Friday, November 12, 2010

What does "pro-sex" mean? And what can one read for GREAT SEX education?

image is from here
or 
 sexism+racism 
 +heterosexism  
    +capitalism    
          ???          


I just saw the second part of a program on television in which an audience of men spoke out, who were sexually abused as children. What was clear from listening to them and their partners--male and female--was that they had few words and a very limited vocabulary to discuss what had happened or why they couldn't lead healthy, fulfilling lives. These were mostly middle-class people and they were predominantly if not only white. These were the people who were once said to be living The American Dream. And they were crying, sad, lonely, and distant from one another and torn up within themselves.

The rate of sexual abuse of female children by all official estimates is twice the rate of sexual abuse of boys.   Girls are molested or incested at a rate of one in three. With boys it is one in six. At any rate, it is appalling. Some say the stats are too low because they are determined based only by what is reported. And most children don't speak out about having been sexually abused--whether female, intersex, or male.

The stats for women I know is about 80% were sexually abused as children. (Most of the rest were sexually abused when adults, as were most of those abused as children.) And I'd say about 20% of men I know were. That would be one in five boys. And that would be at least four out of five girls.

But even assuming "half of all girls" and "half of all boys" were abused this way, let's consider for a moment what that means: how half of all children learn to not be in their own bodies, to be detached, to become compulsive and addictive and depressed and withdrawn. And, of course, there's also physical and emotional abuse without sexual components. And there's plenty of neglect to go around too. This paints a picture of a lot of people who are hurting. And yet pro-sex websites tend to ignore this very stark reality, let alone factor in how that might shape the kind of sex we are able to have, or the kind of people we are able to be.

I'm going to attempt to demonstrate that what gets passed off as "good, sound, safe" sexual advice just might not be any of the above. And how completely shallow our own understandings of ourselves and our bodies have become. The loss of our own imaginations ought to concern us. Are we unilaterally handing over our sexual selves, or is our humanity being bought wholesale by corporations, fed back to us cut up and devalued, like taking whole food and producing McDonalds? Are we pretending that being offered a "Happy Meal" (with a prize toy inside) or taking whole people, individuals with complex histories bound up in social systems, and feeding that back to us as over-simplified and highly fetishised, dehumanised bodies and parts of bodies is "good"? Or is it just "good enough" given our own expectations and conditioned needs? This is what we have: mass produced sex. This is the time in which we are living: unsustainable lives. Deeper questions are needed. Deeper explorations of who we are and what we can be are required if we are to move beyond the status quo's version of our sex lives and ourselves.

Let's have a look at what a typical "pro-sex" website (it was top of the list when I googled "pro-sex") offers us for wise counsel on how to have good sex. What follows are recommendations from the Just Say Yes "pro-sex" website. What's in bold and in brackets was added by me, Julian. You should know, if you've read enough posts here, that "bold and in brackets" means "Julian's not going to let this text go unchallenged and unanalysed." Not when it comes to sex, I won't. Because unexamined sex is one of the silliest and most dangerous concepts around.

So this is how this post works. You're going to read the contents of a page from a "pro-sex" website. Just as it is presented. You can click on the link in the last paragraph to see it as it is presented there. THEN I'm going to take us through the exact same material, but with some editorialising by you-know-who. And please tell me how much you noticed that gets pointed out there. Or what you noticed that I didn't.

First up, the uninterrupted text:

Sex is everywhere -- on beer commercials, billboards, and in music lyrics. But most messages we get tell us that sex is something dirty that we shouldn't talk about or an act of violence. Most of us learn that our bodies, and our sex, are things to be ashamed of. Most of us learn that sex means a man on top of a woman, and that the only other choice is abstinence. But sex can be lots of things ...

Women have sex with women, men have sex with men, women have sex with men -- and sometimes the best sex is with yourself!

There are lots of safe and fun ways to get off, which you probably won't learn in school. You can do many of these things all by yourself as well as with others, and you can talk about them even if you don't want to do them. Don't feel like you have to do everything on this page, but don't feel like anything is automatically off limits either. The important thing is that everyone involved clearly says what they want and can make it stop when they want.

