Republican pin-ups?

The Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, which promotes conservative female leaders, just unveiled its 2010 calendar of conservative politico hotties. According to The Colorado Independent, the calendar includes photos of right wing blogger Michelle Malkin, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, anti-gay beauty queen Carrie Prejean, and of course, the ever-pontifical Ann Coulter, all clad in white button-down shirts and jeans. Conspicuously absent, as The Colorado Independent notes, is Sarah Palin, though she's given her due on the Institute's web site.

While it's admirable to recognize female leaders of any political stripe, the Institute's subtle sexualization of these women in a wall calendar speaks to the right wing expectation that women must be embody the female ideal if they're to succeed politically. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, after all, was first lauded for her great legs and her cute, well-behaved family before her political record came under scrutiny. It's too bad that we can't judge these women on what they've done and what they stand for, and leave the beauty shots behind.
-Naomi

Photo of Brooke Shields at 10 censored

While Brooke Shields is currently known for her mommy dearest tupperware-toting, eyelash-enhancer shilling persona, the actress was once a fresh-faced Hollywood sexpot. Now, a nude photo of Shields at the age of 10 is the subject of censorship sting at the Tate Modern in London, according to The Guardian. The photo of Shields was taken in 1976 by a photographer for the Playboy periodical Sugar 'n' Spice. Shields attempted, unsuccessfully, to stop the publication of the photo, and her mother later sold the original to the American artist Richard Prince, who photographed the photo, framed it, and called it "Spiritual America." That piece, which was recently displayed in New York without similar scrutiny, was removed after London authorities launched an obscenity investigation at the museum.

The image of Shields and its censorship brings up a host of important questions about art, pornography, and the feminist impetus to protect women without stifling creativity. When the photo of Shields was taken for Playboy, the image was an explicit instance of child pornography. But today, hanging in an art gallery, does the photo lose its sexually provocative pulse?

In a catalogue accompanying the Tate exhibit and reprinted in The Guardian, co-curator Jack Bankowsky comments on artist Prince's intent for the image of "a bath-damp and decidedly underage Brooke Shields..." "When Prince invites us to ogle Brooke Shields in her prepubescent nakedness," Bankowsky writes, "his impulse has less to do with his desire to savour the lubricious titillations that it was shot to spark in its original context … than with a profound fascination for the child star's story."

Art is certainly an avenue to explore women's exploitation and the sexual pressures of child stardom, even if the art contains a photo originally snapped as pornography. What's disturbing about the Brooke Shields image and what should be reason enough for its ejection from the exhibit, is the fact that Shields never acquiesced to its publication in the first place. She, not her mother, should have the last say over what happens to the image. As it stands now, the artwork tells the story of a double exploitation: Shields' first nude appearance before the lens and her subsequent symbolic disrobing when her mother sold the picture for art. -Naomi

Choice and healthcare reform

As is to be expected, women's reproductive rights have entered the healthcare coverage debate. As reported in the The Nation last week, some abortion-related provisions "would simply prohibit all private health plans involved in a government exchange from covering abortion services. Others are trickier, offering separate riders for abortion coverage and expanding the already considerable "conscience clause," so that pharmacists, healthcare providers and insurance plans could opt out of providing drugs and services they find objectionable."

The Nation story lauds California Representative Lois Capps for her attempts to at least neutralize the abortion-related provisions--most notably, she has pointed out that no proposals modify the status quo, which ensures that federal dollars are not spent toward abortions today.

Implicating abortion spending in the healthcare debate is deeply troubling, as it threatens that the moral imperative that is generally agreed upon today--the need for better access to better healthcare--be wrought only with a series of caveats that limit women's healthcare and reject women's right to choose. -Sara (Thank you, Eric, for the tip.)

Sex ed for grown-ups

Deborah Sundahl of the Female Ejaculation Sex Education Institute spoke last week at Denver's sex positive boutique, Hysteria, on the capability of sex to serve as a tool of empowerment. She got into some of the directive details on how to stimulate the G-Spot, responding to specific questions from men and women in the audience, but most noteworthy is her professional commitment to adult sex education.

There is plenty of progress yet to be made when it comes to educating young people about sex--we still need to improve on the basics of STD prevention, birth control, and active consent--and there is limited but real access to information on how to make sex safer, but there is often nowhere to go to learn about how to make sex more pleasurable, especially for age groups older than the target demographic for sex ed programs.

Sundahl's lectures and workshops focus on the basic, accessible physiology of maximizing female sensation. She also upends culturally embedded notions of women's libido, and writes, "The way we make love in western culture is fast and rapid, and women are, in general, rarely ready emotionally or physically for intercourse. What would men do if you came at their prostates with a wooden dildo if they were not ready? They would tense up, numb down, and maybe 'have a headache and not be into sex tonight, dear.'" Her praiseworthy feminist mission is to empower women to be at least as into sex as male partners, starting with the basics of anatomy. -Sara

Book Review: Taking Charge of Your Fertility

Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler is a manual for people who menstruate (and people intimately involved with people who menstruate) to learn more about their bodies by charting certain fertility signs. These include waking temperature, the presence/consistency of cervical fluid, and menstruation. Charting your cycle provides a wealth of information about your health and well-being, whether you are trying to avoid or achieve pregnancy, or if you just want a better understanding of how your body works.

Most of us did not receive adequate information from our parents and schools about the biological functions of our bodies and those of our partners. It’s important to be informed so that we can make the best decisions regarding our reproductive health. By paying attention to our own bodies we can take some power back from the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which maintain an imbalance of power when consumers and patients are uninformed. Instead of popping a pill we saw advertised on TV or blindly following the advice of a doctor who has known us for five minutes, we should work first and foremost to educate ourselves about our bodies and how they function. All bodies are different; charting your cycle will show you what is “normal” for you, so that you can better communicate with your health care provider when you feel you need to seek outside advice.

Much of Taking Charge of Your Fertility is concerned with explaining the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), a practice involving the charting of fertility signs that, when analyzed collectively, allow a person to make informed decisions regarding birth control or pregnancy achievement. FAM is a great way to involve your partner in your reproductive health and birth control method. How much involvement does your partner have when you just swallow a pill once a day, or go to the doctor for an injection every now and then? Your partner can help you check and record your fertility signs and you can analyze the chart together to determine when you are fertile.

Even if pregnancy is not a concern for you, charting your cycle is a good idea. Your chart can show you the relationship between levels of various hormones and your mood throughout your cycle, how stress and diet might be affecting your cycle length, and how to tell when something is so out of the ordinary that you should seek help from your health care provider. Taking Charge of Your Fertility explains these biological processes in great depth, but is extremely user-friendly and engaging. Every time I open it to look for a specific piece of information, I have a hard time pulling myself away.

This website offers more information about FAM and opportunities to buy the book or download fertility-charting software. -Adrienne