The Free Pits Underarm Feminist Manifesto

As someone who loves hair, and dyeing hair and cutting hair and petting hair I was pretty stoked to learn about this badass lady Roxie Hunt who started the trend of dyeing underarm hair. She has since explained her logic and the way that doing so is a way of starting the conversation about women making conscious choices about their bodies and how they want them to look. Read more here. http://www.howtohairgirl.com/2014/12/free-pits-manifesto/

Challenging the period Taboo one marathon at a time

Pretty impressed by this rad M.I.A. drummer lady who ran the London Marathon without a tampon to challenge the stigma and bring awareness about the shame that even people who can afford tampons, pads and menstrual cups live throughout their reproductive lives. To read more check out this blog  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/heres-why-i-ran-the-london-marathon-on-the-first-day-of-my-period-and-chose-not-to-wear-a-tampon-10455176.html where Kiran wrote about her experience. Pretty powerful.

Is Porn Addictive?

Here is a great video by my favourite sex positive vlogger. This is a tricky subject and I think she does a great job tackling this question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBSG98qzaPc

Banned Birth Control Books

Thanks to Yoyo for sending me a link to this great story about an information book published by University students in Montreal in the 60's.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-illegal-birth-control-handbook-that-spread-across-college-campuses-in-1968?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

Is there such a thing as Feminist Porn?

I have been teaching lately and trying to weave in more info about the potential impacts of watching porn as I have been learning about how there are people, according to an English study, approximately 1 in 4 young men in Britain who can't maintain an erection without porn after growing up with it. I heard that on a CBC Ideas podcast called porn generation, which I would encourage others interested in this to take a listen to. Another stat I heard recently was that 1 in three women watches porn (or at least those are the ones who will admit it). So I wondered what is the feminist stance on pornography? Is all porn bad? Where can a person go to find "good" porn and as Lacie Green points out in this video, how much is too much? Studies claim that "moderate use" of porn does not seem to have negative or lasting impacts on the brain, but how much is moderate? Once a week? Once a month? Once a day? Once a year??? There is so much research yet to be done, and fortunately there is a new porn Journal which aims to study some of these questions and more and in the mean time, I am pleased to have stumbled across the feminist porn awards which give a good run down of porn that may have some value, or at the very least be less full of the shocking de-humanizing and mysoginist images that are the mainstay of free, cheap internet porn like red tube porn hub. I was pleased to see when scrolling through their list of award winners, films by Dr. Carol Queen, who writes the sex advice column for Bust Magazine which I quite like. So anyways, lots of questions about the future of our brains, the future of porn, and the beginning of a quest to find porn that might just be able to be educational, and not just a degrading shame fest that leaves us feeling not much better that a scrunched up ball of kleenex by the end. I also really loved the movie Don Jon as it deals with these themes in a really clever way.

Ironic Man-hating.

So I have been considering buying a new beer cozy for my boyfriend, because he loves them and the one that caught my eye was in Bust Magazine, emblazoned with "Male Tears" in a delightful script. This led me to ask...So what's the deal with "male tears" turns out that like most awesome things it was dreamed up by clever feminists. Check out this great article from slate which explains how joking about man-hating is a great way of making us feel like feminism may just have tipped.

Lisa Congdon

Thanks to Jaime for recommending another great artist.

http://lisacongdon.com/portfolio/

Haida Gwaii, we're kind of a big deal

Thanks to my friend Brenna for sending along this article from Vogue about my favourite little Archipelago. http://www.vogue.com/13372113/haida-gwaii-travel-guide-canada-galapagos-island-susan-musgrave/

I Don't Owe You

Really like this new poster campaign http://avaloncentre.ca/campaigns/i-dont-owe-you/

New fave - animated organs

Just discovered a great new website that sells amazing organs and body part related arts, crafts and plashes. It's called I heart guts and reminds me a bit of my other fave stuffs the Giant Microbes, which I think I've probably mentioned on here before, but just in case...Here they are, too cute!!

Son, It's OK if You Don't Get Laid Tonight.

Here is a link to a great letter written by a mom to her teenage son. Can you imagine if all parents actually had these kinds of conversations with their kids!? It would put me out of a job!! I also really like this cartoon which, like the tea example I posted a while back, shows some great metaphors for consent.

http://angieup.tumblr.com/post/64577581035/son-its-okay-if-you-dont-get-laid-tonight

Stuff You Should Know...about PUBERTY!

