sex education

Nirvana of Pussy: A Conversation with Tucker Max

brittany — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interview with Tucker Max

All I wanted to know was if Tucker Max was for real. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, he is. Explaining that if he has learned anything over the past five years, it is that people are fucking stupid, clearly the infamous Tucker Max was extraordinarily candid when we talked about his new book Assholes Finish First. His candor was particularly astounding, as he knew I was a writer for Elevate Difference, a site with a mission to advance political and social justice, while Max is embodiment of all things politically incorrect. He is particularly known throughout the feminist community for his drunken antics with women, which I personally believe have been consistently misconstrued, and this was my chance to find out if I was right.

Perhaps it was the simple fact that I was dared to read Max’s first book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell that so quickly brought me into his fold, or the fact that reading it made me feel like a subversive sex-positive feminist. More than anything, it was my curiosity about the man behind the controversial books that made this book reviewer seek out the infamous sex writer.

Speaking on the phone, before I even got through my introduction, Max jumped in to explain that his work is not a commentary on male sexuality, but simply writing about his real life. He is a man with some seemingly outrageous stories to tell and us aspiring sexologists should make no further assumptions. Fair enough.

Max believes that we are a society still “too prudish and buttoned-up” to teach sex education properly. He quickly conceded that the next generation of sex ed will largely center on porn and work like his own, and even Tucker Max finds this “shameful.” The fact that anyone is learning about sex from his books and not from school or their parents is truly shocking. Thankfully (or not), virgins across America are turning to Tucker Max for their intellectual and physical sexual education. The fact that thirty-year-olds with no sexual experience and barely-eighteen-year-olds all reach out to him as a sexual celebrity and a familiar person to take their virginity—literally—is surprising, even to Tucker.

Assholes Finish First is Max’s follow-up to the best-selling I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, and it takes so-called “fratire” to a new level. Dividing the book into his pre- and post-fame lives—a decision that emerged as he was writing and friends (the familiar Nils and Bunny to fans) noted a clearly different tenor between these stories—gives a new richness to his work. Because these are tales from only one man, the juxtaposition honestly showcases how fame can change one’s life, especially when compared with examples of other celebrity works.

The book’s bonus section contains stories from the women Max has slept with, written from their own perspectives. He knew this would appeal to his female audience—about half his readership. It also gives a different level of credence to his body of work, because as readers we finally get to hear someone else’s side of his stories—something I wondered a lot about and am sure others have as well. Oddly enough, the accounts from both sides line up more often than not.

What is most striking to me in his post-fame stories is Max’s cognizance about the state of his own life. Most people don’t spend their days writing about themselves; they don’t have that kind of time for self-reflection. Max takes this opportunity and really looks at himself as an outsider. He is in the midst of the common transition from playboy to family man but often documents it as an outside observer. Perhaps most interesting, it is not his own words that encapsulate his feelings about the state of his life but those of his friend (which he does include in the book).

We talked about this quite a bit on the phone. Fame has brought him to this so-called “nirvana of pussy.” The ladies come to him, and they come in droves. What he emphasized was how his life is in transition, from living out his teenage dreams of endless sexual conquests to his adult aspirations for a relationship. He stated outright that, “I don’t know how to live a committed, monogamous relationship, but I want to. Living the life every nineteen-year-old guy wants,” he told me he is now “moving out of it...not fully in either phase.”

More striking was the confession that this “nirvana of pussy” was the “complete opposite” of what he expected. Max’s lesson is an obvious but universal one, even in a book about gratuitous sex: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. He qualified this, saying that it would be “totally disingenuous” to whine about it now. This is what he wanted. The fact that the lived reality was not the same as the dream is a fact of life that needs to be swallowed hard.

After I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell sold over 1.5 million copies, he had unique creative freedom with editors and publishers on the second book, Assholes Finish First. This was why he felt he could include abortion so explicitly, even using the phrase “baby killer.” Though he did not appreciate my take that his story about unintended pregnancy is a PSA for condom use, he did agree he was more actively spelling out advice in his vignette than he usually does. “[I’m] so tired of idiots taking the wrong thing out of what I write,” he said. Lots of sex does not mean lots of unsafe sex. It just means lots of sex.

