THE INTERSECTIONS ISSUE

THUNDERPUSSY | SEXPERTS | FOOD JUSTICE | GYM CULTURE

THE SIREN FEMINIST MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

The Intersections Issue

It is an honor and a delight to share with you The Intersections Issue, a magazine that would not have been possible without the help of many incredible contributors, editors, and Women’s Center employees.

Taking the reins of The Siren this term has been both an adventure and a monumental challenge, and I could not have done it without this incredible creative team.

The Siren is published and produced by the ASUO Women’s Center. It is the only student-led feminist publication on campus. It is our mission to cover contemporary feminist issues and act as an outlet

for the creative and intellectual development of women. Our staff consists of an editorial board of Women’s Center staff and volunteers who solicit contributions from student writers and artists.

To continue The Siren’s mission of accessible and intersectional feminism, this theme gives contributors a chance to reflect on the intersections of identities, because, in the words of Audre Lorde, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

HANNAH LEWMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

THE SIRENS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Hannah Lewman

MANAGING EDITOR

CONTENT EDITOR

Sophie Albanis

Zach Lusby

CONTRIBUTORS Annalee Nock

Perri McGee

Dori Mosman

Monica Nunan

Isabel Courtelis

Sarah Golestaneh

Dominique Ehmig

Gabby Urenda

Rachel Benner

Amy Rapillo

Natalie Pearson

Suzie Barrientos

Hayleigh Swartz

Molly Zaninovich

PUBLISHERS ASUO Women’s Center

Oregon Web Press

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TABLE OF CONTENTS SWEET PEACH RICE & BEANS A PAIR OF BLACK SILK GLOVES POLITICIZING POP CONSENT IS SEXY INTERSECTIONAL MEDIA STALKING APPS SURVIVORS IN ACTIVISM SPORTS JOURNALISM THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES

6 8 10 12 16 19 20 22 26 28

30 32 34 36 39 40 42 44 47 48 52 60 62

GENDERED LANGUAGE AUDRE LORDE FOOD JUSTICE THE UOPD GAY BLOOD MORE FIBER, LESS YOU 2016 PLAYLIST GAY AT THE GYM THE NEW JERSEY 4 ASK THE SEXPERTS THUNDERPUSSY ANDI ZEISLER ART

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Sweet Peach

girls are like fruits, sweet skin and succulent parts when they spill boys like it and fruits must be kept in near and tidy boxes easier to reach girls, perennial the way our mothers ripened we do not fall far

words by annalee nock

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“Rice and beans…Again?” wailed my children. Yep, that most economical, nutritionally satisfying dish…again. As a single mom on a very tight budget my children were subjected to rice and beans often. Now, as adults, I have heard the comment over the Thanksgiving table, “Remember mom’s rice and beans? I wish I could make them like she does.” It took them a few years but my children are now grateful that we had sit-down, home-cooked meals almost every night.

Even if it was very often rice and beans.

There are so many variations, but my most common variation is below. I can make a pot of rice and beans go a long way! I would make a big batch and serve them with fried tortillas and then use the leftovers for breakfast burritos (add scrambled eggs, cheese, and Verde sauce on flour tortillas), add them to basic chicken soup, or make cheesy chicken or tofu casserole out of them (a cheese béchamel sauce is a great way to make expensive cheese go farther, look it up on YouTube).

So now when I am making rice and beans, I text the two of my children living in-town and announce it to them. They show up! In typical sibling fashion, they text the other two living out-of-town and make them jealous. They never really grow out of being pestering siblings. recipe by the scrappy cook, perri allison mcgee

RICE & BEANS 1 cup short or long grain rice 2 tablespoon vegetable oil 1/2 medium onion, diced 1-2 cloves garlic, minced or finely diced 1 can Rotel tomatoes (original or hot) 1 can (14 oz) chicken or veggie broth plus 2 oz water

OR use 16 ounces of water 1 can black beans, or kidney beans, rinsed and drained 2 ts cumin 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon dried oregano Small pinch of red pepper flakes (optional) *add fresh, diced hot peppers, if desired In a dutch oven or large heavy skillet sauté onion (and optional fresh hot peppers) in 2 TB veggie oil, until onion is soft and translucent. Add dry rice, garlic and all seasonings; sauté 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly.