Just remember, sex is only fun if everyone agrees on what they're going to do.

you could ...
  • suck, kiss, touch, bite, fondle, nibble, squeeze, and lick someone's body, nipples, calves, toes, neck, ass, dick or vulva ...
  • jerk yourself or each other off, dry or using lots of lubricant ...
  • kiss for a long time, using lots of tongue ...
  • have sex in front of mirrors, or watch each other jerking off ...
  • get into role play (for instance, tie someone up and pleasure them) ...
  • look at sexy pictures and videos ...
  • make up or act out fantasies, talk dirty, dress up, strip down, or cross-dress (dressing in the clothes of the other gender) ...
  • call your friend and tell him or her your hottest fantasies ...
  • use cock rings, nipple clamps (or clothespins), or vibrators on your own or someone else's body ...
  • shower together, or grind against each other with your clothes on (dry humping) ...
  • cum on someone's belly, back, feet, chest -- instead of in them ...
  • play with your own or someone else's ass or vagina, put your fingers, dildoes, vegetables, or buttplugs into them.
If you're putting something into a butthole, make sure it has a flared base and looks something like the picture. That way it can't go all the way in and get stuck.
It's important to play safe. Use condoms and plastic wrap. Don't get blood or cum in a wound. See Safe Sex for more information.

Next, the same text with some questions and commentary.

Sex is everywhere -- on beer commercials, billboards, and in music lyrics. But most messages we get tell us that sex is something dirty that we shouldn't talk about or an act of violence. [Hold on. So would "talking dirty" to one another a way to have HOT SEX be considered something that makes sex dirty or not dirty? Is sex-made-dirty healthy and good or not? And, "the messages we get tell us sex is an act of violence"? Where? When? When I was being assaulted at twelve? When my female family members were being incested? No one talked to them about how "sex can be violent". No one talked to me, ever, about that. So this opening remark from the website posits a universe in which there is no dangerous sex, no threatening sex, and in which those who speak of it as possibly dangerous, or violent---pssst: "radical feminists!"--are the ones who are distorting what sex is, not the incest perpetrators, child molesters, rapists, pimps, and corporate ad execs who fuse "sex" to "violence" and violation constantly. And isn't it often suggested that causing our bodies pain, or hurting them, can be "good HOT sex"?]

Most of us learn that our bodies, and our sex, are things to be ashamed of. [And who teaches us that, and how? Through what means, practices, institutions? Religion. Check. Child molesting priests. Check. Incesting fathers. Wait--the "pro-sex" website's writer doesn't mention them? Child molesting neighbors and friends of the family? No mention. Abusive and neglectful parents? Not a word. Emotionally abusive systems in society, that embed racism and misogyny into children? No mention of that, because really, all there is in the social world are props and roles and people who have no personal histories at all; people who do not live inside political systems of exploitation and abuse and neglect. 

This isn't a specific critique of this one website. According to most "good sex" advice sites, this awareness is usually missing. Which makes those of us who DO have "issues" with our bodies and with "sex" feel even MORE ashamed, not less.]

Most of us learn that sex means a man on top of a woman, and that the only other choice is abstinence. But sex can be lots of things ...  [First, that's not "sex" that's everywhere. That's corporate, manipulative, propagandistic racist, heterosexist, misogynistic sexism. To call that "sex" is to not really grasp what's being sold to us. If it is only described on that website as "sex"--if people "come to believe" that what corporations sell us is "sex", then this alone perpetuates the idea that we need to buy stuff (packaged fantasies, ideas about domination and submission, pencil thin body-hating models, plastic toys, etc., in order to have "sex". We don't need any of that to have great sex. Believe it or not.]

Women have sex with women, men have sex with men, women have sex with men -- and sometimes the best sex is with yourself! [And trans, intergender, and intersex folks too: you all can have sex too! Not according to this list, but you can.]

There are lots of safe and fun ways to get off, which you probably won't learn in school. [There's a lot you won't learn in school, period. Like how many American Indians were slaughtered by butchering, thieving white men. Like how the enslavement of Blacks in the U.S. and elsewhere, like the Caribbean, still manifests in people's psyches and actions. Like how much slavery there is right now. Like how frequently incest and child sexual abuse happens. Like how being emotionally neglected shapes how you act out sexually.] 

You can do many of these things all by yourself  [How about "It would be wise to do ANYTHING first when alone, by yourself, to see how you feel about it before, during, and after, emotionally and physically. And how about reminding people that one in three girls and one in six boys--not sure about the stats on intersex children--are sexually abused? So what we do alone by the time we reach puberty might well incorporate what we were taught by those we love who violated us, betrayed us, caused us pain, and called it love.]

and the as well as with others, and you can talk about them even if you don't want to do them. [Does this mean "phone sex" or "sexting"? Or is this the only place so far when honest self-aware communication and the ability to know what we feel and think and want gets recognised as a centrally important feature of "good sex"? And does this mean that the porn-addicted boyfriend can keep asking about the anal sex, when the partner has already said no?]

