I was super excited to see this new ad by Trojan. It really highlights what healthy sexual consent is all about. High five Trojan!
It reads in big letters, “A slurred Yessh doesn’t mean yes. Be clear on consent.”
This ad is part of their campaigns travelling around campuses promoting the message of healthy sexual consent in relationships.
Trojan are encouraging students to sign a pledge to “support a culture of consent and to make sure consent is always given and received before and during sexual activity” according to their press release.
On the campaign website askforconsent they outline the new movement;
Join the movement to support a culture of consent. Help make sure that consent is always given and received BEFORE and DURING sexual activity.
To become part of everyday life, consent must become part of everyday language. So let’s turn the traditionally negative expression of “He/she was asking for it.” on its head and into a rallying cry for consent.
Show your support by taking the pledge and sharing it with your friends on social media and in everyday conversations. Together we can make change happen.
There’s hardly any honest sex education out there that discusses important concepts like respect, consent and sexual autonomy. This is why this is so wonderful.
This new ad shows a great step forward from an industry that’s often shown some pretty offensive stuff about sexual health and consent.
Condoms ads in the past have encouraged sexual violence towards women and supported very black and white gender stereotypes.
I’ve seen condoms ads that show women with a broken and injured mouth for an extra large size condom and ads that complain about women having headaches etc etc.
Durex ran an ad campaign that said, ‘28 per cent of women who fought sex ‘ending up consenting.’ The ad below received so many complaints that Durex supported rape that it was pulled ten hours after its release.
Even though almost half of condom buyers are women, the condom ads often target a heterosexual male audience by making snide, sexist jokes about women or reducing women’s bodies to pieces of meat on a plate or just objectified body parts.
A cool and socially responsible condom company here in Sydney, Australia -Hero Condoms is going really well and this makes me very happy! Hero Condoms has sworne not to use sexist advertising that’s degrading to women. They donate a condom in Africa for every single condom sold in Australia and New Zealand.
Hero condoms has donated over 700,000 condoms to Botswana. This is such amazing work because Botswana is the country with the world’s highest rate of HIV infection. They also support antiretroviral treatment (ART) to expectant mothers in Africa. Over 22 million people have HIV across Africa and it’s an epidemic.
Their condoms and lubes are also vegan friendly, petrolchemical and paraben free. I noticed they were partners with the Australian Institute of Sexual Health Medicine where I used to work for years.
I’m not sure what this men as pigs ad is all about that Trojan ran a while back because they didn’t run it in Australia. I just might leave you with this picture! Apparently when the pig buys condoms he turns into a man! The idea behind the ad is that everyone should have condoms on them all the time and that sexual health is the thing a respectful person should attend to. Ummm. I’m not sure about the men being pigs things.. What do you think?
Nina was put on the Pill by her doctor for bad acne and to “regulate” her cycles. It was sold to her as a “convenience” but she suffered terrible side effects. When Nina went off the Pill her libido skyrocketed, her headaches stopped, her vaginal lubrication returned and she also felt less depressed, lost weight and had more energy.
We worked on improving her menstrual wellbeing through connecting her to a deeper knowledge of her hormonal cycles.Nina learnt how her moods, sex drive, sensitivity, emotional needs and orgasms were influenced by her hormones at each ‘season’ of her cycle. This greater awareness of her body helped her to understand why she felt so horny and happy sometimes and helped her respond to her different needs.
Soon, Nina no longer saw her menstruation as a problem that needed to be medically managed but something to be understood and worked with. This transformed her life and relationship.
Nina and her partner learnt natural fertility methods together in my therapy rooms. Her partner felt more involved in birth control choices and it opened up a new world of intimacy. Nina felt like the Pill had made her partner a “lazy lover”, in a hurry for only penis-in-vagina sex. Natural fertility helped them explore unlimited forms of sensuality and sexual expression on her fertile days.
Nina felt the Pill blocked her own capacity for deeper emotional intimacy and held her back from the rhythms of her own sexuality. Her partner said their relationship and sex life was better post-Pill than ever before.
When we talk about women and their cycles we usually discuss periods or pre-menstrual tension. What we don’t talk about is the delicious stages that women go throughout the month and the fertile ground for emotional transformation.
Ovulation is a wonderfully pleasurable time for many women but most oral contraceptives (OCs) suppress ovulation and testosterone production. Ovulation is when a woman’s oestrogen and testosterone peak that she is most fertile and ‘on heat’.
It’s the most likely time for women to have sex with strangers or a fling, wear brighter colours and more revealing clothes, be more confident, have a higher libido, need less foreplay, have more vaginal lubrication and be more sensitive to pleasure. Women’s orgasms can be off the Richter scale at this time. It’s when women can orgasm more often, easier and faster. Studies show that men unconsciously know when women are ovulating and find them more attractive.
