About Female Sexual Subjectivity...

DILEMMAS OF DESIRE Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality
By Deborah L. Tolman

(Chapter 1) GETTING BEYOND “IT JUST HAPPENED”:

“Jean Baker Miller, in Towards a New Psychology of Women (1976), identified sexual authenticity-that is, the ability to bring one’s own real feelings of sexual desire and sexual pleasure meaningfully into intimate relationships-as a key feature of women’s psychological health. From a psychological point of view, developing a strong sense of self and engaging in authentic, meaningful, and joyful intimate relationships requires an acknowledgment and acceptance of one’s own bodily feelings.” P.20

…”To learn how to bring all aspects of oneself into relationships, which can lead to a sense of connection, entitlement, and empowerment that can go beyond sexuality by including sexuality.” P.20

...In other words, not feeling sexual desire may put girls in danger and “at risk”. When a girl does not know what her own feelings are, when she disconnects the apprehending psychic part of herself from what is happening in her own body, she then becomes especially vulnerable to the power of others’ feelings as well as to what others say she does and does not want or feel.” P.21

BIRTH the play Sept. 29th

BIRTH...

a play by Karen Brody

Get a sitter... grab your girlfriends, mothers and adult daughters and see BIRTH together!

Saturday, September 29th
7:00 pm
Lakewood Masonic Hall Ballroom
15300 Detroit Ave
Lakewood, OH 44107
www.lakewoodmasonicfoundation.org/findus/htm

"Birth on Labor Day is an exciting, uplifting, and empowering answer to our
nation's childbirth crisis."

Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom,
The Wisdom of Menopause and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

Tickets:
$12 - advance
$15 - at the door

Can be purchased:
http://brownpapertickets.com/event/19030

Get your tickets now...one performance only.
Seating is limited!
It will change your life... and so much more!

We have finalized the participants for our talk back panel, which is an interactive question and answer session with birth professionals from our community. Our panelists are:
Colleen Brezine, CNM
Dr. Rebecca Starck, OB
Pamela Kolanz, DEM
Sunday Tortelli, CCE, CD(DONA), HBCE, LCCE, CLC

This is a tremendous opportunity to discuss the issues surrounding birth in our community with those who are directly involved. The talk back session will immediately follow the evening's thought-provoking performance of BIRTH.

Red Tent Birth Story Event, Oct. 6th

CALLING ALL WOMEN CONCERNED ABOUT OUR BIRTH CULTURE!

CLEVELAND BOLD RED TENT EVENT
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6TH 2007
2-5 PM
THE CLEVELAND MEETING HOUSE
10916 MAGNOLIA DR.
CLEVELAND OHIO 44106

Share your birth story and help change the birth
culture in Northeast Ohio!

The BOLD Red Tent Event gives women the opportunity to
share their birth story in an intimate, supportive
environment. You will also have the opportunity to
have your birth story taped. These taped segments will
then be sent to three influential people in the
Northeast Ohio who have the opportunity to change
birth practices in our region.

The event is being held in an historic University
Circle mansion. There will be other activities for
those not wishing to share their birth stories.
Groaning cake and labor punch will be served.

Join in the comraderie of the normal birth community.
Make connections with other amazing women.

For more information about BOLD Red Tent Events go to
www.birthonlaborday.com.

Dr. Jocelyn Elders in Cleveland Oct. 6th

Sally additionally mentioned this important event hosted by NARAL:

Join us to honor the 2007 Champions of Choice, State Representative Bob Hagan, activist Jerid Kurtz, abortion provider Lydia Strauss and philanthropists Al and Mickey Stern on October 6, 2007. We are excited that Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. Surgeon General will be joining us for this event as our keynote speaker.

2007 Champions of Choice Awards and Reception

October 6, 2007

Myers University Club

3818 Euclid Ave, Cleveland Ohio

4:00 Private Reception

5:00 Awards Ceremony

6:00 Mix, Mingle and Eat

Ticket Details:

Reserve your ticket today by calling Kellie Copeland at 216-283-2180.