Don't feel like you have to do everything on this page, but don't feel like anything is automatically off limits either. [Anything? Sex with pigeons isn't off limits?? Sex with babies isn't off-limits? Rapist seduction tactics aren't off limits? Mixing sex and inebriation isn't off limits?] 

The important thing is that everyone involved clearly says what they want and can make it stop when they want. [Would it have been too much of a not-hot thing to put that at the very top of the page, instead of father down here? The sites states: "everyone involved clearly says what they want and can make it stop when they want". That is about as ludicrous a concept as I've ever heard. In what universe does that happen? In what social space does "everyone involved" get the same levels of permission and entitlements to speak, let alone know WHAT they feel about something that may be happening at too fast a rate to proces? What about those of us with triggers, dissociation, and old patterns of "letting things happen" because once upon a time, when we were very, very young, to not let things happen might have meant we'd be dead--or at least our body-minds feared it could happen? What about those of us whose bodies register terror in an instant, when nothing terrifying is happening? What about those of us who feel "nothing" and "numb" when something scary or dangerous IS happening? How are we supposed to be able to communicate then?]

Just remember, sex is only fun if everyone agrees on what they're going to do. [Bullshit. That's one big load of CRAP. Because if you haven't done something yet, agreeing to do it is agreeing to possibly be able to consent to what's about to occur--because you don't know what's about to occur. Consent is relatively weak and unstable as an ethic, isn't it, if what you're agreeing to do is something you don't understand or know how your body and mind will experience? Like, say, if I agree to take crack cocaine for the first time. Or to try a new kind of alcoholic drink before having "sex". Or if I agree to be tied up because I've learned to do what is asked of me as soon as I enter a bedroom, but don't recall that my uncle did that to me when I was seven. What, exactly, am I agreeing to do when something new is asked of me?]
you could ...
  • suck, kiss, touch, bite, fondle, nibble, squeeze, and lick someone's body, nipples, calves, toes, neck, ass, dick or vulva ... [The very first recommendation is for us to think of people as body parts--and sexual pleasure as figuring out which parts feel what, rather than understanding what a person feels about sex is more complicated than what happens when you lick a nipple. This is a very mechanistic, non-holistic view of sex. So far, we don't need capitalism, however. Whew.]
  • jerk yourself or each other off, dry or using lots of lubricant ...[Uh oh. We need capitalism already to get that lubricant at a store. And no mention of what sorts of ingredients are in those store-bought or online-ordered lubricants. If petroleum based, then we're talking about something that isn't healthy to put into the body.]
  • kiss for a long time, using lots of tongue ... [or not using lots of tongue; spreading around saliva and/or deep penetration doesn't equal "a good time". The best sex I've had, when I was sexual, involved virtually no penetration at all and a very moderate amount of saliva--never leaving the mouth, either.]
  • have sex in front of mirrors, or watch each other jerking off ... [now we're kind of into class and capitalism. Lots of homes don't have lots of mirrors in which to pose oneself while being sexual with someone else. Besides that, we've arrived at sex being voyeurism and exhibitionism, small scale. See, with this simple list, we're going to ease our way deeper into the realities and "necessities" of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. Stay tuned...]
  • get into role play (for instance, tie someone up and pleasure them) ... [Ah, yes. "Role play". Curious that the example involves bondage. Because right there we're led to think that "role play" means someone has less movement, capacity to escape an unwanted situation, or even to participate equally. And the doors to white supremacy have now been opened. Also to patriarchy. Why isn't "role play" ever: "you be the person I adore and enjoy being with, and I'll be the person you adore and enjoy being with". Not sexy enough? Not "pro-sex" enough?]
  • look at sexy pictures and videos ... ["sexy" meaning what? Objectifying? Exploitive? Mechanistic? Images and videos of people who are trafficked? How are we supposed to know which people in which videos and images were there "consensually"? No mention or regard for that. Just find pix and vids that get you hot. No worries. Except, well, we've now combined capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy all into something that is allegedly and unambiguously "good sex".]