Add veggie broth, Rotel tomatoes, and beans; stir together. Cover pan with foil and a lid to make a good seal. Place in pre-heated oven at 325°. Check after 20 minutes to stir and see if rice is tender, reseal if not.

Check every 5-10 minutes. May cook 30-40 minutes depending on type of rice used.

Serving options: Serve with diced avocado, jack cheese, sour cream, cotija cheese, cilantro, tortilla strips or fried tortillas, fresh tomato, additional hot peppers, or any type of hot sauce or salsa. Endless options!

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A PAIR OF BLACK SILK GLOVES Here’s a thought: you are smarter than him. Let that sink in, let it wash over you, clean, bright, shiny, new. Very new, I imagine. You’ve spent a lot of hours with him rolling his eyes when you want to watch Bridget Jones’s Diary, snapping the cord away when you want to play Whitney Houston in the car, scoffing at the fact you’ve never read Bukowski when he’s never laid a finger on Jane Austen. Listen anyway: you are smarter than him. How does that feel? Scary?

New? How does that feel to you now?

Like all other boys you’ve known, he likes to correct you. You tell him once walking through the sun that when you were a kid you and your friends used to try and lick each other’s elbows secretly and see if anyone noticed, because the backs of elbows, creased-over and dry, are not very sensitive to touch. He doesn’t laugh.

Instead, he tells you elbows have more nerve endings than almost any part of the body, that you are wrong, they’re extremely sensitive from a scientific standpoint. He likes telling you this so much; you can tell. Better than the story.

Better than the laughter in your voice when

you told it, better than the image of thirteen-year-old you crouched and poised by the back of somebody’s elbow, ridiculous and young.

He likes when he’s right and you’re wrong.

You are smarter than him.

Your older sisters brag about you to their friends, your perfect GPA, your passion and your drive, your way with words. He thinks your taste in movies is pedestrian. After you tell him how much you love Breakfast at Tiffany’s - how your sisters used to gather in the basement with croissants and a tablecloth to watch it, how they bought long black gloves like Audrey’s and let you wear them as a little girl, how beautiful and grown-up you felt in that silk - he says he doesn’t have a favorite movie because he “appreciates films for their art.” He uses the word “objectively.”

Boys love this word. They love it almost as much as they love educating you, enlightening you, teaching you how silly and little you are. Yet still you are smarter than him. You once stayed up all night drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes in the backyard while you studied U.S. presidents from a crash-course APUSH textbook and that morning you got a perfect score on the SAT subject test. He is

tight-lipped when you tell him this. It doesn’t come up again.

Like all other boys you’ve known, he has big hands.

And big eyes, and big arms, and a bigger voice. Even when he whispers he shouts, even when he sits down he takes up a whole room, even when he kisses you he’s thinking how short you are, how uninspired, how little.

Listen to me: you are bigger than him. He talks about high school too much and can’t hold a conversation without reliving some story he’s told a hundred times about some weekend somebody got really drunk. He hasn’t left home. He doesn’t have a job and he seems to get money from his parents and when you ask him where he wants to live at the end of it all he says here, I guess, here. But you’re tired of here. Here is tight around your shoulders and not around his, he is small and you are big, you are giant, you are the building downtown where you can see the fireworks from the sixteenth floor every Fourth of July, spectacular and loud and aflame over the river.

How does it feel to know this? How does it feel to be shiny and new and bigger and smarter and bright?

How does it feel? How does it feel? How does it feel? words by dori mosman

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POLITICIZING POP AN INTERVIEW WITH LOWELL photo by norman wong

Don’t let Lowell’s catchy beats and dreamy melodies fool you into thinking you’re consuming just any pop music. Her entire discography is rich in feminist themes, with pop anthems covering topics from sexual abuse to women’s rights. Tracks like “LGBT” and “I Killed Sarah V.” are enamoring activists and music critics alike with their dynamic sounds and politically-charged messages.

