No, the important things about women ain't their looks....

Don't know how informed you are about German news, but you might have heard that we had a trio of murdering fascists roaming the country for more than 10 years who killed people of Turkish and Greek origin.
The trail against the one surviving member, Beate Zschäpe and some of their accomplices started last week after it had been postponed. Postponing was necessary because there is, of course, a big interest in the media about the trial and not enough space for all the journalists to sit. After all, this is said to be the most important trial in Germany in recent history.
So, what did the media tell us about that first day of trial?

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

Beate Zschäpe, die mit dem Rücken zu den Fotografen steht, ihren Kopf in den Nacken wirft und ihre langen rot-schwarzen Haare schüttelt und schüttelt, als wäre sie auf einer Strandpromenade und nicht in einem Gerichtssaal.

Beate Zschäpe, who has her back turned towards the fotographers, who throws her head back and who shakes and shakes her red-black hair as if she were o a beach promenande and not in a courtroom.

Süddeutsche Zeitung:

  Sie trägt einen schwarzen Hosenanzug und eine helle Bluse. Ihr Aussehen sorgt für Aufsehen. "Mit Ohrringen und Stöckelschuhen ist sie gekommen", schreibt die türkische Zeitung Hürriyet.

She's wearing a black suit and a light blouse. Her look draws attention: "She came with earrings and in high heels" writes the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet

And so on, and so on.
Rejoice ladies. Even when you're a murderous fascist terrorist still nothing will be as important as your looks...

My daughter is doing Teh Sexy - and she's five...

So, I have this wonderful, smart, talented and yes, beautiful daughter.
Nonono, that's not mummy-bragging, it's the objective truth!
Well, mostly...
And I pimp/make lots of her clothes and then I take pictures to show my work, my ideas. Most crafters are very generous with their ideas, take inspiration from one another and take great pride if their work is so good somebody else wants to copy it.
But lately it's been getting damn hard to get a decent picture of her.
I was wondering what she was doing until it struck me like lightening:
She was doing sexy poses.

Where the fuck does my daughter get sexy poses from?
I watch her media consumption, she's more for Winnie the Pooh and crap like "Winxx Club" is banned around here.
Yet she lives in a world with posters and adds, with magazines in shops,  and this is what all those images tell her a woman has to look like in a picture.
She doesn't know about sexy, she has no clue what she's doing. Yet at 5 years old this is what she has internalized already as what she has to be doing. She's already turning herself into an object for the male gaze. Don't tell me that shit doesn't exist.

Oh the sweet victim blaming

Trigger warning, obviously
So, the local radio station pointed me towards Kate Miller-Heidke and her song Sarah. A beautiful, talented voice, a song that chills the bones, well-sung, expressive and oh, so wrong.

The song tells the story of a friend of hers who is the first person narrator of the song. It is the story of two young girls who went to a music festival, deemed to be "safe as safe can be". The age of the girls is not given exactly, but they have to sneak in gin, and they are supposed to be picked up by midnight, so we're dealing with teenagers and I don't think on the upper end of "teen".
While dancing, the friend of the narrator, Sarah, suddenly disappears. The only thing found of her is her dress the next day. She returns two weeks later, not knowing what happened or where she had been.
So we're talking about a horrible crime commited against a child, obviously.
Yet the criminal in this story is invisible. He doesn't get mentioned, it is as if he doesn't exist, as if this whole tragic event isn't solely the fault of one person who decided to abduct and probably rape a child.
Instead, the blame gets put on the girls. The narrator is blamed by the parents, apparently she didn't take enough care of her friend. And she blames herself. "I didn't mean to let you down...I hated when I let you down". How exactly? How was she supposed to know that something horrible would happen the moment she turned around? Weren't they supposed to be "safe as safe can be"? And she blames her friend "but you left me on my own...why didn't you scream, why didn't you shout?"
The idea is clear: There are things the two girls could have done to prevent this from happening. The criminal is like a force of nature whose path you can't change. You can only get out of the way.
I admit that there is the possibility that Kate Miller-Heidke actually tries to show how ridiculous, cruel and stupid it is to put the blame on the victim, to put the onus on girls and women not to get raped. I just don't think that it is coming across like that and not like a "tragic story of two girls where one didn't pay attention and the other didn't scream loud enough.