  • make up or act out fantasies, talk dirty, dress up, strip down, or cross-dress (dressing in the clothes of the other gender) ... [From roles, to videos, to fantasies. If you've been acting out roles and watching the videos, what might the content of those fantasies be? The same as what you've been consuming and acting out? Talking dirty?? I thought we were supposed to be promoting sex-as-not-dirty???? Dressing up--capitalism. Strip down--well, that tends to go with having sex, often. "Cross-dress"? Hmmm. So we're supposed to be buying into a hetero/sexist dress code, a set of roles that rigidly define gendered sex as happening between people who dress differently? If I wear my boyfriend's t-shirt and jeans and he wears mine, are we "cross-dressing" yet? Or does one of us need to put on garments that pimps require prostitutes to wear? I'm guessing not so much with the t-shirt and jeans, and a lot more of the stuff pimps and procurers want women to wear. I could be wrong.]
  • call your friend and tell him or her your hottest fantasies ... ["hottest" fantasies? What about most emotional, deepest, most liberating fantasies? What about the fantasies of liberation from capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy? What? That isn't "hot"?? Oh, you mean "hot" refers to superficial, buying what corporate racist patriarchy sells us as "hot"? Gotcha.]
  • use cock rings, nipple clamps (or clothespins), or vibrators on your own or someone else's body ... [now we're not only dealing with capitalism, but we're dealing with things that can harm our bodies. But it's all "good" and "pro-sex" right? Why isn't sexual practice that can't harm our bodies not "hot" or "good"? How about non-penetrative sex between full human beings, not people-with-toys as "hot" and "good"? Does corporate-produced plastic and corporate-produced electricity need to be present for us to have sex? Really? Was what everyone was doing prior to the advent of electricity and plastic not having enjoyable sex? Why just because products exist, sold to us for a profit, are we required to buy them in order to learn how to have enjoyable sex?]
  • shower together, or grind against each other with your clothes on (dry humping) ... [no complaints here. Well, except for one: we are always thinking, in this list, about ourselves as having to do shit to feel a certain way. There's truly no mention at all of "get to know who the person is" or "be together".]
  • cum on someone's belly, back, feet, chest -- instead of in them ... [Is this being addressed to women? How exactly might a woman enjoy cumming on someone else's chest? Oh, right, sex is androcentric and phallocentric, so "cum" means "male ejaculate" or "semen". The dead give-away is "instead of in them". Because while women can ejaculate fluid, it's not likely she's choosing between doing that "in" someone else, or outside of someone else. It's not like her partner is saying, "Hey, hon, just for kicks, why don't you ejaculate OUTSIDE my body this time!" So fun sex means heterosexist males who regard penetration using their penis as "normal", and shooting their semen onto people's bodies as "something different to try". Not for me. No thanks.]
  • play with your own or someone else's ass or vagina, put your fingers, dildoes, vegetables, or buttplugs into them. [The whole pre-occupation in this list with penetration as "necessary" or "normal" is truly invalidating of a lot of us who don't/can't/won't penetrate someone with parts of our bodies in order to have sex. It's able-ist, in some ways ageist. It's also terribly phallocentric and androcentric. Playing with someone else's body kind of goes without say, doesn't it? Oh, wait. Skype and webcams. Maybe not.So we're talking about solo masturbation as a way to find sexual intimacy and pleasure, then? Or are we just "performing" for someone who is looking at us? This notion of "sex" as "performance" is one of the most capitalistic ideas yet. As opposed, say, to "sex as intimacy" or "sex as sharing" or "sex as communication" or "sex as finding out who one is and who the other person is: "sex as discovery". What? Not "hot", huh? Oh, and you should wash any vegetables and probably wrap a condom on them if they are phallic shaped. And very hard vegetables aren't so good and can puncture or bruise soft internal flesh.]
If you're putting something into a butthole, make sure it has a flared base and looks something like the picture. That way it can't go all the way in and get stuck. [Into "a butthole"--it doesn't belong to anyone? Do buttholes just walk around? Well... kind of, yes. "Politicians" is what they're called in English. And again with the purchasing of objects to use in body parts also written about as if they are objects. More classism here; and more "penetration" AS "sex".]

