Sonya Renee Taylor Kicks Some Major Ass

Everyone, meet Sonya Renee Taylor! She is fucking awesome. Ms. Taylor is a slam poet, activist, and transformation leader. She has dedicated her life and her work to body acceptance, which she believes can start to undo the pain, shame, and fear that many of us carry. Her website tag line is unapologetic artistry, unapologetic healing. HOLY SHIT. How empowering is that? 

My favorite project of hers is the Body is Not an Apology movement, an intersectional, global coalition of over 32,000 people focused on radical self love and body empowerment.  She founded the movement so that all of us would claim our right to love our bodies. Ms. Taylor asserts that we must stop apologizing for how we look and how we move through this world, even as society makes that difficult. All of our bodies deserve to be accepted, embraced, and worshipped. On the community website, Ms. Taylor states,

The Body Is Not An Apology was created to remind us that we do not need to wait to feel beautiful tomorrow.  We can choose to act in honor of our bodies today, no matter the form they currently take.

So good! It dove-tails so nicely with sexual empowerment! How we view our bodies, how we connect to our bodies, and our ownership of our bodies can really affect how we express our sexual selves. If we don’t feel worthy, it is harder for us to speak up about what we do and do not want. If we are disconnected from our bodies, we have a difficult time knowing what we find pleasurable. If we don’t even feel a little bit sassy about ourselves, we struggle with celebrating our sexuality. If we continue to accept the oppression that our bodies are not good enough, then our sexuality is that much harder to embrace. 

In the spirit of the Body is Not an Apology, let’s call a truce with our selves and work on some acceptance. I, for one, will commit to wearing shorts more often, because it is time for me to embrace my inner thighs. What will you do?

- Lauren, inspired by and in awe of Sonya Renee Taylor

Okay, but what does the bride do at the bridal shower?

Have we talked about how I am really bad at being a bride? Because we are about to talk about it again. I am really great at a lot of things, like listening to people, chatting about ovaries, keeping my face protected while I throw a jab. However, I keep finding that I am really bad at being a bride, at least in the traditional sense. Although, I have talked about this with other women who are in my circle, and it seems to be an epidemic. Maybe it’s a generational thing? OR I am friends with a bunch of independent, career-focused women who never really thought about the intricacies of their wedding until they had already said, “Yes.” I am pretty sure it is the latter, since I have seen twenty year olds on, “Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta,” who seem to have this bridal thing down, which I find inspiring/horrifying. 

Every time I think that I have this wedding thing licked, another situation pops up that I have no idea what to do with. Having a vision for my wedding? Sure, I totally have one of those now. Finding a dress that says, “Elegant, quirky, foxy”? Yep, I found one of those too. At this point, I even know how to have a polite yet firm conversation with an overzealous vendor, and I could rattle off five places to have a creative and refined dinner party for a bunch of people. But how to act my first bridal shower? No freaking idea. 

My mom’s friends are throwing my first bridal shower this weekend, and they have worked hard to make it Lauren-friendly. It is going to be at a fun restaurant, which I always appreciate. I think it is going to have a cupcake theme, and who doesn’t love those. It will have brunch food, which is my favorite. I have high hopes that any sort of games will be kept to a minimum. These are all great things. And yet, I am not totally sure what I am supposed to do at this event. I have seen a bunch of internet articles about how to throw a bridal shower and none on how to be the bride at the shower. I know how to mingle and create a fun atmosphere; I am relatively socially adept. But is that all that I do? Am I expected to give a speech? Am I supposed to cry? Do I wax poetic about my fiancé and marriage? Should I not talk about ovaries? (Ha! Joke. We always talk about those.) I guess that I will find out in a few days! 

- Lauren, doing this bride thing one event at a time

Let's talk about physical space, as in GTFO of mine.

I had a really awkward encounter with a spatial not-so-micro-aggression at a monthly training for therapists a few weeks ago. Before the training began, a bunch of chairs were placed in a circle around the room, and it was packed. I would guess that there were sixty people at the training, and five of them presented as men. In the therapist world, this is pretty typical; lots of women, very few men, and a few gender non-conformist individuals. During the beginning of the meeting, most of us were moving our chairs around to make room for others, taking up less physical space so that everyone could feel included. EXCEPT for one man. In fact, he had “inadvertently” taken up two chairs by spreading his legs really widely; people would not take the chair next to him. He literally had twice the space of everyone else in the room, including the presenter, who was a woman. 