And the flowers and the trees, de Botton part II

So, are you still there?
I know this is getting long. I wished philosophers were more concise. I also wished they wrote less bullshit.
We're on page 3 of the article and we're still talking about the love-killer marriage is.

Sex also has a way of altering and unbalancing our relationship with our household co-manager. Its initiation requires one partner or the other to become vulnerable by revealing what may feel like humiliating sexual needs. We must shift from debating what sort of household appliance to acquire to making the more challenging request, for example, that our spouse should turn over and take on the attitude of a submissive nurse or put on a pair of boots and start calling us names.

I'm still wondering how all of this is tied up with marriage. Surely as somebody who grew up in Switzerland and lives in the UK he should be well aware and comfortable with the fact that nowadays indeed many people don't get married at all. Some of their relationships last, some don't, but on the whole their lives don't seem to be that different from mine. I haven't looked into their bedrooms, of course, but since de Botton sets up his conflict between the "household needs" and the "intimate needs" I don't think it matters much.
Again, it's not my sexual desires and kinks that make me vulnerable towards my husband. It's the fact that I love this person with all my heart and that he could break it easily.
Why should the sexual desires he describes be humiliating? Sure, they require trust and safety with your partner but so does raising a family. It's again de Botton's screwed up perspective on sexuality that shows here, not some objective truth about submissive nurses in leather boots.

Why are bread crumbs in the kitchen bad for sex?

Because they get into your ass when you're fucking on the kitchen counter.
Easy answers for easy questions.

 We tend to forget we are angry with our partner, and hence become anaesthetized, melancholic, and unable to have sex with him or her because the specific incidents that anger us happen so quickly and so invisibly, in such chaotic settings (at the breakfast table, before the school run) that we can't recognize the offense well enough to mount a coherent protest against it

I really wished he could decide himself what it is now. Are we not fucking because of marriage? Because our desires are too humiliating? Because we don't want to force our gross sexuality onto the other? Or because of the stupid breadcrumbs? Hell, it's a wonder that anybody who isn't paid for it even manages fucking once in a while.

 And we frequently don't articulate our anger, even when we do understand it, because the things that offend us can seem so trivial or odd that they would sound ridiculous if spoken aloud: "I am angry with you because you cut the bread in the wrong way." But once we are involved in a relationship, there is no longer any such thing as a minor detail.

In an average week, each partner may be hit by, and in turn fire, dozens of tiny arrows without even realizing it, with the only surface legacies of these wounds being a near imperceptible cooling between the pair and, crucially, the disinclination of one or both to have sex with the other. Sex is a gift that is not easy to hand over once we are annoyed.

Dude, if you're seriously upset about wrongly cut bread you need either more help than any blogpost can give or you need to cut your bread yourself. Again, we have this wonderful thing. It's called communication.  People use it to talk about things and in a working relationship that's the bread and butter. And nonononono again: Sex is not a transaction. How many times do I have to repeat this. You're getting this wrong, wrong, wrong.

Why are hotels metaphysically important?

That's an interesting one. Yeah, why are they?

The walls, beds, comfortably upholstered chairs, room service menus, televisions, and tightly wrapped soaps can do more than answer a taste for luxury. Checking into a hotel room for a night is a solution to long-term sexual stagnation: We can see the erotic side of our partner, which is often closely related to the unchanging environment in which we lead our daily lives. We can blame the stable presence of the carpet and the living room chairs at home for our failure to have more sex: The physical backdrop prevents us from evolving. The furniture insists that we can't change—because it never does.

I guess there's no room (no pun intended) for people who feel intimidated by hotel rooms, why feel actual discomfort by the strange smell of some industrial laundry detergent and who like the comfort of the own home for the safety it offers. Let's not forget the insulting classism here in telling people who might be struggeling to pay the rent (and probably therefore not as interested in sex as before, because some people have actually bigger problems than breadcrumbs) that what they need is to go to a hotel for the night. Especially one with a complimentary fruitbasket. Best hotels I've ever been in had individually wrapped soapbars...

