How to Be An Ally

Fear of being wrong is one of the main factors that prevents people from being even halfway decent allies, they're just so overwhelmed with the fact that they may be called out for not being perfect that they don't even bother to help their fellow humans. I will freely admit that being an ally - to any group - is tough because it forces you to examine your own privilege. You are an Ally because you are a member of the privileged class who has decided to stand up for the marginalized. That means that you benefit from privilege. Even if you are a member of one marginalized group, no person exists in a vacuum. I'm an asexual, disabled woman and yeah the last part is hard for me to admit, but I'm also white and from an affluent family which makes me pretty damn privileged despite the non-hetero, disabled portion of my existence. I benefit from "benevolent sexism" all the damn time because of my whiteness and cisgendered-ness. Just because benevolent sexism is also sexist behavior, that doesn't mean I don't benefit from it.

Is The Purple-Red Scale A Better Way To Come Out?

In honor of National Coming Out Day I thought I'd write about a new method thats been surging around the internet for identifying your sexual orientation. For anyone who is even remotely familiar with the study of sexuality, the name "Kinsey" should ring a bell. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Alfred Kinsey is credited with being one of the first people to study human sexuality and create a scale to measure it. After conducting countless interviews, he came up with what is now called the Kinsey scale. Although, originally the scale only applied to sexual experiences and not desires, it was easily adapted to allow people to plot their orientation on a number scale going from 0 to 6 with 0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual.

An example of the Kinsey scale for human sexuality (Asexual was not originally included)

Unpacking Your Own Bias

In Social Justice circles, we talk a lot about examining your own privilege and understanding your own biases, but we don't talk about HOW people are supposed to go about these things. We only tell them to do it. We don't even offer any kind of support system because unpacking your own internalized bias is the sort of process you're never really done with. There are all sorts of biases that are thrust upon us as children and take a long time to exorcise from our brains and even then, nothing really ever goes away. Essentially, society is a cult and we are all child inductees. In order to fully illustrate the messy process of understanding your own hangups, I've detailed my own attempt at self-actualization here. This is going to get personal, so, consider yourselves warned.

FCKH8 - An Open Letter

I'm sure that many of you have heard of the company and activist organization called the FCKH8 Campaign. They are an organization that aims to fight homophobia in the USA and around the world. They are widely known and seen because of their abrasive approach to the issue of equality and tolerance.

Below is a letter sent by my partner and colleague Jesse Bachir. Jesse is an activist and an academic in law at Durham University and also contributes to the blog Inherently Human.

Asexy and Who Cares?

This week is Asexual Awareness Week, I keep seeing posts on the internet, mostly Tumblr, about how a lot of Asexuals felt like they were "broken" before they learned of the more clinical term, and of the supportive online community. The Asexual Visibility campaign has been gaining a lot of traction. Seems like every few weeks there's another article somewhere about it. Which is cool. More people knowing about it means fewer people think that they're "broken". Trust me, I've been there and it sucks.

But the fact remains that the Asexual Visibility movement doesn't have a goal to attain other than visibility and general acceptance. Both of those are admiral, lofty and ambiguous as they may be. It could be argued that Aces don't need to worry about visibility, that they don't need to campaign not to have sex. And many Asexuals would agree. They don't bother to come out, since it only affects themselves.

Law and Sexuality: A Theoretical Exploration - Part 1 Defining Terms/Concepts

Often times the law does not reflect academic results. This is especially true when it comes to mental disorders and issues of psychology. A big area that the law doesn't seem to recognize or understand fully seems to be the idea of human sexuality. Human sexuality is complex, and our understanding of it ever growing, but it seems difficult for the law to keep up with developments in the academic fields.

Sexuality is first broken down into three main categories:

Sexual Identity, which constitutes one's inner feelings about themselves in relation to others and even their bodies. It incorporates the biological aspect of sex, but also things around intercourse.

Sexual Expression, is similar to identity in that it also incorporates biological sex and intercourse, but as the name implies it is more about how such things are expressed. It seems to be a more physical whereas sexual identity is more internalized and metaphysical, and has to do with self association.

And then Gender. Gender has to do with ones social role and social identities.

Each of these categories are part of sexuality as they have to do with how you relate to yourself and others sexually, as well as your sexual desires and actions. Each aspect can be broken down into other aspects that address such desires and relations more specifically.