July 16th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: Girls, magazines, Menarche, ritual, tradition
Posted in Girls, Menarche, magazines | Comments Off
December 19th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by Therese Shechter, filmmaker (Trixie Films)
Alert: Links are Not Safe for Work
German teen magazine Bravo, known for it’s explicit information on sexuality and sexual health has done it again with their feature: Vulva-Galerie: Schau, welche Unterschiede es gibt! which according to my Google translator means”Vulva Gallery: Look, what are the differences?”
The text says: The vulva is the externally visible part of the vagina. Do you want to finally know what it looks like on other girls? We show you the variations! If you click on Hier siehst du, welche Vulva-Variationen es gibt! (Here are the vulva variations!), you get a gallery of photographs of female genitals, photographed from the front. Some are pierced, some are hairy, some are shaved, some have larger labia…but unfortunately, they’re all white and none of the women seem to be on the larger side.
That’s too bad, because the underlying message is a good one: Stop comparing your ladyparts to women in mainstream porn. This is what we look like when we’re not being seen through the male gaze. Every vulva is different and special in its own way. Again, I wish there had been some diversity in race and size. Is Germany really such a homogeneous society? I don’t think so. The photo series ends with a more explicit photo of the inner vulva, complete with labels. Continue reading...
Tags: Girls, guest post, magazines, sex education, vulva
Posted in Communication, Girls, magazines | 8 Comments »
October 27th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
From November 2009 Redbook magazine
Well, we do, of course. But the editors of Redbook magazine assume that the topic is not of even the slightest interest to their readers.
The clipping at the left is from the November, 2009, issue, which I found at my neighborhood laundromat. It’s from a larger sidebar that lists three books for the month with capsule reviews: Lit by Mary Karr is headed “With the Club”; Lauren Grodstein’s A friend of the family is headed “In the Tub”; and Elissa Stein and Susan Kim’s Flow: The cultural history of menstruation receives the heading “One to Snub”. In case the text is too small or the image isn’t visible in your browser, the review reads as follows:
You welcome it, bemoan it, or just live with it. However you feel about your period, we’re pretty sure most of you would rather spend your cash on a three- to five-day supply of Ben & Jerry’s than this 250-plus-page tome that teaches you about menstruation in the animal kingdom and the origin of tampons.
Apparently Redbook editors know their readers; one only has to travel about 15 pages further into this issue to find the featured cover story about questions you’re too embarrassed to ask your doctor. You know, questions about periods and other things down there.
Tags: books, Humor, irony, magazines
Posted in Menstruation, books | 13 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
Anyone else seen the premier issue of Whore! Magazine (Fast, Feminist, and Feminine) yet? My copy arrived yesterday and while I haven’t read the whole thing yet, I’m enjoying the quality of the writing and the production values.
RSS 
