The Privilege of Safe Sex

Not having an abortion is 1% luck and 99% birth control. My numbers have shifted over the years, depending on the birth control I’ve used.  In the 5 years that I’ve been sexually active, I’ve never questioned whether or not I would have access to contraception. We rarely think about the privilege to engage in safe sex. Of the nearly 61 million people who can get pregnant in the United States, 43 million of them are sexually active and don’t want to conceive. The level of access among these 43 million individuals is not uniform. As a cis white woman living above the poverty line, my access has been and always will be easier than others. Despite my parent’s religious tendencies, my mom took me to our OBGYN at age 18 to get a NuvaRing prescription. My parents paid for my birth control each month up until I got my IUD 2 years ago.  While my IUD was free because of my parent’s good insurance, if it hadn’t been or if I had any complications that required follow-ups, I know they would have fronted the bill.

My experience is one of great privilege. With the Trump Administration and much of the Republican Party waging what feels like a full-fledged war on reproductive rights, many women have and will continue to find themselves struggling to have access to basic reproductive healthcare. This is despite the fact that the majority of Americans support access to abortion and other reproductive health services. More importantly, the majority of people who can get pregnant in the United States are using contraception.

Within the past two weeks, we’ve seen major legislation in states like Georgia, Ohio, and Alabama. The politicians who push for these bills claim these changes are needed to reflect the views of their constituents, a religious demographic. Yet if we look at the statistics, they don’t seem to be in line with the restrictive legislation. Only 2% of Catholic women use family planning as their form of birth control, and the majority of religious women are on some type of contraception. 68% of Catholics, 73% of Mainline Protestants and 74% of Evangelicals at risk for unintended pregnancy use a highly effective method of birth control (sterilization, oral contraception or the IUD).

If the majority of affected individuals, even the religious ones, are using what some Republicans are deeming an abortifacient, why is this agenda being pushed? To place the emphasis back on the reproductive value or woman, rather than our social and economic advancement. The ability to achieve higher levels of education and work participation is directly affected by the ability to family plan and space out pregnancy.  Where access to reproductive health is restricted women will suffer–but they already know this. People of color will be disproportionately affected by these laws–but they know that too.

There will always be pockets of the population who will never have to worry about this access. Whether because of wealth, gender, race, or all of the above, they will likely always have access to safe sex. Why must we force women to go to great lengths to ensure their reproductive autonomy? Danger should have no place in reproductive healthcare, but when stripped of access, it may be inevitable.

–Rose Hill

“Contraceptive Use in the United States” Guttmacher Institute, July 2018, https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states.

Abma, Joyce C, and Kimberly Daniels, Ph.D. “Current Contraceptive Status Among Women Aged 15-49: United States, 2015-2017” NCHS Data Brief, no. 327, 2018

Men Explain Things to Me: Cassandra and The Kanavaugh Nomination

Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me is a captivating collection of essays in which she describes the ways the power dynamics between men and women impact the world around us. What set this book apart from other collections of essays I have read is the historical knowledge Solnit brings to the analysis of gender relations. It was fascinating to see her frame the power dynamics of international institutions from a gendered perspective.

Time and time again I found myself coming back to the essay Cassandra Among the Creeps. The essay opens describing Cassandra, who upon refusing to pleasure the God Apollo, was cursed to be the woman who told the truth but was not believed. While The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a fable we are routinely brought up with, we are seldom told Cassandra’s story, despite how firmly it rings true. Credibility (or lack thereof) is fundamental within the raging gender wars we are faced with today.

“It’s particularly when women speak up about sexual crimes that their right and capacity to speak come under attack” 

In 1991, Professor Anita Hill spoke out against (then) Judge Thomas and was viciously attacked for it. At one point, Hill was accused of “imagining or fanaticizing the things she charged [Thomas] with” by Senator Arlen Spector. Spector’s choice of words was no coincidence. In the early days of Sigmund Freud’s career, he discovered that the mental health of his female patients drastically improved after retelling of past sexual abuse. As more and more women recounted their past sexual trauma, Freud became increasingly troubled by the social implications that would come with the exposure of rampant sexual abuse by men. To avoid the inevitable consequences of validating the rampant abuse of women, he began to insist that women “imagined or longed for the sexual abuse of which they claimed.” And with that, a new way to discredit women was solidified.

