Not Your Ex/Rotic: Creatrix Tiara gets busy in May - come check me out :)
I’ve got a string of gigs happening in the Bay Area in early May, all exploring different types of art, so come say hi:
Women’s Rock Camp Showcase + Queen Crescent
The New Parish
579 18th Street (at San Pablo), Oakland, CA 94612
Sunday 5 May 2013 : 2pm to 5pm
$5 - $15, under 18 FREE; no one turned away for lack of fundsWomen’s Rock Camp is a program of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp (BAGRC). BAGRC is a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls through music, promoting an environment that fosters self-confidence, creativity and collaboration. Participants learn instruments, form bands, write an original song, attend workshops, and perform in a live concert…all in three days. Women’s Rock Camp tuition and all showcase proceeds benefit the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp Youth Programs.
I am one of the participants in this year’s WRC and am pretty excited to relive my rockstar dreams ;)
LGBT Center
1800 Market St, San Francisco CA 94102
Thursday 9 May 2013 : 6pm Visual Arts, 7:30pm Videos and Performances
FREE!Giving a definition to gender variance is tricky. As is defining chronic illness. People tell themselves “I am not sick enough or queer enough or whatever enough” to identify these ways and this hesitance stops us from forming communities and connections. We isolate because our experiences are not talked about or validated and our unique and varied lives don’t lend themselves easily to group formation. Definitions are inherently constraining which is why many gender variant and chronically ill folks resist identity categories that often hew to normative binaries. With this in mind, SICK will bring folks together to make beautiful complicated art about our intersecting experiences as gender variant and sick people.
I don’t usually class myself as a visual artist, so my piece in SICK is going to be an interesting visual/performance/interactivity hybrid experiment. I’m the pre-show before the performances and videos, so come early enough to check me out and say hi (in a manner of speaking).
Mother Funder! A Mother’s Day Cabaret Benefiting White Lies
Club 21
2111 Franklin St (at 21st), Oakland CA 94612
Sunday 12 May 2013 : 7:30pm
$10; no one turned away for lack of funds - 21+White Lies is a new production to debut at the 2013 National Queer Arts Festival on June 23rd. A multiracial cast of queer musicians, filmmakers, poets, writers, and actors will explore whiteness to dismantle racism in our queer communities. Our production aims to bring humor and hope to conversations about race and racism by blending together many mediums in a night of performance and conversation. Our cast is composed of many movers and shakers in the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ arts scene including nomy lamm, StormMiguel Florez, Jezebel Delilah X, Eli Conley, Susie Smith, Jolie Harris, Mel Chen, Meredith Fenton, Kentucky Fried Woman and Open Mike. This benefit cabaret is to help us fund our world premiere performance and cover the costs of ASL interpretation, venue rentals, and paying our cast and crew.
The Polyester Girl Army is likely to make a comeback amongst some awesome Bay Area QTPOC names!
Arab Women Find Clever Ways to Cope with Sex Rules | Care2 Causes
This week, Saudi Arabia’s CPVPV (Commission on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) overturned a ban on cycling for women, with some significant qualifications: 1) bicycles cannot be used for transport, 2) the female biker must be accompanied by a male guardian, and 3) she must be wearing a hijab. In other words, as one headline claimed: “Saudi women are now allowed to cycle—but only around in circles.”
Some Saudi Arabian women are running circles around their society’s rules. All across the Arab world, women, frustrated by centuries of patriarchal oppression, are quietly and subtly subverting restrictions in their everyday lives.
Some women are undermining the patriarchy with lace and lingerie. In her new book, Sex in the Citadel, Shereen el Feki chronicles sexuality in Arab society, including the experience of married Arab women who cannot “express their sexual desire and their sexual needs” to their husbands. “It would be a shame for me to show my husband that I want to have sex,” says one woman. According to Feki, lingerie creates a way around the stigma. She writes, “sales are thriving across the Middle East…for many women, lingerie is a tool of empowerment” because it allows women to signal their sexual desires without insulting their culture.