What were your expectations of the music industry, and have those held true?

I don’t even think that in high school I knew what sexism was. I don’t think I thought that people were still racist.

That was me being naive and still a child, and people not telling me how the world is. It’s not that I expected the music industry to be this easy road. In fact, I thought that if you wanted to be a musician, if you didn’t want to starve, you had to spend your life sacrificing yourself just to succeed if you didn’t want to live in a trashcan.

So I kind of went full force.

I’ve chilled out a bit because I realized it’s less about how much you sacrifice and more about how strategic you are.

But I definitely didn’t think that people would be so mean and that it was such

a huge man’s world. Those were not things that I knew existed, so I definitely didn’t expect that they would be inflicted on me. But I adjusted, as one does.

Do you have advice for other girls who want to get into music?

That’s hard because I hate to tell people how to live their lives. But I guess I would say, just to save yourself some of the difficulties, or the suffering that a lot of people go through, just make sure that you’re old enough to understand. And when I say old enough I don’t mean old in age, I mean wise beyond your years. Because people will prey on you. People prey on women. Because they think they’re weak and naive because we’re supposed to be, and as long as you overcome what society wants you to be as a woman, as long as you’re strong and intelligent and smarter than those people, they won’t be able to get you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, someone will try to get you.

So have your army ready, the army of you. And then don’t get down when they get you down.

Your music is quite political. What issues are important to you?

I get very emotional about #BlackLivesMatter. I don’t

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think I really understood, in high school, that racism still exists. That’s not what we’re taught, we’re taught about the Civil Rights Movement as a success, and not to undermine it as a success, I think it’s important to talk about it as a stepping stone, and we don’t really do that in school. So as a white person living in Calgary, Alberta, it’s not gonna be in my face, that kind of racism. Everything in the media, I think it’s really important to see. It’s hard to watch, it makes me cry, but it needs to be done. And I think that children, high school students, should be exposed to that, as hard as it is to see.

How do you decide which issues to focus on?

I’m an artist, and as an artist you’re just going up and down and things hit you hard and make you feel emotional. But I think it’s important to make sure it’s something you fully understand and something you know about. Any artist can relate to wanting to write about something that makes you so mad, and you just want to tell everybody how mad you are about this thing, but it might be something you don’t actually understand. If you are savvy about something, like for me I’ve chosen feminism as something that I trumpet,

you just understand. I am a woman and I’ve experienced it firsthand. When you’re half-aware you feel like you understand everything, and you’re actually less likely to let other people have a voice. But if I feel like I know something enough and I feel passionate about it I’ll just go for it. And I always have a tendency to lean toward any sort of underdog. My biggest thing is we all live on this world together so we should push each other up until we can all be treated on this same level.

Who do you write for?

I think I’m just writing to me.

I’m not trying to be preachy, I’m just speaking through my own experiences. It’s my own form of therapy, and because of that it reaches out to other people who have been through the same thing. I’ve always said that I try to put things in a simpler form so that it can reach the people who are the “swing states” of these topics. But I’m not writing to the people who are commenting on YouTube, the people who can’t be reached.

How do you want these audiences to feel when they listen to your music?

Some artists are great at finding their steady sound so the whole album feels really mellow, or an EDM

record where you can dance through the whole thing. I wouldn’t say that I’m that way because my brain doesn’t work that way. I wake up some days and I feel really positive about 2015, and then other days I feel like no one gets it and things will never change. So I don’t know, I guess I want people to feel hopeful but not there yet.

What are you proud of in your journey as an artist?

I’m a bit of a pusher, so I never take the time to be proud of the things I do, I’m always just moving on like “I gotta do this thing.”

But I guess there have been some live shows I’ve done that have felt pretty amazing. One show that I did in Denmark, I was playing with a band and I got to play in front of an insane crowd. It was the first time I had ever played a show so it was really rewarding and exciting for me, and then afterward I had this feeling of depression because I wasn’t sure I would ever play to a crowd like that again.

Coming home to Toronto, I’ve had fans in the front row mouthing all the words and just feeling something.

That’s special for any artist.