The Pill biochemically induces a state similar to pregnancy in the body. Oral contraceptives reduce testosterone in a woman’s body and scarce attention has been paid to this important issue. Discontinuation rates from OCs are high – up to 50 per cent within the first year of use. Reasons listed are emotional, physical and sexual side effects. Studies show a significant percentage of women notice an obvious decrease in sexual arousal, desire and enjoyment when taking the Pill. This can last a long time after discontinuation.
Our culture sees women as responsible for fertility regulation yet attaches little importance to the sexual happiness of a woman on hormonal contraception.Women’s sexuality is complex, a fact a lot of OC’s studies dismiss as unimportant.
Interestingly, this dismissive attitude is never displayed when considering the negative effects of a possible male hormonal contraception on male sexuality.
Are you a booty call, friend with benefits, fallback or in a casual relationship when you want more?
Many people want the companionship and regular sex of someone with the least amount of effort possible. This is fine if you’re both on the same page with this, but I see so many clients who want commitment and possibly children but they get stuck in relationships going nowhere fast. Their pain and dissatisfaction is heartbreaking.
Our instant online gratification hook-up culture has extinguished our relationship expectations. Nihilistic and jaded anti-love sentiment can make us way too casual about ourselves. I see so many clients trying to convince themselves they won’t “catch feelings” and that they can keep it simply physical. Just stop. Your values are important and you can clearly articulate what you want.
How to tell if you’re in a pseudo relationship
They’ve told you they don’t want a relationship or anything serious right now but you still stick around. You can’t change their mind. You can’t prove yourself to them. You won’t win by waiting it out after a year of casual sex. You’re not a car that needs multiple test drives.
You’ve been giving all of yourself whilst requiring nothing more than a bare minimum in return. This reflects how little you value yourself and what you’ll tolerate.
You have a history of casual relationships because you run from people who want serious commitment from you because it feels “uncomfortable”. You might be commitment phobic yourself and the “challenge” of the emotionally unavailable person means you don’t have to look within and confront your fears about commitment, abandonment and how loveable you are.
Your sexual partner doesn’t make time to see you regularly, doesn’t follow through fast enough after dates, isn’t interested in meeting your friends, family or you theirs. You may have ignored red flags and desperately don’t want to be alone.
There’s no emotional and sexual boundaries. They exploit kink and polyamorous identities as “excuses” for their bad behaviour. Respectful behaviour is important for any identity or lifestyle.
Your sexual partner keeps you at arms length and avoids emotional intimacy. The “relationship” isn’t developing and a year later you’re still their “once a week shag”.
You settle for crumbs and focus obsessively on them. Yeah, sure they like your company, like sex with you, maybe they did a nice thing for you last week… You might focus on that one tiny thing so much that you block out the negatives.
You hope by having sex you will get emotional intimacy. Don’t. If you get emotionally attached to people you’re being sexual with, take your time getting to know them first! Sex can bond you to the wrong person for years.
If you want a committed partner and you’ve been dating someone for a few months but they still don’t know what they want, it’s time to hold your head up high and say goodbye. You can’t force someone to commit. Stop clinging desperately to what you don’t want when you could be out there finding what you do want. You deserve it.
Are you a woman struggling to orgasm with your partner?
Suzy* had never orgasmed with her husband. She came to see me after her doctor recommended she see a sex therapist. Her doctor couldn’t find any medical problems so together we worked to find the source of her “inorgasmia”. She was able to orgasm through masturbation (solo sex) but not partnered sex.
During our sessions we explored her attitudes to sex, her sexuality, her body, genitals and her relationship.
Suzy had been brought up in a strict religious family where she was taught that women should suppress their sexual appetite.
Cultural ideas that demonise and repress sex have a profound influence on women’s ability to orgasm and can block women’s sexual potential.
Suzy felt guilty for masturbating and thought her vulva was ugly and sinful because of her upbringing.
I set Suzy various homework exercises to do at home. Suzy’s homework exercises were to look at her naked body in the mirror, regularly masturbate, sleep naked and and have a good look at her genitals under a proper light with a mirror. She had never done these before and over time with support, they increased her sexual awareness and acceptance of her body.
Art therapy and positive sex education helped view her sex organs as cherished and beautiful.
We explored Suzy’s childhood to discover unconscious blocks. Her father abandoned the family when she was four and was sporadically available for a few more years before disappearing from her life altogether. The pain from this abandonment kept her imprisoned in a knee jerk response of emotional control whenever she felt vulnerable. She was scared of letting go and surrendering to her partner. Hypnosis and meditation helped Suzy to start to ‘let go.’
We looked at how her intimate relationship functioned. Research consistently shows that a woman’s happiness in her relationship and whether she feels ‘safe’ are directly connected to her ability to orgasm. Emotions are more important when it comes to orgasm with a partner than with masturbation.