Some teenage girls, desperate for the thrill of co-ed contact, try to game the system. Teenage dating is one of Arab society’s greatest taboos, but a game called “numbering” allows teen boys and girls a taste of possibility, as they exchange cell phone numbers by holding notes up to the windows of their moving cars. For many girls, that glimpse of a guy through the car window may be their only male interaction before marriage.
Arab Women Find Clever Ways to Cope with Sex Rules | Care2 Causes
This week, Saudi Arabia’s CPVPV (Commission on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) overturned a ban on cycling for women, with some significant qualifications: 1) bicycles cannot be used for transport, 2) the female biker must be accompanied by a male guardian, and 3) she must be wearing a hijab. In other words, as one headline claimed: “Saudi women are now allowed to cycle—but only around in circles.”
Some Saudi Arabian women are running circles around their society’s rules. All across the Arab world, women, frustrated by centuries of patriarchal oppression, are quietly and subtly subverting restrictions in their everyday lives.
Some women are undermining the patriarchy with lace and lingerie. In her new book, Sex in the Citadel, Shereen el Feki chronicles sexuality in Arab society, including the experience of married Arab women who cannot “express their sexual desire and their sexual needs” to their husbands. “It would be a shame for me to show my husband that I want to have sex,” says one woman. According to Feki, lingerie creates a way around the stigma. She writes, “sales are thriving across the Middle East…for many women, lingerie is a tool of empowerment” because it allows women to signal their sexual desires without insulting their culture.
Some teenage girls, desperate for the thrill of co-ed contact, try to game the system. Teenage dating is one of Arab society’s greatest taboos, but a game called “numbering” allows teen boys and girls a taste of possibility, as they exchange cell phone numbers by holding notes up to the windows of their moving cars. For many girls, that glimpse of a guy through the car window may be their only male interaction before marriage.
Aces With Others - “It’s just a phase!”
This isn’t an exclusively-asexual thing. Pretty much everybody who isn’t a heterosexual, cisgendered individual has heard this. Hell, pretty much everybody who isn’t a carbon copy of their surroundings has heard this. Girls with pink hair, guys who wanna try out Satanism, ladies who were born dudes, dudes who like other dudes, girls with nose piercings and guys who don’t eat meat.
No matter what, people who don’t understand your beliefs, interests and personal viewpoint are going to suggest that it’s ‘just a phase’.
Something even scarier is the fact that a lot of outside-the-norm individuals have started saying that about other outside-the-norm individuals. The ‘it’s just a phase’ argument isn’t just coming from the outside anymore, it’s coming from the inside, and that’s definitely gonna create some problems down the road.
(Source: yakotta)
So You Want To Ask Someone What Their Sexuality Is
Right. So. In my last post, I discussed how I first came out: I was put on the spot by a guy friend who, based on prior observation, had decided I was a lesbian and, having witnesses me saying something he thought only a lesbian would say, decided to call me out in front of my two new roommates.
I’d like to think that only insensitive assholes put people on the spot like this, but unfortunately I think this sort of thing happens all the goddamn time. I don’t think it should be stigmatized as something only a homophobic bastard would say. It is damaging to assume that only bad people do bad, ignorant, and hurtful things. EVERYONE does bad, ignorant, hurtful things. It’s just not accurate to relegate that to one “type” of person, in the same way that shrugging off the idea of a long-distance boyfriend with a joke should not be considered evidence of lesbianism.
Look, one of the great things about our generation is that we are developing a language in which to discuss different sexualities in a setting of equality. We are beginning to understand that heterosexuality should not be assumed of anyone, and that everyone deserves a clean slate. We are also, slowly, learning that behaviors we have taken to be masculine or feminine can be used in different ways to subvert expectations. I have met heterosexual men who were far more feminine than me. I have met gay men who seemed straight as a pole. You can’t guess these things by observation. It’s just not fair to anyone.
So if you’ve gotten to know a person, and their behavior sends you mixed signals, and you genuinely want to know their sexual orientation, how do you go about asking them?
No, but seriously.
For all the answers to your questions that I’ve decided you are going to ask, click the link!
