV series True Life, are interested in interviewing women between the ages of 16 and 28 who suffer from vulvodynia/painful intercourse.  If you are willing to share your story on national television, please send an e-mail to tlcanthavesex@gmail.com with the following information:

–  Name
–  Age
–  Are you in a relationship or single?
–  If you’re in a relationship, is your partner willing to be interviewed?
–  What symptoms do you experience?  When did they start?
–  If applicable, what condition have you been diagnosed with?  When did you
receive a diagnosis?  How many health care providers did you visit before
being diagnosed?
–  Have any treatments improved (or worsened) your symptoms?
–  How does your condition affect your life?
–  How has the condition affected your sex life, marriage or relationships?
–  Daytime phone number and e-mail address
–  Current photo (please attach)

Please try to limit your summary to 1-2 paragraphs.

(I’d parse the post but that’s the entirety of it – Julieann if you want me to cut some of this out let me know & I’ll change it around.)

I’ve seen some rumblings about this True Life program before, it’s been in the works for awhile. I’m apprehensive about it, because I’m concerned about the potential for exploitation & what direction the editors are going to take it in. I’m worried it will be insensitive & inaccurate. But MTV is interviewing women who have had that experience of sexual difficulty or impossibility, including vulvar pain bloggers like traveltothesky so hopefully it’ll work out well. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Women’s Therapy Center blog has a post about some research relating to women’s health which may be of particular interest to pelvic pain patients.

Also, Coming Soon: 2010 Women’s Health Heroes Awards – Nominations for the 2010 Women’s Health Heroes award from Our Bodies, Ourselves is now open. Nominations close April 30. Voting starts May 3 and closes May 7. You may now nominate someone who has, in your opinion, made strides for women’s health. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a doctor; I saw last year that Dee Troll from some of the Yahoo! Support groups was nominated, but did not receive enough votes to receive the award. Here’s a list of people who have been nominated in the past, to give you an idea of who you might like to include! If you would like to make your nomination be anonymous, I asked about that last year and was told it’s possible to do it that way by requesting as much. You may want to e-mail someone in charge to confirm that’s still allowed this year but it was fine last year.

This past week was home to several -days (apologizes if I’m missing any) including: Passover, Easter, April Fool’s Day, LGBT Health Awareness Week, International Transgender Day of Visibility, and World Autism Awareness Day (It is now autism awareness month.)

Another topic that’s been going around the tubes for the last week is an old timey study on women’s sexuality – from all the way back in the day of the Victorian era. Clelia Duel Mosher of Stanford University conducted an early survey on the women’s sexuality, way before Alfred Kinsey. Turns out that the stereotypes about Victorian women weren’t true (I’ll refrain from using the other f-word here.) Found out about this through various sites from Violet Blue [NSFW] to Salon.com and the Sexademic. What a shame that this information was denied to me during my college years even though in some classes we mentioned Kinsey!

There’s been a lot of blogging about the Catholic Church’s, and the Pope’s, awareness of and involvement in protecting pedophiles. These are just two examples from Pandagon, and they may be triggering. The next round of excuse-making for rapist coddlers and 1963 letter: Pope Paul VI aware of pedophile priests; Vatican plans immunity defense for Benedict.

A few links from Feministing: Iceland bans strip clubs: A victory for feminism? – I’ve seen this topic causing a flap in some blogs, for example the BPPA. Feministing’s conclusion is that “This is not a feminist victory.” And provides some of the reasons why.
Scott Roeder Sentenced to Life in Prison, No Parole for 50 Years – Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. Tiller, has been sentanced to prison with no chance for parole. I have no doubt that this case will be appealed but he will be spending the rest of his life behind bars. This is the harshest sentence that could be doled out, and is appropriate given the chilling effect that Tiller’s murder has had on reproductive rights.
Health care reform includes $250 million in funding for abstinence-only education – Unfortunately the health care reform bill will support abstinence-only education for students.

Girls Will Be Girls – [Trigger warning] about bullying among girls, including Phoebe Prince who committed suicide. See also: Law enforcement moves to take bullying seriously [trigger warning.] Having gone through bullying myself I find this topic very upsetting. I’m very surprised to see that law enforcement is getting involved now, since my experience was that rules for enforcing anti-bullying policy were always very lax, except when zero tolerance was applied to the victim of bullying and the victim was punished by school administration.

Where the Boyz Are – About gender in education and careers.
Also from Echidne this week – My Feminism Series – a quick list of links to some of posts on feminism.

Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for popular health supplements. – Here’s a really neat graphic site that shows you how useful some common dietary supplements are (via kataphatic.) This may be of interest to some readers, as I myself take a few of these supplements and maybe you do too.

What are our expectations for the 2010 Congressional elections? – Predicting political trends.

Stigma Kills: A Concrete Example – Little instances of -ist language and actions, in this case ablist, can eventually pile up & lead to very dangerous, deadly consequences.

The Angry Tranny: Tone Arguments and Trans Women – On silencing trans women using tone arguments.

The Economics of Blogging – Renee has had to change her RSS feed setting and is trying to earn money through blogging.

Salvation Army attacks sex-positive activist through its human trafficking email list – It sounds bizarre, but in its laudable efforts to stop human trafficking, the Salvation Army, led by two prominent members, went after a sex-positive blogger and activist.

FAQ: What is “slut-shaming?” – a new diligently-researched post at the FF101 blog about what slut shaming really is, why it happens, consequences and what can be done to address it.

This week’s latecomer to the roundup is Reproductive Writes: Keep Talking: An Interview with Laura Eldridge (via Feministe.) It’s about the dark side of The Pill & prescription birth control. I mentioned something similar to this in part 4 of our continuing series of the sexology book I’m reading – the author of the book left out mention of HBC & prescription birth control, which in light of the rest of the conversation about prescription sexual medicine, research and marketing, I feel is a major omission. Luckily this article at Bitch magazine came along and made up for the oversight in a conveniently timely manner.

I’m sure there’s more…