Ideas So Romantic
THEORY
Switching in Gender and Sexuality
What is Switching... To switch, and the process of engaging in the action of switching, can most broadly be described as dwelling in, and having the intention of, honoring, exploring, and sharing different, switchable aspects of a person: multiple or varied states of...
Identity, The Mind & Love in Jeanette Winterson’s Powerbook
“You need a label. But I’m not a piece of furniture with the price on the back.” (Jeanette Winterson, The Powerbook , 65). A facet at the heart of Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook is the freedom that comes when no identity is present, when identity is not...
Moving Beyond Fixed Identities
Judith Butler drew attention to the paradox of foundationalist frames which would fix or constrain “the very ‘subjects’ that it hopes to represent and liberate” in her groundbreaking book Gender Trouble. She asked us to consider that “if identities were no longer...
SEX & SEXUALITY
A Short History of Sex & Sexuality … Retelling Truths
“Present fears are less than horrible imaginings” (Shakespeare, Macbeth) To consider and be comfortable with authentic displays of variant genders and sexualities seems such a basic, healthy, productive, powerful, potentially opening and enlivening premise; yet,...
How Pink is Your Melon, Joy? The Erotic, Sexual Language of Gertrude Stein
Ulla E. Dydo, Stein scholar and editor of the selected works collection titled A Stein Reader: Gertrude Stein, asserts that Pink Melon Joy is “the most lighthearted, humorous, and erotic work” of the early World War I time; further, she writes that Pink Melon Joy...
GENDER
Understanding & Defining Gender & Sexual Variancy
On Gender… For the majority of people one's gender is simple, clear, and defined: one is either a man or a woman. There is nothing complicated about it. Our society has certain "womanly" or "manly" behaviours, traits, and expectations around what a man or...
Switching in Gender and Sexuality
What is Switching... To switch, and the process of engaging in the action of switching, can most broadly be described as dwelling in, and having the intention of, honoring, exploring, and sharing different, switchable aspects of a person: multiple or varied states of...
Thinking Outside of the Dual Gender System
Gender Divisions as The Most Common Perversity In Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex Pat Califia asserts that our dependence and belief in sex differences is primarily driven by sexual pleasure; this pleasure thus becomes the most common perversion. The fact that...
50 Shades of Cool: Understanding & Defining Queer and Genderqueer
A popular term used to describe gender and sexual variants and variancy is the term genderqueer. Some use the term genderqueer as an umbrella term for all gender identities that are outside the heteronormative gender binary system, a system full of assumptions...
RELATIONSHIPS
The Poetic & Revolutionary Love Life of Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 - July 27, 1946) and Alice B. Toklas (April 30, 1877 - March 7, 1967) met on the first day Toklas arrived in Paris, in 1907. Toklas moved into Stein’s residence in 1910 and they were life-long partners until Stein’s death. In...
Are you Settling? 10 Good Reasons to Move on
Do you think you might be settling in your new or current relationship? Do you want to be loved & cherished yet that isn't your experience? Are you interested in a long-term partnership and questioning if the person you are dating is someone you want to continue...
Creating Your Dream Relationship: Start with Your Top Non-Negotiable Values
Are you wanting to create an amazing relationship with a partner? Do you wonder how you will know if a person is a potentially good match for you? Or maybe you are questioning if the person you are dating is "relationship material"? Or if your...
That Time of the Month: What Guys & Gals Need to Know
That Time of the Month. A woman's moon cycle. Menses. Menstruation. Period. She's on her rag. Red Flag. Our culture has many terms, distorted views, & beliefs on the monthly ritual of a woman's womb shedding. Some folks are knowledgeable, empowered &...
CULTURE
Kicking Sexism & Ageism To The Curb
Sexy, Older Women ... The recent media hoopla surrounding Susan Sarandon's choice to show her cleavage at the 2016 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, where she was nominated for an Outstanding Performance award, has once again raised the discussion on how our...
For the Love of the Great Va Jay-Jay
Make room Vagina Monologues, the British are coming! British artist Jamie McCartney has a goal: to change female body image through art. Over the course of five years, McCartney self-funded and created a very powerful woman loving exhibit: a 9 meter long sculpture...
LYRICAL EXCERPTS & FRAGMENTS
On Writing: Memoir and other Points of View
In The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick raises what one might consider one of the “arts” to be accessed in memoir: point of view. For me, this is a most powerful concept to consider and one I teach and speak about a great deal. It may seem obvious,...
Talking to Dinosaurs
My son and I read a lot of books together. Most days "Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish," by Michael Foreman, makes the cut. It's a book about a capitalist man setting out to a distant star, and while Earth is vacated, the dinosaurs come back to life and return the...