FornicatingFeminists has moved...

After just shy of three years here at blogspot, I've decided to move the blog over to Wordpress. Why?

Because it looks way sleeker and the format is more flexible. AND I was able to move all the old content over to the new site! So update your bookmarks, and follow me over to Wordpress!

New site: http://www.fornicatingfeminist.wordpress.com

Much love,
The Sheriff

friday links

Police families are about four times as likely to experience domestic violence as non-police families. Scary!

Sad things we already knew: the modeling industry is racist.

I have mixed feelings on this NYC campaign to spread info about how teen pregnancy impacts the child, but I appreciate this one woman's POV: teen moms deserve support, not shame.

REALLY good piece on FLOTUS, cultural assimilation, and ethnocentrism.

Being scared to have a girl.

Badass Egyptian woman draws political cartoon addressing FGM.

Much love,
The Sheriff

teenagers, sex, and agency

Being a teenager is shitty. You're making terrible fashion choices, you're under pressure to figure out a life path, and you're chock full of hormones (racing at the speed of light) and unsure how to handle them appropriately. Have sex and risk being labeled as a slut and a nasty (not to mention accidentally creating a person or receiving a gift you can't get rid of)? Avoid having sex and battle your urges constantly (and GASP maybe go to college a virgin)? 

My thoughts on this whole topic are very muddy now. I've worked with teenagers since I was barely older than one myself, and as someone who became sexually active pretty early in my teens, I rarely questioned the fact that when someone decides they're ready for sex, goddammit, then they're ready.

Then I started working with teens who had babies and wildly unhealthy ideas about women. And I started to doubt all that. 

To paraphrase a Liz Lemon quote, the problem with teenage girls is that they're both vicious and vulnerable. While girls are definitely being ushered into adulthood and sexuality (or at least the appearance of sexuality) and some of them are quite knowledgeable about their bodies, the risks and benefits of fucking, and have access to birth control, I don't know if these girls are necessarily in the majority (I hope I'm wrong). Most girls struggle to figure out their own desires, versus the desires of what they think they should do, versus what their partner might expect from them. It makes me feel incredibly queasy and scared to think of them essentially going into the battle that is adolescent sexuality and life without the proper armor and know how. 

This is not to say, obviously, that girls don't want to bang--clearly, they do. I'm only pointing out that the longer I work around teenagers, the more it seems that their choice to have sex at an early age is a foregone conclusion, something they don't seem to choose so much as something that happens to them and thereby objectifies them and disconnects them from their choices. Maybe I'm just getting older and being a geezer and over-analyzing their lives because mine is one-quarter over and I can be reflective like that, but teen sexuality is so muddled and pathologized and just fucked up in this country. It is a fight for young women (and young men!) to learn themselves and establish a healthy sexuality and ability to have sexual experiences that work for them. 

Is the Sheriff being a prude on this one, or what? Tell me what you think.

Much love,

The Sheriff

friday links

High heels and class.

A cost/benefit analysis of modern womanhood. Fascinating.

Yay breastfeeding!

May have posted this before, but it's timeless: how to be a reverse racist (step by step guide!).

All of these women weight 154 pounds. A good reality check.

Upsetting but important: former air force recruit speaks out about sexual assault.

Also in the upsetting but important category: this video shows the extent of wealth inequality in the U.S.

Go Oberlin! Oberlin cancels classes to deal with hate incidents on campus.

Perfectly legitimate reasons to cry a little.

Much love,
The Sheriff

black feminism vs white feminism

According to a buddy of mine, there has recently been a HUGE blow up on twitter between black and white feminists. There have always been issues there--white women can't understand that black women's lived experiences are different/how intersectional identities impact, oh, I don't know, everything. 

