Interesting posts, weekend of … missed weekends

06/26/2010 at 9:03 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: blogging, female sexual dysfunction, Feminism, flibanserin, FSD, news

Dear internet, whew, finally starting to catch up with my RSS feeder from while I was on vacation with my long-term, LDR boyfriend. As a result of him keeping me too busy and joyful to blog, my already-spotty coverage of tales of interest from the feminist blogosphere is going to be spottier than usual this time around. Everyone blame him for this spotty roundup. Or else thank him if you like it. No, actually, thank me if you like it. But blame him if you don’t like it. Yes. Since there’s so many items left to check out on my RSS feeder, we may see some posts from earlier in the month spillover onto future blog link roundups. Better late than never.

Friendly reminder: I am looking for Guest Posters. 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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Can’t get enough of feminism and sexual dysfunction on the internet? You may want to think about following the Twitter feed, which is more accurately described as my Twitter feed since no one else manages it. So some of my daily mundane and/or angry thoughts sneak in there.

Now then, on with the belated blog link roundup. Posts I found interesting over the last few weeks. I’m sure I missed plenty that’s worth talking about; share links if’n you got’em.

As I had mentioned in the Blog Note, there were some posts around the feminist blogosphere regarding the FDA’s hearings of flibanserin. Remember, that’s the antidepressant turned potential libido booster for women living with low libido. And remember, I didn’t blog about the hearings while they were taking place, because 1. I was on vacation and 2. it was too much to bear. I was greatly and predictably disappointed by blog and news coverage the story received. I am going to link to some of these stories now, but beware! You may notice some common themes of ablism and little or no attempt made by the blog posters to actually reach out to women with the condition of interest, HSDD. You may also notice some genuinely offensive comments  in the threads too – stereotypes about women with FSD and HSDD.

FDA hearings this week on “pink viagra” – Um gee I wonder if maybe anybody ever thought to ask individual women if they are comfortable with their libido. That seems like the most important person to ask to me. There be dragons in the comments, although some women with low libidos spoke up as well…
FDA Wants YOU! to Have Sexual Satisfaction – Another disappointing post with rampant, unchecked and apparently unexamined ablism and stereotypes about women with HSDD and FSD broadly in the comments section. I had to speak out on this one and there’s a lot more points that I should address sooner or later. The more I think about it, the more I kind of want to go back and write up my own blog post response to it and some of the comments… but if I do that, keep in mind doing so will drain everything I am out of me & I’ll probably have to skip another full week of original posting in order to recover.
I resent these remarks – A guest post by asexual blogger RavenScholar, reposted to Womanist Musings. Unfortunately whatever lessons RavenScholar may have had for me from the perspective of an asexual woman were completely lost on me since I had to tune out more ablist and stigmatizing language. Actually, I’ve e-mailed a different asexual blogger re: FSD and asexuality, so, some time in the near future I’d like to post the e-mail exchange. I’m hoping something good comes of that but we’ve got to take a wait & see approach until I get confirmation that it’s okay to go forward with posting the e-mails.

So there’s your feminist take on FSD related posts for the weeks I missed. It’s like, there’s all these news posts & posts by people who give no indication that they have experience with FSD themselves. It’s frustrating. So if it seems like I’m exasperated with mainstream coverage of FSD, HSDD, flibanserin and the frequently-cited arguments against sexual dysfunction, it’s because I am. Chances are that a lot of the social construction arguments are new to you, but to me? Each time is the thousandth time I’ve heard it before. My distress from living with FSD hasn’t evaporated in a puff of social construction the first 999 times I heard it; what makes you think it’s going to go away now? Especially when such arguments are put forth in such a manner as to feel completely alienating and just make the distress worse. Like there’s something wrong with having FSD, something wrong with wanting help managing it.

In the end, critics may very well get exactly what they want. The FDA advisory panel advises against approval of flibanserin. The FDA wants more data, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Data, well gathered and analyzed, isn’t a bad thing to have. Meanwhile women with FSD, more specifically low libido, still have no oral prescription option.

Maybe we should change gears to something from the actual perspective of a woman who lives with low libido. Yes, let’s turn our attention to such individuals and hear what one has to say in her own words. Been reading MinorityReport for awhile, she has three posts that all kind of tie in together.
It started with Epic Fail… which led to Consolation Prize… which eventually led to, If At First You Don’t Succeed.
That’s more like it.

What else we got going on here in this RSS feed. Some more medical/research/sexuality news:

Good News in Reproductive Health – The FDA is open to approving a morning after pill that would work up to 5 mornings after PIV sex with ejaculation.
New Research on Vibrator Use – Actually not that new; this post is from 2009 but new to me, found via Regina Lynn.
Friday Weird Science: FINALLY, a clitoris study! – Possibly NSFW due to pictures of up-close vulvas? It’s not a perfect study, room for improvement, but it’s interesting – and neat to see the clitoris being taken so seriously. Found via Violet Blue, whose blog is almost always NSFW.
Choosy Bodies Choose — uh, not sure yet – Research on conception.
Not all the research I have to present this week is positive.
Sex Bias in Biomedicine – TigTog posted links and an excerpt of the details from Nature‘s editorial section.
The following is Triggering, for child abuse and sexual abuse. The sanctioning of child genital cutting at Cornell University – Dr. Dix Poppas of Cornell University has been conducting research, openly, on girls following clitoris reduction surgery. Researching involving use of vibrators on children. Children who may or may not be intersexed. More over here, still triggering. Genital cutting as “research” at Cornell University
New VA Research Could Explain Lasting Effects of PTSD – not about sexuality, but still about research.

What do I have in the sex files….