Contrary to all public verdicts on adultery, the lack of any wish whatsoever to stray is irrational and against nature, a heedless disregard for the fleshly reality of our bodies, a denial of the power wielded over our more rational selves by such erotic triggers as high-heeled shoes and crisp shirts, by smooth thighs and muscular calves.

Again, can I meet this Nature person who apparently makes a lot of rules? But it's probably because I'm a woman because she seems to talk again to men only.

But a spouse who gets angry at having been betrayed is evading a basic, tragic truth: No one can be everything to another person. The real fault lies in the ethos of modern marriage, with its insane ambitions and its insistence that our most pressing needs might be solved with the help of only one other person.

Yeah, totally your own fault, bitch. Should have seen it coming. Really, folks can't control themselves, especially when somebody in high heels walks by. Why are you to think that you deserved if not fidelity then at least honesty?

  It is impossible to sleep with someone outside of marriage and not spoil the things we care about inside it. There is no answer to the tensions of marriage.

Citation fucking needed. Open marriages exist, polyamorous marriages exist, couples who engage in multi-partner sex exist. Stop talking to this Nature person and get talking to actual people.

OK, now I clicked on page 4 of the article and I find this:

We could not be fulfilled if we weren't inauthentic some of the time—inauthentic, that is, in relation to such things as our passing desires to throttle our children, poison our spouse, or end our marriage over a dispute about changing a lightbulb. A degree of repression is necessary for both the mental health of our species and the adequate functioning of a decently ordered society. We are chaotic chemical propositions. We should feel grateful for, and protected by, the knowledge that our external circumstances are often out of line with what we feel; it is a sign that we are probably on the right course.

Does this make any sense? It hangs there like a miss-matching body-part put there by an apprentice Igor...
But it also means I'm through, so that's somethink to be grateful for.

The birds and the bees and Alain de Botton

...or how to write very wrong things about sex.
So, Alain de Botton philosophizes about sex. There's nothing wrong about that per sé, many people do and some of them even publically. But it becomes a problem when you write a lot of deeply problematic and very damaging things about sex and dress it up as philosophy and some deep knowledge about human sexuality.
Trigger warning ahead and TMI warning, too.

And that's what de Botton ultimately does in many, many innocently abused words:

Sex, we have been led to believe, is as natural as breathing. But in fact, contends British philosopher Alain de Botton, it is "close to rocket science in complexity." It's not only a powerful force, it's often contrary to many other things we care about. Sex inherently sets up conflicts within us. We crave sex with people we don't know or love. It makes us want to do things that seem immoral or degrading, like slapping someone or being tied up. We feel awkward asking the people we love for the sex acts we really want.

The beginning is problematic already. I don't know how Alain de Botton or the editors who wrote this introductory paasage get through life. Maybe he just gets up in the morning, slips into an elaborately embroidered housegown, makes a cup of tea, gets into his armchair in the library and thinks deeeeeep thoughts all day, but for most people life is full of conflicts. My desire to stay in bed is in conflict with my kids' desire for breakfast AND my college timetable. My desire to spend time with them is in conflict with my desire to get a college degree. Life is hard. Come to think about it, my conflicts about sex are relatively small and easy to solve. Actually, once I stopped worrying too much about my desire to be tied up because it's "degrading", that conflict simply vanished and I could just enjoy it.
In his own opening paragraph he gets actually close to something: how sex and sexual desires are policed in society, how we're only sanctioned to enjoy a narrow range of the full rainbow. And then he loses it. It would have been a better article if he'd stopped there.

Nothing is erotic that isn't also, with the wrong person, revolting, which is precisely what makes erotic moments so intense: At the precise juncture where disgust could be at its height, we find only welcome and permission.

This small part shows what for me seems to be at the root of de Botton's problem: A deep misunderstanding about sex, eroticism and consent. He sees sex as something deeply troublesome as such, where disgust is the norm and eroticis and sexual pleasure as the exception. That's putting the carriage before the horse, if you ask me.