I love the guys from Stuff You Should Know. I learn all kinds of things from them! Recently they did 2 great podcasts about puberty which I thought were pretty great. Have a listen. Here's Male Puberty, and here's Female Puberty. One thing I noticed on the female puberty episode is that they use the word "discharge" which I think it gross and I prefer to use the term "fluids". Other than that pretty top notch!

Teaching Kids About Sex? There's an App for that.

Just downloaded this a great app. Check out this video which shows how it works and read this great article from the Tyee including references from our lady of Sexual Health Meg Hickling. 

4 Ways We Unwittingly Teach Kids That Consent Doesn't Matter- And How to Change That

Norway Is Waaaay Ahead, as Usual.

A friend just sent me a video, one of many amazing ones coming from Norway's Newton's Puberty series. This lady's Line Jansrud is my new inspiration. Her hair is a lot like mine too, and while the videos are more graphic than I could ever be in a classroom, they are very informative, fun, cute and shame free! Here is a nice little article that sums up some of what this amazing sex educator get's into. http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/248465/norway-puberty-sex-ed-tv-show/

Two Spirit Folks

Great little Video shared by Call our and Out in Schools about what "Two Spirit" means.

Intersex Folks

Someone sent me this fabulous little short film. I think it does a great job at clarifying what this manifestation of biological sex means. I will probably use this in some of my future sex ed classes as people are often confused about this.

Desire vs. Intimacy

This is a great Ted Talk a friend told me about from the author of "Mating in Captivity". I have often thought about how the idea of the nuclear family has led us to expect our partners to fulfill every need we have, when in fact that is the role of an entire social network (and I don't mean Facebook). I like how she tackles this topic and reminds us that in order for relationships to survive we need our own worlds and we need to be able to fulfill ourselves lest we devolve into co-dependence. She is a brilliant woman and after watching this I downloaded the audiobook version, which she reads in her amazing french accent. Hope you enjoy this, good food for thought.

The Genderbread person - the gender spectrum brilliantly explained in pictures.

Came across this wonderful info graphic recently and have been sharing it with all kinds of people in hopes of helping to shed light on the many facets of sexuality that kids, and all of us sometimes have a hard time grasping. I like how this speaks to the fact that there are spectrums of all these aspects of gender, and while a majority may appear to fall into one end or the other, in fact it's all pretty nuanced. One in 1000 babies is born intersex, with a mix of male and female genitals and more and more people are speaking up about the fact that their biology does not necessarily line up with their venter identity, or how they think about themselves. Despite being a country that is fairly progressive in terms of it's laws on homosexual marriage etc, we still hear "that's so gay" and I still have kids telling me "it just means happy". No it doesn't kid, so let's talk more about what it does mean.

Porn Sex V.S. Real Sex, the Differences explained with food

A great video that helps us get real about some of what we see, versus the reality, with great british narration. Good facts too. I showed this to some grade 10 girls this week and one said it may have ruined Nutella for her...so be warned.

Icebergs of Filth...

A friend just showed me this video, which I thought was a great conversation starter about pornography. I don't know that I think that all porn is always bad for all people, but I agree with pretty much everything that Russel has to say about this and am interested in what others think about this too. He also manages to do it in such a candid, funny and honest way and I appreciate him being honest about his own experience as a man and how he feels he has been shaped by his own porn consumption and the ubiquity of soft core porn in mainstream media (on billboards, in magazines, on the internet, an even in movies like 50 shades of Grey). He also quotes some research that has demonstrated the impacts this has started to have, especially on adolescents.

An (Aesthetically Appealing) Experiment in Dating

Just learned about this very interesting dating experiment taken on by a couple of New Yorkers in 2013. I was listening to my favourite design podcast Design Matters with Debbie Millman on a drive up to Masset and she was interviewing these 2 designers about the book they made about their experiment 40 days of dating. Have a listen here if you like. I was intrigued by the way these two launched into this very personal project in order to learn more about themselves and their patterns in dating. It's also kind of addictive to read the blog from when they did this, as you can read the journals of the 2 for each date. It's interesting to see how they perceived things differently and how they reflect on themselves and the relationship as it blossoms.

A brilliant metaphor to explain how consent works.