“I believe Anita Hill” became a feminist slogan in an attempt to show solidarity as Hill bravely testified. In the wake of the Supreme Court Justice Nomination of Judge Brett Kanavaugh, Solnit’s reflection on horrors that Anita Hill suffered hit especially close to home. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick have all had their credibility called into question. Dr. Blasey Ford has been accused with confusing Judge Kavanaugh with a look-alike, and each of them has been accused of having political motivations regarding the surfacing of these allegations. It cannot be debated that language used against these victims are used as a mechanism to silence women everywhere.

“Men, Women, and Children lie, but the latter two are not disproportionately prone to doing so”

Today, as Dr. Blasey Ford testified in front of the United States Senate, women across the country stood in solidarity with her, screaming “We Believe Survivors!” People took to the streets and social media, sharing stories of past traumas, in hopes to let Dr. Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick that they are not alone in this fight. We stand with them because we cannot go back in time and help Anita Hill but we can prevent the suffering of future survivors.

Men Explain Things to Me reminded me how far we have come. However, we miles to go. Continue to fight for the voices of women. Continue to believe survivors. I know I will. 

“With the real-life Cassandra’s among us, we can lift the curse by making up our own minds about who to believe and why” 

xoxo

Rose Hill 

August Book Pick

This month’s pick is Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit 

Men Explain Things To Me is a collection of essays in which Solnit discusses feminist issues today as well from a global perspective in which she gives agency to marginalized populations and recognizes the white male power dynamic that plagues the international community. 

Review to come soon! 

xoxo

Rose Hill

Female Sexual Dysfunction: Mental Disorder

One of three installments of our Female Sexual Dysfunction series in which we explore the disorder from a clinical, cultural and current global  perspective

Clinically, Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) is defined as “the persistent and recurring decrease in sexual desire or arousal, the difficulty or inability to achieve orgasm and or the feeling of pain during sexual intercourse”. These symptoms, especially a difficulty achieving orgasm, seem fairly common and yet  FSD remains widely off our radar. While 43% of women suffer from FSD compared to 31% of men who suffer from Erectile Dysfunction (ED), pharmaceutical options for women are slim. This reality is frustrating, especially considering the overwhelming research and treatment of erectile dysfunction in males, specifically the development of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors to treat ED.

FDS is a multifaceted disorder which encompasses physical, psychological and social-interpersonal components, making it more difficult to categorize and treat. There is often stigma surrounding various aspects of female sexuality, however, FSD is subjected to the stigma of mental health as well because it is treated through sexual therapy and is categorized within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

In the first edition of DSM, sexual dysfunctions both male and female were categorized as a psychophysiological autonomic and visceral disorder. In DSM-III, which is noted as a categorical switch from psychoanalytic to biological psychology, the language became Psychosexual Dysfunctions. For women, this included inhibited sexual desire and excitement, inhibited female orgasm, functional dyspareunia, vaginismus, and atypical psychosexual dysfunction. Psychosexual Dysfunctions was changed to Sexual Dysfunctions in  DSM-III-R, along with additional changes in language to the types of dysfunctions within this category. Another change was made in DSM-IV, in which dysfunctions included female hypoactive desire disorder, female arousal disorder, female orgasmic disorder, dyspareunia, and vaginismus.