What are you doing as a feminist?

I have a feminist handbook in

my brain. Some of my rules are that I proactively never push down other women, no matter how much I feel like their beliefs aren’t the same as mine or I feel like they’re mislead. I’m really careful not to channel my energy into that. If I disagree with what someone is saying, even if they’re a feminist, I channel my energy into people I do think are thinking the same way as me, instead of taking the time to refute what others are saying. That’s one of my number one rules. I’ve seen a lot of very intelligent female musicians that do the same thing. They’re the ones that are out there that are helping me have a voice by inviting me to play shows with them or write with them or feature on their tracks.

That’s the kind of feminist artist I strive to be. Other than that I just try to always be aware of the obstacles I will face as a woman. The low expectations that certain people will have for me, I just try to ignore that and make sure that doesn’t inhibit me from learning everything that any woman is very capable of knowing. Sometimes even when you don’t have to know something, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Other than that just like, be chill and make good music, get eight hours of sleep. interview by hannah lewman

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ONE OF THESE BUTTONS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS Well, all, here we are once again. Fall term has come and gone, leaving in its wake a mess of dissolving chromatic foliage, while leaving the hand turkeys of Thanksgivings past to prepare their parchment feathers and pumpkin spices for the coming festivities. But upon deeper inhalation, something sour tinges the crisp autumn air and putrid rotting debris lies beneath each picturesque pile of changed leaves; it is this time, between the first weeks of Fall term and Thanksgiving break, that is commonly referred to as the “Red Zone,” a time in which college students, and freshman in particular, are statistically most likely to be sexually assaulted. This is my third fall term in attendance at the University of Oregon, and with each I have paid witness and participated

in our campus’ ongoing attempts to advocate against sexual violence, and to spread awareness in the hopes of alleviating assault on campus. In general, I applaud any of these efforts, preferring some form of activism to none at all, but in recent years the overwhelming insistence of, and underwhelming lack of critical discussion surrounding, the “Consent is Sexy” campaign has troubled me, immensely, and I am not alone.

“But Monica”- you will say- “you are nitpicking!

Consent is important, we have to make people aware and comfortable with the concept,” yes dear reader I agree with you completely, I do not doubt that the campaign in question is well intentioned and the message they are trying to convey is

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an incredibly important one, but the delivery and focus of their discussion is an issue.

Any movement that equates consent to anything other than sex is problematic, because sex without consent is not unsexy, it is rape. Consent is sex.

Consider, for a moment, the tagline “Consent is Sexy,” that is popularly touted by pins, posters and sexpositive white-feminists alike, what does this mean?

In the simplest terms this statement equates consent and sexy as the same, or describes consent as being by definition sexy. Do you see where I am going with this reader? Consent is NOT inherently sexy, it can be uncomfortable, awkward, sweaty, fumbling, or over eager rather than seductive at times but above all it is necessary. Does that mean that unsexy consent is not consent? In reality, of course not! Consent is consent, defining in its own right, powerfully self-autonomous simply by existence, sweaty or sexy is irrelevant because consent need only be present. By contrast, it is a lack of consent that requires redefinition, consent is sex, lack of consent is rape. This distinction is not made evidently clear by the Consent is Sexy campaign, when consent is equated

to sexual description rather than a necessary component of sex, it confuses the role of consent. The role of consent is not descriptive, it is necessary in order to have sex. You cannot pick and choose the level of “sexiness” or consent of each sexual encounter.

Consent is present in sex, in rape it is not. Consent is sex.

I write this article not as an attempt to scold activists who perpetuate the idea of consent as sexy, as I said I think their campaign is well intended but misunderstood.

Instead, I hope to start a tradition of aware discussion and critical reflection within our campus so that we might better understand the complexities of these issues and be equipped with the correct tools to properly solve them. The misunderstanding of safe sex and consent that is perpetuated by the Consent is Sexy movement is one that cannot afford to be had, let alone taught and marketed across college campuses each september.