A friend just sent me this, so SMART!! Yesterday I used this concept, but with the idea of ice cream with a grade 6/7 class. Pretended to offer some of them ice cream, totally worked.

http://www.theloop.ca/this-woman-just-explained-consent-with-the-most-perfect-metaphor/

Also here is a great video version complete with funny stick person animation if you want someone to read it to you. https://vimeo.com/126553913

Acid Trip/Art School Sex Ed...For Kids?

Check out this INSANE little love your body video. Made me laugh and think that these peeps probably have a pretty great installation at Burning Man. http://dangerousminds.net/comments/psychedelic_sex_education_video_for_kids

Nosara

I'm in Nosara Costa Rica enjoying sun and surf and friends and on and on. 

Today I bought a nice glass bottle to drink from. The goal of these nicely designed little bottles is to reduce the use of plastic bottles in the area. Local businesses have water filling stations. We should totally do this on Haida Gwaii! Check out their site to learn more. 

Something else that has caught my attention between the two main beaches here is the Hotel Nosara, a Gaudi/Hundertvaser-esque structure that is by far my favourite landmark and also a total curiosity. I dug a little and found some info on another guy's blog. He found out that The Hotel Nosara was the first hotel built here about 30 years ago. It’s owned by John Frazier, a reclusive Greek businessman, who also owns a few other businesses in town and still lives on the top floor. Apparently in it’s heyday, Hotel Nosara was quite impressive, but, for the past 10 or 15 years, hasn’t been open because the beaches in Nosara, Costa Rica, are part of a National Wildlife Refuge. The Nosara beaches are spawning grounds for sea turtles so no construction is allowed within a certain distance from the shoreline. I suppose John decided to build it anyways and paid the price. The Hotel Playas de Nosara was forced to close for violating this law. It now sits empty except for a pack of wild dogs, a groundskeeper and the owner, John, who occupies the rooms directly below the minaret. It appears that John has transformed the building into a gigantic Hookah (see the hand at the top loading it with tobacco or pot – which I hear he smokes a lot of).

While the Hotel appears empty, the grounds and pool are immaculate. I also heard a rumor that John lives below the pool which, if true, would be a tragedy as the view from the tower looks quite impressive.

This is a mural on one of the walls that seems to show a man guiding a donkey loaded up with the various parts of the building. Very interesting.

Here is a view of it from the beach, this was taken before the scaffoling went up around the top. Apparently the scaffolding has been there for years now, but before you could see the sculptural "hand of god" loading the top of the hotel as one might load a hookah.... Pretty crazy. Then there is a pic of the hotel as it is now, with the scaffolding. 

The 2 traits that make relationships last

Read this great article from the Atlantic, building on that one about how to fall in love, this one tells you how to keep it. Definitely worth a read. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/

How to Fall in Love

Loved this article my aug shares about...well, love.
Here are the Questions it suggests you ask in order to fall in love with anyone.

Wise Women

Just listened to a fabulous interview with Ellen Burstyn. At 81 she's lived through a lot and still keeps living and learning, just like all the wise women in my life. http://www.wnyc.org/story/how-ellen-burstyn-learned-survival/

I also read a great interview in Newsleek on the plane back from Joshua Tree about Jane Goodall who is also in her 80's and still touring and speaking almost daily to throngs of people, especially women, and girls who she inspires to become the next generation of scientists, or...whatever they want to be. check it out at http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/31/jane-goodalls-jungles-279259.html

Got me thinking about how grateful I am for all the wise women in my life, like my 2 aunties who visited this summer, and all the wild women in my mums circle and her most of all.

Hundertwasser on 99% invisible

Another podcast plug. This week 99% invisible did a story about one of my favourite eccentric artists and outside the box thinkers. I have always loved this man's out of the box thinking and bright colours, but when I was in New Zealand I bought his book "The Art of the Green Path" and really got deeper into his philosophy, which guided all of his wild and resonant thinking. Here is a story that does a beautiful job of summarizing this indescribably wild person. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-straight-line-is-a-godless-line/

A Moth story about the birds and bees.

In case you haven't ever heard the Moth podcast I highly reccomend it. I was driving from Prince Rupert to Quesnel the other day and listening to a ton of podcasts to help pass the time. Stumbled across this one about a mother trying to cope with talking to her inquisitive daughter about the sexual health. She talks about how we pass this on from generation to generation, each of us trying to do our best with what can be a sticky subject. I appreciate her thoughts. http://themoth.org/posts/stories/the-conversation