There were power and control issues in her relationship surrounding the expectation that the man in a relationship is rightfully the sexual ‘boss’. Suzy didn’t want to offend her husband by asking for what she wanted. She wanted to ask for more foreplay and clitoris stimulation but was scared he might take it personally and feel like a failure. Her husband rushed foreplay and had only received sex education through pornographic films. They didn’t use lubricant so the condoms caused Suzy pain. Lots of lubricant is essential for safe sex always.
Together we worked on healthy communication styles where Suzy could vocalise her sexual preferences and share sex education resources with her partner. I set sensual “homework” exercises for the couple that started with non-genital caresses. They had to practice touching each other in ways that focussed on pleasurable sensations instead of orgasm.
By the end of our sessions Suzy had achieved her first “coital orgasm” and had showed her husband how she liked to be touched in a non-confronting way. They’d opened up their sexual repertoire to pleasure and intimacy as the goal rather than orgasm. Together they had improved their communication. Suzy had challenged her own internalised beliefs, accepted she was entitled to sexual pleasure and reclaimed her sexual power.
Remember the phrase; “sticks and stones may hurt my bones but words will never hurt me?”
This is an outdated and false notion according to latest neuroscience research. In the world of online abuse, words can deeply wound and cause depression, anxiety and even suicide.
Have you been a victim of cyber bullying?
There’s a great new series on ABC with Tara Moss that’s definitely worth watching. Considering that over three quarters of Australians under the age of 30 have experienced online abuse it’s an issue that needs to be taken seriously.
Moss explores the world of online shaming, attacking and bullying and discovers the emotional and physical toll these emotional attacks have on the body.
Cyberbullying is is a criminal activity and is illegal.
Examples of cyberbullying are;
teasing and being made fun of in a negative manner causing emotional distress
spreading of rumours online
sending unwanted messages after being asked not too
defamation.
The thing that’s different about cyberbullying is that you can be under attack 24/7 and the messages come into your personal space whether you’re at home or work. The bully doesn’t actually have to be in the same room as you. Cyber bullying can reach a greater scope and scale and reach a wider audience and cyber bullies can hide behind cowardly anonymous profiles.
I’m glad they make mention of the celebrity Charlotte Dawson. She sadly took her own life after vicious, non-stop enslaughts of cyber bullying from hundreds of followers. This really highlights the devastating emotional impact cyberhate can have on victims. It’s not funny to attack people online. It’s sickening and cruel bullying. It can drive victims to suicide.
Below was Dawson’s final twitter post. The vile responses turn my stomach.
After Moss courageously explained she was a survivor of sexual assault on the ABC program Q and A, she was bombarded with vicious cyber bullying and cyber hate. It’s hard to listen to. The attacks are vitriolic and sexually violent. They reek with sexual violence, shame, stigma, victim blaming and misogyny.
Aswell as being a former model and best selling author, Moss is also a human rights campaigner. It’s inspiring to see her stand up and speak out for others based on her own harrowing experiences. Her bravery and strength is inspiring. Research shows that victims of online bullying can step back into the shadows and can be too afraid to keep putting it out there publicly. It’s important not to let the bullies win or dim your shine.
I was particularly fascinated when Tara Moss stepped into an MRI with the help of Dr Sylvia Gustin at Neuroscience Research Australia. As Tara lay still in the MRI she was forced to read and reread the hateful insults sent to her.
“Have you no shame, whore?” “Lying about being raped to sell your garbage book?” “I hope you do get raped for your lies.”
The results of her brain scan show how false the phrase “words will never hurt me” actually is. The words have the same effect neurologically speaking as if you were to be punched in the face. The physiological response to the cyber hate was very real.
Dr Emma A Jane was one of the main researchers for the show and she explains that cyber hate is a form of violence because of how the brain responds to the abuse. “Words can cause harm in a similar way that me punching you in the face would cause you harm,” she says.
Dr Gustin’s research has proved the same thing.
“We know that emotional abuse, such as cyber-bullying, is just as hideous as physical abuse. It can have devastating effects, causing problems such as sleep trouble, anxiety, depression and even suicide.”
Dr Gustin explains thatcyber abuse can be even worse than physical abuse.
“… because the victims of emotional abuse blame themselves and minimise their abuse. They say, ‘It was only online words, at least he/she didn’t hit me.’ The more you deny and suppress feelings of sadness, helplessness and fear, the stronger these feelings are in your mind and the more they have an impact on both your physical and mental health..”
Some of the other main points to come out of the series so far, is that the advice to stay off the internet after experiencing bullying is wrong and reeks of victim blaming.
Dr Gustin says we need to talk about it openly for healing to occur. How many times do people tell you to just ignore it. Bottling it up doesn’t work.