1321
I’m currently working on a paper about deaf sex education and how it differs from regular sex education (which already sucks) and why. Any info you’d like to share?
Disability and Sexuality Resources
I have been doing some research on sex and disability, and thought I would share some of the links I have found. This will be useful for me in the future as a resource, and hopefully to others too.
Disability and Sex General Links
- Disability Dharma: What Including & Learning From Disability Can Teach (Everyone) About Sex
- How to Meet, Date and Have Sex When You’re Disabled
- Sexual Pleasure & the Disabled Adult
- Disability and Body Image
- Sex and Disability
- Good Sex Positions for Disabled Sex
- Let’s Get Physical
- Disability and Orgasm: Your Orgasmic Potential
- Practical Sex Tips for Disabled People
- No Big Deal: Sex & Disability
- Self-Advocates Speak Up About Sex
- Sexuality and Disability Myths and Facts
- Disabled and No Sexual Pleasure
- Sex, Disability and the DSP: Ethically Supporting Sexual Choices
- Sex and Disability: Impacts of Disability on Sex
- Sexual Expression for Adults with Disabilities: The Role of Guardianship
- Disability and Sexual Activity: The Mechanics of it All
- Contraception for People with Disabilities
- Disabled? Discovering Your Sexual Self
- Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual
- Talking About Sensitive Topics
- Personal Relationships and People with Physical Disabilities
- Physical Problems and Female Sexual Dysfunction
- Talking about Disability on a Date
- Lovers with Disabilities Become Liberated with Tantric Sex
- My Partner is Scared to Try
- Getting Assistance: Having Sex and Using Your Sex Toy
- Physical Disability and Sexual Intercourse
- A Sexuality Policy That Truly Supports People with Disabilities
- Two Lovers With Disabilities Need Help
- How to Meet, Date and “Do It” When You’re Disabled
- Sex and Disability Webliography
- Eli Clare - Challenging Our Differences
Sex, Disability and Young People- Sex Education for Physically Disabled Teenagers
- Growing Up: A teachers’s guide to Sex and Relationships Education for Young People with Physical Disabilities
- Sex and Your Child with a Disability
- Talking about sex and relationships: the views of young people with learning disabilities
- Sexuality Education for Children and Adolescents with Developmental Disabilities
- Sexuality and Persons with Disabilities
- Sexuality Meets Intellectual Disability: What Every Parent Should Know
- Sexuality and Cystic Fibrosis: Information for Adolescents
Medications and Sex- Sexual Side Effects of Medications: How prescription and OTC medications can have sexual side effects
Effects of Medications on Female Sexual Response- Researching Sexual Side Effects of Prescription Medications
- Sexual Side Effects of Prescription Medications
- How To Manage Sexual Side Effects of Prescription Medications
- Physical Sexual Side Effects of Medications
Disability and Sex Toys- Top 10 Ideas on Adapting Sex Toys
- Making Sex Toys Accessible
- Sex Toys and Disability
- Disability and Sex Toys
- Research Before Adapting Sex Toys
- Accessible Sex Toys
- Adapting Toys for Decreased Sensation
- Adapting Toys for Increased Sensation
- Fatigue and Sex Toys
- Adapting Toys for Mobility and Motor Control
- Paraplegic Sex and Quadriplegic Sex: Good Vibrations
- Adapting Sex Toys for Privacy
- Sex Toy Accessibility Checklist
- Adapting Sex Toys for Fatigue
- Sex Toys and Allergies
Fatigue and Sex- Sex and Fatigue: How Do You Stay Sexual When You Have No Energy for Sex?
- Sex and Fatigue
- Your Sex Drive With Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Fatigue and Sex Toys
- Sex, Fatigue and Depression
- Adapting Sex Toys for Fatigue
Multiple Sclerosis and Sex- Multiple Sclerosis & Sex
- My husband has MS and doesn’t like sex anymore. Why?
- My wife has MS and doesn’t want to have sex anymore. Why not and what can I do?
