Don’t walk home alone. Learn self-defence. Mind your drink. Don’t dress provocatively. Don’t go into the mosh pit. Don’t get drunk. It’s for your safety. Subtext: not getting raped, not getting murdered – that’s your responsibility. Just before Christmas, YouTube star Jenna Marbles released a slut-shaming tirade entitled “Things I don’t Understand About Girls: The…
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A friend recently told me of her experience dating a guy who was a real gem. When things started getting intimate, he stated that she needed to “deal with” her pubic hair (and the fact that it existed) or they would not work out. She politely asked him to leave and never call again….
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We’re told from a young age, if our parents use anatomically correct language, that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina. But if we are being accurate, the female external genitalia should be called the vulva. Why is this distinction important? By labelling your downstairs mix-up ‘vagina’ you are skipping over a lot…
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Do you think tampons and pads are luxury items? Well, in Australia, women pay a 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on these items because they are defined as a luxury. Shall I use that in a sentence? ‘Gee whiz, it feels mighty luxurious when I am sitting in a public place and I’m not…
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“Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?” We’ve all heard it. Some of us have even said it (when we were young, naïve and not yet as knowledgeable about feminism, I’m sorry!). But it is 2013, so why does this phrase, and this idea of holding out, still hold any weight?…
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It is a brand new year. A time to get the most from each day and each lay (sorry, I had to). I have decided to steal my inspiration for this column from Cosmopolitan. Except instead of giving you hot tips to blow his mind, I want you to blow your own mind (the weird…
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Do you find it difficult to be assertive about condoms? Do you find it extremely difficult to be assertive about using condoms and dental dams when performing oral sex? Starting a new sexual relationship with anyone is fraught with a multitude of awkward questions. Are we dating? Is this causal? Are we going to have…
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Beauty is pain. We have been told this our whole lives. We take acne treatments that dry out our skin, making it easier to burn in the sun. We hobble around clubs in skyscraper heels, unable to lift our feet, so we flap our arms around in an attempt to look like we are dancing….
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For about $US30 you can buy an artificial hymen pack from China and have it shipped to anywhere in the world. This ‘newly developed technology enables (customers) the amazing ability to become a virgin again’. The page warns the customer to watch out for inferior products which ‘might cause a very negative situation when the…
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When US Senator Todd Akin was asked about abortion in cases of rape, he said, ‘From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there…
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I was recently asked to speak in a podcast about the book Fifty Shades of Grey and, more generally, porn for women. The specific podcast can be found here: http://www.psycho-babble.net/archives/356 The main things to keep in mind about the book and the brouhaha surrounding it: 1. Take the sexual activity and ‘BDSM contracts’ out of…
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Dear Carefree, Thank you. Thank you for calling my vagina a vagina. Thank you for talking to me like I’m an adult. Thank you for not reducing my menstruation to a pun with a stuffed beaver. Thank you. Growing up, I often wondered why the creators of commercials for pads and tampons thought my blood…
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A few years after my parent’s split up, I was eating dinner with my father and he exclaimed, “You eat like your mother!” It turns out Mum and I like to get a small piece of each type of food and flavour in the meal and create “the perfect bite”. We don’t eat potato or…
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‘What’s the boy word for slut?’ ‘They still haven’t come up with one yet’ – Definitely, Maybe (2008) Why is that? Mary Jane Sherfey asserted in 1966, that the female sex drive is an insatiable force that has been repressed by society for the sake of maintaining a civilised social structure. For every action there…
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