A big secret: He can quote Betty Freidan. Under her definition, Max is a self-declared feminist. So why the incessant anger from the feminist community? He believes he is often labeled a misogynist because he doesn’t worship all things female. He also thinks “extremeophiles,” those who see all porn as rape, had a large role in much of this labeling. Max estimates that twenty-five percent of his readership is comprised of self-identified feminists, with women as half of his overall readership.

To him, the reality is that that he “makes fun of people,” at-large. Not women, not men, just people that he thinks suck. “Sometimes a woman can be a bitch or a guy can be a shithead, [and they] need [to be called out],” he told me. According to Max, calling someone a slut has nothing to do with his or her sexual experience. It is the power of the label itself. When he’s using such a label, he doesn’t know the reality of that individual’s life. He’s doing it just to get a rise out of someone, because he can.

His most vehement reaction to my series of questions on feminism was around what I see as a common thread in his books, the Madonna-whore dichotomy. Max sees the entire dichotomy as “bullshit” and says it just doesn’t apply to his work.

As our conversation wound down, we talked about his wide readership. Ranging from sixteen-year-olds, who view him as a demigod, to fifty-year-olds reliving their glory days, what makes Tucker Max so appealing? In his eyes, he is simply “objectively funny [and] painfully, authentically raw,” something we don’t see much in media, if at all. He “exists outside the machine.” It shows.

The book launch I attended was at a West Village dive bar, up the stairs in the back, and totally public. Max has no sanctioned book reviews on the jacket of a follow-up to a New York Times bestseller. His Cinderella tale of success—of having his manuscript rejected by every publisher, to building an audience through his blog, and gaining the leverage to write the exact book he wanted—was one of the first, though in the blog-to-book world, has become commonplace. Central to his wide readership, he claims, is his balance between self-indulgence and corporate appeal. He is attempting to create the best art that he can while resonating with his wide audience. Yes, Assholes Finish First is art.

Written by: Nicole Levitz, November 16th 2010

Sin, Sex and Stigma: A Pacific Response to HIV and AIDS

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Lawrence James Hammar

Sean Kingston Publishing

If you took an undergraduate course in anthropology, chances are high that you learned about the South Pacific. Notables like Margaret Mead and Bronislau Malinowski made their marks there, and it continues to be a part of the world that many think of with intrigue and wonder. Anthropologist and ethnographer Lawrence James Hammar continues on the path of many greats in Papua New Guinea, but he takes a distinctly sharp turn in his subject matter.

According to Hammar, HIV/AIDS present a problem in Papua New Guinea in a unique way. Having studied it for years, he has an incredibly passionate and firm opinion on how the country is failing its people and why. He tackles gender roles and perceptions of appropriate sexual behavior, which suggest that protected sex has no place between couples. This is precisely the problem, as HIV transmission is mainly occurring between heterosexual couples.

The current HIV/AIDS education and prevention methods fail to acknowledge Papua New Guinea’s sexual networks. The one-size-fits-all approach does not take into account the sex trade or the gross injustices that women face when it comes to expression and control over sexuality. Likewise, the pervasive influence of the Church has essentially forbidden discussion and distribution of condoms in many areas. Church leaders have gone public with anti-condom messages with blatant lies about their effectiveness and have contributed to the overall stigma of protected sex. Hammar dramatically refers to this dilemma as “Biological death versus social leperhood.” To further describe this situation, he explains the multiple interpretations of the ABC (Abstain, Be Faithful, Condoms) message. Instead of condoms, some are teaching “C” to stand for commitment or Christian values. While this alone is not objectionable, Hammar points out that this ignores the reality of what is occurring in Papua New Guinea and contributes to the overall situation of HIV/AIDS not being dealt with in a productive manner.

Hammar sounds infuriated at times in this book, and the reader cannot help but feel the same. Though this situation is replicated in other forms the world over, Hammar pounds the Papua New Guinea-specific message home: What’s being done now isn’t working and it’s harmful. In the epilogue, he finally addresses the role of the anthropologist and takes up the difficult topic of how positive change might be effected as a result of his research and findings. He acknowledges the conflicting perspectives and the respect he has for the country and its people while also setting the stage for what hopefully will lead to constructive conversation.

