Slutty Gang Bang!!!!

Ha! Did the headline catch you? I seriously am perusing the web this morning, and I wanted to bring you two blogs written by maybe one of my newest favorite authors in the blogosphere, not necessarily for her writing style, but for her topics. Her name is Chantelle Austin, and her blog is all about sex, sexuality, love, and relationships... from the point of view of someone who has experienced enough to be able to write intelligently about the topics.

The first piece came via the @sexgenderbody Twitter feed: "Is being a slut a bad thing?"

We’re programmed to believe that being promiscuous, or a slut is a bad thing and what is that really? It’s a judgment, damn it! The one thing I pride myself on NOT doing. Coming from someone who works hard to accept others as they are, I was judging myself! I had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t a slut because I was selective about whom I slept with but what does that say about people who aren’t selective? And is that really “wrong”?...

And why does being a slut have to be a bad thing? Are they not just experiencing all that sex and life has to offer? Some people love chocolate, and they’ll eat any sort of chocolate they come across, does that make them a chocolate slut? Hell yes, but is that a bad thing? No! So why is it that some people get labelled as a slut and the connotation is that it’s a bad thing, almost an insult to be called one?

I mean, I was kind of like, "OK, that's not such a bad point, but it's one I've heard before, and how is this special," until I delved further and read a previous column she had written that spurred this particular piece of work: "Am I a Slut If I Participate in a Gang Bang?"

I might be a swinger and engage in sex with people other than my husband but that doesn’t mean I don’t have standards, self respect or professionalism. And it's no excuse for others to treat me with any less respect or manners either so I'll let them know so...

All behaviours of a self respecting woman in my book.

I have recently been criticized for some of my own personal behaviors, and, perhaps they would cause some hackles to rise, but, honestly, I have no problems with them. No guilt -- mostly -- and no worries -- mostly. Sure, I've messed up and made poor decisions, and sometimes my decisions have been overly tainted by alcohol and not by my own libido...

...but it was refreshing to hear a straight woman thinking the same thing I am, and feel empowered by her choices rather than demeaned.

Sexual Fluidity

Isn't love blind when it comes to gender? Do you think that someone is either gay or not gay and nothing inbetween? If you do, you need to read this book that is spinning some heads in the gay community. Forget the LGBT labels that you know. We are much more fluid than you may think.

Heard of the Kinsley Scale? This scale created by Alfred Kinsey attempts to describe a person's sexual orientation based on history or episodes of their sexual activity at a given time. It uses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. However, this study was created with predominatley...well men. So, what does that mean for women? It's always about the boys with these studies isn't it, ladies? Well, not anymore.

Lisa M. Diamond, Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at the University of Utah has written a book, which is now getting more attention, thanks to Oprah Winfrey, called Sexual Fluidity.

The Harvard University Press has this to say:

"Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one-hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: "I fall in love with the person, not the gender," say some respondents."

I know that some of you out there think that a person is either gay or straight and no inbetween. Well, that is stone age thinking folks. I have a lot of friends who are bisexual and even more who were in straight relationships having straight sex and now identify as gay. Can you relate to that.? We shouldn't have labels when it comes to sexual orientation or sexual identity. There is a saying out there that I think is ridiculous, but I've heard alot of lesbians say about women that identify as bisexual. "I don't hate ya, but I won't date ya!". And even I have been guilty of saying "Bi now, gay later."

We need to stop all that craziness and accept those who are brave enough to be themselves. Accept bisexuals. They are just as much apart of this community as we are. Remember, LGBT.

It's all in how you idenitify yourself. Not how others identify or label you. Here is a look into what sexual fluidity is. How do you identify?

1. A married man occasionally wants to have sex with men. He may or may not act out those wishes. By inclination, that would make him bisexual. Nevertheless, he may still identify as a straight man.

2. A woman in a lesbian relationship wants to have sex with men. She may act out those wishes, or she may not, maybe based on the prejudices against bisexual people in her community. By inclination, she is bisexual. Nevertheless, she may still identify as a lesbian woman.

3. An otherwise conservative exclusively homosexual man has objections against what he considers "gay identity politics". He considers himself homosexual, but does not identify as gay.

4. Two asexual people marry. They never have sex, nor want it, but still want the relationship. They may identify as asexual, or they may identify as straight.

5. An "ex-gay" woman is in an exclusive relationship with a man. Although she still has fantasies and thoughts about being with a woman, she now identifies as heterosexual.

6. A transman considers his relationship to a cis-man as technically heterosexual, but still both identify as gay.

7. A post-operative transwoman and a straight male partner may consider their relationship as being heterosexual despite both being considered as homosexual by others, including those in the homosexual community.

8. People may identify as pansexual, queer or similar, despite having a sexual orientation that could also be described at least in part by more conventional terms such as straight, gay or lesbian, or hetero- or homo- or bisexual.

Spinning heads yet? My suggestion...read the book.

Juliet

Oprah and CNN take on female-only relationships

Hrm. Considering the interest garnered by the previous two posts on bisexuality, and the noted lack of talk about women in the referenced articles, I found this on the "Most Emailed" List on CNN this morning.

I eagerly await your thoughts, because, if I know my readers, you have many interesting things to say about it:

Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it)...

Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable -- or at least, acceptable...

But experts like Binnie Klein, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist and lecturer in Yale's department of psychiatry, agree that alternative relationships are on the rise.

"It's clear that a change in sexual orientation is imaginable to more people than ever before, and there's more opportunity -- and acceptance -- to cross over the line," says Klein, noting that a half-dozen of her married female patients in the past few years have fallen in love with women. "Most are afraid that if they don't go for it, they'll end up with regrets."

Feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, Ph.D, a professor of English and gender and women's studies at the University of Kentucky and author of "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body," also agrees that in the current environment, more women may be stepping out of the conventional gender box.

"When a taboo is lifted or diminished, it's going to leave people freer to pursue things," she says.

"So it makes sense that we would see women, for all sorts of reasons, walking through that door now that the culture has cracked it open. Of course, we shouldn't imagine that we're living in a world where all sexual choices are possible. Just look at the cast of 'The L Word' and it's clear that only a certain kind of lesbian -- slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way -- is acceptable to mainstream culture."...

"People always ask me if this research means everyone is bisexual. No, it doesn't," says Lisa Diamond, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah and author of the 2008 book "Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire."

"Fluidity represents a capacity to respond erotically in unexpected ways due to particular situations or relationships. It doesn't appear to be something a woman can control."

Furthermore, studies indicate that it's more prevalent in women than in men, according to Bonnie Zylbergold, assistant editor of American Sexuality, an online magazine.

I submit to you without comment ... for now, at least.