Momentum: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism, & Relationships

By Tess Danesi

America is obsessed with sex. But at the same time that sex is used to sell everything from hamburgers to cars, our Puritanical roots create dizzying dichotomies: abstinence campaigns and virginity balls crop up while teens have anal sex to preserve their “purity;” conservatives call for more restrictions on abortion yet don’t want the sex education taught that might prevent some pregnancies; some states approve gay marriage and the Million Moms calls for the Archie comic book featuring a gay wedding to be banned from Toys R Us; Slutwalks spring up in opposition to the prevalent rape culture after a policeman blames a woman’s rape on what she was wearing; and the list goes on and on.

MOMENTUM arose out of our national obsession with sexuality but as a counterpoint to the tired rhetoric we’re used to hearing. This cutting-edge anthology, with a foreword by former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, features selected essays by our 2012 presenters and, like the conference itself, covers a wide range of sexuality. MOMENTUM: Making Waves in Sexuality, Feminism and Relationships aims to share new and fresh perspectives in sexuality by offering essays such as Culture Warriors vs.Sex for Pleasure: Changing the Sexual Narrative by Lara Riscol, Sex in America by Esther Perel, Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex by Joan Price, Feminist Porn as Cultural Critique (And Why It's Necessary to Critique the Culture's Critique of Porn) by Dr. Carol Queen, Queer is a Verb by Charlie Glickman, Is Infidelity The New Monogamy? by Dr. Tammy Nelson, Combating the Silencing of Abuse within the Kink & Sex-Positive Communities by Nadia West, Why the Sex Positive Movement is Bad for Sex Workers’ Rights by Audacia Ray, and many more.

This anthology will allow those who couldn’t be at the conference to participate in some of the revolutionary ideas about sex and sexuality that came about as a result of MOMENTUM and attendees will be able to read about sessions they may have missed, as well as have a go-to guide of their favorite sessions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tess Danesi
• Release date: Apr 20, 2012

Book preview

Foreword

Sex in America: Changing the Conversation Beyond Smut and Sanctimony

M. Joycelyn Elders, MD

Cloaked in silence, knowledge of the accurate facts about sexual development and behavior do not reach our valuable and vulnerable youth. This dearth of knowledge wreaks havoc for generation after generation creating a society whose norm is to be ignorant of the facts of human sexuality.

Ignorance is not bliss. It is not bliss for a society that says, Sex is dirty; save it for marriage. Ignorance is not bliss for more than 70 percent of our teens who are sexually active before reaching the age of 20. Ignorance solves no problems, is not enlightened, nor safe, nor just, nor kind. However, ignorance can be overcome by knowledge.

It is difficult for an entire society to learn that speaking forthrightly is not vulgar in itself; rather, it is merely expressing factual information in an unashamedly straightforward manner. We need to be delivered from our old inadequate ways of conversing and learn to speak with one another in new non-judgmental ways about sexual health and wellbeing. We see TV advertisers and others use sex to sell almost everything. And here we are, caught in an inconsistency, moralizing while using sex to juice a product’s market.

Although many American people and even our U.S. government sometimes tend to ignore it, adolescents have a fundamental human right to accurate and comprehensive sexual health information.

When children grow up believing that sex is dirty, sexual dysfunction is more likely to follow than when children grow up believing that sex is for pleasure and procreation when they are old enough to be respectful of themselves and their partner, responsible for the consequences, and to practice safe sex.

When Americans understand the normal developmental process that occurs during puberty, then adolescent behavior will not be such an anathema. Why don’t we teach this area of human health to everyone? It is important to fully recognize the costly consequences of misinforming our youth about their own sexuality. The lack of sexuality education in the early years of a person’s life often continues into the adult years; the consequences certainly do. Therefore, it is imperative that we begin educating our children and youth to bring about a more informed society. Ignorance is not bliss.

Adolescents confront many issues as they mature into adulthood, not the least of which is their sexuality. No matter what adults say, the hormonal imperative says, YES! The sexual drive is not coolly reasoned away nor squelched by wishing it to be gone. Rather it is a normal part of the natural human body and human development.

While many American adults cringe at simply seeing the words adolescent and sexuality paired together, adolescent hormones proceed with their relentless takeover of youthful thinking - and, often, action. When children experience puberty, natural intensification of sexual feelings soon follows. The median age of onset of puberty is 11.6 years, the mean age of initiation of sexual intercourse is 17 years, and the mean age of first marriage is 26 years.