- Multiple Sclerosis and Sexual Problems
- Top 10 Sex Tips for Men with Multiple Sclerosis
- Sex and Multiple Sclerosis
Arthritis and Sex- Love, Sex and Arthritis
- Sex and Arthritis
Spinal Cord Injury and Sex- The ABCs of Sex After Spinal Cord Injury
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: The spinal cord injured female: Orgasm
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: The spinal cord injured female: Fertility, Childbirth and Contraception
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: The spinal cord injured female: Sexual Behaviour and Activity
- Best Sex Positions for Spinal Cord Injured Women
- User’s Guide to the Paralyzed Penis: Sex after Spinal Cord Injury
- Paraplegic Sex and Quadriplegic Sex: Good Vibrations
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: the spinal cord injured male: Erections
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: the spinal cord injured male: Ejaculation, Orgasm and Coitus
- Sexuality in Spinal Injury: the spinal cord injured male: Sexual Drive and Activity
- Intercourse & Pleasure With a Spinal Cord Injury
- Sexuality and Fertility - Impact on Men with SCI
- Sexuality and Fertility - Impact on Women with SCI
Cancer and Sex- Cancer and Sex: How Cancer Affects Your Sex Life
- Intimacy and Sexuality for cancer patients and their partners
Diabetes and Sex- Sex and Diabetes
- Diabetes and Sex: Does It Have to Doom Your Sex Life?
- Sexuality and Diabetes
- Erectile Dysfunction Treatments for Patients with Diabetes
Fibromyalgia and Sex- Fibromyalgia and Your Sex Life
Parkinson’s Disease and Sex- Parkinson’s Disease and Your Sex Drive
- Parkinson’s Disease and Sex
ALS / Lou Gehrig’s Disease and Sex- ALS & Your Sex Life
Learning Disabilities and Sex- Talking about sex and relationships: the views of young people with learning disabilities
- Sex and Learning Disabilities
- Sexuality Meets Intellectual Disability: What Every Parent Should Know
Ostomy and Sex- Sex and the Person with an Ostomy
Continence and Sex- Continence and Sex
Cystic Fibrosis and Sex- Sexuality and Cystic Fibrosis: Information for Adolescents
- Sexuality, Fertility and Cystic Fibrosis: Information for Adults
Back Pain and Sex- Sex Tips for Back Pain Sufferers
- Ways to Enjoy Sex While Helping Your Back
Augmentative and Alternative Communication and Sex- Promoting Healthy Sexuality and Safeguarding in Youth who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
- Sexual Health Education for AAC Users - Speak Up Findings
- Promoting Healthy Sexuality and Safeguarding in Youth who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)
- Sexual Health: Knowledge and Skills for People who Use AAC
- Sexual Health Issues for People who Use AAC
Asexuality
I am asexual.
But I am married to a man who is not asexual.
And it is not a problem for us.
There can be realionships where another person is an asexual and the another’s not. Sex is not everything in a relationship. My husband has told me that a person doesn’t need to get everything they want. People need to learn to cope with disappointments. And actually, it’s not even disappointing, when you understand the fact that you can’t have it all.
We have a loving relationship. We sleep in the same bed, we kiss and cuddle, we tell each other “I love you” all the time. Our everyday life is really calm and full of love towards each other, the only thing we don’t have in our relationship is sex.
My husband is okay with the fact that he’s got a great relationship and a loving wife, but no sex. He doesn’t go out cheating on me, but I know he pleases himself in the shower sometimes. And that’s okay. That’s completely okay and normal for us. We are like any couple on the outside and what happens between us is something for us to decide.
I used to be really anxious about my asexuality. I tried to force myself into having sex. But my husband saw that I was not as happy as I could be when I was trying to be something I am not and he told me I don’t have to force myself into having sex with him. Nowadays we’re both okay with our relationship.
Only problem we have is that at some point, we want to have a child. And having a biological child means we have to have sex… Well, maybe I can do it once for the sake of having a child with my dear husband.