So this, my final appeal, we need no longer sugar coat the relationship between sex and consent with frivolous and confusing Y’s. Consent is sex. words by monica nunan

INTERSECTIONAL POP CULTURE YOU NEED RIGHT NOW

MUSIC BABEO BAGGINS is a DC-based rapper/singer who is part of the Barf Troop crew. Their debut album “Posi+ive” has a sweet, edgy, and empowering sound.

They are non-binary, pansexual, and their pronouns are they/them/theirs.

LE1F is an NYC-based rapper who is most famous for his song “Wut.” In the music video, he dances on a greased-up white guy in a Pikachu mask. Le1f is gay and uses he/him/his pronouns. His new album, Riot Boi, is available now.

JULIANA HUXTABLE is a NYC-based DJ and poet.

She is the co-founder of the weekly queer party #ShockvalueNYC and has recorded vocals for Le1f. She is intersex and her pronouns are she/her/hers.

SHOWS JANE THE VIRGIN tells the story of a a working, religious young Latina virgin, who becomes pregnant after being artificially inseminated by mistake. The show positively features interracial and queer relationships, undocumented immigrants, as well as a sex worker.

WEBSITES ROOKIE is a site focused on providing content for female-identifying people. Recent articles have covered everything from Spring Valley High School to grief to the experience of being a minority on a college campus. words by isabel courtelis

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STALKING: THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT Imagine if someone had the power to record your conversations, monitor your Facebook messages, and even track every step you take.

In our world of modern technology, all of this is possible through an app. Unfortunately, if these apps fall in the wrong hands, they can be used as tools of manipulation and control in abusive relationships.

Spyware apps, such as mSpy and flexiSpy, are from multi-million dollar companies that profit off of privacy violations every year. The companies market their services as monitoring tools for employers and concerned parents, but brag openly on their websites that the apps can also be used for “discovering if your spouse is cheating.” The websites are plastered with big letters stating “Almost all men are prone to cheating: stop the lies and learn the truth,” as if to spark fear and encourage stalking. And this is where these apps get terrifying – within minutes, an overly controlling partner can begin tracking your every move, text, and call. All that is needed is a credit card and a couple minutes alone with your phone. Once the app is downloaded, it

does not appear on the device. The individual would have no idea their partner is monitoring them.

A quick Google search and one can find horrific stories from individuals who had no recollection these apps were downloaded onto their phones. Stories of people who went months, even years, before they discovered their partner was infringing on their privacy. For many, once they discovered of these apps, they lived in fear because their partners had access to all their information, social media, and pictures. The information could be used as blackmail against them and they remained in the relationship out of terror.

These monitoring apps are not only creepy and controlling, but they can also land you in jail. If these apps are being used without the consent of both parties, they are illegal. The apps are typically hosted in foreign countries, like Thailand in the case of flexiSpy, and do not cooperate with U.S.

laws. Upon downloading the app, there is a quick disclaimer informing users that they must obey the laws of whatever country they are located in, which does not necessarily occur. According to the FBI, advertising and selling spyware is a criminal offense. Using the app without consent is a violation of an individual’s privacy and can also be persecuted.

In our current society where our cellphones never leave our side, it is crucial to be aware of new forms of control, stalking, and even abuse. It is also important to know of the resources available to you: RENAE DESAUTEL, DIRECTOR OF CRISIS INTERVATION AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE SUPPORT SERVICES: 541-346-8194 OR EMAIL DESAUTEL@ UOREGON.EDU CRISIS INTERVENTION AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE SUPPORT SERVICES: call 541-346-SAFE to speak with a confidential counselor. words by sara golestaneh

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ACTIVISM’S SURVIVOR PROBLEM “It is absolutely crucial to leave space in any activist environment for the people who are traumatized by the culture you are campaigning against.”

It is impossible to accurately represent every individual in a community with a singular mindset. It is a continual struggle for those in the activist community to try to be sensitive to everyone’s individual experiences; this is a purpose of intersectionality, to be constantly recognizing one’s own privileges and experiences as well as the multiplicities of others. I write this piece as someone who is fully aware that my experiences do not define the struggles of anyone else who has shared experiences as me. I do not speak for every survivor and I do not speak for every feminist activist, and I do not intend to.

early 2014. My focus is on the microaggressions that occur and endanger the health of survivors, microaggressions that may not be as visibly damning as this scandal we all know so well. That being said, I felt it important to at least acknowledge the elephant in the room, which is that student activists face the difficult task of campaigning in the face of an administration that seems to be opposing them and their safety for the sake of money and sports titles.

