In Defense of Sexual Freedom

Dirrrty girl Christina Aguilera has given up half-naked floor humping and even the fictional Carrie Bradshaw recently traded in her Sex and the City escapades for marital bliss. Apparently, there’s something terribly wrong with these developments.  There’s a “new backlash against casual sex,” says Jessica Grose in her latest piece for Slate, a “new wave of anti-orgasmic sexual conservatism that makes you hate yourself for what you did last night.”

Grose blames cultural conservatism and neo-Victorian morality for the latest iteration of what she calls “the shame cycle,” an era of sexual regret among women who participate in casual flings. Internalized conservative values, it seems, are forcing women to end their delightfully liberating one-night stands with the dreaded walk of shame, causing many to consider more chaste lifestyles.

The five or six celebrities and authors Grose says have jumped on the chastity bandwagon are hardly evidence of a cyclical phenomenon. But even if we are entering a period in which women are rejecting their inner Girls Gone Wild, why the blame game?

Shouldn’t genuine feminists celebrate women seizing their sexual destinies? Or is embracing your inner hoochie the only path to sexual freedom?

Grose answers that question by linking approvingly to a quote from Feministing.com: it is a “feminist duty to 1) seek pleasure and feel entitled to it and 2) to make the world a more orgasmic place for other women.”

Got that, ladies? If you’re not out there hooking up with every passing fancy, you’re shirking your feminist responsibilities.  You owe it to your comrades!  Is it any wonder that Feministing founder Jessica Valenti made an abstinent college student cry during a lecture on the myth of purity?

The problem with viewing sex as a “feminist duty” is that it muddies the waters between the personal and political in a way that is ultimately damaging to men and women alike. When casual sex is a feminist act, it’s a political act, not a personal, sensual one. And having sex out of a sense of political duty is disturbingly antithetical to the notion of sexual freedom.

Please visit NewsReal Blog to read the rest.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 13, 2010

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The Feminist Hawks’ Nest

Feminist Hawk

In addition to writing for David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog, I’m also contributing to a recently launched sub-blog called The Feminist Hawks’ Nest.  Here are some of my most recent posts (which I know I’ve been terrible about linking to):

The Sleep-Deprived Housewives of Victimhood County

Feminism: The Masquerade

Arrest of Duke Rape Accuser Exposes the Left’s Insincerity & Lies

Here’s an explanation of the Feminist Hawk concept from NRB editor David Swindle:

What does it mean to be a Feminist Hawk? Why do we use that term? The meme originates in a single issue: Islamofascist misogyny. This New York Times article identified David Horowitz and FrontPage Magazine as examples of Feminist Hawks. According to the Times‘ piece to be a Feminist Hawk was to take a hardline on Islamist regimes because of the Muslim world’s mistreatment of women. The Godmother of Feminist Hawkdom, Dr. Phyllis Chesler, was unfortunately not mentioned — an unacceptable injustice akin to ignoring Albert Einstein were one talking about physics — though she wrote about it here in a must-read essay which further defined the term. Robert Spencer, another crucial figure in this developing movement, also blogged about it here and listed numerous articles he’d written on the subject.

Here at NRB we want this to only be the starting point, though for what it means to be a Feminist Hawk. To be a Femininst Hawk is not only to champion this vital cause but also to adopt a style and an attitude. Feminist Hawks are confident, aggressive, and confrontational. They fight and will not be bullied. And our Feminist Hawk superheroine is meant to both symbolize and inspire these sentiments.

The Feminist Hawks’ Nest won’t focus exclusively (or even primarily) on Islamic gender apartheid. The idea is that the contributors embody the Feminist Hawk spirit no matter what they’re writing about, be it reality show antics, Alinskyite political tactics, or faux feminism.

Big thanks to Bosch Fawstin for an outstanding job on the Feminist Hawk graphics, and Dr. Phyllis Chesler for being kind enough to promote The Feminist Hawks’ Nest on her Chesler Chronicles blog.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 4, 2010

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Dude, You Don’t Have an “Inner Vagina”

Following a lecture last week by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues,  a young man named Jason Rzepka shared his reaction:

“She’s an extremely remarkable person. The world needs more Eve Enslers,” he said, championing her global activism. “I found my inner vagina.“

Jason Rzepka, it’s time to turn in your man card.