Overall, Sin, Sex and Stigma reads like an academic text with very few literary flourishes added for readability. Its audience is very specific, and even within that audience, some readers may have difficulty following Hammar’s writing. Though informative, the book is heavy in content and delivery, and should only be considered by those who are already interested in the topic at hand.

Written by: Shana Mattson, July 11th 2010

Sex Appeal: Six Ethical Principles for the 21st Century

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Paul Abramson

Oxford University Press

Sex Appeal flows in an intuitive series of ideas and expresses thoughts that may be obvious, but seem to be seldom practiced. The six logical principles regarding sex for our era outlined in Paul Abramson’s book are not only interesting, but vital to a peaceful coexistence.

If you tried to make a personal guideline for sex using the golden rule, you might get a summation of Abramson’s leading principals: do no harm, celebrate sex, be careful, know yourself, speak up and speak out, and throw no stones. Doing no harm, according to the author, reaches beyond avoiding sexual violence and demands honesty between sexual partners. Abramson encourages readers to be honest with their partners about their history and their expectations. What better way to avoid the spread of STIs and the cliche (but true) image of teenage girls everywhere crying into their pillows, “But he said he loved me.” Every chapter in the book refers back to this idea and seems to spin on an axis around it.

To disarm readers who may assume Abramson is an advocate of having no sex, the author has included an entire chapter encouraging readers to celebrate the act. He argues, though, that the catch to celebrating sex may mean abstaining. For some, that could mean waiting until a certain age, or for others, avoiding it within a certain relationship. The author argues that to really enjoy the amazing experience of intercourse, one has to be mature enough to handle it, which, of course, brings us back to “do no harm,” but also leads into the next idea.

Be careful. When it comes to sex, you don’t even need your mom to tell you this one. Until people are practicing “do no harm” like it’s their job, orgasming comes second to playing safe. So in addition to not hurting others, we don’t hurt ourselves, and the best way to do that is to know ourselves.

“Speak Up and Speak Out” as well as “Throw No Stones” both pull out of the genitals and move into the brain. There’s a lot to understand about sex, Abramson points out, that goes beyond how to do it. These two chapters discuss fairness, protecting oneself and others, ways to avoid or deal with sexual abuse, and harnessing judgment and stigmas around sex—especially as they’re expressed in the US.

While it’s unlikely to happen, the book should probably be part of the curriculum of every high school sex ed class. Occasionally, explanations seem to drag on and some analogies comparing sex to soccer go just a little too far, but the points are valid, clear, and important. Much of what Abramson discusses in this short book may seem blatant to a sexually active adult, but to a young person, the insights (or at least the lessons attached to them) could be huge.

Written by: Tatiana Ryckman, April 29th 2010

The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:06:00 +0000

By Jennifer Ashton Avery

Avery Trade

I am skeptical of books that aim to educate teens about all things related to one’s adolescent body, but The Body Scoop for Girls exceeded my expectations. Jennifer Ashton is a gynecologist and CBS medical correspondent who has written a user-friendly manual for young girls I wish I had read when I was entering the tricky terrain we call puberty. As she points out, what passes for sex education in schools still leaves a lot to be desired—no pun intended—when it comes to teenagers having the kind of comprehensive information necessary to make choices that could change the trajectory of their lives forever.

Yes, I know there has been a lot of debate on the value of preaching abstinence to teens versus providing them with information about and access to contraceptives. Ashton seems to lean toward the school of thought that ‘more is better’ when it comes to sex ed. She also believes that teens shouldn’t wait until they’re sexually active to see a gynecologist, but acknowledges that, for many parents, this is akin to giving your daughter a green light to have sex.

Ashton acknowledges the tremendous pressures that teens are under—from popular culture as well as their peers—when it comes to expressing their sexuality. She advocates teens waiting until they are eighteen to have sex, and even gives readers a list of excuses they can give to a pressuring partner before they are ready. For women who are sexually active, Ashton has good pointers as well, like always use a condom even if you are taking hormonal birth control because neither method is foolproof and the latter doesn’t keep you safe from HIV. She lists the different types of contraceptives, their pros and cons, and commonly held misconceptions about each one.