So I did a little research to see if some sort of recent event had brought this out, and it seems like the Oscars/Onion dust up with  Quvenzhané Willis in which the satirical site called her a cunt on Twitter brought this up. She is a nine-year-old black girl which makes it appalling, but also appalling because the only thing she did that was even moderately less than precious was correct reporters when they misprounced her name/refused to even try (one reporter called her Annie!) and to be proud and excited about her accomplishments. Some of the commentary I read online about this adorable little girl was just this close to calling her uppity for daring to be proud of herself, and the Onion, however satirically, crossed a line when they called her a cunt. (Sidebar: I actually was going to write a post about this, but a) I was too lazy/tired and b) I didn't actually watch the Oscars so writing commentary on it too much felt weird). 

But the criticism here seems to be that black feminists feel white feminists were silent on this issue (which makes me sad I was!), and Tressie MC actually does an empirical breakdown of it on her blog (a well-written and damning read). 

So why were white feminists silent on this? I like what she wrote here on that: "There remains a cultural norm that children are off-limits. When that norm is violated and it does not elicit a social response equal to the severity of the violation, it communicates that there are invisible limits to who is included in the greater social contract. In this instance, being black and being a girl put Quvenzhané just beyond the limits of inclusion." We've sort of somehow decided that being a minority and a female means that it's okay to brush over this hideous word applied to a kid, or to give it a very dismissive level of engagement at best.

And that makes me feel ashamed and sad. It's 20 fucking 13, why aren't we doing better than this? Why aren't we working together and engaging in real dialogue so that white feminists can get a glimpse of black feminist issues and try to understand and maybe even help? I don't have any answers here, but a simple recommendation: talk to people and listen to people who are different from you. 

Did you see that disgusting tweet? Did you think it was out of line too?

Much love,

The Sheriff

a brief break

The Sheriff has several papers to write for graduate school and a trip to California this week (whoo!), so there will be no posting this week.

Enjoy your week, and see you next Monday!

Much love,
The Sheriff

friday links

Not related to feminism or body image or sex at all, but this tumblr is the shit. Period.

Despite having a lady CEO, Yahoo has some pretty lame policies regarding letting its employees work remotely (a policy that largely benefits women and their vaginas and their babies coming from said vaginas).

Sonia Sotomayor is a BAMF, tackles a racist prosecutor. Get it girl.

Is it really that hard to say Quvenzhane? People are pricks.

Things people have said to female journalists. Wildly fucked up, mildly funny.

About thigh gaps.

Much love,
The Sheriff

the torture that is swimsuit shopping

Winter is slowly starting to ebb away a bit here in the Mid-Atlantic states, but the winter flab hangs on for most of us, accumulated from night after night of chips and snuggling in the covers and Netflix instead of Zumba classes and jogging in the cold (I know it ain't just me that's made those choices).

But, cruelly, no matter what preparations you have or have not made, the Victoria's Secret swim suit catalog arrives, with its photos of lithe women with improbably large tits.

yep. 

This catalog doesn't just sell a swimsuit (although it does that very effectively), but it sells their bodies--I find frequently it's not the suit that really would look best on me that I fixate on, but the one that features the body I most wish I had, that tousled beachy hair I could never achieve, that relaxed and affluent lifestyle that is so incongruous from the one I have where I work too much and wake up in the dark to lumber out in the cold.

Marketing this impossible body and this impossible lifestyle, companies like VS get rich off of making women feel like shit. Which infuriates me the more that I think on it.

Especially because it feels so personal when things fit incorrectly, when your breasts are just too big to look classy in anything, when you butt can't fill out the bottom but you somehow have a muffin top. It feels like it's just you that there's something wrong with. But as my girl Tina Fey points out, we are all in this ship feeling terrible about ourselves together.

Remember that, please. Nothing is wrong with you.

Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

friday links

Thandie Newtorn shares about the sexual abuse she experienced early in her career.

Yup.

What actually matters in the case of the Olympian who shot his girlfriend.

LADIES NIGHT IS A SCAM. I've felt this way for ages.

Oh man, this is so true: being thin to make up for other flaws.

Blonde, self-tanning teen scores higher than Einstein on MENSA test, and of course people are dubious dicks about it.

A magazine rejects an ad featuring two brides. That's just bad business.

Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

back in the saddle again

As noted previously, the Sheriff had a break up recently. I'm finally through the alcoholism and Netflix stage (with brief relapses), moving into anger and firey desire to fix myself, which is wildly productive. I'm also entering the stage where I feel like I'm ready to get back in the saddle, and maybe get dicked down.

this image was just too perfect for this post

It's not that easy. Actually, that's not true--I'm a busty young female, getting laid IS that easy.  But there's some complicated feelings about putting yourself back out there after being in a long-term relationship. There's a rawness and vulnerability riding on it, because breakups definitely leave you with a lack of confidence in yourself, sexually and otherwise. In my experience, just prior to a breakup is when the sex in relationships tends to be the most lame, leaving you feeling ugly, gross, and undesirable in bed.

Also? A lot of guys are gross, weird, sexist, or just disrespectful. So if the candidate I pick for my first post break-up lay is someone who thinks it's okay to be rude to me during a one-night stand or if they're just plain a bad lay, I'll leave the situation feeling gross and sad about myself even more (and not even satisfied!). There's a lot riding on this (pun!), and I don't know if the reciprocal applies to men post-breakup.

I think for women because so much of our virtue and supposed "goodness" is wrapped up in our vaginas and how much we share them, and it makes things like that first dicking after a long term relationship seem far more momentous than they are.

What do you think?

Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

women and power: lack of desire, or lack of access?

In honor of President's Day, I'm finally writing this post I've been putting off for about three months.

In the June 2012 issue of Philadelphia magazine, there was an article about women and political power entitled "Who's Missing?" by Patrick Kerkstra (I know, I'm so late it's ridiculous). The basic gist of the article was that women in Philly and Pennsylvania (which ranks 42nd in the nation in female statehouse representation, and that is fucking shameful!) should really put the blame on themselves for not having political power, saying "powerful local women blame the old-boy network. And the Democratic machine. And the testosterone-fueled political thuggery endemic to Philadelphia. They blame the conflict between family life and the relentless demands of political life. But the more thoughtful ones also blame themselves."

...c'mon. Really? We should blame ourselves for the fact that there aren't more women in power? Of course, there's something very basic and logical to what Kerkstra is saying: if women don't push themselves to run for office, despite all the obstacles, then clearly we won't win any seats, have any political capital, or be able to influence policy substantially.

But ALL of the factors that he cites that women blame are real and structural and stop women from accessing the power that comes with political office. It also shifts the focus from trying to change these institutions onto pointing the finger at individual women for their choices, as if we don't do enough of that in every arena of female activities (motherhood/proper parenting, climbing the corporate ladder, perceived attractiveness, I could go on).

What do you think? Is this an issue in which women just don't want it enough, or are there some real structural inequalities that make it harder for us to get even get our feet in the door?


Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

friday links

Man, I just love everything Kate writes.

A bit late, but still good: body positive Valentine's gifts.

Interesting! A pregnant teenager sues her parents for physically trying to make her get an abortion.

The Feminine Mystique, 50 Years Later.

Connie Briton fucking rocks.


Much love,
The Sheriff

happy Galentine's Day

Show yourself some love today. Whatever that means for you: a beer and some brainless TV, a mani-pedi, what have you.

More substantial posting to resume next week.

Much love,
The Sheriff

three years.

This Saturday, February 9th, 2013, marked three years for me without any eating disordered behaviors. No skipped meals, no excessive time in the gym, no purging after family holidays. Over a thousand days without it.

I don't have any massive wisdom to share about it, aside from the fact that it is at the core quite simple (note: simple and easy are drastically different). I wanted to change. I wanted to stop limiting myself and my life through my illness. So, I stopped participating in those behaviors, one hour at a time. Early on, an hour after dinner sitting with my feelings and being full and not throwing up felt like a triumph. But at some point, hours turn into days. and those days turn into weeks, and eventually you stop waiting to fuck up, you stop waiting for the other shoe to drop and just let yourself live.

That's about where I'm at right now. And it feels pretty damn good.


Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

friday links

WOMEN WARRIORS: Her name is Annie Lumpkins and she was a Freedom Rider. She is pictured at the city jail in Little Rock July 10, 1961. 