What unfolds between a couple in the bedroom is an act of mutual reconciliation between two secret sexual selves emerging at last from sinful solitude.

WTF? I don't even know what this is supposed to mean. I only see innocent words that are hurting. This sentence makes me want to write an S for style on my screen with a sharpie.

 Why is sex more difficult to talk about in this era, not less?

What makes him think it is? This seems to be the first aera at least in the western world we have finally started to talk about sex. It's the first time we try to break the narrow societally approved norms about sex for real. We talk about sex being more tham making babbies, about homosexuality, kink, everything. That's not easy, but that's due to the narrow definition of sex, not because of sex.

Tame it though we might try, it tends to wreak havoc across our lives; it leads us to destroy our relationships, threatens our productivity, and compels us to stay up too late in nightclubs talking to people whom we don't like but whose exposed midriffs we wish to touch. Our best hope should be for a respectful accommodation with an anarchic and reckless power.

That's bad. That's really bad and I don't mean the horrible things sex makes us do. I mean his view on people being so horribly controlled by sex. And by people he obviously means men, because "exposed midriffs" are pretty much gendered.

 Involuntary physiological reactions such as the wetness of a vagina and the stiffness of a penis are emotionally so satisfying (which means, simultaneously, so erotic) because they signal a kind of approval that lies utterly beyond rational manipulation.

Figleaf on "Bad Men Project" has already written about the seriously problematic and rape-apologist issues with this part, much better than I could, so go there and read it. I want to focus on the "lesser" evil of this passage: Sexual arousal is indeed not easily controlled by willpower. But it's also not tied neatly to "emotional satisfaction" and approval". Our bodies are machines and they react to stimuli. My vagina reacts to the physical stimuli of sitting on a hard chair for a prolonged time. Getting horny towards the end of a lecture is mostly annoying. It has nothing to do with any approval of the lecture or my desire to fuck anybody present. It also doesn't mean that failure to get wet or an erection means disinterest in sex or dissatisfaction. In this world, erectile dysfunction and vagial dryness exist, the latter especially among post-menopausal women. Does that mean we lose the sex-drive with the baby-making ability?

In a world in which fake enthusiasms are rife, in which it is often hard to tell whether people really like us or whether they are being kind to us merely out of a sense of duty, the wet vagina and the stiff penis function as unambiguous agents of sincerity.

Even if all the other stuff weren't a problem, this is another one of de Botton's fails where he mystically ties up sex and stuff. Even if a wet vagina and an erect penis were sincere indicators, they would be sincere indicators of only one thing: a desire to fuck.

 A kiss is pleasurable because of the sensory receptivity of our lips, but a good deal of our excitement has nothing to do with the physical dimension of the act: It stems from the simple realization that someone else likes us quite a lot.

Again I'm asking myself: what planet does this man live on? Do you remember your first kiss? The first real snogging with tongue and spit and inexperienced touching for other body parts? Man it was great. It was also the result of 2 beers and laughing our asses off over some Jehova's Witnesses pamphlets. I never saw the boy again.

What is the lure of sex in the back of an airplane?

Yes, I'd like to know that, too. De Botton gets it almost right again, talking about societally permitted forms of sexuality and the hotness of transgression, but the way this stands so isolated from the rest of his article it leaves questions, mostly "yeah, what?"

Why is "Not tonight, Dear" so destructive?

Stop that gendered crap NOW! I'm pretty sure that de Botton would deny that this phrase has a gendered meaning, but whom are we kidding? One bazillion movies and TV-series have taught us that this sentence is said by the woman. It reinforces the trope that men want sex and women withhold it (remember the naked bellies and the nightclub?)

Logic might suggest that being married or in a long-term relationship must guarantee an end to the anxiety that otherwise dogs attempts by one person to induce another to have sex. But while either kind of union may make sex a constant theoretical option, it will neither legitimate the act nor ease the path toward it. Moreover, against a background of permanent possibility, an unwillingness to have sex may be seen as a far graver violation of the ground rules than a similar impasse in other contexts.

