Give Me Fever Contest

Sextoy.com’s “Give me Fever”— Sex Toys Giveaway Contest!

Spring is finally upon us, the time when lovers get frisky and people’s minds turn to sex! To help get you motivated and to celebrate May as Masturbation Month, Sextoy.com is partnering with the Pleasurists.com for the “Give me Fever”— Sex Toys Giveaway Contest with $500 in prize package swag giveaways!

The Prize Packages!

1st Prize- Fetish Fantasies- Value $220

• Fantasy sex swing - black by Pipe Dreams - $130
• Fetish fantasy bed restraint bondage kit by Eldorado- $40
• Leather Cockring With Micro-Vibrator by California Exotics- $25
• Ryder - Midnight Purple by Tantus- $25

2nd Prize- Sexy Girl Bling- Value $145

• Ultimate Clit Caresser - Clear Aurora by Arabesque - $100
• Sinsation Glass G-spot Dildo by Ruby Glass- $20
• Goddess Gold Condom Compact by Just in Case- $25

3rd Prize- Couples Fun- $110

• Don Wand Colbalt Blue Plug by Don Wand- $20
• Rock Chick Pink G-Spot Vibrator Adult Sex Toy Kit by MBS- $70
• OOOOH! THAT’S IT! GSPOT GEL (1 oz) by Intimate Organics- $20

The Rules!

• You must 18+ to enter.
• You must be willing to provide your mailing address if you win so Sextoy.com can send you your sexy swag prizes.
• To enter simply repost this contest (complete guidelines) any time between May 1st and May 25th on your blog or a forum or elsewhere where you have permission (no spamming and post cannot be in comments sections of blogs) and email submission AT pleasurists.com with a link to the repost.
• If you have a preference for which prize you would like to be sent feel free to include that with your post or in the email with your repost link, we will take it into consideration when choosing the winners (though there’s no guarantee). Listing First, Second, and Third choice of prize package would be helpful!
• Submissions must be posted on or between May 1st and May 30th to qualify
• You must email your submission to submission AT pleasurists.com by May 30th at 11:59pm Pacific Time.

Winners will be chosen by random number generator, numbered by the order in which the emails are received. Each winner will be given their first choice prize if possible, or second or third if not. Winners will be announced on May 31st!

Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere!

Earlier today I went out and bought Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby's new book Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere and I am so excited to read it. The Fat Acceptance movement has been an important part of my life since I discovered it, leading me to finally stop hating my body and as such start to step away from distructive eating habits and really enjoy life for the first time in a while. It's been difficult, but these women's blogs (as well as others like them) have helped me so much and I am excited to see that they have published a book and am glad to have been able to give them something back buy buying their book. 

Condom Commercials!

Saw this Indian condom commercial at Womanist Musings and thought it was a wonderful place for me to start blogging again. 

Weird Indian Condom Commercial

It's amusing, lighthearted, fun, simple, and informative. And like Renee, I think it's something that we should probably seek to emulate in our own attempts at educating people. Now, I'm not totally sure that this commercial actually aired on television in India, especially given the diagram of anal intercourse between two men, but that's not really the point. Things that are funny, entertaning, and can hold the interest of the target audience make it more likely for people to pay attention, and making it funny and lighthearted takes a bit of the awkward out of it. However, it seems to me that a lot of the time when we attempt to create materials that will engage young people enough that they will actually learn what we're trying to teach, the result tends to be corny, outdated, or otherwise something that young people will be too busy laughing at to get any of the message. Some of this I'm sure comes from the general attitude among teenagers that learning things isn't important, that they know everything already, and that whatever concequences exist don't matter because it won't happen to them (this is a gross generalization of teenagers, I know). The rest however, and the part we need to be concerned with, is because we don't know how to reach them and keep throwing the same tired strategies at them over and over again. Maybe if we attempt something like this, silly but straightforward, not taking itself too seriously, and kinda catchy, we'll actually get somewhere. 

I will leave you with this durex ad that probably everyone on earth has seen, but I think is one of the most amusing and clever condom commercials I've ever seen.