These scandals are not a reflection of the activists within the community, but of an administration that ignores the needs of their students.

Being a survivor of sexual assault is not an easy role to exist in, and being such in an addition to being an activist is not as cohesive of a relationship as one might imagine. There are problems with sexual violence activism and advocacy on our campus. The problems are damaging to survivors and discouraging to others who may want to participate in future activism.

While creating a public discourse about campus sexual assault is incredibly important, there is a difference between educating the public and potentially triggering survivors in the public sphere. Yes, 1 in 4 women experience sexual violence during their time at university; yes this statistic is horrifically true and needs to be spread. However I do not need to be reminded of my being part of this statistic on my way to class in the morning. I’m referring the constant repetition of this statistic or others as equally damning around campus;

I’m not going to discuss the public victim shaming monstrosity that is the ongoing series of lawsuits regarding the sexual assault scandal that occurred in

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I’ve seen it on signs, written in chalk on the ground, I’ve had it emailed to me, I’ve heard it from teachers and students alike. Yes, the prevalence of sexual violence is something we all need to be aware of, but there is a difference between actually trying to make a change and educate people, and using statistics such as these as shock journalism, with little regard to actual victims in the world.

It may seem pragmatic to use shock value as a means of getting a point across, but it can be incredibly triggering to survivors to be consistently reminded of the assault they experienced.

Education is vital to ending sexual violence on campus, but continuously repeating an appalling statistic does nothing to educate people on consent, safe sex, or how to help a traumatized friend. Let’s focus more on the actual application of ending sexual assault, and less on the repetition of stale statistics.

A more tricky debate to enter is that of the space (or lack thereof) provided for survivors within the feminist community. It is absolutely crucial to leave space in any activist environment for the people who are traumatized by the culture you are campaigning against. All women and feminized

people are oppressed under rape culture, anyone and everyone can and should speak out against it. But to speak for, or speak over the voices of survivors is an act of violence. It is up to an individual survivor to decide whether they want to speak on their experiences.

However it is immensely easier to open up about such experiences if you know you will be given the time you need to speak, and the understanding you deserve from those who you are speaking to.

On a similar tangent, individuals who have survived sexual assault are more often than not left with severe mental health issues following their experiences.

Mental health advocacy goes hand in hand with feminist activism, and mental health issues need to be looked at with the same amount of open minded care and concern as any other illness.

Understanding of all mental illnesses, not just unipolar anxiety and depression, needs to be spread. The illnesses I mentioned are of course legitimate and serious, but garner more public attention and understanding than other disorders, such as those that affect personality and identity, and schizophrenic/ psychotic disorders. The

purpose of activism and advocacy is to give volume to voices that are marginalized, not to boost one’s individual ego or public reputation. Let the people who are affected by mental illness and sexual assault advocate and speak for themselves. Even if that voice seems too angry, or too intense. These issues are very real, and very scary.

People who are living with them have the right to be as critical of the movement supposedly defending them and as militant about their own health and treatment as they desire.

It is not easy to criticize a movement you are a part of, but it is essential for growth within a community.

The same ideologies and methods of activism that may have seemed right once, now need to be reevaluated.

No one person is perfect, we are all constantly learning as we grow more aware of the multiplicities to every person’s identity, and how these identities exist within our society.

Part of that growth will be realizing that you may be wrong about ideas you may have previously held. If someone is triggered by the methods that you are using to advocate for them; rather

than defending your views, perhaps it is time to reflect on why those views could be problematic. It is time to go beyond the mainstream capitalist representation of feminism that we have been taught. Shock factor is insensitive, consent is necessary, not sexy, and the voices of the marginalized and the victimized should always be heard over those who do not share in those identities. If your activism is ignoring those things, then it isn’t worth shit.