Stupid marriage myths, deconstructed.

WHY are women so sorry all the time always?

On being an adult.

What does it feel like to be a hot girl who gets old?

Josephine Baker was amazing.

The Feminine Mystique turns 50 this year!

My reaction too.

Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

the problem with relationship advice

I have mentioned it before, but I fall prey majorly to lady magazines of all kinds--if the headline promises to help me improve my body image or tone my tummy, I'm putty in their hands and buy that glossy immediately. I pore over the fashion sections and read all the articles, and am always intrigued by articles that portend to dole out relationship advice. Sometimes it seems like they just know precisely what I'm going through.

Except that they don't.

Most of these articles tend to be incredibly, deceptively overly simplified (whoa, adverb overload!). Your man not giving you enough attention? Ask him about his day and wear some sexy uncomfortable underwear. He's been having trouble staying hard? Force him to see a doctor because it's either a physical ailment or entirely your fault.

It's one-size-fits-all, and almost ALWAYS based in strongly gendered stereotypes. Which isn't to say there's nothing helpful in there, because there's something to be said for the power of trying to communicate more with your partner or the magic of putting on some panties that make you feel hot. But each relationship is its own team and its own unique set of problems and strengths, and the bland, vague advice that is written to apply to every heterosexual couple in the country may not be the best source of information and help to you.



Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

stop calling me judgmental.

source

Recently, I had the pleasure of a breakup (read here for more sadness!), and with that comes the nasty insults and revelations about your not-so-endearing qualities. One that was particularly bothersome was the charge that I am a judgmental person.

Now, here's the thing. The Sheriff ain't flawless, and this is not the first time I've been called judgmental (by an ex that other time too, I'd like to note). But I don't think I'm cruel or harsh on people. I think the issue is moreso that this word is used to dismiss women for having opinions. We're not thoughtful or smart; we're just judgmental, and bitches.

Additionally, I have rarely, if ever, heard a man called judgmental, because we expect dudes to have strong opinions on things and to express them without worry about other people's feelings. It's similar to the use of the word crazy to emotion-shame and dismiss the shit out of a woman when she has feelings that make her partner uncomfortable.

Am I off here, or do you agree?

Much love,
The Sheriff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

friday links

Happy February! It's the shortest month of the year, the last achingly cold one (hopefully), and includes Valentine's/Galentine's Day!

Once upon a time, I made a guy at a frat party whip out his dick just so I could laugh at it because he refused to stop touching me or leave me alone. This reminded me of that incident. (Also, if you want to read about that in one of our very earliest posts [so adorable and young! Baby Sheriff!], click here).

I love Ellen's diss of the Bic for Her Pen. Amazing!

Interesting/depressing: almost half of bisexual women have been raped. Whoa.

UGH. The most crazy reactions to women in combat.

It is no secret that the Sheriff loves 30 Rock and Tina Fey. Love bordering on obsession. And 30 Rock is over now. But reading this makes me feel better and relive the best moments.

This pep talk video will be a worthwhile use of your time. Promise.

Useful: How to get out of a hookup when the dude is already in your crib.

Much love,
The Sheirff

Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

analyzing mad men; or, the sheriff is totally behind on pop culture

Prior to said break up which I explained how I am ineffectively getting over on Monday, the ex and I were watching Mad Men together on Netflix. I was vaguely familiar with the series because Joan's impact on sartorial vibes is palpable and I had a friend spoil the big surprise of the first season to me long before I began watching, but I'd never sat down to watch it. I'd heard great things about the story, the style, and the characters being so real and genuinely flawed like real people.

But before even that, I was talking about Mad Men to one of my mom's customers (she cleans houses), who happened to be a lesbian and of course adored me because I went to Smith. And she HATED Mad Men. She actually went so far as to cancel the part of her cable package that included AMC because they run the show.

Why did she hate the show so much? Sexism. She felt like the show glamourized the way that these ad men in the 1960s lived and how they treated women, and that it sickened her to see it on the show. She found it oppressive to even watch.

