Catching Up With The Pro-Sex Feminists

Annie SprinkleThis month’s feature article at For The Girls is a tribute to the pioneers of Pro Sex Feminism: Annie Sprinkle, Betty Dodson, Susie Bright, Joani Blank, Candida Royalle et al.

It was hard to sum up the achievements of these women in one handy-dandy paragraph each, but I gave it a red hot go. In researching each of these heroines I visited their websites to see what they’d been up to lately and in doing so I got to read some truly fabulous blog posts and essays. So I thought I’d point a few out for your reading pleasure.

Susie Bright’s blog is prolific and always a great read. I really liked her comments on the sexuality of pregnancy and birth. She used a Hitachi Magic Wand during labor. It reminded me of a comment I once read from a doctor who said he always wanted to stimulate a woman’s clitoris during birth because it would help with the pain, but it wasn’t his place to do so. I also found this page which has real-life stories of women who used orgasm to ease their labor.

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Susie also has two ironic sex guides that are worth a look:
How To Ruin A Woman’s Sex Life In 30 Days
The Straight Man’s Guide To Lousy Sex

Meanwhile, I discovered that Betty Dodson has already covered the “vagina” territory that I previously blogged about in Read My Lips. Her main comment about the Vagina Monologues is here, written back in 2001. And here I thought I was being original. There’s also some correspondence with Betty regarding the way her Bodysex workshops were mentioned in Eve Ensler’s play here.

I also read a great profile of Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank at SFGate. Seems that Joani is with me and Betty on the “vagina” issue as well:

“We’re really cheating our daughters by teaching them that their genitals are their vaginas,” said Blank, who considers it a feminist issue. She even went up against Eve Ensler – the creator of “The Vagina Monologues” – on this one, confronting her about the vulva issue after a show. “She gave me a very wimpy answer,” Blank said.

Annie Sprinkle continues her work apace, regardless of breast cancer or anything else. The Love Art Lab has some great photos of what she and her lover Elizabeth have been up to.

It’s thanks to the work of these feminists that women like me can stand up and say we like porn and want to make our own, female-friendly version of it. I admire them all.