Good Vibrations House Calls: Painful Intercourse – about painful intercourse after menopause and some steps that women may be able to take to ease it. Not a bad start, but not comprehensive either. Do more stuff like that! Nice to see big sex websites talking about things that make sex hard.
In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women – A book review of a book that critically examines contraception. Seeing as Eldridge’s work has been referred to as JAQ’ing off and seeing as how HBC is for some reason frequently overlooked in discussions of the medicalization of women’s sexuality, especially in talking about FSD, I may just have to be a punk and read this at some point 🙂 Here’s to hoping for Kindle version.
It’s Really Not That Hard – Talking to kids about same-sex relationships.
There were some posts at Feministe about sex but I dunno… they didn’t sit well with me… I thought that the posts didn’t leave a flexible enough definition of “Sex.” How can you have sex when you don’t even know what sex is? – So what’s sex then, are we going to do that thing where we arbitrarily decide what it is and then if you don’t match that definition, you’re not having sex? Ahh that’s probably not the point though, the point is probably something more along the lines of providing better sex education to everyone… But still, ehhh.
Withholding – Holly picks apart an otherwise completely miserable piece of “Advice” by AskMen/Fox writer Sarah Stefanson. It’s a good thing Holly picked it apart too because there are so many layers of Wrong in that Fox article.
Best Friend Rape Prevention. – [Trigger warning] Another one from Holly; why conventional rape prevention advice won’t always work – most rapes are not committed by strangers.
What’s the difference between lesbian and queer? – About differences between the words.

Some media and blogging controversies happened over the last few weeks.

It’s Helen Keller MythBusting Day! – Not a completely terrible idea, a day of blogging to dispel myths about Helen Keller. This is good information to know – I’m one of those people who grew up having to watch a performance of “The Miracle Worker” no less than three times growing up in elementary school. Seriously, the school kept on taking class trips to performances of the same script… (What a waste of budget!)
The problem here is that, the date chosen, June 19th, is already a day of recognition in the USA – it’s Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in which slaves were emancipated in the state of Texas. So Renee at Womanist Musings called bloggers out for overlooking Juneteenth, with the post Why I AM Not Celerbrating Helen Keller Mythbusting Blogswarm Day!” and numerous blog comments. The reason she did this is because overlooking this historical day is a form of erasure, and a function of racism.
Helen Thomas and General McChrystal both turned in their resignations after making ill-advised comments to the media. Al Gore has been accused of sexual assault. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico, fouling beaches, polluting the water, killing animals, and destroying livelihoods.
At about the same time as the flibanserin FDA hearings, there was an anti-pornography conference in Boston, Massachusetts. When word got out to some sex-positive bloggers, some, like Violet Blue, took action by organizing a pro-porn counter movement. Here’s some posts related to the pro/anti porn debate 2k10. Picking Your Battles, Going the Distance: Pro-porn and Anti-porn Feminisms, Define Your Terms Before Debating: The Social Construction of Porn and Erotica, time to play anti-porn BINGO! [NSFW]

Got a couple of blog carnivals coming up.

Keep your eyes on Rolling Around In My Head – Dave Hingsburger will be hosting a carnival with the theme of “Pride” shortly.
Carnival 2: Experience – The Carnival of Kinky Feminists is looking for posts for the next edition. You have until July 30 to submit something.

Justice for all?

All Kinds of Fucked Up – [Trigger warning] Police brutality and racism in Seattle. I heard some of the radio personalities and interviews talking about this, and I gotta tell you, some of these discussions were disturbing. Like I remember hearing this one guy saying something like, if you lay hands on a police officer you deserve whatever you get. And I’m thinking to myself, weeeeelllll, not all police officers are all that great… there’s some great cops, and then there’s corrupt people working in criminal justice. So what if one of these corrupt officers starts messing with you; are you not supposed to defend yourself even then, and hope that justice will come to your side instead of covering things up? Because I’m not convinced that people in positions of authority will take you seriously and do the right thing all the time. I mean check out this 911 transcript where the dispatcher wants to play a game of 20 questions or something instead of sending help [Trigger warning] – Let’s Not Be Silly: The Marie Arraras 911 Call, and What It Means. Still don’t believe it? Maybe you should check out A Voice For Neli, [Trigger warning] an autistic young black man who was arrested apparently for sitting underneath a tree in front of a library.

Not necessarily related to each other:

Question for the weekend (by Suzie) – Interesting observation; what’s the female equivelant to “Emasculate?”
Forbes’ Top 100 Websites For Women – the list is skewed towards white, cis, het women and so it is not representative of all women everywhere.
The potential and the danger of first person in feminist discourse – interesting discussion of guidelines of when to talk about experiences from your own perspective and not steamrollering over people who are not you.
Bitten by the Bug: Lyme Awareness Month, Part I – Very interesting and comprehensive post about ticks and Lyme disease, especially in animals.
#Spillard Reader – June 26, 2010 – Australia has its first woman prime minister!
Trans woman Delphine Ravisé-Giard’s breast size dictated by French civil court – The reason cited sounds circular and as much as I’d like to chalk it up to a translation thing it’s more likely gender policing plain & simple.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done – [Trigger warning] First person account of leaving an abusive marriage.

Whew. We’ll break here for now. If I keep linking to blogs for this roundup, the post will get so big and heavy that it will collapse in on itself and form a new black hole. CERN will come to my house and try to run tests this blog post and all my neighbors will be like, “Why is CERN building a particle collider under my street?”

[Edit 6/29/10:] And then theres’s more. Rape, Male Victims, and Why We Need to Care -[Trigger warning] a requested addition examining rape. It’s not just done by men and it’s not limited to PIV penetration.

As always, I’m sure there’s more…