Moss says we need to report it and Dr Jane says we need a multi pronged approach…
“Police need to be trained and take complaints seriously. Schools need resources in cyber civility. Parents need to talk about engaging online with their kids, and individuals need to take responsibility for the way we use technology and call out bad behaviour.”
What about you? Have you ever attacked anyone online before? How could you be kinder online? How does attacking others online help make up for any insecurities you have about yourself? How can you work on being more happy in yourself rather than tearing others down?
Have you ever been attacked online? How did it effect you? What helped and what didn’t?
Have you ever stood up for someone being bullied? Did you report it?
Seeing as the media is still blaming women victims of “revenge porn” and sexual violence I had to repost Clementine Ford’s statment in response to Sunrise a few years ago.
Ford sums it up perfectly. Stop demonising female victims. Let’s start talking about REAL CONSENT.
“I have taken nude photos of myself and sent them to lovers. I’ve taken nude photos of myself when I’m bored. I’ve taken nude photos just because I have a smart phone and it’s fun. None of that means I have asked for my privacy to be violated, my photos stolen and my very self made available for public humiliation and judgment. Consent is everything.
When Channel 7’s Sunrise asks ‘when will women learn’ instead of ‘why do men continue to view women as objects they can defile and violate while the world watches and tut-tuts’, they are victim blaming. They are saying it’s the responsibility of victims of crime and assault to prevent it and not the responsibility of society to make such crimes intolerable and unacceptable.
When will women learn? Learn what? That our bodies do not belong to us? That we have no right to determine who sees those bodies, touches those bodies, fucks those bodies, and shares in those bodies? Honey, we don’t need to learn that. We already know the answer. We don’t have those rights. We are not allowed to be the masters of ourselves, only the gatekeepers.
Fuck your bullshit, Sunrise. You’re an antiquated, pedestrian piece of rubbish and you truck in misogyny and everyday sexism. Consent is what happens when you give permission. Theft and assault is what happens when people take it from you despite you saying no.
I’m not normally into using nudity as a form of protest. I’ve kept my actual breasts out of this shot so it can be shared on FB without attracting the censorship of an organisation that’s afraid of women loving their own bodies but comfortable with men ridiculing and shaming them.
Like I said, I have taken nude photos and I have chosen who gets to see them. That doesn’t make me a fool or ‘asking for trouble’ or somehow deserving of assault. It means that I expect they’ll be kept private and treated as personal. It means that I expect to live in a world where sexual predators, revenge pornographers and misogynists aren’t defended on morning television shows while their victims are demonised as having made a mistake. What do you know, it turns out that I actually think we should act as if men are better than that.
Anyway, feel free to share this status and image. That’s what consent looks like. Also, I took this photo while sitting on the toilet because that’s about the amount of respect I have for Sunrise and the parade of morons who produce the whole sorry mess of it.
Great video by John Oliver discussing the chillingly specific and potentially dangerous online threats that women receive and comparing them to the ones he receives. Hint –people mock his hands. It’s a comical comparision.
“This can affect any woman who makes the mistake of having a thought in her mind and then vocalising it online….”
Oliver also discusses “revenge porn” and how law enforcement is not up to date with technology. Police officers having no understanding what twitter is to a woman who has had rape and death threats against her over that social media medium is just terrible! I’m glad Oliver addresses the FLAWED victim blaming warped belief that “you just shouldn’t take naked photos of yourself!” Read my defense of sexy selfies here!
Anyway, so I was driving home late one night last week and was flicking around the radio. It was really late and I needed something to keep me awake. I settled on Triple M and heard the male DJ ranting incessantly about “revenge porn.” However his rage and anger was directed at the female victims in these cases and not once at the criminals themselves.
“Women should just stop taking naked photos of themselves!” he boomed in a shaming way. “Why are women taking naked photographs of themselves in the first place? What do they expect?”
Um. Sounds oddly reminiscent of the victim blaming nonsense told to rape victims, “Why did you walk somewhere in public at night? Why did you wear a skirt? Why did you have a drink at a party? What did you expect?”
Hmmm. Rather than swerve off the road I fumed silently. I had to concentrate as it was a rainy and windy. My fists clenched the wheel as yet another media commentator normalised non-consensual sexual activity and victim blamed. This radio commentator was discussing a sex crime as if it was the victims fault! Grrrr..
“Bicycle theft is a common and intractable crime and yet I’ve never heard a police officer come out and say: “If you don’t want to have your bike stolen don’t ride a bike.”
Perhaps that’s because victim blaming is all too often reserved for crimes against women.”
Gabrielle Jackson
Anyone remember the program Sunrise where they did the same thing as Triple M a few years ago?
“When Channel 7’s Sunrise asks ‘when will women learn’ instead of ‘why do men continue to view women as objects they can defile and violate while the world watches and tut-tuts’, they are victim blaming. They are saying it’s the responsibility of victims of crime and assault to prevent it and not the responsibility of society to make such crimes intolerable and unacceptable.