I have no idea if Jason is straight, but pretending to discover his  “inner vagina” sounds like one of the saddest attempts to get laid I’ve ever seen.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on March 2, 2010

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No, Kevin Smith is Not the Rosa Parks of Our Time

Rosa Parks and Kevin Smith, no comparison

This week, I wrote a piece for NewsReal about filmmaker Kevin Smith getting tossed off a Southwest Airlines flight because the crew determined he was to fat to fly in the single seat he had purchased.  I enjoy Smith’s films and think he’s a talented writer, but his huge sense of entitlement rubbed me the wrong way.

After making the case that flying is a privilege, not a right, I wrote:

Right now we only have Kevin Smith’s side of the story, and it’s unclear whether the flight attendant used appropriate discretion in approaching him about her safety concerns. I certainly have no desire to see an overweight person shamed for being fat, and I hope that wasn’t the intention.

But a little personal responsibility goes a long way. If Smith had simply paid for a second seat as required by airline policy, he could have avoided the embarrassing situation.  And according to Southwest’s “Customer of Size Q&A,” there’s a 98 percent chance the price of the extra ticket would have been refunded.

Smith went on to complain that because of the airline’s “size-ist policy” he was “being profiled.” I guess flying while fat is the new breaking-and-entering while black.  Beer summit, anyone?

You can read the rest at NewsReal.

The piece received a lot of traffic, and comments were pretty evenly divided on the issue.  Several people made the case that the airplane, owned by a private company, was actually public transportation (thus proving my point about people feeling overly entitled.)  One of those comments was particularly despicable:

According to your unscrupulous logic, Rosa Parks should have moved because it was the Bus drivers choice. Like you said – public transportation “is a privilege, not a right”.

Yes, this person actually had the gall to equate a hero of the black civil rights movement with a fat celebrity demanding that he be allowed to potentially compromise the safety of other passengers on a private airplane.

There’s no comparison between Rosa Parks and Kevin Smith. It just isn’t there.

And you know what else? Being fat isn’t the same as being black.

I can’t believe I had to write that. This is why I don’t spend too much time reading comments – if you’re not careful, the trolls will make you lose your faith in humanity.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on February 20, 2010

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I’m a Fiend at Heart

Misfits Fiend ClubOkay, confession time. At some point in my youth, it’s entirely possible that I thought I was pretty hardcore with my Misfits Fiend Club button fastened to my black leather MC.  And I just might have spent hours on end combing through used record stores for additions to my collection of The Misfits on vinyl.

The Misfits are still my favorite band of all time, so I’m excited that Bobby Steele, one of the first guitarists for The Misfits, is now writing for Parcbench.  And not only that, he’s conservative on health care.

It’s like Halloween in February!

Anyway, check out Bobby Steele’s piece on health care reform, and how his childhood experiences as a spina bifida patient gave him firsthand insight into the insurance and medical industries.

This fangirl moment has now concluded.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on February 20, 2010

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Feminist Indoctrination for 4th Graders

Bloggers and commenters in the “progressive” feminist blogosphere were almost giddy with excitement last week over a young woman’s proposal to bring feminism into the elementary school curriculum.  I’m all for making sure women’s historical contributions are well represented in school curricula, but controversial ideologies that promote far left ideas like “social justice” have no place in public schools.

Here’s what I wrote at NewsReal:

In 2009, Ileana Jiménez asked her class of high school juniors and seniors to write letters to President Obama about “the ways in which feminism might be addressed in the curriculum.”  Earlier this week she shared one letter on her blog, Feminist Teacher.

It is understandable that teachers cannot be expected to cram decades of struggles into 12 years of study. I just feel that there should be more time in the curriculum starting in the lower grades (if they can learn about the slave trade, they can learn about feminism) dedicated to learning about feminism and the goals behind it.

To do that, I propose that by fourth grade, students be exposed to basic feminist ideas.

Note that the student’s interest isn’t in ensuring that women’s experiences are adequately represented in history texts.  She’s proposing the indoctrination of nine-year-old children into a political movement.

She doesn’t define “basic feminist ideas,” but here’s a list of the top priorities of a representative feminist group, the National Organization for Women:

  1. abortion rights/reproductive issues
  2. violence against women
  3. constitutional equality
  4. promoting diversity/ending racism
  5. lesbian rights
  6. economic justice

How many of those “basic feminist ideas” would you teach to a fourth grader?

Visit NewsReal to read the rest of my thoughts on this kid’s letter.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on February 14, 2010

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