It's important to play safe. Use condoms and plastic wrap. Don't get blood or cum in a wound. See Safe Sex for more information. [This is one of my pet peeves, I'll be honest. Because none of these sites discuss what "safe" sex is for those of us who were incested, molested, assaulted, raped, exploited, trafficked, and enslaved sexually. The assumption is that no one has traumas; difficulties being present; triggers. The assumptions, in fact, about the people having sex are not "normal" at all. Most people have challenges, whether due to traumas or dysfunctional childhoods, depression or substance misuse, other mental illness or physical disability. So we have to wonder whether this imaginary person even exists in actual life. How do we have emotionally safe sex? How about psychologically safe? Politically safe? Mentally safe? Why is the only "safety" caveat about using rubber and more plastic? Do you get what's so fucked up here? And, yes, we ought to be fully informed about STDs and STIs, but also about emotional coercion and physical manipulation that may be a normal part of a teenager's life and relationships. Oh, and PLASTIC WRAP ISN'T SAFE. It has holes in it that can pass disease and illness. So that's not even something that should be promoted even if we are going to pretend no one has "issues" and society isn't deeply fucked up in oppressive ways, not just "repressive" ones.]

See also *this post* on being anti-sexy vs. anti-sex. I will leave you with two pieces of writing, and I welcome you to compare the depth of feeling, the breadth of insight, in each, compared to the material you read above.

Here are the links, and this is what is being linked to:

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, by Audre Lorde, in her book Sister Outsider. I know of no other single essay that so completely tears away what the status quo expects of us, to get down to the possibilities that lie beneath--for our sexual lives, which is also to say, for our lives. This essay, delivered first as a speech, if taken seriously, could radically transform how we experience sex, and what we come to understand is "good" about it.

"Communion" by Andrea Dworkin, a chapter in her book, Intercourse, analysing and discussing the work of James Baldwin--a gay author of amazing depth. The analysis really gets brilliant, for me, about a page and a half into the chapter, when she begins talking about what sex is that the dominant society won't tell you about, leading into Baldwin's work, which also discusses those exact same themes usually kept hidden and secret, unspoken about by the adherents of and apologists for dominant racist, capitalist patriarchal societies' core values.

A snippet, from each:

As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge. We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth of feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men, but which fears this same depth too much to examine the possibilities of it within themselves. -- Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic (in Sister Outsider)

There is no imagination in fetishlike sexual conformity; and no questions are being asked in political discourse on sex about hope and sorrow, intimacy and anguish, communion and loss. [...] 
There is an awful poverty here, in this time and place: of questions; of meaning; of emotional empathy; of imagination. And so we are inarticulate about sex, even though we talk about it all the time to say how much we like it [...].  -- Andrea Dworkin, Communion (in Intercourse)

Men [Must Not] Rule. How Can We Support Women Taking Leadership to Stop Men From Continuing to Destroy Women and the World?

image of book cover is from here
"Truth is harder to bear than ignorance, and so ignorance is valued more--also because the status quo depends on it; but love depends on self-knowledge and self-knowledge depends on being able to bear the truth." -- Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, page 63

For a demographic that repeatedly claims to possess intelligence, white men really don't get a whole lot about what's going on, except to make sure it continues unabated. When you are practiced in the autocratic art of not being accountable you stop needing to know why you are what you are. You just need to keep that same old train rolling along its tracks. Steven Goldberg is not smart. He's not intelligent. He gets published because he's got connections and privilege. Not because he knows what he's talking about.

The train keeps rolling.

How to derails the train and crack the code of domineering men's desire-in-action to own things that aren't his, and to profit and gain pleasure off the backs of women, and girls? The code has been well-analysed and continues to be. Women know so much more about men than men know about themselves. And one way to know is to witness men making decisions to be callous and cruel rather than to care and feel compassion for those who are not "him". When you watch men do this enough times it is quite striking how much men seem to want to behave this way. Willfully. With "agency" and power. Not because women in short skirts make them behave this way, either.

But there are male-controlled forces, industries, and perspectives beyond individual acts that keep things headed in a deathly direction. These have been identified too. Women the world over have described how the struggles to end slavery and trafficking are fused to the struggles to stop men's militarism and warfare. And yet the U.S. government maintains militarism and pimping as a priority-use of middle and working-class tax dollars, letting the richest U.S. Americans keep their tax money to spend on more militarism, pimping, and procuring. Surely the man who can spend 20,000 U.S. dollars for a day with a prostitute can afford to pay more in taxes, no? Or is this the support of business that the rich speak of when they claim they desperately need those tax dollars to re-invest in the economy?