I actually find that the opposite is true: it is actually fucking empowering to see sexism and sexual harassment, especially in the workplace, portrayed in a show. Usually when movies or shows have any elements of a man who makes ladies uncomfortable with his comments, he's a total skeeve and a pervert and is quickly written off as such. He's not the man you report to, who comments on the tightness of your skirt, or the co-worker whose office you dread walking by because you can feel his gaze on your body and you already feel insecure enough. But that's what it actually feels like being a lady with a job of ANY kind, and I find it refreshing and extremely exciting to see that shown in successful television series.

Granted, Don Draper and his ilk in the show make womanizing into a goddamn sport, but it is an accurate portrayal of the time period, gross and demeaning as it gets. It's akin to trying to take the n-word out of Huckleberry Fin: that language, that oppression is a part of our history as women and other oppressed groups and it's important for the rest of the world to see that to get an idea of what any subordinated group experiences.

Do you think it's awesome to see your oppression mirror on the small (or big) screen, or is it uncomfortable? Talk to me.

Much love,
The Sheriff


Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!

getting over a breakup: the first month

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, the Sheriff has been going through a pretty shitty breakup. Like, appallingly shitty breakup. And while I know in a few weeks/months I'll actually be over it and able to say things like "seeing what didn't work teaches me what does" and other suitably vague encouraging things, right now? I just hate everything and can't get motivated to do much but sit and be alternately sad and furious.

And with Valentine's Day coming up? It's even more of a treat.

I have been drinking too much alcohol, watching exclusively 30 Rock and Parks and Rec nonstop on Netflix, and having a weird food relationship where I'm starving until I actually put the food in front of me when suddenly I just feel TOO MUCH FEELINGS to eat. Oh, and LOTS of Adele. That girl knows my heart ache.

source

So, in order to help myself and anyone else going through this nonsense right now, I figured I'd write a guide on how to get over it and at least get to feeling better.

--Get their shit out of your house. Any item that you leave behind and might want back or vice versa is just going to remind you of them and make you sad OR serve as a lame excuse to contact them that reeks of desperation and at best will end with ex-sex which, if you don't want to be with them, may be a bad choice. This is extremely painful but it will make you feel better. Additionally, don't hesitate to throw out things they gave you/have a friend hold on to them if it's something you want to keep. Being reminded of that ten minutes that one time that they were attentive and nice and gave you things is NOT conducive to feeling better.

--Consider un-following them on social media. I personally have not done this yet, and maybe I should because I am dreading the moment when something pops up that can be stalkerishly read to indicate that said person has a new girl in their life, and then I feel like murdering. It also curbs the desire/ability to keep interacting with them a bit during those moments when you're lacking the self-control or good sense to avoid an unrewarding interaction.

too many quotes are attributed to Drake, and I'm 90% sure most of them are bullshit. also, doesn't he look like he has a hearing aid in this pic?

--Give into the sadness. Seriously. Dive in to the feelings of betrayal, disappointment, depression, anger, hurt. Let yourself feel them to their full extent and take advantage of the awful clarity that break ups bring into your own faults and the faults of the person you were with. I'm a journaler (moleskines for life), so it's super helpful for me to wallow, put on some sad tunes, and then write down everything that went wrong. In the cold light of the next day, I try to read over it and see what themes come up as being issues in it, in terms of both my actions and theirs.

--Do whatever you want to do for a while. It's that's all sweatpants and junk food and rom-coms that you watch because you just KNOW you will sob through them and crying feels weirdly good, do that. But if it's revenge workouts and green juice and motivational books, do that. Call out of work. Buy all that shit in your online shopping cart. Masturbate, often, or find some new dick to hop on for a while. Don't make any permanent choices though for the first month--you are likely vulnerable at the moment, and that meaningful tat/crazy hair cut may not be what you actually want, and if it is, you can still do it in a month when you've had time to process your shit.


How do you help yourself get through that terrible first month post-breakup? Send me your tips, please!

Much love,
The Sheriff


Follow me on twitter @ff_sheriff or get at me on Facebook!