choice

There are some really neat things and people that I find on teh Internetz every day.  Today, I found something exciting and new in the form of a new play, set to open in NYC this April. 

This is so right up my alley, folks: body image, self, identity, culture, gender.  There's nothing about this that I don't want to hear more of.

Firstly - you need to go see this.  Next, I need someone that attends to come back here and post about it for us all to hear.

-arvan

Bodylogue: a play about color, body & being a woman, a one-woman show.

BodyLogue is Sonu's story of growing up in India, surrounded by negative messages about dark skin, weight and being a woman. Follow her as she travels to Singapore and America where the messages become even more complicated.

A Valentine's Day video featuring @ingridivanna, consent + candy (get more here: whereisyourline.org/newsletter) 

"Ask Me" from Nancy Schwartzman on Vimeo.

Dr. Dean Ornish shares new research that shows how adopting healthy lifestyle habits can affect a person at a genetic level.  For instance, he says, when you live healthier, eat better, exercise, and love more, your brain cells actually increase.

I like choice.  I believe in choice.  I think about choice as the exercise of one's own mind and as fulfillment of any rights granted by a society. 

My personal experience of rights is that they do not exist outside of the agreements that combine to create and define a society.  I won't venture into the unprovable belief that rights are given by god.  For this conversation, I am talking about the rights granted by the social contract(s) we agree to follow as a group for the benefit if the group and by extension - ourselves.  In that context, rights are an agreement to what we can and cannot do, as individuals or groups within the society at-large. 

As individuals, we demonstrate the reasons for our rights.  In fact, so many conversations demand that we prove why we have rights.  The rights of the privileged exist and everyone else is seemingly forced to fight for theirs - one painful step at a time.

When it comes to choice, our human cultures and societies seem to be giving a lot of preference to reasons over choice.  Take for example, identifying ones self as gay or trans.  There are plenty of conversations about how we don't have a choice in being gay or trans.  Many good minds have found physical evidence that we were born that way.  Some people know at an early age that their gender, sex or body identity does not align with the hetero gender binary definition.  They are born thinking and feeling that way.  I absolutely believe that.  (I don't know the science in detail, but it seems pretty sound to me.  However, I am in NO WAY even beginning to question this information, which I happen to believe is true.)

I received a question yesterday, posted in a forum that I recently joined.  I thought the question and the answer were both good things to post here as well.  This particular question goes to the very heart of what SexGenderBody.com is designed around. 

Sent By : [name removed]
Sent : Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 6:07 PM

Do YOU really define your sex,gender, body though. isnt it socially constructed??? and there are many theorists that attempt to to tell us how to identify our own sex and gender.

We are always defining ourselves.  Even if we take up the labels that others give to us or lay upon us, the final decision to accept those definitions is ours.  The instant that we think or say: "I am..." , the only person in the entire world responsible for that statement is each of us as individuals - and nobody else.

It is a matter of agreement.  Is society telling us who we are, as defined in their terms?  Or are we telling society who we are, as defined by ourselves?  It is intimidating when others or perhaps everyone we ever meet - tells us who we are and what we are and what we are worth as a result.  People present compelling arguments, whether they be sheer numbers "everybody says so" or some attempt at logic or whatever. 

ADDIS ABABA, 23 October 2009 (PlusNews) - With non-skilled jobs in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, paying as little as US$16 per month, the financial incentives to engage in commercial sex work are overwhelming - earning 30 times a domestic worker’s salary.

Many of the women entering into sex work in Addis are rural migrants who have failed to secure formal employment, or are escaping poor-paying jobs in the city or unwanted marriages in the country, according to a 2008 article published by the UK's Royal Geographical Society.

Teguest, a 16-year-old girl from Gonder, a town 700km northwest of Addis Ababa, fled to the capital four months ago after the death of her parents and a dispute with her brothers.

The relative she contacted in the capital was already engaged in sex work, so the decision to enter the trade was an easy one. Teguest charges 10 Ethiopian Birr or $0.80 per client and has sex with as many as 20 men a day in her tiny room; she is adamant that under no circumstances would she have unprotected sex.

"No, I would not do that for any money. I need my life," she said. "They sometimes offer 200 Birr [$16] and beg me, but life is more important than money."

Teguest says in the past four months, at least 10 men have asked her for unprotected sex at a higher fee.

By Joshua Kyalimpa

KAMPALA, Oct 22 (IPS) - More than half of Ugandan girls who enrol in grade one drop out before sitting for their primary school-leaving examinations.

The fact that girls are dropping out between age 11 and 13 is being linked to the beginning of the menstruation cycle and its associated challenges.

Research conducted by a non-government organisation, the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE), reveals that the lack of sanitary pads, coupled with other factors like the absence of water or separate toilet facilities for girls in many schools, is responsible for the drop-out rate.

Despite tax waivers introduced to reduce the cost of sanitary pads, finding money to buy them each month is a challenge for many grown women, never mind pre-teen girls.

[Cross-posted from Evil Slutopia.]

I was at a family get-together yesterday where we baked and decorated some Halloween cookies, which made me think about the very special day that I just learned about from a post on feministing: Pro-Life Cupcake Day. This year's PLCD was Friday, so I was thinking that I had missed my chance to share this wonderful project with you, but there's good news! I checked out the Cupcakes for Life site and it turns out that they've declared a whole Pro-Life Cupcake Week, and they say that you can make pro-life cupcakes any day of the year. So let's go ahead and check out the site so that we can all be well prepared for next year.

The feministing post points out this great Q & A from the FAQ page:

Q.) What if I run into a pro-choicer and they smash the cupcakes in my face?

A.) Wipe the cake off your face and share the rest of them with someone less angry inside. Go with courage and go with love, the unborn need you to be their voice.

Okay, who told them that we planned a Cupcake Smash Counterattack? It's hard to believe that this is really a frequently asked question or that this is seriously how the Cupcakes for Life crew envisions the majority of pro-choice people behaving. It seems to me like it would have been more productive to give some actual tips on how to engage with pro-choice people, but I guess that's too much to ask from cupcake-centered activism.

Presented by CineKink, an organization dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television, CineKink NYC is seeking films and videos, of any length and genre, that explore and celebrate the wide diversity of sexuality. We’re looking to blur some boundaries and will be considering offerings drawn from both Hollywood and beyond, with works ranging from documentary to drama, camp comedy to hot porn, mildly spicy to quite explicit — and everything in between.

Cutting across orientations, topics covered at CineKink have included — but are by no means limited to — BDSM, leather and fetish, swinging, non-monogamy and polyamory, roleplay and gender bending, sex work and sex geekery. Basically, as long as it involves consenting adults, just about anything celebrating sex as a right of self expression is fair game. (Far be it from us to define “kink” — if you think your work might make sense in this context, please send it along!)

Scheduled for its seventh annual appearance February 16-21, 2010, the specially-curated CineKink NYC will also feature a short film competition, audience choice awards, an adult industry showcase, presentations, parties and a gala kick-off, with a national screening tour to follow.

A new phase of testing of microbicides, a possible new HIV prevention tool for women, gets underway in Rwanda.

The research is being carried out and tests will begin before the end of the year for the gel microbicide. It is done by Project Ubuzima, an international NGO which promotes reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention, working closely with the Ministry of Health.

Project Ubuzima's Community Outreach manager, Marie-Michele Umulisa, said, that the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) will consider two types of microbicides: a ring and a gel. The latter, being based on anti-retrovirals (ARVs), holds great promise for protection against HIV infection. "Tests for the Gel will start in November. The research is still going on and is now in its second phase, but we are looking forward to phase three which will examine efficacy," she said.