Women have noted, in some detail, how those human rights struggles are fused to Indigenous and Women's Liberation struggles globally, for clean water, for nutritious, locally-grown food, for safety, and for sovereignty. Men might see something called "wisdom" in the eyes of these women leaders if they cared enough to look deeply into them, or just listen and learn.

Arrogance and authoritarianism are two of Man's ugliest chosen traits. Their grossly selfish self-interest; their fear of speaking out against white, corporate, and patriarchal power; their refusal to listen, to learn, and to place the observations of wise women above their own corrupt conclusions about themselves and the ways of the world still rule. When will these men let women govern, rule, and remedy the nightmare of men's imaginations continually manufactured into a relentlessly rapist reality? How can women, en masse, stop waiting for men to let them take charge? In what ways can women who "get it" be supported to take charge?

"Time to End War Against The Earth", a speech delivered by Dr. Vandana Shiva on the Occasion of Her Receiving Sydney's Peace Prize, 3 November 2010

image is from here

News of Dr. Vandana Shiva being the recipient of the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize is contained in this post as is an edited version of the speech she delivered there.

It all seems so terribly, terribly obvious, doesn't it? I mean what part of what is excerpted here is incomprehensible. It's not written in language that is elitist and inaccessible, confusingly post-modern, or remotely academic. It's pretty straight-forward, no? So why don't those allegedly intelligent male leaders around the world get this:

Will we obey the market laws of corporate greed or Gaia's laws for maintenance of the earth's ecosystems and the diversity of its beings?
People's need for food and water can be met only if nature's capacity to provide food and water is protected. Dead soils and dead rivers cannot give food and water. -- Dr. Vandana Shiva


There are some women, many, many women across Asia, who President Obama and the G8 leaders need to sit down and listen to, shutting up their own yaps, staying silent, in a posture of listening and receptivity until the rightness and obviousness of what she's saying soaks through their corruption-protecting layers of delusion, denial, or dominance-hunger. Did President Obama make time to meet with any of the women who might offer him a new paradigm, worldview, set of values, to privilege above the ones he's been playing out in policies both domestic and international? Will the G8 leaders meet with women who are fighting for human and environmental rights and responsibilities, for economic and sexual rights and responsibilities?

I wish the male leaders, most of 'em white and wealthy, would sit down, shut up, and listen. More than that, I wish their minds were capable of truly hearing what women activists around the world, who are neither neoLiberal or neoConservative (yes, there are other points of view on everything), are saying about what needs to stop happening, and what needs to start happening ASAP.

The Earth is in a state of emergency that it will recover from, in its own time. But for now the emergency will be experienced by the human and non-human animals, especially the vulnerable. Those human cultures on Earth that have lived here the longest are being threatened with genocide, extinction, mass death. What part of this reality registers in the minds of those shaped most by the Global North, the Global West, the non-Indigenous-post-industrial societies and cultures? How can it be that non-Indigenous people will learn of this, or already know about it, and think only: "Oh, well"? The male supremacist mind--denied as such by those who most embody it--is shaped and supported by habituated and compulsive actions called by those who know best: "sexist" and "misogynistic".

The sexism and misogyny is not only habit and compulsion, however. It is also consciously and strategically planned. I wonder what it will take to break through the layers of inhumane thinking and feeling, systems and institutions, created and controlled by het-identified men. How do we end these men's homosocially supported and politically sponsored actions designed to dominate and control women? How do we oppose and stop their flagrant disregard for half the planet's human population impacted by poverty, the terror of rape, hunger for food, clean water, and compassionate, empathic men? As Andrea Dworkin stated, if women fighting sexism and misogyny didn't believe men were human, the political practice of resistance to patriarchal atrocity would look very different than it has for forty years. There'd be more gunfire and a lot less talking. Those of us who call ourselves feminist and profeminist, in my experience, believe that men can be humane, if they want to be and learn how to be. The question is this: do they?

From theage.com.au, and other places online. Please click on the title to link back to The Age. And read on for more about Dr. Shiva being awarded the 2010 Peace Prize in Sydney.

Time to end war against the earth

Vandana Shiva
November 4, 2010

When we think of wars in our times, our minds turn to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the bigger war is the war against the planet. This war has its roots in an economy that fails to respect ecological and ethical limits - limits to inequality, limits to injustice, limits to greed and economic concentration.

A handful of corporations and of powerful countries seeks to control the earth's resources and transform the planet into a supermarket in which everything is for sale. They want to sell our water, genes, cells, organs, knowledge, cultures and future.