Ground rules? GROUND RULES? What fucking ground rules? Or are these the good old ground rules that women have to say yes whenever their husband asks? Also, please don't project your personal issues onto other people. Seriously, I don't know what his problems are, but most  couples, especially those who have established communication and respect for their partner(s) and their sexuality are perfectly able to deal with "no tonight, Dear".

Why is impotence an achievement?
There are few greater sources of shame for a man, or feelings of rejection for his partner. The real problem with impotence is the blow to the self-esteem of both parties.

I don't know, but didn't somebody just lecture us on how the erection is the only sincere indicator? So, he actually realizes the harm the perpetuation of such bullshit causes and it apparently doesn't make him think twice? Toddlers are better at playing "connect the dot".
Also, the real problem with impotence is that it is often a medical problem that gets ignored because people bullshit about its deep philosophical implication.

 We are grievously mistaken in our interpretation. Impotence is the strangely troublesome fruit of reason and kindness intruding on the free flow of animal impulses, of our new inclination to wonder what another might be feeling and then to identify with his or her potential objections to our invasive or unsatisfactory demands.

 This is de Botton's troublesome view on sex again. To him it seems to be a transaction, something one takes and another one gives instead of something two people mutually enjoy. To the guy who doesn't get it up because he worries about whether his advances are welcome I have one tip: Use your mouth. It's a much better indicator whether your partner wants to be fucked in a certain way than wetness or erections.

All but the least self-aware among us will sometimes be struck by how distasteful our desire for sex can seem to someone else, how peculiar and physically off-putting our flesh may be, and how unwanted our caresses.

Again, this leaves me wondering a lot about de Botton's own mind and history more than it makes me think about sex as such. But I guess that if you're constantly wondering about how groos and disgusting you and your sexuality are it definetly leads to trouble.

What do religions know about sex that we don't?

Probably nothing.

 Only religions still take sex seriously, in the sense of properly respecting its power to turn us away from our priorities. Only religions see it as something potentially dangerous and needing to be guarded against.

Well, we had the male-centric view, now cue in the Eurocentric view. Not all religions and cultures are obsessed about sex. Apparently "religions" in this context means "Abrahamic religions." Other religions and cultures seemed to have had a more fun view on sexuality (I once had the luck to see some of the vases for real. Gorgeous, I tell you, gorgeous.)

  Perhaps only after killing many hours online at youporn.com can we appreciate that on this one point religions have got it right: Sex and sexual images can overwhelm our higher rational faculties with depressing ease. Religions are often mocked for being prudish, but they wouldn't judge sex to be quite so bad if they didn't also understand that it could be rather wonderful.

Maybe it escaped de Botton, but when the Abrahamic religions laid down their screwed sex rules, youporn hadn't been invented yet. That would be one piece of evidence for some god: a real, straightforward commandment laid down 4.000 bc that says "Thou shalt not watch Youporn". In pseudo King James Bible English. Also, citation fucking needed. It is again this bizarre world de Botton lives in, a world in which we don't understand the very un-sexy reasons for religious rules about sex, the rules that are about power and property, not about fun sexy-times and youporn. And it's again de Botton being unaware of the damage his philosophical wankery causes in the real world. He gives Abrahamic religious ideas and their deep anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-consent nature authority and approval. He does not spend one word on the abuses and hurt caused by religious rules about sexuality, especially not those that deal with the consequences like abortion.

Does marriage ruin sex?
A gradual decline in the intensity and frequency of sex between a married couple is an inevitable fact of biological life, and as such, evidence of deep normality—although the sex-therapy industry has focused most of its efforts on assuring us that marriage should be enlivened by constant desire.

Citation fucking needed. Especially the "inevitable fact of biological life". I'm willing to conceed that at 80 you're probably lacking the stamina you had at 20, but I'm unconvinced that this is triggered by a marriage certificate.

 The qualities demanded of us when we have sex stand in sharp opposition to those we employ in conducting the majority of our other, daily activities.

