Usually when I first meet someone I never tell them I am bisexual. It never comes up in conversation. In fact I wait until I know that I can trust someone enough to tell them. I hate secrets because when I was young kept a lot of things from my parents, including my budding bisexuality. When I did tell them all I got was “Can’t you choose? Can’t you just be straight?” It was so typical. Basic biphobia for you.
When I watch T.V. people are either straight or gay: never both. We barely see bi people on T.V. or movies. When they do appear, they do not self-identify as bisexual. They’re just themselves. Meet Jenny Schecter of the L Word. First she is bi, doesn’t self-identify as bi,…
Purity Balls: Why is our viriginity anybody’s business but our own?
purity ring
I’d be surprised if this is your first time hearing about
Purity Balls. The issue has been beaten to death – both by Christian conservatives who think they’re the keenest thing since toilet paper, and liberals like myself who think they’re a huge infringement on the rights of young girls – but if this truly is your first time hearing the (slightly suggestive) term, let me explain:
Purity Balls are pretty much like weddings. They’re held in big, fancy hotels with elegant finger foods, butlers with bad comb-overs, and the occasional violinist in the corner. But instead of a bride and groom coming together to pronounce their love to the world, the fathers and daughters attending these things make vows of their own. In well-rehearsed, cult-like chanting, the daughters promise to stay…
“It’s easy to misconstrue a young girl singer as a total puppet. I am the opposite of that. This is what I do. I am LIGHTS.”
LIGHTS is a Canadian singer-songwriter who creates what she dubs “intergalactic-electro” music. Valerie Poxleitner, who would go on to legally change her name, was born in Ontario to missionary parents. Because international travel was a big part of her childhood, LIGHTS looked for something she could always rely on. Writing her first song at age eleven, an experience that she describes as having “kicked off the biggest thing of my life, she found that consistency in music.
She began her career 2006 as a writer for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where she composed music for the television series Instant Star. Early 2008 she released a self-titled EP…
Here on the FBomb we talk a lot about pop-culture, including women and movies. The Bechdel Test addresses this very topic and is something every good teenage feminist should be informed about. Once you’re aware of the test – and actually use it to analyze films – it’s CRAZY how many movies are male-centric. Watch, learn and support women-centric films!
Over the summer, I read Half the Sky. The entire book was incredible, but I was moved by the chapter on the sex trafficking industry. I wrote this story as a way to try to imagine what that experience must be like. After all, though I am American, with just a slight twist of fate I so easily could have been one of these girls.
There is a fly buzzing by my head. I can see three more scuttling on the wall. In my peripheral vision there are posters hanging pathetically. I try to ignore the pornographic images. I already know the images too well. Far better then any girl my age should. My own experiences are burned into my memory. Painted behind my eyelids.
First off, I want to clearly state that I’m well informed about feminism and I associate myself with feminism, despite the fact that many things within the feminist movement bother me. For example, the idea that being “slutty like men” is liberating. It’s not. Self respect is for both genders. Liberation is being able to choose whoever you want to sleep with, without damaging yourself or someone else. I can just hear the sound of keys on keyboards typing, “You’re not a feminist. I can sleep around with as many people as I want and I shouldn’t be called a slut!” I’m tired of hearing those rants about using feminism as some excuse for self-damaging yourself. (Yes, too much sex can lead to many health problems as…
In my opinion, Courtney Martin is one of the coolest people ever. I appreciate nothing more than honesty – especially when backed up by intelligence and clear hard work – and nobody is more emblematic of such qualities than Courtney. So, when I heard that she has a new book out called Do It Anyway - a book profiling 8 activists – you can imagine my excitement. The goal of writing this book, Courtney says, was to, find, ”examples of ordinary young people who were making change and feeling hopeful about it.”
Personally, I’ve been thinking about activism a lot lately. I’m taking an elective at school called Gender, Culture, Power (taught, of course, by the same teacher that handed me Full Frontal Feminism in 9th grade) and the summer reading…
I have for you a tale of feminism in its physical manifestation.
It was only weeks ago that I, a nineteen-year-old girl, sat at a window seat on a bus swindling its way down a road in the city one night. Ere long I felt another’s presence, and turned to find a beefy drunkard leering at me as he stumbled to sit by my side. He had prickly grey stubble covering his weathered cheek; bloodshot eyes and thin lips smacked together as he looked me up and down.
‘How ya going, alright?’ He grunted, and I nodded curtly before stepping away and re-settling myself on a different seat, a couple of rows back. I had smelt the Red Label on his stale breath and seen how his eyes had rested on my…
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