Trying

Okay peoples. For the rest of this month, I will try try try to write/post once a day. No promises as to the quality of content...but there will be something here, every day. 

Something more real will be showing up later today, for now...just making this statement so I have written it somewhere and am as such more likely to actually do it.

Love is for...

There are plenty of things wrong with this segment from The Savage Nation but there's one thing in particular I really want to point out. I don't want to even touch the "mental rape" bit right now, I just want to talk about this

SAVAGE: Aren't you tired of the propaganda that every newspaper you pick up today shows old, ugly women getting married?

Doesn't that just say something about who, beyond just straight people, Savage thinks marriage and, by extension romantic love, are for? He later goes on to talk about how people should show their children animals and point out that "There must be a boy duck and a girl duck for there to be babies." which is, you know, obviously effective and very pointed because marriage, and romantic/physical love, are only valid if they're going to create teh babiez. So who is marriage for? Attractive, young, straight people who are going to produce smaller attractive people. Charming.

And, why bother with the qualifier? If what makes gay marriage truly sickening is that it's not a man and a woman, and if that's what's really wrong with it, what reason is there for you to say "old, ugly women". It is rare, in my experience, to find a man who doesn't find "lesbian" porn or random girls drunkenly making out hot, men are more or less expected to enjoy those sort of things actually...so what's the difference between pictures of these women getting married and showing affection and the women that many men spend time eagerly fapping to? Well, I've got some ideas. 1) The women in porn, and the women who are "hot" when they make out with eachother are, well, "hot." They're young, and they fit societal standards of beauty. It's hot when the people involved are considered hot, but the second one of them isn't, all you hear is "nobody wants to see that." 2) The women in porn, and who make out at parties or whatever, are generally doing it as a performance, their expression of lust for one another is meant to turn men on. The expressions of love and affection shown by the women getting married, however, are not for anyone but themselves. Apparently, there's something wrong with "unattractive" people finding love and showing affection, and there's something even more wrong with women having the audacity to show physical signs of love/lust for one another if it isn't meant for male consumption.

I simply don't understand how you can find love disgusting. Love is beautiful, and I think the pictures are proof.

(via Shakesville)

Apparently, I'm really stupid. Who knew.

Something occurred to me while I was reading my regular blogs last night, it's probably nothing terribly profound, but I thought I'd share. I keep meaning to make posts and then not doing it for some reason or another, here's as good a place as any to start.

First, via Feministing




Point being that obviously women don't really think about the issues, they just sort of feel things. The result of this of course is that their wants and opinions and positions on issues don't really matter because, well, they're just illogical and don't think things through the way rational men do.

This is why women should just leave all of the important decisions to the men, and concentrate on being pretty.

Second, via Feministe, an article by Dennis Prager at Townhall.com on why it's a bad thing when young people get involved in politics. Prager doesn't just hint that it's a bad thing, he actually flat out says it (which surprises me, and I'm not sure why).

"The question, however, is whether it is a good thing for the country and not just for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

The answer is that it probably is not. With a few exceptions -- and those exceptions are usually those rare cases when young people confront dictatorships -- when youth get involved in politics in large numbers, it is not a good thing." (emphasis is mine)

I'm not going to even get in to the whole "those rare cases when young people confront dictatorships" bit, because I don't even know where to start with that, is it just me or is he basically saying that it's bad when young people get involved in politics except for when it's phenomenal? The logic escapes me.

Anyway, one may wonder why it is that Prager thinks young people (an age group he never really bothers to define) being involved in politics is a bad thing, well...

"For those of us who view the late '60s and '70s as the beginning of a downward spiral for American society, however, the mobilization of many young people on behalf of Barack Obama is not encouraging. It is only the latest example of young people getting excited as a result of their unique combination of naivete, lack of wisdom, romantic idealism and narcissism.