In the United States, it is uncomfortable for some to accept the fact that adolescents and young adults engage in sex before marriage, despite our high rates of adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection (STI), and our own personal history. A major nationally representative survey found that 95 percent of adult respondents, aged 18–44 years, reported that they had had sex before marriage. Eighty-one percent of those who abstained from sex until age 20 or older also had premarital sex. Abstinence until marriage is neither the cultural norm nor a functioning value. Yet, we expect adolescents to resist their natural sexuality by abstaining from sex until marriage - something that the vast majority of Americans have not done since at least the 1940s and perhaps have never done.

Efforts in the United States (unlike those in other developed countries) to address adolescent sex have been directed toward preventing teenage sex as opposed to preventing its adverse consequences. Abstinence-only programs violate the fundamental human right of adolescents to accurate and comprehensive sexual health information. Withholding such information could fall in the category of abuse.

Preventing the adverse consequences of unprotected adolescent sex requires a broad-based approach that begins with the recognition that adolescents are both valued and vulnerable.

Adolescents are at risk for unplanned pregnancies and STIs. Consider the U.S. statistics nationwide: 46.8 percent of high school students have sexual intercourse; this figure has remained relatively constant for at least a decade. Each year in the United States, almost 750,000 teens become pregnant, resulting in about 400,000 births. There are now 19 million STIs in the U.S. each year with half occurring in young people less than 24 years of age. There are two types of about 25 STIs - incurable and curable. Curable STIs include gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia. Incurable STIs include HIV, herpes simplex virus - 2 and hepatitis C. More than one billion acts of unprotected sex among single adults take place each year. All this devastation occurs while Americans aged 15–34 use condoms in only about 25 percent of sexual encounters.

Ignoring the facts, during the last administration, our government spent more than $1.5 billion in state and federal dollars on the ideologically based, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which a recent government-funded study found to be ineffective. Worse, the federal government prohibited institutions and agencies that receive federal funding from providing full and accurate information to students and clients about how to protect themselves if they choose to have sex, an astonishing lack of insight on the part of government.

Ignorant of the facts, teens, many of whom are ridden with guilt because they do not understand the normal development of their own bodies due to adults withholding life-saving accurate information from them, unnecessarily find themselves in a risky physical and/or mental health situation.

Unintended pregnancy and infection in adolescents cost billions of dollars each year and lead to untold agony. We need to empower our youth with accurate knowledge about sex, sexuality, sexual health, and the various methods of contraception so that they can make good decisions. We must promote significant societal change in how we view sex, sexuality, and sexual health.

We can do better. We must get beyond speaking about sex only in terms of smut that says sex is dirty, or sanctimony, which says that sex is dirty, and I am above that. For the safety of our youth and the health of our people, it is important that we arrive at a place where we agree that we must speak plainly and accurately about human sexuality.

The best contraceptive in the world is a good education. It is important to have a population that is well educated and informed about sex, sexuality, and sexual health concerns, through age-appropriate, scientifically based universal sexual education across the lifespan. Comprehensive sexuality education for kindergarten through the twelfth grade does not increase promiscuity, hasten sexual initiation, or increase rates of sexual activity. It does reduce the number of partners and increases the likelihood of contraceptive use at initiation of sex.

We have the most advanced health care in the world, low-cost ways to prevent unintended pregnancy and STIs, and a wealth of readily available information. However, we cannot make the best use of these powerful resources unless our attitudes, policies, and ways of thinking about sex evolve.

We must recast the dialogue about sex with the premise that humans are sexual by nature. Healthy sexuality includes mutual respect, responsibility, and pleasure among persons who are both emotionally and physically ready. A sexually healthy America will show respect for each person’s right to make decisions about when, whether, and how to have sex. I suggest that people remember the three Ps of sex: sex is for both procreation and pleasure - and remember to use protection!

Will we continue to view sex as dirty and something to police? Will we continue to view the use of condoms through last-century ideas (if she carries condoms, she is promiscuous; if he carries them, he has bad intentions)? Will we continue to show sexual content in over 60 percent of prime-time network programs, but not allow ads for condoms? There are some signs of hope. The tide seems to be turning toward more dollars for comprehensive programs that teach about abstinence and contraception. There is too much at stake for us to continue to maintain a quaint silence; ignorance has been neither blissful nor effective in prevention of disease or unplanned pregnancy, and the development of an inclusive society.