When will women learn? Learn what? That our bodies do not belong to us? That we have no right to determine who sees those bodies, touches those bodies, fucks those bodies, and shares in those bodies? Honey, we don’t need to learn that. We already know the answer. We don’t have those rights. We are not allowed to be the masters of ourselves, only the gatekeepers. ”
Clementine Ford
First of all Mr triple M presenter, (who I’m assuming is Ugly Phil) let’s get this straight.
Often the women in “revenge porn” don’t know they’re being photographed or have been pressured by their partners for months to pose. Sometimes the partners take their pictures without them knowing or the photos are stolen from their phone or email account through hacking scams. OR -and I’m starting a sentence with OR because I’m so incensed – innocent women’s faces are PHOTOSHOPPED onto pornographic pictures. It’s not the woman’s body but the effect on her life and career is the same. Some women have changed names, states, jobs because of these leaked fake images…….
Secondly, taking naked photos of yourself or your partner is NOT a crime and I’m so sick of the morality police blaming women in these stories! And yes it’s mainly women who are victims of “revenge porn.” Plenty of women and men enjoy taking naked photos of themselves and that is not a crime! It can be a lot of fun, liberating, sexy and an exploration into self portraiture! We live in the digital age. For sure, don’t let anyone pressure you to send photos of yourself and only do it if you want to. Lots of people send each other sexy selfies, especially if they’re in a long distance relationship. It can be a great way to keep the fire alive in a relationship!
There needs to be education about HOW NOT TO SHARE NAKED PHOTOS OF SOMEONE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT AND WHY THAT’S A CRIME! This education would have to be careful not to fall into the age old, toxic way of thinking- “women need to protect and safeguard their bodies/sexuality at all costs whilst men don’t have to change their behaviour at all”– that fuels gendered violence in this country. The onus must be on the criminal here, not the victim.
Ok, so let’s get this clear!
Releasing naked and intimate photos onto the internet and sharing them with anyone without the express consent of the subject is a crime!
Revenge porn is image-based sexual abuse with the intention to shame or humiliate.
It is a crime of invasion of privacy and theft that can devastate lives.
Let’s look at the criminals here. Do you remember that 20 something year old Hunter Moore that lived at his parents suburban home where he ran the despicable, frat boy and misogynistic website – Is Anyone Up? He’s in gaol now thanks to the hard word of a mother of one of his victims and the FBI- but only for two years!
Moore’s website used to release topless and naked photos of mainly women which his followers would then collectively comment on in extrememly sexist and derogatory ways. The victims were called names such as “ugly whores” or “white trash sluts.” Next to the images he posted the women’s full name, job, social media address and city which meant these nude photos would appear in the first page of Google. His followers would then post the images to the victims job and family. They would often release the victims home address or phone number to increase harassment or to intimidate.
This was about ruining women’s lives, driving them from their jobs and driving people to suicide. Cyber bullying at its peak.
40% of the photos had been hacked from women’s email addresses and 12% of the photos had been photoshopped. This meant their face had been photoshopped onto a photo from a porn shoot.
Moore called himself a “professional life ruiner” and teased his victims telling them to go and kill themselves. He said that the victims on his website were sluts who were asking for the abuse, losing their jobs, humiliation to their family and their life and reputation in ruins. Notice that victim blaming ideology at work again?
Remember last year when teenage girls in an Australian school had their photos hacked as part of a school porn ring? The girls were told they should wear shorter skirts if they want to stay out of trouble and they brought it upon themselves for taking nude photos of themselves in the first place! This highlights a huge problem our society has with blaming women and blaming female sexuality.
The teenage girls were taking photos of themselves naked. Big deal. Their bodies are changing and they’re documenting it. Nothing wrong with that. Yet the media and the schools responded by punishing them for being sexual.
We only have to look at how the media treats male victims of “revenge porn” to see how much women victims are routinely blamed. When Kim Duthie published nude photos of St Kilda AFL footballers in 2010 not one word of condemnation touched the footballers. Not one commentator angrily speaking out about “tut tut naughty boys! What did those footballers with their loose morals expect with taking naked photos of themselves anyway?”
You guessed it. All the vitriol was saved for Kim Duthie while nothing but sympathy for the footballers as innocent victims.
And can we just stop using the flawed term “revenge porn?” now please.
It’s such a victim blaming term! The images aren’t necessarily “porn” and the reasoning behind the crime can be complex, varied, not singular and possibly not even about revenge at all.
Hunter Moore’s website wasn’t about porn but more about hurting and humiliating other people.
I prefer the term image based sexual abuse because it evokes pain and emotional distress that can be caused by the non-consensual making and distribution of private sexual images. It is not porn!
The Women’s Legal Services NSW says “revenge porn” is a misnomer that incorrectly places the focus on the victim, “categorising their actions as pornography and victim blaming, rather than focusing squarely on real harm, which is caused by the perpetrator”.