I consider myself relatively well educated and informed about need-to-know health and wellness topics, but I learned a lot from reading this book, even things that will impact my own health choices as a forty-something female. Ashton has the ability to explain complex information in an engaging and accessible manner. She comes across like a cool older sister when discussing subject matter that is often embarrassing for teen women. (It doesn’t hurt that Ashton, whose picture is featured on the book cover, is young, blonde, and attractive—just what many teenage girls aspire to be.)

Ashton covers everything about the female body in The Body Scoop for Girls—from breast health to safe waxing tips to protecting yourself from sexually transmitted infections. In one interesting section, she talks about the risks of breast implants, which is classified as a major surgery, and advises girls to wait until they’re older than twenty, the age the female body ceases to mature, before considering breast implants. Ashton also dispels myths about the causes of breast cancer, such as using certain deodorants increases the risk, and imparts a few lesser known facts. (Did you know that the more alcohol you consume, the higher your risk of getting breast cancer?)

As I was reading The Body Scoop for Girls, I thought more than once that we’re given more information about how to change the oil in our car or balance a checkbook than we are about how to respect and care for our bodies. The choices teenagers make can have lifelong implications. If you’re a parent of a teenage daughter, buy a copy of this book for her and read it when she’s done. You won’t regret it, and you might even learn something in the process.

Written by: Gita Tewari, February 22nd 2010

Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:06:00 +0000

Directed by Kirby Dick

Zeitgeist Films

Private Practices is the story of a sex surrogate, Maureen Sullivan Ward, who teaches men with sexual dysfunctions how to improve their sexual communication, physical expression, and experience pleasure.

Maureen "Mo" Sullivan Ward approaches sex in a clinical fashion, seeking ways to make clients more comfortable and assisting them in exploring their personal fears and phobias. The documentary features two men, Kipper, a twenty-five-year-old novice in graduate school who cannot advance beyond verbal communication with a female and John, a forty-five-year-old divorcee who is grieving the reality of his wife’s twenty year displeasure with their sex life.

The beginning of the movie acknowledges the moral and ethical conflicts that may arise with the field of sexual surrogacy, but redirects the viewers to focus on the lives, not the tension, in the film as they confront an underground topic of supreme sensitivity that is sexual awkwardness and hardship.

Private Practices gives peripheral insights from the families, friends, and neighbors who observe Ward in her profession. Naturally, as the film unfolds, questions begin to surface about Ward how her work affects her personal relationships and lovemaking. Briefly, we see the complications of Ward’s own life as it delves into her family dynamics and history.

Initially, I thought the film would primarily focus on the two men and their perceived inadequacies. However, as the story deepened, new revelations came slowly and with compassion. The film is not just about John and Kipper as clients, but rather, they are symbolic of insecurities and problems that most adults face at one time in their sexual development. It is a careful dissection of sexuality and the relationships we build in our families and in childhood that lead us to falsehoods, myths, and assumptions about how we will be as partners and lovers. Ward’s role as a surrogate and her background is every bit explored as Kipper and John, which tantalizes and blurs the lines of right and wrong in these controversial therapeutic relationships.

A psychological and clinical lens frames the three lives and helps keep the story contained and moving. The slight doctor’s office feel helps navigate the explicit scenes that practice caressing in full nudity. With boundaries and directness, the clients are carefully guided, never being pushed or hurried in their process. Each story is unique, but reveals a common truth that Ward sums up with as she reflects on her journey: "We're all in the same boat." They are all searching for a place of understanding, comfort, and healing.

