Posts Tagged ‘Feminism’

The Wesleyan Argus

By Tess Scriptunas, Staff Writer

Sexologist Megan Andelloux, who has come to campus four years running, is a huge proponent of lube, not so much desensitizing cream.

“Lube is great.  I repeat, lube is great,” said Megan Andelloux, emphatically kicking off her annual Sex Toys Workshop in Shanklin Hall last Wednesday. Andelloux, a certified sexuality educator, or “sexologist,” according to her business card, has been coming to Wesleyan for the past four years to speak on the fascinating, controversial, and always exciting topic of sex. While the workshop was largely light-hearted and entertaining, it was in fact sponsored by FemNet—Wesleyan’s Feminist Network—and raised interesting questions about the relationship between sex and feminism.

The workshop covered a broad range of topics, from desensitizing cream to handcuff alternatives to new ways to make use of a vacuum.  No matter the topic, Andelloux had a witty comment to explain it.

“Desensitizing cream is the devil, like douching,” she said. “Just remember the three D’s: desensitizing cream, devil, douching. It’s like the Energizer Bunny of lube.”

At the front of the room was a table strewn with toys, which she went through and explained one by one. Andelloux also passed around the toys and had the audience participate in such activities as testing out the vibrators by placing them against their nostrils.

“If it makes you sneeze, it’s too strong,” she explained.

Given its provocative, shocking, and hilarious subject matter, students who attended the workshop had a wide range of responses to it, but on the whole their reactions were very positive, the event ending with raucous applause.

“Clearly it was interesting,” said Alec Harris ’14 with a laugh.  “It was shocking at first but I found I got used to it very quickly. It was very lube-heavy.”

Despite the fun and light-hearted tone of the lecture, FemNet did have a slightly more serious purpose in hosting the event.  Katie DiBona ’11, president of the group, elaborated on FemNet’s intentions in bringing Andelloux to speak.

“It’s really important to FemNet to bring people to campus who believe in sex positivity and think that sex is about having fun and good communication,” DiBona said. “People who believe in celebrating sex instead of making it into a taboo.”

DiBona described what she sees as the broader relationship between the sexual liberation of women and feminism.

“Men are often seen as the ones whose role it is to be sexual,” she said. “Celebrating women as sexual beings and not viewing their sexuality as something negative or that makes them a slut is really important to feminism and women’s rights.”

Students offered different perspectives on the workshop’s relevance to feminism.

“Most of the toys were catered towards women, and she definitely came off as a strong, independent woman,” said Emma Pattiz ’13. “There were also definitely more women in the audience.”

Another student thought that the feminist focus of the workshop was appropriate due to the long history of sexual oppression of women.

“The lecture was feminist in that Megan focused on consent and pleasure, when sex has been used to oppress women and other marginalized groups for a long time,” said Elizabeth Halprin ’14, a member of FemNet.  “I also appreciated that she used terms like penis-owner and vagina-owner, because too often our society conflates biological sex and gender.”

Yet other attendees saw less of an emphasis on feminism in Andelloux’s talk.

“I don’t think it was overbearingly feminist; it was just really based on equality,” said Harris.  “In the beginning she said that she doesn’t care who you are, or who you’re doing it with—she just wants sex to be fun. Although from a perspective where women aren’t seen as having as much control in the bedroom, it could have been considered feminist just because it was equalizing.”

However, the negative aspects of linking a sex toys lecture with the causes of feminism were also questioned.

“Sexual empowerment can be a very important tool for women, but you have to examine it critically,” Halprin said. “When women use sex to empower themselves it can continue to promote the idea of them as sexual objects or purely sexual beings,”

DiBona shared similar opinions, but saw the dangers as less relevant.

“It’s definitely a valid opinion; it’s just another way of being a feminist, one that’s not my way,” she said. “There is that danger, but for me what I think is important is to get women—female-bodied people—to feel equipped to combat sexism and paternalism and other forms of oppression by feeling empowered themselves.”

While others expressed concern about whether or not advocates of women’s rights should focus their efforts on educating about sex toys when there are such issues as the condition of women in developing countries or the continued existence of sex-trafficking at hand, DiBona defended the importance of the workshop.

“You can’t create hierarchies of issues,” DiBona said. “Who’s to say what is more important or what type of oppression is worse? There is no one way of being a feminist, so when people are participating in feminist activism it’s really about what parts of feminism are most relevant to them and that they think are important to put their time and efforts into. Sex positivity and good communication in sex are really important to me, so that’s why I put my efforts in this direction.”

Students tended to agree that such workshops were an important and essential contribution to feminism.

“I think it’s important to demystify sex, because our society is pretty Puritanical, and so the more opportunities that everyone has to find out about sex the better,” Halprin said.

Pattiz agreed that the sex-toy workshop is part of a continuum of the feminist movement.

“I mean, when you compare it to giving microloans to women in third world countries, it’s like, what the hell are we doing?” Pattiz said.  “But women’s sexual liberation has been an important part of the feminist movement for a long time, and sex toys are a relatively new outlet for expressing that liberation. A workshop on sex toys is a light-hearted approach to making people feel comfortable about women’s sexuality.”

Let’s Talk About Sex!

I recently met an incredible feminist, Megan Andelloux, on campus at Brandeis University when she did a workshop on sexual pleasure and awareness as part of our annual Vagina Week, leading up to the Vagina Monologues.

As an FMLA member, this was a great feminist event – 1 – Megan is insanely empowering! 2 – we were able to pull in a lot of student’s that wouldn’t necessarily come to a FMLA meeting/event because her workshops are about improving one’s sexual awareness and skills .