“Image-based sexual exploitation” is a term that the Sexual Assault Support Service recommends.
Domestic Violence Victoria says that freely given consent must be at the centre of any new laws. Yes! Let’s bring agency and consent back into the discussion!
The organisation also says that image based sexual abuse needs to be viewed through the lens of domestic/intimate partner violence. For example, the threat of posting photos online can keep a current or past partner under an abusers power or control. The organisation says;
“In the context of family violence, it’s important to recognise the highly problematic nature of consent because women in this situation may not feel able to refuse to participate in the production of images or materials and/or to consent to their subsequent distribution. Due consideration must therefore be given to the limitations to the personal agency of those in a family violence situation.”
So the most important thing is to get laws in place to protect the victims and it’s heartening to see laws finally changing around Australia to catch up with technology.
Revenge porn is illegal in England and Wales and banned on sites like Reddit and Twitter.
Have you taken naked photos of yourself? Have you ever had a partner pressure you to send naked pics or pose for their camera? Have you ever had naked or sexual photos of yourself leaked online? I’d love to hear from you.
Just a warning before you go there that it “uses only real-life cyberhate received by real-life women. It contains extremely explicit, violent and racist content (as well as some truly heinous spelling and syntax).”
18 years of archived messages that have been sent to women are cut up and shuffled to make two automatic hateful generators. If you’re not impressed with your first hateful insult you can click the refresh button at the bottom of the page that reads, “the messages I get are rapier than that.” There’s a morbid black and satirical humour about it that really appeals to me but a sad and disturbing element aswell.
It’s an interesting experience using it because they’re the kind of messages women receive all the time and it makes you realise how impersonal and generic they are. It’s not about you as an actual individual but you as a woman. It could be the same person sending them out to every single woman but it’s not. It’s different men sending them out to different women but they’re perpetuating the same ideology.
It’s a clever awareness raising exercise;
“Many people are not aware of the prevalence and noxious nature of contemporary misogyny online. The reality, however, is that cyber violence against women and girls (cyber VAWG) has become so ubiquitous, the United Nations warns that, left unchecked, it risks producing a 21st century ‘global pandemic’.”
I’m also impressed by how this generator breaks a very unhelpful silence and shame surrounding gendered violence.
“Regardless of the context, sexual violence and abuse is often surrounded by an insidious, oppressive, and toxic silence.Victim-blaming and shaming is endemic. The latter is generated not only by outsiders, but by women internally, in that those who have suffered abuse frequently blame and shame themselves for the harm others have caused them.
Silence tends to protect perpetrators, to obscure larger social problems, and to serve as a petri dish for the cultivation of shame.
While speaking publicly is not for everyone, under the right circumstances, it can benefit not only the speakers, but the listeners, as well. This site joins the broad (and often extremely fraught) feminist project of speaking out about gendered violence in all its forms.”
The website explains;
“The random mash-ups it produces can be bizarre. Yet this computer-generated material is virtually indistinguishable from the real life messages many women receive every day. Often there is no clear connection between the content of the violent and/or sexually harassing material sent, and the identity and context of the receiver.
Women are called ugly sluts for having opinions on taxation. Girls are threatened with rape for posting videos about fishtail braiding. It makes no sense. Until you realise that this is not about individual women. It is about gender.“
This entertaining yet kind’ve disturbing interactive work is the brainchild of two Australian academics, Dr Emma A. Jane and Dr Nicole A. Vincent.
Rapeglish is defined as;
“An emerging yet increasingly dominant online dialect whose signal characteristic is graphic and sexually violent imagery. Often accompanied by: accusations that female recipients are overweight, unattractive, and acceptably promiscuous; all-caps demands for intimate images; and strident denials that there is any misogyny on the internet whatsoever.”
Go and have a look at the rapeglish generator and let me know how you go!
“Women are receiving sexually explicit rape threats online such as, ‘I will fuck your ass to death you filthy fucking whore. Your only worth on this planet is as a warm hole to stick my cock in’.”
We need to stop saying the internet isn’t real life. It is real life. It is a reflection of life. The internet is interwoven into our everyday lives.
“There is good reason to believe the normalisation of “Rapeglish” online is both a symptom of and a contributing factor to the far-broader problem of gendered violence offline.”
A few years ago Dr Emma Jane interviewed me and my experiences as research into gendered cyber hate online and for her latest book, Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History. Dr Jane is an amazing powerhouse of research and has won soo many awards for her journalism, fiction and academic writing that I can’t keep up! ! She has published nine books including a novel, Deadset, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Asia and the South Pacific for Best First Novel in 1997 and is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales. Basically she’s amazing and here’s a photo of her with Mr Squiggle!