This is not a text about what others should do, just a text that tells how my life is. I just wanted to talk about my asexuality anonymously here in my blog and now it’s done.
hehe…
I am a poly, in many senses of the word. I’m interested sexually in people of all sexes and genders and I’m also polyamorous. Currently I’m in a monogamous year long (and going strong) relationship with a cis-gendered man (i.e. he has male sex organs he was born with and he identifies as male). This relationship works because of two things: 1) he understands that my relationship with him does not invalidate my identified sexuality, and 2) we have a relationship based on “explicit monogamy”.
I created this term for myself two years ago when thinking about dating someone monogamously for the first time in six years or so. One of the (many) reasons I was so attracted to the concept of polyamory is because, for once, the rules go created up front and could change with the needs of my partners and myself. Monogamy didn’t offer me that - it was a strict set of rules no one talked about except in jokes or worry. So often in my teen and adult years I’ve talked to and consoled friends whose significant other had gone somewhere (a party or bar) without them and they were scared they had been cheated on. Monogamy, as I saw it (and with cheating statistics backing me up) was about jealousy, lack of trust, and cheating. And the “rules” for cheating weren’t defined. On TV if a girl was kissed by a guy without her consent and she didn’t kiss back, when she confessed it to her significant other it was cheating. Cuddling with someone while dating someone else got me looks and talking to’s. It was, in a word, confining. So I moved into polyamory with all it’s ups and downs because it was liberating. All of a sudden I was in a relationship defined solely by myself and the people I was involved with. I could be honest without being yelled at. And I could be slightly commitement phobic - a.k.a. myself.
And so, when the option to become monogamous with someone I really liked, I thought long and hard about it. Polyamory was something that defined me, that mattered to me, and it wasn’t going to be easy to give up. And so I told him that I wanted explicit monogamy - I wanted the rules laid out in front of me and discussed. I didn’t want to conform to something I hadn’t agreed to after having a 50/50 say say in my relationships. And with my current boyfriend that’s exactly what I have - a relationship where we’re both comfortable and ourselves, with rules we set for ourselves. It’s always honest and incredibly communicative, just like my open relationships.
Why bring this up in relation to the picture above? Because in Questionable Content I see characters who are myself and my friends. Dora is a bisexual who, in the entire span of the series, has never explored relationships with women, and I rarely have the chance to given the place I live. She has serious problems with relationships that cause her to be commitment phobic, and lately she’s been seeing a therapist. She acknowledges that things with her ex-boyfriend ended because of her and her insecurities, is trying to be friends with him, and ultimately I see a lot of myself in her. Tai, on the other hand, is an out and proud lesbian whom we’ve see hook up with a lot of women. She’s into friends with benefits, polyamory, and not defining what she’s doing by society’s rules or definitions. Ultimately I see a lot of myself in her, as well.
Why is this? Because we, as people, are complex, and I’m complex. I’ve had a lot of experiences, and a lot of figuring out what works for me. And the way the creator of Questionable Content has set it up is that Tai has a serious crush, and that she typically doesn’t feel like that, while Dora is trying to change her relationship ways as well, just like me. Just like a lot of people. And no, it probably won’t work out because most relationships don’t work out. But I also think that the creator has handled all his relationships well, from a lot of different walks from life, and the idea of having these two people (regardless of the fact that this is a lesbian relationship, and he’s talked about being worried about doing one because of the extra weight seeing lgbtq characters comes with) get together makes me happy because I’m seeing a LOT of myself in them. And the idea that polyamorous people can’t have a monogamous relationship, or that commitment problem people can’t have a more trusting, open relationship is insulting because it happens all the time, and even if it can’t work, well, these things don’t happen overnight. But I’m here to say that it can work through communication and trust. And really, I’m sick and tired of people acting like a lot of the relationship ideas discussed in QC can’t work or even exist in real life.
I’m not saying that was JesuOtaku’s intent, because I don’t think it was. I think she was just discussing a web comic from a fangirl perspective, but it set something off in me that made me feel like I needed to say something, so I did. And Jeph, if you see this, thank you for creating characters that match my life a lot better than anything else I’ve found.