Campus clubs were able to collaborate on bringing Megan to campus because she is both health and pleasure focused and fantastically entertaining.

Megan is about to launch an exciting new project, The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, with a *Grand Opening* this month in Rhode Island.

To give you a chance to get to know her better and an opportunity to come to the Grand Opening where there will be lots of food, fun, give-aways and famous sex-positive feminist activists, here is an exerpt of my interview with Megan:

E: So Megan, what do you do?

M: I work as a sexuality educator in many different formats. The majority of my time is spent providing workshops at colleges and universities on topics relating to sexual pleasure and health (the focus being more on the pleasure and intertwining health in). [...] I work within the medical community, teaching medical students and providers how to be sex positive doctor’s, educating them on common concerns/questions and topics the public holds (but that they aren’t taught in med school) and finally, how to provide safe, non-threatening, empowering pelvic exams. And I do that with the use of my body (vagina, brain and mouth). [...and] I work within the media as a public policy analyst regarding sexual rights challenges to our freedoms.

E: What does being a feminist mean to you?

M: A feminist is something I would most identify myself as. My passion, my life work’s, all of my reading materials and a day to day way of life for me. To me, being a feminist is all about giving people options. The option to do this or that, go into one field vs. another, to become a sex worker, to be monogamous to one person only, choose one type of birth control over another, etc. Being a feminist means challenging others and yourself. When you feel uncomfortable, ask yourself why? When someone says something you don’t agree with or don’t understand, ask them why? It’s only through the option of challenging others, which is a right we have fought for and won, that we grow and change the world for the better. We can’t just accept what we have, we have to want to build upon it.

That’s what being a feminist and a sex educator is to me. Options. Challenging. When people go to my workshops, yes I want them to have fun and learn, but I also want them to ask questions with the information I provide! I want to push people! Because really, those questions are going to spark a change in the future. New research, new standards of roles one can possess, totally new concepts can occur when you don’t accept what is laid before you.

E: How did you get involved in the world of sexuality?

M: There are three answers I give to this question. The fun and easy answer is I had a knack for memorizing sex facts, don’t ask me why. I had a knack for memorizing sexual issues and it was a social issue, a perfect fit for me. At first I wanted to be a sex therapist, but I quickly found out that I wanted to help people BEFORE they ended up with sexual issues, so I went into education.

Secondly, being a Sexuality Educator was a way for me to rebel against the way a girl was supposed to behave. My parents subscribed to strict gender role behaviors and “good girls don’t talk about sex”. When I decided this was going to be my career path, I choose to tell my parents in a restaurant so they couldn’t freak out on me. The first thing that was said was Oh! Megan! Girls can’t do that! Typical. but that’s also why I choose to name my company Oh Megan! because my mother was always saying that to me for talking about sexually related topics. Oh Megan! That’s inappropriate.

Thirdly, I think I became involved in the world of sexuality because after I was raped, no one would talk to me about it. I didn’t have a space where I could fully disclose because people were uncomfortable and didn’t know how to handle the conversation. It seemed strange to me, and I was angry that our culture talks so much about sex, but we don’t provide answers when people have questions and concerns. I think becoming a sex educator was a way for me to work out some of my issues, get answers to my questions and to provide a space so others wouldn’t feel alone or ashamed for what they were thinking or had experienced.

E: The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health sounds incredible. Can you talk about the relationship between the sex-positive world and the medical world?

M: My work’s mission is to join these two world together so I had to create The Center!

Too often the medical world turns it’s back on the pleasure-focused side of sex and the pleasure-focused world is totally bored by the medical world. But they need each other to survive! The Center will be a respectable entity for medical providers to work with and is already developing ties with Boston University, Brown University, Mass General Hospital and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schools.

Working with professionals in the medical field, and most importantly, with medical students, we can create change within the medical school curriculum. Some medical students are starting to chime in that they want more sexuality information. (The majority of med students have 12 hours of sex education composed of birth control, pregnancy, STD’s and sometimes, pregnancy terminations.) I am working closely with Boston University Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to develop sexuality curriculum with fundamental structural changes.

Outside of the medical world, it’s important to remember that most people want to understand their body; what’s taking place within them. Traditionally, that information has been withheld from the public, but the feminist and pro-sex communities have some of the best documentations and discussions on sex and sexual health data.

The Center’s focus will be education and advocacy work. The CSPH will be the perfect blend of health, pleasure and advocacy. There will be written & visual resources, medical journals pertaining to sexual issues available, toys (with education on what we would/wouldn’t recommend), kink-friendly resources, sexual health and rights speakers, medical and pro-sex positive resources available for loan right from the start, and in the spring, offer a certification series for sex education classes with C.E. credits.

E: Are there any opportunities to get involved with the center either as an individual or as a campus organization?

M: Yes! The best way to get involved would be to attend the grand opening on Sept 26th in Pawtucket, RI. The grand opening will be a fund raising event and feature some of the best and brightest individuals in the field! Sex educators, sex therapists, sex worker advocates, authors, and sexual right advocates will be speaking and you can schmooze with them after they speak. (Scheduled speakers include Carol Queen, Bill Taverner, Betty Dodson, Gina Ogden, oh yeah, and me!) Tables with community and national resources will be throughout the location so people can learn more about resources they might not have known about.

You can also attend classes and workshops which will start in the fall and in the spring, apply to be an intern! As a campus organization, if you can’t come to us, we can come to you and talk about sexual advocacy issues, starting a nonprofit, getting into the field, etc.

E: How can I get you to come to my campus?!

M: Fill out the contact form here

Posted by Elisette at 11:27 AM Posted on Choices Campus Blog