Let’s Talk About Sex(ual Empowerment)

Fashion magazines consistently serve up flimsy articles about "positive body image" next to parades of dangerously thin models and ads for antiwrinkle creams made with pseudoscience. Feministing.com, take us away! This smart, well-written blog tackles feminism with a no-nonsense, unapologetic vigor. Boasting nine regular editors and contributors and a user-generated component, Feministing takes on media bias, abortion, race, and class, among other heady topics. Founder Jessica Valenti has also published four books on women’s issues, one of which is an anthology co-edited with Jaclyn Friedman, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. The book takes on the way people view female sexuality and the tired, dangerous stereotypes that perpetuate rape culture. Essay titles include “A Love Letter from an Anti-Rape Activist to Her Feminist Sex-Toy Store” and “How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman?” A stale rehash of your less-interesting Women’s Studies courses, this is not. Valenti and Friedman read from their anthology along with a handful of contributors, including Lisa Jervis, co-founder of formerly Bay Area–based feminism and pop culture magazine Bitch, and Oakland based writer and trans activist Julia Serano.
Thu., May 7, 7 p.m., 2009