This film, in the field of sexual surrogacy, explores the safety, richness, futility, and dangers of sex therapy. If our societal mental disorder of sexual schizophrenia is as prevalent in 1985 as it is today, Private Practices remains a useful tool and talking point when considering the lines of human relationship and sexual frailty.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 8th 2009

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:00:00 +0000

By Jessica Valenti

Seal Press

Jessica Valenti is a part of the feminist blogger elite, and for good reason. The blog she helped to establish, Feministing.com, receives a significant amount of web traffic and is well-known among young, internet savvy, hip feminists. Full disclosure: I read Feministing every now and then. Having read Valenti’s writing on the blog—which tends to be oversimplified and, quite frankly, bratty—I was hoping her analysis in book form would show a tad more depth. Unfortunately for Valenti, there’s a downside to fame; it opens you up for public criticism.

If Full Frontal Feminism is supposed to be the spark that ignites young women to claim their identity as "feminists" and hop aboard the Third Wave train, then women are in deep trouble. Valenti writes like feminism's version of Ann Coulter, and let’s face it, Ann Coulter is hardly known for her intelligent commentary. Flamboyant and egotistical, much of Valenti’s analysis is trite, at best. She makes sweeping generalizations (“When you’re a feminist, day to day life is better. You make better decisions. You have better sex.”), repeatedly refers to her opponents by juvenile names ("The consequence of having the last name Buttars is apparently being a huge asshole."), confuses “truth” with “opinion,” and seems to have done very little actual research to back up her claims, as very few citations accompany her assertions.

At times, she doesn’t feel the need to make an assertion at all, responding with a facile yet grandiose “Puke,” a deliberately ironic “Yeah,” or a pithy “Terrifying,” as though this is all that she needs to make her case. And despite hackneyed attempts every now and again to mention other marginalized groups, the truth is that this book overwhelmingly reflects the viewpoint of its white, middle class, (I assume) heterosexual, entitled, American, liberal feminist writer.

Valenti doesn’t give her readers credit for being able to do the thing she most wants them to do: think critically. This is apparent in the fallacious style by which she presents her perspectives. My personal favorite—taken straight from the right wing, talk radio instruction manual—is how Valenti uses the bait-and-switch tactic to “prove” her point (e.g., contending that anti-abortion advocates simply hate sex). A close second is when she uses the most extreme cases to illustrate a point as though they aren’t the exception to the rule (e.g., making the case for all women to have access to Emergency Contraception because rape victims should have access to it). These tactics are most unfortunate because, even as a person who is largely ideologically aligned with Valenti, I began to question her standpoint as fearmongering overshadowed politics.

Perhaps Valenti believes that young women won’t be moved unless they’re shocked by what she says, or completely scared to death. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it belittles the audience in the process. Oh, and did I mention that she uses the book as a forum to talk public trash about petty tiffs she’s had with other bloggers? If fear doesn’t sell you on feminism, apparently Valenti believes taking sides in some inane, personal dispute will.

Full Frontal Feminism is written in sound bytes, each chapter being comprised of smaller (usually) one page-long explanations of a given issue: sex education vs. abstinence only, virginity pledges, expensive weddings, unattainable beauty standards, and other typical feminist fare. Apparently, the television has taken its toll (or so Valenti thinks) on the public because there is no sense of organization or logic to the structure of the book. And solutions? Those must have been left for someone else to tackle because you won’t find them here, at least not outside of the standard volunteer, give money, and vote.

Now I know I’ve pretty much run this book into the ground, but I do want to say that I get what Valenti is trying to do here. And it’s a really smart idea. She wants to reach out to young women who don't call themselves "feminists" and let them know that it’s okay, cool even, to be down with the F-word. She wants to tell them that they already believe in feminist ideals and have benefited from the women’s movement. And she wants to encourage them to continue in that tradition in order to kick some misogynist ass. That’s a really honorable goal that, unfortunately, was a victim of poor execution.

If you’re truly looking to find out why feminism matters, you’d be better served to flip to the booklist in the back of Full Frontal Feminism and read some of the titles listed there—including Colonize This_!, _Listen Up: Voices from the Next Generation, To Be Real, and The Fire This Time—because cool packaging is really great, but if there’s nothing of substance inside then what you are selling is just the packaging.

Eds note: Since comments seem to have been discontinued on Feministing in order to silence critique, folks are welcome to continue discussion in the "Comments" on the _Full Frontal Feminism _review on this blog. All comments have been, and will continue to be, approved. Feminist Review blog encourages healthy and necessary debate. As our mission says, "Feminist Review blog believes that all opinions - positive and critical - are valuable and seeks to give voice to communities that remain on the margins" and to create a space where "differences can be represented and explored."