The authors of the essays that make up this book represent a variety of fields of study and diversity that bring a broad understanding of the legacy of the dearth of accurate and straightforward information about human sexuality in the U.S. They reflect with caring and concern on this subject that matters to many people who come from a variety of philosophical, religious, educational and political opinions and regions. This conversation is important. Let’s talk!

Dr. Joycelyn Elders

Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas School of Medical Science

Former U.S. Surgeon General

March 2012

Introduction

In February 2009, when Dee and I attended the panel, Sex in America: Can The Conversation Change? created by Esther Perel, who is part of our closing keynote plenary and has an essay in this anthology, we walked away exhilarated and with the overwhelming feeling that we wanted more, a lot more, of this kind of open, rational talk about sexuality. We were inspired to find a way to create that space. We thought, but had no real assurances, that if this was something we so desperately wanted, others would be eager to attend. Using the best if you build it, they will come philosophy, we organized the first annual MOMENTUM in April of 2011 and were delighted to see that they did come.

Unlike other conferences which are generally organized around a specific theme, MOMENTUM strives to embrace all aspects of sexuality, including those, like sex work and pornography, that are often shunned and shamed by some feminists. Determined to create a safe space where respect and a willingness, not to always agree, but to listen with an open heart and open mind, were key, our first year exceeded our wildest expectations; we heard over and over again how grateful everyone was to attend a conference where they got such a multi-dimensional view of sexuality, could get their sex geek on and, at the same time, feel a tremendous sense of acceptance and camaraderie.

The more things change, the more they stay the same and so, the more we need spaces like MOMENTUM. In the three years since the Sex in America panel raised questions about topics like abstinence campaigns, abortion laws, restrictions on homosexual choices, the criminalization of infidelity, the medicalization of sex, abstinence only sex education and hypocritical family values, our nation is still faced with a dismal lack of sex education, prosecution of teens for sexting where convictions land teens on sex offender registries, a series of murders of sex workers on Long Island that gets minor play in the news while coeds going missing gets non-stop coverage, married Congressman Anthony Weiner creates a major media brouhaha and resigns after a Twitter sexting scandal, Rush Limbaugh ponders whether Sarah Fluke calling for health insurance that covers the Pill makes her a slut or a prostitute and states can mandate that a woman have a ultrasound before having an abortion.

At MOMENTUM, we introduced the first interdisciplinary sexuality think tank. We, as mothers, as well as sentient beings, knew that the time had arrived to start changing perceptions, to make people question their beliefs around sexuality, to shake things up and to make some waves, so that our children and their children are not subjected to a dearth of quality sex education, but instead are taught, along with the various mechanics of sexuality, the defining principle that, yes, sex is supposed to be about pleasure and not just about procreation. If that means simply making parents more comfortable talking to their children about sex, that’s a huge change. Being involved in this world of sexuality has opened my eyes and my heart to things I didn’t understand before and for that I am grateful. Issues about what consent means and how to make yeses and noes crystal clear are crucial to me and to you and to your (future) children or nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters. How do we expect boys to believe that no means no when we teach girls that they should pretend to be hard to get rather than teaching them that they have their own sexual agency and if they desire sex, they can say so?  

The issue of consent brings me to how this anthology came to be. Just like Esther Perel’s panel was the spark that ignited us to develop MOMENTUM, Jaclyn Friedman, another presenter at MOMENTUM 2012, and Jessica Valenti’s anthology, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape inspired this collection of essays. I had picked up this book from Bluestockings at MOMENTUM 2011 and, nearly a year later, had finally settled down to read it. And in one of those bolt of lightning moments, thought, Wait a second, we have a group of amazing presenters who also happen to be excellent writers, this is fated!