In the current DSM, DSM-V of 2013, the Sexual Dysfunction classification became more simplified reducing the five Sexual Dysfunctions to three. This was done to reflect the current state of research within the field of sexual disorders, as well as increase the validity and clinical usefulness of the DSM-V. Female hypoactive desire disorder and female arousal disorder was merged into Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder, Dyspareunia and Vaginismus merged into Genito-Pelvic Pain/Penetration disorder, and Female Orgasmic Disorder was unchanged. Critics have argued that the inclusion of Female Sexual Dysfunction within the DSM is harmful in that it ignores other cultural and personal factors shaping sexuality and its difficulties. This is true historically, as female sexuality was only acceptable within a heteronormative context.

The World Health Organization defines Female Sexual Dysfunction as “the various ways in which a woman is unable to participate in a sexual relationship as she would wish”, a definition that has more implications then WHO may have intended. In the 20th century, FSD could have been any woman who was unable to peruse pleasures that did not conform to traditional, heterosexual gender roles. Women were shamed for being both too sexual and not sexual enough; wanting clitoral stimulation was considered taboo. Each of these offenses was punishable by hospitalization! This resulted in the marginalization and demonization of women who wish to explore their sexuality freely. We still feel the effects of this today, despite the cultural shifts that have begun to validate the importance of the female sexuality. For even the most privileged of us, there are still so many ways in which the society we live in prevents women from all walks of life from participating in our sexual relationships as we would wish.

xoxo

Rose Hill

Part two in which we explore the historical context of female sexual dysfunction coming soon!

Bad Feminist: The Feminist Pedestal and My Shortcomings

In Bad Feminist, a collection of essays by Roxane Gay, Gay unapologetically expresses her issues on a variety of topics, all within the central theme of the unrealistic expectations placed upon women and feminism. She criticizes the idea of essential feminism, the notion that there is a ‘right’ way to be a feminist and a ‘wrong’ way, and reflects on the pressure of the “feminist pedestal”, in which a feminist is a single ‘fuck up’ away from being cast out. While the book was published in 2014, Gay’s content is more than relevant. I found myself highlighting quotes in every chapter because they resonated so deeply with me and so adequately described our current cultural climate. I continually had to remind myself this book was not written last week or even last year. 

Gay made me reflect on the pressures I, myself, put on feminism and on those public figures who attempt to further the cause. I find myself constantly trying to find the middle ground between under and overreacting. How do I acknowledge that we’re all human and are going to fuck up, including celebrities, but hold them to “appropriate” standards? Should I only support those who I would be proud to associate myself with, or be friends with? Is it ok that I still really like Taylor Swift or that I watched The Hangover even though Jeffery Tambor is in it (he was only in it for like 10 minutes total!!!)? I don’t know that anyone can provide me with a bulletproof guideline for how to handle each and every situation.

I think the feminist pedestal is all too real for each and every one of us. I struggle to find the middle ground because I too am on the feminist pedestal. I am constantly trying to legitimize my feminist status. I have committed my share of feminist sins, and I have seen others dethroned for less.     

What I loved most about Bad Feminist were the ways in which Gay owned her own contradictions and biases. From just a single chapter I knew Roxane Gay was a highly intelligent, well written and extremely accomplished woman. I was in awe of the way so she so perfectly and eloquently captured my feelings on a variety of things. It was refreshing and comforting to see Gay’s so blatantly pointing out her own faults.

“I want to be independent, but I want to be taken care of and have someone to come home to…I listen to thuggish rap at a very loud volume even though the lyrics are degrading to women and offend me to my very core…I consider certain domestic tasks as gendered, mostly all in my favor…Then I feel guilty because the sisterhood would not approve”

Above all, Roxane Gay helped me identify, confront and accept my shortcomings as a feminist, to love myself despite my faults. Because of this, she gave me strength, pushing me to do and be better.

“I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all”

xoxo

Rose Hill

Orgasm Book Club May Book Pick

Hi all! We’ve decided to pick a book to review each month that we felt empowered us as orgasming women! This month’s pick is Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay! 

Bad Feminist is a collection of essays in which Gay unapologetically expresses her issues on a variety of topics, all within the central theme of the unrealistic expectations placed upon women and feminism. 

Review to come soon! 

xoxo

Rose Hill