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, April 27th 2007

The Education of Shelby Knox: Sex, Lies & Education

admin — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 21:39:00 +0000

Directed by Marion Lipschutz, Rose Rosenblatt

Incite Pictures

Good Southern Baptist girls pledge abstinence until marriage; rarely do they take on the school board in a battle for comprehensive sex education. Shelby Knox did both-and made national headlines in the process. The Education of Shelby Knox: Sex, Lies & Education, chronicles both Knox’s fight for information and her own questioning of her religious upbringing. As she struggles to push the school board of Lubbock, Texas to go beyond its abstinence-only sex education policy, she also challenges the narrow views her church has taught her. It’s an honest, compelling story that opened the doors for a national dialogue about what teens are-or aren’t-being taught about sex, and the consequences. Knox’s story begins during her sophomore year. She can’t reconcile the district’s official sex education policy, "no sex before marriage," with the fact that Lubbock has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STI infection in the nation. "People just really ignore pregnant girls at my school," she says, noting that teachers in the district risk getting fired if they stray from the official line that abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Despite her own commitment to remain a virgin until she gets married, Knox spearheads the Lubbock Youth Commission’s efforts to get more information. Just fifteen when she starts this quest, Knox bucks her own pastor, who criticizes her transition to becoming a "liberal" Christian, and compares showing students how to use condoms to showing kids how to use guns. Undaunted by a superintendent who won’t return the Youth Commission’s phone calls, and a principal who tells her that the school board "had warned him" about her, Knox spends three years on a tireless crusade in the name of comprehensive sex education. Undaunted by the adults who treat her as a child, she insists to her parents that her mission is worth the toll it’s taking on her emotionally. She also takes on a new goal: getting the district to approve a gay-straight alliance at her school. She even meets with the head of the right-wing Family Values Coalition, asking him not to object to the teens’ efforts, and doesn’t hesitate to talk back when he challenges her standing as a good Christian.

In the end, Knox didn’t persuade him, or the school board, to take her side. Rather than confront the issue at hand, the City of Lubbock decides to yank the Youth Commission’s funding. Sold out by the Commission’s politically aspiring youth mayor, Knox resigns after three years of fighting. Although she says it’s the first time she tried to do something and failed, one can’t help coming away with the sense that Knox-and the filmmakers-won. Knox, and the documentary, sparked a national debate that no one anticipated. Filmmakers Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt told PBS that when they started making the documentary in 2001, no one wanted to talk about sex education, including a prospective funder who told them that "culture wars are over." Five years later, that’s hardly the case.

Knox continues to push for comprehensive sex education in Texas, where she is studying public policy at the University of Texas at Austin, and schools across the country are engaged in a debate about what should be taught. Don’t think that the abstinence-only policy is limited to conservative Southern states, either; Lipschutz notes that her son’s school outside of New York City "won’t talk about abortion and is giving incomplete information on how HIV/AIDS is transmitted." Twenty minutes away from where I live near Portland, Oregon, across the Washington state border, several school districts teach abstinence-only education. And although it’s considered a "blue" state, Washington doesn’t require schools to teach medically accurate sex education information. State Representative Brian Blake is one of the legislators fighting to pass a bill that would require medically accurate information. His district includes Cowlitz County, which currently has the state’s highest rate of gonorrhea and has high rates of teen pregnancy and other sexually transmitted diseases. Blake, a Democrat, says he can’t understand "for the life of me" why legislators would oppose students having access to medically accurate information. "Abstinence-only education puts kids at risk," he says. "I think we have an obligation to give them age-appropriate information that allows them to make informed decisions. We know that our kids are getting pregnant, and we’ve got to drive the rate of (teen) pregnancy down, and the rate of disease down. You would hope that every home had supportive parents that had open communication with their children, but unfortunately, that’s not the reality that we’re in." If Washington had an advocate like Knox, they’d get a dose of reality pretty quickly.

Written by: M.L. Madison, November 20th 2006