Here’s some quotes from her book “Misogyny Online.” Dr Jane speaks about how the internet is providing a new medium for traditional and harmful attitudes to women that reduce women to their sexual value that in turn perpetrates the cycle of sexual violence.
Many waves of feminist activism and theory do, however, support the contention that while the cyber medium may be new, the ‘fuck you up your shopworn ass’ message has ample historical precedent.
It belongs to a far older tradition of gendered abuse and oppression: one that reduces women to their sexual – or lack of sexual – value and then punishes them for this self-same characterisation.
Hot women are just asking for coerced sex because they are hot and leading men on.
Women who are not hot enough are just asking for coerced sex because they must be taught a lesson for lacking the obligatory requirement of hotness.
As I will show over the course of this book, threats to rape women because of their supposed ‘unrapeability’ are circulating with astonishing frequency. At the same time men enthuse about wanting to rape certain women as if this is a high compliment.
In many sectors of the internet, graphic rape threats have become a lingua franca – the ‘go-to’ response for men who disagree with what a woman says, who dislike the way a woman looks, who are unhappy with the response to the unsolicited ‘dick pics’ they keep sending, or who simply believe, as one commentator recently put it on Facebook, that all women are ‘cunts’ who deserve to be ‘face fucked’ until they turn blue (cited in Chalmers, 2015).
Misogyny, in short, has gone viral.
When women speak up about being attacked online, they are frequently instructed to stop complaining and toughen up. ‘It’s just words,’ they are told. ‘It’s just the internet.’
This book, however, shows that gendered hate speech online has significant offline consequences. Female targets suffer socially, psychologically, professionally, financially, and politically. Gendered cyber hate is having a chilling effect in that some women are self-censoring, writing anonymously or under pseudonyms, or withdrawing partly or completely from the internet. Further, more and more attacks which begin exclusively
online are spilling into offline domains….
Focusing primarily on gendered cyberhate involving male attackers and female targets is necessary because of the overwhelming anecdotal and empirical evidence that women are being attacked online more often, more severely, and in far more violently sexualised ways than men.
Female targets of cyberhate often receive extremely specific communications about how, where, and even what time they will be violated. Also included maybe explicit details about which orifices will be desecrated via which instruments, as well as the names of the family members and children who will be forced to watch. These are not the types of tweets, Facebook messages, and emails typically received by men. Further, the misogyny, sexualised vitriol, slut shaming, and threats women encounter on the internet sit squarely within a much broader problem: namely the grossly high levels of violence that continue to be perpetrated against women and girls around the world (‘Cyber violence against women and girls: A world-wide wake-up call’, 2015: 13).
With regard to cyberhate directed at men, I note that while the ‘ugly, fat, and slutty’ trifecta is hurled at women with monotonous regularity, I have yet to witness any men being attacked via this particular combination of insults. While there is an abundance of homophobic slurs and accusations relating to a condition we could call micro-penis syndrome, the low-level argy-bargy experienced by men (or at least by straight, cisgendered, white men) is very different to the abuse experienced by women. Norms do exist around physical appearance for men, but there is no corresponding fixation with men’s ‘fuckability’ or ‘rapeability’. This reflects the broader fact that men are not traditionally shamed for promiscuity or sexualised self-representation.
There is still no male version of the word ‘slut’ – or at least not one with derogatory connotations.
When the rhetoric of sexual violence is used to abuse men online, it is often delivered via attacks on their female partners and family members(Jane, 2014b: 565). In 2011, for instance, an attack on the former US television talk show host Jon Stewart included the posting of photographs of his wife alongside disparaging comments about her size and attractiveness. These included: ‘Most lib’s chicks are pigs’, ‘She a liberal. They only come in ugly’, and ‘Looks like a trip to Auschwitz might do her some good’(comments beneath ‘Jon Stewart’s wife Tracey is overweight, unattractive’,2011). Another example is the case of the Australian footballer Robbie Farah who, following the death of his mother, received a tweet reading:‘I’d still fuck your mum, I will have to wear a gas mask to help with the smell of decomposing flesh, but I’d fuck her hard’ (@maxpower118 cited
in Thomson, 2012).
What have your experiences been online? Have you been bullied or attacked online and if so, how have you reacted?
Have you seen this catchy song about the clitoris? Refinery29 have made a musical history of the clitoris and it’s wonderful! If you’ve read some of my posts about the clitoris here and here, you’ll know why I was ecstatic over this tune!
If you know the ins and outs of sexology and sex history you might want to watch it a few times to spot all the multitudes of references in there! And look at this magnificent, pink room with a big crimson internal clitoris bedhead (maybe?) above the couch! So lush and glam!
For nearly all of recorded human history, women’s sexuality has been defined for them by men. Men have focussed on the vagina as women’s primary sexual organ because it happens to correspond to their idea of sex (i.e. vaginal penetration). And, let’s face it, vaginal intercourse feels good to most men, and it most often leads them to orgasm. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most women!
