Shmeninism

So, after years of resisting identifying with the term, I've finally come to terms with being a feminist. I mean, duh, I'm going into women's health because I want to educate women about their bodies, so it seems obvious that I'd identify as feminist, right? Something about being at Berkeley, around people who protest everything, where feminists act like men are the enemy and exist merely to keep women down, made me insist that I wasn't a feminist. You know, come to think of it, it probably started in high school. I hated when feminists would hate on men, because dudes are awesome, and I always had an easier time bro-ing down than getting girly. I was always like, women aren't better than men, women and men should just be considered equal. I think I called myself an equalist at some point. Making up words is a great way not to get pigeon-holed, I thought.

For a long time, I've been into the sex-positive philosophy, reading the advice columns of Dan Savage and Andrea Nemerson, referring friends to SFSI. I feel like friends have been talking to me about sex stuff for a long time, since I clearly love talking about it. In the past year or so, I've been getting really into Tristan Taormino, who in addition to being a sex-positive, feminist sex educator also has her own porn production company. Seriously, boo yah. I started reading Cunt yesterday, which has a great introduction by Betty Dodson. She talks about different iterations of feminism, and how her problem with a lot of feminists is that they focus on rape and violence and don't embrace the awesomeness of sex and masturbation. Betty Dodson totally put it together for me: a big reason why I never identified as feminist was because I loved sex, and it seemed like the sex-positives and the feminists didn't mesh so well. This makes NO sense. Shouldn't pride in being a woman include taking ownership of your sexuality?

Fuck yeah.

I totally fantasize about being a sex educator in my future practice. When I was doing my clinical rotation at Planned Parenthood, this girl came in complaining of irritation in her vulva during and after sex. The nurse practitioner's first thought was BV, whereas I wanted to ask the girl whether she was using enough lube. I think kids should be taught comprehensive sex ed in school, which includes masturbation. Figure out your own bodies, girls, don't let a teenage boy do it for you! (I still feel like boys don't need to be taught that so much, but they should be taught that it's OK and even good to jerk it.) Betty's assertion that the first person who should penetrate a woman is the woman herself is so effing right on.

Clearly I've been a sex-positive feminist all along.