Most adults throughout history have recognized that young people are likely to be unwise given their minuscule amount of life experience. After all, most adults, even among baby boomers, believe that they themselves are wiser today than 10 years ago, let alone than when they were 20 years old." (emphasis is mine)

So, young people are...too emotional, don't really think about anything (or have the capacity to do so), and think they're far more important than they actually are. Hmm. That sounds sort of familiar. Not to mention that yeah, people get "wiser" with age, but, that doesn't invalidate the views they held in their youth and it doesn't mean that the voices of young people who happen to be above voting age should be silenced. It also doesn't mean that just because older and "wiser" people are convinced that things should be done in some way that that is actually the best possible way to do things, there's this little thing called progress and it has a tendency of coming from young people, just saying.

Anyway, I digress. The point I'm trying to make here, and what really struck me when I saw/read these things yesterday is that these people are trying to rationalize - to themselves and to other people - the view that people who are not members of the dominant class (older, rich, white, straight, men...more or less) don't actually have opinions that matter. Women are too emotional! they say Purely logical thinking is possible, and the highest,most intellectual form of thinking and women don't think that way, they say. Women are hormonal and irrational, they say. Women's opinions don't count, they say. Young people are naive and lack wisdom, they say. Young people are too idealistic, they don't live in the real world, they say. Young people are too full of themselves and don't care about anyone but themselves, they say. Young people's opinions don't count, they say. They say these things about a number of other groups too, these two things were just what really got me thinking about this.

And the thing is, we've all heard it before. At least I have. My father is very conservative and constantly tells me that when I grow up and get out of this "goddamned liberal" university, I'll be a republican because that's what makes the most sense. He tells me that the things I believe aren't important (because, obviously, if rich white straight men say it doesn't matter, it doesn't actually matter) and that I'm too emotional and not actually thinking about things. I'm never sure if he means to tell me that my opinion more or less doesn't count, I'd like to believe that he doesn't mean that, but what I see most of all is an unwillingness to believe that anyone else could possibly have a valid view point.

When we have privilege, we don't always see the things that hurt people who are different from us in some (rather arbitrary) way. Further, especially if our privilege is well ingrained in us, we think something is wrong with people who think about things differently than we do. This is not to say that people who try to overcome their privilege or who are more liberal/progressive never see people who disagree with us as "stupid" but, I don't claim to be perfect and I do try to not brush off views that don't fit with mine by just assuming that the person is stupid. I could continue with the line of thought about liberal/progressive types thinking of people with different views as "stupid", especially the negative view that some people have of religious people in general, but I think that's a topic best left for another post at another time.

The point is, that these people - that people at all - believe, and want other people to believe, that people who don't think like they do, who don't have their life experience or background or privilege, don't have, and can't possibly have valid views and opinions. And isn't that really the problem?

Blog For Choice

Happy Birthday Roe.

So, in honor of the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, today is Blog for Choice day. It seems like as good a time as any to start actually writing posts here.

NARAL Pro-Choice America wants bloggers to devote at least one post to why it's important to vote pro-choice. Personally, I like the format that Jessica at Feministing used, so I'm going to use it too.

Why do I vote pro-choice?

I vote pro-choice because I feel women make better decisions for themselves than a bunch of old white men could possibly make for them.

I vote pro-choice because I believe that people should only bring new lives into this world if they're ready to.

I vote pro-choice because I believe that all children deserve to be wanted children; and that all mothers should be mothers because they choose to, not because they had no other choice.

I vote pro-choice because I believe that women's lives are important.

I vote pro-choice because I don't think women should be punished for being sexual/having sex.

I vote pro-choice because I'm a person, and no other person ever has the right to tell me what I can and can't do with my body.

When it comes down to it, I vote pro-choice because I feel that decisions regarding pregnancy and sexuality in general are, and always should be, personal decisions, and because I know that women are perfectly capable of deciding on their own. I vote pro-choice because I believe in choice: choosing what sort of contraception to use, or if you even use it at all; choosing to terminate a pregnancy, or choosing to continue it; choosing who you have sex with and when; these are all choices that each person should always have the right to make for themselves. I vote pro-choice because I believe that women are real people.