Again a totally unevidenced opinion. Why and how? Because I don't fucking see it. Empathy, a desire to please, a healthy dose of self-respect, a will to compromise and a will to set boundaries, mutual understanding and affection, those things are the qualities my relationship demands in every. single. aspect. From dinner planning to the holidays.

Marriage tends to involve—if not immediately, then within a few years—the running of a household and the raising of children, tasks that often feel akin to the administration of a small business and call on many of the same skills.

Heteronormative breeder bullshit. Says this hetero mum. Yeah, running a family is hard, that's why I appreciate a good fuck even more.

 Sex, with its contrary emphases on expansiveness, imagination, playfulness, and a loss of control, must by its very nature interrupt this routine of regulation and self-restraint. We avoid sex not because it isn't fun but because its pleasures erode our subsequent capacity to endure the strenuous demands that our domestic arrangements place on us.

As much as this leaves to speculate about de Botton's sex life, it leaves us at least clear that he has never run one of these small-business families with young kids. Because nobody teaches you playfulness and imagination like your kids. And again, who's this "we" who avoids sex then? For me it's actually one of the things that makes me able to "endure" the demands of a busy life. Especially the most important contrast to everyday life, the lack of kids is what makes it so wonderful and important, the ability and opportunity to hang the mummy and daddy coats away for a bit of airing and to slip back into the lover-suits to keep the thing going that was there before the kids came and that we still want to have once the kids are out of the house. Jesus fucking Christ, that man really has a bad view on life and sex.

Teal Deer.
This is only the end of page 2 of de Botton's article and I feel the need to do something naughty now just to make sure I wasn't sucked into complicated de Botton-verse.
It's not all bad, though.
Whenever a young aspiring writer approaches you and asks you "how should I write about sex", you can always show them de Botton's article and tell them "not like that".

Warum ich mich über Anne Wizoreks Hatemail freue

Anne Wizorek, Initiatorin des #Aufschreis auf Twitter hat nun damit begonnen das ein oder andere ihrer Hatemail zu tweeten.
Nur mal so zum "Einstieg"

"Die Welt ist nun mal so. Der Mann ist Hormongesteuert, der Sextrieb ist übermächtig und immer im Hintergrund parat." #aufschrei #hatemail
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

wie ich denn überhaupt sicherstellen könnte, dass die geschilderten erlebnisse mit alltagssexismus seriös waren. #hatemail #aufschrei
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

"Wenn ich so aussehen würde wie sie, währe ich froh wenn mich jemand sexuell belaestigeh würde" #hatemail #aufschrei
— anne wizorek (@marthadear) 13. Februar 2013

Erst mal: Nein, das ist ganz und gar nicht lustig. Das ist bitterer Ernst und Anne Wizorek hat meine volle Solidarität. So etwas auszuhalten kostet Kraft, ist bedrohlich und definitiv ein Grund warum viele Frauen schon im Voraus die Klappe halten weil sie sich das nicht zumuten wollen.

Und dennoch freue ich mich über sie und über all die obsessiven Trolle im Hashtag.
Warum?
Ganz einfach, weil jemand der so einen Scheiß schreibt weiß, dass ihm die Felle davonschwimmen.
Weil sie laut, laut schreien aber nichts zu sagen haben. Weil sie verzweifelt zum 5.000 Mal den Scheiß der Autorin der Neuen Rechten Birgit Kelle retweeten müssen weil sie hoffen, dass es dann mehr Sinn ergibt oder es wenigstens so scheint als hätten sie die Mehrheit auf ihrer Seite.

Weil in den letzte Wochen hundertausende Frauen gemerkt haben, dass sie mit ihren Erlebnissen nicht alleine sind. Dass sie nicht Versagerinnen sind während alle anderen das doch offensichtlich locker wegstecken.

Weil hunderttausende Gespräche stattgefunden haben. Ehepartner, Freunde, Mütter und Söhne, Väter und Töchter, Kolleginnen und Kollegen haben miteinander geredet.
Viele Männer hatten "Aha" Erlebnisse.
"Das passiert also meiner Freundin, wenn sie alleine unterwegs ist "
"So fühlt sich also meine Kollegin wenn ich über ihren Körper und ihr Sexleben lästere"
Und das lässt sich nicht mehr ändern.