With this anthology we hope to give you a taste of what it’s like being at MOMENTUM and so this anthology touches upon many aspects of sexuality. Between the brilliant opening essay by Rebecca Chalker, The Pleasure Revolution: Feminists Popularize Masturbation, Hold Conferences, Research Androcentric Medicine, Critique Freud, Write Subversive Novels, Found Magazines, Become Publishers and Open Bookstores, Demand Respect for Lesbians, Open Their Own Sex Shops, Write Sex Advice Books, Do Sex Surveys, Rehabilitate the Clitoris, Explore BDSM,Make Cunt Art, Create Their Own Porn, and, in the Process, Reinvent Sex for Women and Their Partners! which examines that unique period from the 60’s to the 80’s in the context of pleasure seeking feminists, to the last piece, the evocatively sensual poem, Easy Does It, by Leela Sinha, which reflects upon what would happen if we choose pleasure as a guide, are essays dealing with sex in America, relationships and identity, sex education, sexual assault, sex work, and sex and the media. It’s fitting, however, that we begin and end with pleasure as it is our sincere wish that this conference and this anthology, along with illumination and elucidation, brings our attendees and readers as much joy as it has brought us.

Tess Danesi

Co-Editor and Conference Co-Organizer

March 2012

Sex in America

The Pleasure Revolution:

Feminists Popularize Masturbation, Hold Conferences, Research Androcentric Medicine, Critique Freud, Write Subversive Novels, Found Magazines, Become Publishers and Open Bookstores, Demand Respect for Lesbians, Open Their Own Sex Shops, Write Sex Advice Books, Do Sex Surveys, Rehabilitate the Clitoris, Explore BDSM, Make Cunt Art, Create Their Own Porn, and, in the Process, Reinvent Sex for Women and Their Partners!

Rebecca Chalker

The tectonic shift in sexuality that occurred in the 1960s is typically referred to as the sexual revolution, but there is another more dynamic transformation that historians of sexuality, critics, and even the architects of this revolution themselves - feminist sexuality activists - have missed: I call this the Pleasure Revolution. After a germinal moment in 1968, feminists, working individually and sometimes in groups or collectively, reformed and expanded the intercourse-focused norm that remained intact in the 1960s, to include the sexual needs, interests, problems, and preferences of women.

It’s not possible to include the work of every pleasure revolutionary - that would be a book instead of an article, and still many would be left out. Here, and in a more detailed report, I have only included activists who left permanent artifacts: books, films, art projects, events or performance pieces, or concepts, and even by this criteria, many cannot be credited. I have arbitrarily ended my survey in the mid-1980s, when the projects documented here had generally made their mark.

Although the birth control pill, first marketed in 1961, enabled the ‘60s revolution and gave women, for the first time in human history, a sense of freedom from the fear of pregnancy, sex was still focused on penis-in-vagina intercourse. In In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, Susan Brownmiller quotes Naomi Weisstein, describing the meetings in Chicago of the earliest Women’s Liberation group, in which she recalls, We talked about sex… [and] our orgasms, and then we felt guilty about that. Indeed, in 1967, at the height of the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll ‘60s, it was subversive to talk about female orgasm, and the overarching social code - who was on top at work, at play, and in bed - still exclusively privileged heterosexual men. There has been no real revolution in the bedroom, journalist Anselma Dell’Olio argued in the nascent Ms. magazine in 1972. In particular, she cited the persistent male ignorance of female orgasm. But the code of silence regarding women’s sexuality had been broken and things were about to change.

In the fertile atmosphere created by the foundation of the second wave of feminism, women began to redefine sexuality for themselves. Some reclaimed masturbation as the primary means of self-discovery and self-pleasure. One group wrote a book that put science and medical practice under a feminist microscope. Several wrote bestselling philosophical critiques of Freud, sexism, and the patriarchy. Others wrote novels, critiques, articles, columns, and sex advice books. Some wrote feminist sex advice books. They started magazines for and about women that were radical alternatives to emerging "Cosmo girl" publications. Lesbians asserted their right to freedom from discrimination within the new movement and inadvertently enabled heterosexual women to discover new sexual possibilities. Several developed questionnaires asking women what they wanted from sex and published revealing reports on what they discovered.

Asserting women’s right to pleasure on their own terms, two founded women-friendly sexuality boutiques that provided women with a safe, supportive environment in which to discover new sexual possibilities. One enterprising group liberated the clitoris from the murky swamp of Freudian derogation and modern medical myopia. One opened the door for feminist sex therapy and worked to reconnect the sexuality and spirituality - the mind-body continuum - that the ‘60s did nothing to address. Some sought to broaden women’s sexual choices to include power games, S/M, and other stigmatized sexual practices. Some produced provocative, even incendiary images illuminating the politics of sexuality. A number created so-called cunt art, promoting genital consciousness. While acknowledging that violence and degrading images characterized a certain segment of the pornography market, some insisted