Two articles of note crossed my inbox this morning. The first is about the trafficking of women and girls on Craigslist, which will make over $36 million this year from sex ads. I heard about this terrifying phenomenon when I attended a training last year provided by GEMS about the commercial sexual exploitation of children. If you don't know about GEMS already, check out their work: the documentary Very Young Girls, the Girls Are Not For Sale campaign, and their direct youth development work in the South Bronx. I know folks are working to challenge Craigslist to stop being "the biggest online hub for selling women against their will" (Stone NYT). If anyone knows specifically of ways to contribute, please share. Read the article! Thank you to Elizabeth for drawing my attention to this piece.
The second article is one over at Feministing. It is a list of virginity myths that were discussed and debunked at a "Rethinking Virginity" Conference at Harvard yesterday. The list is great, exploring everything from the "Queer Sex Doesn't Count" myth to the "Sex Within Marriage is the 'Healthiest' Kind" myth. The list does a good job of exploding homophobic and heteronormative ideas about sex; it also illuminates some of the consequences (duh!) of miseducating and shaming young people and, really, anyone about sex. You can find the article here.
I was especially interested in myths #4 and #10, which are about disrupting the before/after paradigm of virginity and encouraging the possibility of sex-positive abstinence. Too often are destructive dichotomies drawn between virginity/ sexuality or abstinence/ sexual activity.
I think about these dichotomies a lot in terms of Christianity. It has always fascinated (and disturbed) me that Christian ideology is often so complex, but when it comes to sexual ethics, the morality is reduced to the simple question of when, as in before or after a heterosexual marriage commitment. There are much deeper ethical questions to consider, such as consent, mutuality, freedom, power, respect, love, etc.
Both articles are about sex, sexuality, and what is and isn't sexually permissible in our culture (clearly, objectifying and selling young girls --- but not empowering young women to be sexual agents). I haven't been catcalled yet today, but I also have not left my house. So there!
Happy feminist reading, kids. And Happy Cinco de Mayo!
FEMINISTING - "Queer Sex Doesn't Count" And Nine Other Myths Uncovered - and Debunked - at the Harvard "Rethinking Virginity" Conference
NYT - Sex Ads Seen Adding Revenue to Craigslist
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