The continuing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and onwards are not only about "blood for oil". As they unfold, we will see that they are about blood for food, blood for genes and biodiversity and blood for water.

The war mentality underlying military-industrial agriculture is evident from the names of Monsanto's herbicides - ''Round-Up'', ''Machete'', ''Lasso''. American Home Products, which has merged with Monsanto, gives its herbicides similarly aggressive names, including ''Pentagon'' and ''Squadron''.This is the language of war. Sustainability is based on peace with the earth.

The war against the earth begins in the mind. Violent thoughts shape violent actions. Violent categories construct violent tools. And nowhere is this more vivid than in the metaphors and methods on which industrial, agricultural and food production is based. Factories that produced poisons and explosives to kill people during wars were transformed into factories producing agri-chemicals after the wars.

The year 1984 woke me up to the fact that something was terribly wrong with the way food was produced. With the violence in Punjab and the disaster in Bhopal, agriculture looked like war. That is when I wrote The Violence of the Green Revolution and why I started Navdanya as a movement for an agriculture free of poisons and toxics.

Pesticides, which started as war chemicals, have failed to control pests. Genetic engineering was supposed to provide an alternative to toxic chemicals. Instead, it has led to increased use of pesticides and herbicides and unleashed a war against farmers.

The high-cost feeds and high-cost chemicals are trapping farmers in debt - and the debt trap is pushing farmers to suicide. According to official data, more than 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.

Making peace with the earth was always an ethical and ecological imperative. It has now become a survival imperative for our species.

Violence to the soil, to biodiversity, to water, to atmosphere, to farms and farmers produces a warlike food system that is unable to feed people. One billion people are hungry. Two billion suffer food-related diseases - obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cancers.

There are three levels of violence involved in non-sustainable development. The first is the violence against the earth, which is expressed as the ecological crisis. The second is the violence against people, which is expressed as poverty, destitution and displacement. The third is the violence of war and conflict, as the powerful reach for the resources that lie in other communities and countries for their limitless appetites.

When every aspect of life is commercialised, living becomes more costly, and people are poor, even if they earn more than a dollar a day. On the other hand, people can be affluent in material terms, even without the money economy, if they have access to land, their soils are fertile, their rivers flow clean, their cultures are rich and carry traditions of producing beautiful homes and clothing and delicious food, and there is social cohesion, solidarity and spirit of community.

The elevation of the domain of the market, and money as man-made capital, to the position of the highest organising principle for societies and the only measure of our well-being has led to the undermining of the processes that maintain and sustain life in nature and society.

The richer we get, the poorer we become ecologically and culturally. The growth of affluence, measured in money, is leading to a growth in poverty at the material, cultural, ecological and spiritual levels.

The real currency of life is life itself and this view raises questions: how do we look at ourselves in this world? What are humans for? And are we merely a money-making and resource-guzzling machine? Or do we have a higher purpose, a higher end?

I believe that ''earth democracy'' enables us to envision and create living democracies based on the intrinsic worth of all species, all peoples, all cultures - a just and equal sharing of this earth's vital resources, and sharing the decisions about the use of the earth's resources.

Earth democracy protects the ecological processes that maintain life and the fundamental human rights that are the basis of the right to life, including the right to water, food, health, education, jobs and livelihoods.

We have to make a choice. Will we obey the market laws of corporate greed or Gaia's laws for maintenance of the earth's ecosystems and the diversity of its beings?

People's need for food and water can be met only if nature's capacity to provide food and water is protected. Dead soils and dead rivers cannot give food and water.

Defending the rights of Mother Earth is therefore the most important human rights and social justice struggle. It is the broadest peace movement of our times.

Dr Vandana Shiva is an Indian physicist, environmentalist and recipient of the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize. This is an edited version of her speech at the Sydney Opera House last night. 

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Please also see this:

"Time to End War Against The Earth" says one of Gaia's most outspoken advocates for the rights of small farming communities.

"Time To End War Against The Earth" - says Vandana Shiva, winner of 2010 Sydney Peace Prize

What follows next is from *here* at The Gaia Foundation's website.

Vandana Shiva has been recognised for her work on the empowerment of women in developing countries, her advocacy of the human rights of small farming communities, and her scientific analysis of environmental sustainability. She was presented with the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize on 4th November.