$15.00 Student Activist- one ticket to the awards ceremony and mix, mingle and eat.

$50.00 Activist- one ticket to the awards ceremony and mix, mingle and eat.

$100.00 Choice Supporter- one ticket to the private reception, awards ceremony and mix, mingle and eat.

$250.00 Freedom Supporter- one ticket to the private reception, awards ceremony and mix, mingle and eat, as well as a listing in the event program.

Contact Kellie Copeland to RSVP or for more information.

Sexuality Resources

On the Sexuality front, Michelle brought a section of a book to share, Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality by Deborah L. Tolman (If you follow the link, you can get a preview of that book and/or purchase it). Within the quoted portion of the article from that book Michelle read to us, there was mention of Jean Baker Miller's book, Toward a New Psychology of Women, which discussed notions of sexual authenticity.

Sally mentioned an important article, which I have found online in its entirety, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power by Audre Lord.

Next Month's Meeting

For those not present at yesterday's meeting, next month's meeting was planed for
Sunday, October 21 at 5 p.m. at Lyz's house.

The topic for October will be Mothers.
So that's your own mother, your life as a mother, whathaveyou.

See you all there!

Why We Pursue Consciousness

I have spent some time lately reading the daily meditations in Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, a book which my aunt gave me when I graduated from high school. The entry for September 2nd resonated with me, particularly as it reflected much of what we're trying to do in our meetings.

The meditation opens with a quote from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

Somewhere there is an ancient emnity between our daily life and the great
work. Help me in saying it, to understand it.

Ban Breathnach goes on to write:

For we can't work well or live well if we don't life authentically.
Like Rilke, we need to acknowledge aloud the ancient emnity between Real Life
and work. It exists. It tears us to pieces every day. We need
to help each other understand it, because we will never understand it on our
own. We can start by holding one another's hands, by listening to one
another's concerns, by reassuring one another, today, that everything will be
all right.

Somehow, together, we will figure it out.

Just something to keep us on the road toward consciousness, even when life threatens to swamp us...

Here I thought I was Being all Clever...

Since I am a "Stay-at-home-mom" (SAHM in internet shorthand) by profession, I have a hard time coming up with something fitting to call my occupation that would be sassy, feminist, and more descriptive of what I actually do than simply, "mom." To that end, I put "domestique" in my blogger profile, only to discover that that's already taken. Apparently a domestique is the position of a player in a bicycle race. You can read the whole sordid, thunder-stealin' definition here. Sigh.

And I apologize if this is too far off-topic.

Regarding Sexuality Topic

My initial impression from the last meeting was that our next topic, sexuality, would be about personal experience of sexuality as opposed to sexual experience. What I mean is how we experience our own sexuality. This would of course veer into many different topics, but I am really attracted to the idea of coming together with our personal experience on the topic and seeing where the varying responses take us. I'm not sure if this is in total keeping with traditional consciousness raising or not, but it seems to keep the focus on what we know in our experiences as women, rather than what we assume about history and culture. This also helps, I believe, to keep us all on our expertise of ourselves as individuals and away from our individual areas of expertise (as in the fields which we study or work in), which can result in our invalidating one another.

I hope I'm making sense!

Activism on the Right and Left

I keep rereading Anna's post on activism, and while I have usually thought of activism in liberal terms such as protesting the war, demanding gender equality, or jumping into politics for the upcoming primaries--I have also been thinking a lot about how her descriptions also apply to the activities of individuals on the Right as well. In part, this comes from my having grown up in a very conservative church, one that was on the forefront of anti-abortion activism, and a strong supporter of movements such as Operation Rescue.

"Not feeling alone in our dissent" is an incredibly powerful thing--I feel somewhat sobered at the fact that this power applies not only to what I believe, but what I question as well.