Weil "divide et impera" nicht mehr zieht.
Wenn man der Frauenbewegung der 70ern vorwerfen kann, dass sie sich fast ausschließlich um die Probleme der weißen Mittelklassefrauen kümmerte so zieht das nicht mehr. Alle Frauen, alle Schichten, cis und Trans* Frauen haben sich beteiligt. Es war auch der #Aufschrei der "Alphamädchen", der jungen, attraktiven, gut ausgebildeten und meist noch kinderlosen Frauen, die wir bislang immer als "echte, starke Frauen" unter die Nase gerieben bekommen haben. Und weil Rassismus, Homophobie, Trans*phobie und Ableism nicht geduldet wurden.

Weil die Gesellschaft nicht drumrum kam sich damit zu befassen. Es wird kein prä-#Aufschrei Deutschland mehr geben. Niemand kann sich mehr rausreden, man(n) muss Farbe bekennen.

Es bleibt den Sexisten (und Sexistinnen) nur noch der klägliche Versuch eine einzelne Frau mundtot zu machen. Mein großer Respekt an Anne Wizorek für ihren Mut und ihr Durchhaltevermögen. Sie wird noch einen langen Atem haben um das durchzustehen, die Obsession der Hater ist ausdauernd. Deshalb auch meine Bitte an alle UnterstützerInnen: Auch nicht locker lassen.

Forward thinking: What would you tell teenagers about sex?

Inspired by Libby Anne of Love, Joy and Feminism.

6 ways how sex is like food and one way how it totally isn't

1.) Not all food is your favourite food

Not all sexual activities will be your favourite ones. Some will make you overdo, some will put you off quickly, many will be really OK. And once we grow up, we understand that tastes are different and that just because you find eggplant to be dull, and celery to be vomit-inducing, it doesn't mean that people who eat eggplant with celery are bad people. It especially doesn't mean that you have to like something because apparently everybody does. Know your own tastes. You don't let people tell you that you actually like eggplant though you know you don't, so don't let anybody tell you that you really like or need sexual activity X.

2.) It's unfair that we always go to your favourite restaurant

Remember that people have different tastes and that when something is shared there will be compromises. So, you could die for Chinese while your partner thinks it OK but really, really loves the Steakhouse? Well, you can visit those places alternately, or agree on the Pizzeria, or even decide that while you go and have Chinese they go to the Steakhouse.

3.) Making children eat their Brussel sprouts is horrible

Above I talked about compromise. Here I talk about boundaries. No caring person would make you eat something that you really dislike. No caring lover would make you do some sex-act that you don't like. You are totally entitled to no like something and enforce that boundary.

4.) Trying new food is amazing

Or horrible. You never know until you try. Maybe you find out that it's aweful (but remember #1). It's totally OK to leave it on your plate. Maybe it even makes you sick. Stop whatever you're doing then.
Maybe you're not sure if you like it. Some things are an acquired taste. Maybe you want to try them again. You're still allowed to dislike them. And maybe it's awesome and the best thing since sliced bread. Cool. But remember your partner might totally disagree. Don't be an asshole then, remember #3.

5.) Taste changes

I couldn't stand olives as a child, now I love them. I still hate dill, though. And I really can't understand that I once loved Smurf-blue icecream. There's nothing wrong with that and it's totally OK to say "look, I know, I used to like it, but I really don't  do so anymore".

6.) Unsafe food can give you food poisoning, salmonella and Hepatitis A.

Safety first. That means use a condom. Nobody who cares about you would try to trick you into eating unsafe food, nobody who cares about you would try to bully, trick or coerce you into having unsafe sex.

And one way how sex totally isn't like food:

Everybody needs food. Nobody exactly needs sex. If you don't want any, you can simply go without it and there's nothing wrong with that. That can be for days, weeks, months, ever. And your partner really won't die if you don't want to fuck tonight and is an ass if they claim so. Remember #3