The history of the clitoris is about the history of the oppression of femininity through culture, religion, politics and science. This is a history of the neglect, denial, and subordination of feminine pleasure, autonomy, and identity that lies at the root of misogyny…
Singer Dorian Electra
The colourful video clip takes on us an exciting and colourful historical journey from a woman’s perspective about the clitoris and sexual pleasure. Dorian even has internal clitoris earrings that appear to glow in the dark!
We travel through hyper-real, colourful scenes through witch burnings where religions have controlled female sexuality, the male form as the ultimate model in Ancient Greece, references to Pandora and her box, medicine in the 1700’s on a dissection table and psychology and we even meet a very drag, complete with suspicious unruly beard and glasses consisting only of frames-Mr Freud himself.
Freud believed that clitoris sexual stimulation was immature and childish and that a real adult woman would only enjoy sex through vaginal penetration. He called the vagina “an atrophied penis.” I love the scene where Dorian transforms into a mock “little girl” sending up Freud’s propositions that only women who were immature acting like little girls liked to enjoy clitoral pleasure. There’s a lot of playful imagery to make a more serious point.
Dorian talks about how studying Freud’s ideas impacted her sexuality growing up,
My classmates and teachers were all very immediately critical of Freud, and although I was, too, I wanted to try to get as much value as I could out of reading his works and perhaps I took him too seriously, because this notion of the clitoral orgasm being immature kind of stuck with me. It started to subconsciously fuel this idea that I was immature, that I wasn’t fully a woman because I didn’t embrace my passive, receiving role in heterosexual, vaginal intercourse. So, as you can see, I have some personal beef with Dr. Freud that I needed to resolve with him publicly in this music video.
Dorian Electra even visits a very glam, hyper 60’s world of Masters and Johnsons lab where they tried to understand female desire.
There’s even pretty glass hanging internal clitorises! I can’t tell what they’re hanging off.. Is it a wind chime? Is it a clitoris chandeleir? Whatever it is I want one!
The delightful singer wears a full body clitoral suit in one scene and dances about in co-ordinated moves with women wearing shining vulva bodysuits. The climax (see what I did there?) is when the internal clitoris is finally discovered and mapped and the world is shocked because it’s ten times its size.
Dorian Electra explains why she made the video,
Women’s bodies are too often sexualized and objectified for the pleasure of others. In order to combat that, I wanted to create something to educate about women’s sexuality, history, and female sexual anatomy that was from a woman’s perspective for a change! I’m a pop musician, and I like to use sex appeal as a tool and a part of my art.
The more people understand the breadth and variety of women’s experience, the more we can accept, understand, and celebrate the diversity of those experiences. And, furthermore, not just to women, but to all gender identities, children, and especially teens who are just learning about their own and others’ bodies. The ideas we learn about sexuality at a young age are so important and can stick with us for the rest of our lives.
I’ve posted the lyrics are below for your enjoyment..
The clitoris
It’s been a mystery
The clitoris
It’s my anatomy
The clitoris
Much more than you can see
If you get to know it, you can get to know me.
In the days of old
Man’s form on pedestals
But girls less than ideal
We were not taught to feel
Then into the Dark Ages when witch hunts were all the rage
The key to see if she’s a witch or not lies right between her legs
‘Cause if you see the mark of Satan
then you know there’s no mistakin’
she’s been taken desire
Throw her on the fire
Fear inside
Pandora’s Box
opening wide
Sinful seat of delight
Earthly pleasures hidden far out of sight
The clitoris
It’s been a mystery
The clitoris
It’s my anatomy
The clitoris
Much more than you can see
If you get to know it, you can get to know me
Learned men of science
Still some would deny it
Anatomists’ dissections weren’t enough for them to buy it
The few who did uncover it
Would argue who discovered it
This excavated treasure, the source of woman’s pleasure
Then Dr. Freud came along
Told me I was doing it all wrong
I need to graduate the way I masturbate
From the clitoral to the vaginal
Did he know
What goes on inside that hole
He couldn’t see
All stimulation happens clitorally
They say I’m frigid and cold and I need to be controlled
Or that I’m too hot, demented, disordered, hysterical
Or that I’m crazy or lazy too mild or wild and baby
They get to decide what’s natural and factual
Even doctor’s textbooks
Yes, they would forget it
The clit they would omit and really not even regret it
So scientists set out
To find out all about
This old orgasmic mystery and settle any doubt
In 3D
The clit was mapped architecturally
To the world’s surprise
It was found to be ten times its size
The clitoris
Shouldn’t be a mystery
The clitoris
It’s my anatomy
The clitoris
Much more than you can see
If you get to know it, you can get to know me
We can come to understand
Worlds of pleasure in our hand
Study up and come with me
The clitoris will be set free