This seems like a minor thing: taking up physical space, but it is really important in our society. It shows who has power, who has the right to take up space. It shows who is valued and who has the right to be seen. Space is also about access, who has the right to be counted when decisions are made. Essentially, space is about privilege and dominance. How much space you feel you deserve to be given and how much space you are afforded directly correlates with how worthy you are deemed by our rich, white, Christian, hetero-normative, male-dominant context. In the case of my monthly training experience, even in a group dominated by women, a man was given twice the space of everyone else, because we carry these norms with us.

I had forgotten how ridiculous this shit could be; how normal this stuff becomes. That is until one more blatant incident comes along to wake me up and remind me that these stupid things happen all of the time! Awhile ago, I decided that I would become more comfortable taking up space as part of my social justice work. It is clearly time to recommit!

What do you do when someone gets spatially aggressive with you?

- Lauren, space taker with a renewed sense of purpose

Lavender Graduation: Excuse the Tears!

Yesterday, I went to Lavender Graduation, the ceremony created to honor GLBT college graduates and allies, at the University of Texas at Austin. No, I was not walking across the stage; although, I would do that every year if I could, because I love a bit of pomp and circumstance. My fiancé was the official photographer for the event, and my friend coordinated it. I went to support them, not thinking that I would get something out of it as well. I should have known better, because I started tearing up during the first speech and then maybe during every speech afterward. (Seriously, learning how to be a therapist has given me the space to turn into an emotional marshmallow.) 

I watched professors, an associate dean, students, and a pastor present moving speeches to the graduates. One professor passionately read an inspiring poem by Audre Lorde about showing yourself to the world, no matter how you are received. One student shared her journey to graduation, which included a lot of bumps and triumphs along the way. The pastor spoke about queering our binary society in order to create space for everyone, which is all of our jobs. The associate dean reflected on changes that have been made to support the GLBT community at the university and how much further they still have to go. Each speech had a different flavor of the same message: “Be who you are. As a member of the GLBT community, expressing your true self is an amazing, radical act. Continue to be you, while doing other acts to change the world. We believe that you can make a difference.”    

How can you not tear up when someone is whole-heartedly telling others that their inner selves are beautiful and that they know they will have an impact on the world? HOW? Even I felt lighter and more inspired afterward, and the event wasn’t even for me. Not that I am trying to co-opt it. Sometimes it is just nice to bask in the glow that is deep acceptance, love, and support. We don’t get to see that every day!

Have you ever been surprisingly inspired or touched by an event? What happened?

- Lauren, new yearly attendee of commencement events!

Game Changing Idea of Female Sexual Arousal

Holy shit balls! My mind was blown last week, and I want to share the information with you, because some of us learned about sex way back in the day from abstinence-only programs. And let’s face it, I doubt sex education has gotten THAT much better. SO I am spreading the information love. 

If you haven’t heard of Rosemary Basson, you need to Google her. She is a genius researcher/professor/dynamite detonator who has revolutionized how researchers view the typical female sexual response cycle. (I say typical, because these cycles are based on how most people respond during the research not all. There is variation everywhere!) Before Dr. Basson, researchers believed that males and females respond to sexual stimuli likethis:

Excitement -> (Desire and Arousal) Plateau -> Orgasm-> Resolution (Refractory period)

This model is totally what I learned in school and is based on the research of Masters and Johnson from 1966. There is one major problem with this model: as with most medical research, it is based on a majority of male participants’ responses to sexual stimuli. So females were left out of the equation. And this very linear model has persisted for YEARS.

Here is what Dr. Basson has proposed as a more accurate picture of a typical female sexual response cycle:

THIS is vastly different from the Masters and Johnson model. Note all of the factors that go into female sexual desire and arousal! This model takes into account the more complicated brain and physical processes involved in female sexual arousal, the longer sexual response time for females (15-30 minutes versus male response time of 3-5 minutes), and allows for spontaneity and intimacy.  It also takes orgasm out of the equation as the deciding factor of sexual satisfaction, which is more aligned with female response. Again, holy shit balls! 

Isn’t that interesting? What do you think?

- Lauren, learning something new everyday