Vandana is a long-term Gaia Associate, founder of the Navdanya movement and the Bija Vidyapeeth learning centre in India.

Sydney Peace Foundation director, Professor Stuart Rees, said Dr Shiva was an inspiring recipient of the award. "Many communities are threatened by the consequences of global warming, yet in Australia the movement to address this issue has gone to sleep," he said. "Vandana's presence in Sydney in November should wake them up."

Other distinguished recipients of Australia's only international prize for peace have included previous Nobel recipients Professor Muhammad Yunus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson.

Mary Kostakidis, chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation, said governments around the world sought Dr Shiva's counsel on issues of sustainable development. "Vandana Shiva's work highlights the fundamental connection between human rights and the protection of the environment," Ms Kostakidis said. "She offers solutions to some of the most critical problems posed by the effects of globalisation and climate change on the poorest and most populous nations."

Click here for "Time to End War Against The Earth", the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture delivered by Vandana Shiva at the Sydney Opera House, 3rd November 2010.

More information & Useful Materials

Are You Sitting Down? I've Got Some SHOCKING News About the Safest Homes for Children. (Hint: "Zero and No Half Het Dads" Not Starring Charlie Sheen)

image is from here


From the Huffington Post, *here*.

Below HuffPo asks, "What's your reaction?"

My reaction is "Well DUH! Get the primary perpetrators of incest, battery, and rape out of your home and guess what? Less domestic violence!"

And this isn't a slight against gay dads because the biggest perps, by far, are het dads and het men who stand in for them in those oh-so-hetero nuclear-reactive families.

Child Abuse Rate At Zero Percent In Lesbian Households, New Report Finds

First Posted: 11-10-10 01:30 PM   |   Updated: 11-10-10 01:59 PM
What's Your Reaction?


Lesbians Child Abuse

Los Angeles, CA -- The Williams Institute, a research center on sexual orientation law and public policy at UCLA School of Law, has announced new findings from the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), the longest-running study ever conducted on American lesbian families (now in its 24th year). In an article published today in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were asked about sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior.

The paper found that none of the 78 NLLFS adolescents reports having ever been physically or sexually abused by a parent or other caregiver. This contrasts with 26 percent of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3 percent who report sexual abuse.

According to the authors, "the absence of child abuse in lesbian mother families is particularly noteworthy, because victimization of children is pervasive and its consequences can be devastating. To the extent that our findings are replicated by other researchers, these reports from adolescents with lesbian mothers have implications for healthcare professionals, policymakers, social service agencies, and child protection experts who seek family models in which violence does not occur."

On sexual orientation, 2.8 percent of the NLLFS adolescents identified as predominantly to exclusively homosexual.

The study was conducted by Nanette Gartrell, M.D., Henny Bos, Ph.D. (University of Amsterdam), and Naomi Goldberg, M.P.P. (Williams Institute). Principal investigator Nanette Gartrell, M.D., is a 2010 Williams Distinguished Scholar, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, and affiliated with the University of Amsterdam.____
Online: http://www.nllfs.org.

BUT WAIT!!! Those scowly, bitter het men will surely have a fit over this report. They'll argue something really stupid like "Well, how are they measuring abuse??" Or, "Just because they aren't abused doesn't mean they're HAPPY and HEALTHY!!!"

Read on, people. Read on...

From The Advocate, which is where the top image is from, we have this:


Study: Children of Lesbians Happy and Healthy


Lesbian Familyx390 (Photos.com) | Advocate.com


The largest study of its kind to date finds that the adolescent children of lesbian mothers rate above their peers in areas like academic competence, social behavior, and psychological adjustment.

The results of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study were published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, according to a news release from the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School.

“The NLLFS has been studying the same group of lesbian families since 1986; it is the only study to have followed the daughters and sons of lesbians from conception to adulthood,” said the news release. “The results released today are based on data gathered when the adolescents were 17 years old. The report also found no differences in the psychological adjustment of NLLFS adolescents who had been conceived by known and unknown donors, nor between those who reported homophobic stigmatization and those who did not.

“Although there are over 40 studies on young children with same-sex parents, data on adolescents reared by same-sex parents are very limited. The current NLLFS report shows that despite homophobic stigmatization, the adolescent daughters and sons of lesbians demonstrate more competencies and fewer behavioral problems than age-matched peers. These findings support the position statements of all major professional associations concerning the well-being of children growing up in lesbian and gay families.”