Most of the changes in our community can come from a change in mindset.

Opening up and listening to different perspectives on activism, and to the unique experiences of those around you is the first step. Admitting you may be wrong could very well be the second.

We all want the same thing; for sexual assault to be eradicated on our campus and for the downfall of the rape culture we exist in; this is not by any means an attack on activism as a whole. But our community needs to be safer for survivors to exist in, and it needs to critically self-reflect on what activism looks like on our campus. words by dominique ehmig

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FROM SPORTS JOURNALIST TO PROGRAMS COORDINATOR AND ACTIVIST My friend Vanessa Santillan and I first met in a Spanish Heritage class during our freshman year. We both professed our love for sports journalism and aspired to be board members of AWSM (Association for Women in Sports Media). It seemed as though we were both going to change the game of sports writing with a little diversity. Santillan, now a junior, wants to diversify a different place—an entire campus.

“I want to become a programs coordinator within a high school, but I [also] want to get my PhD in creative writing in Spanish” said Santillan. She wants to be involved in the community as much as possible because of what she feels is a lack of space and importance given by society to groups who seek services inside of The Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence (CMAE).

Santillan currently works three jobs, which include the UO card office, Dux Bistro, and being the program coordinator for IMPACT (Intercultural Mentoring Program Advancing Community Ties)—and these are only paid positions. She is also involved in MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) and is currently serving her last term on the board of AWSM, all while going to school full time.

Her involvement in those student programs influenced her to move away from sports journalism and toward a job helping a community.

“The whole sports media thing was a very childish thing of me,” said Santillan as she looked around her office in The CMAE. She explained her past thoughts about “being naïve and thinking that was the best thing that [she] could ever do.”

Growing up, Santillan was infatuated with soccer. It was difficult not to be when living in a large Latino community inside of the city of Hillsboro, Oregon. She also played junior varsity, varsity, and multicultural soccer for four years of her high school career and managed to make time to watch soccer every weekend with her family.

Once she got to UO, she started paying attention to other things besides what game was being featured over the weekend.

“It was like a culture shock because I wasn’t aware of all of the issues that were occurring—in terms of race and stuff. Not until I came here and I started seeing it firsthand,” said Santillan.

“For example, when I first went to my first class it was kind of weird because I was the only one that was a Latina,” Santillan added.

It was difficult for Santillan to deal with her many identities as a sports lover, writer, Latina, and activist. All she knew was that she wanted to help the people around her, a goal she would achieve through various campus groups.

Being a board member of AWSM made her realize that it wasn’t the sports journalism she was in love with, but the start-up in itself. She wants to hear students’ many ideas and follow through with them “because a lot of those ideas die out when they don’t have anybody be there.”

Santillan wants to be the person to help students’ ideas come to life because she didn’t always have that opportunity. As a Mexican woman and first generation college student, she feels she can help those students feel represented or seek representation for themselves with her help.

“It’s brave for students to be like ‘oh I have this idea and I want to follow through with it’ but they can’t do it without the support of the faculty or an advisor to get them funds, support, all of that stuff,” said Santillan. “I want to get them started.” words by gabby urenda

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PI BETA PHI PRESENTS: THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES When chapter president Emily McAlindin announced that Pi Beta Phi would stage a production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues this February, the packed dining room buzzed with energy.

Some girls giggled. Others raised their eyebrows. More than a few were blushing, and as we exited the meeting I heard someone whisper: “I have never heard the word vagina so many times in my entire life.”

I live in Pi Phi’s chapter house with 52 other women.

As we eat, sleep and study together, very little is offlimits for discussion. We talk about sex. We talk about periods. That Monday night, however, I realized: we never talk about vaginas.

So why start that conversation now, and in such a public way? When

Emily first saw The Vagina Monologues performed two years ago at Chapman University, she was moved by the play’s raw emotion. She loved that the monologues didn’t “tiptoe around” women’s issues and noticed the empathy that they inspired. She wanted to bring that emotional power to her own campus and FSL community, in hope of changing a culture in which Greek-affiliated students are significantly more likely to experience sexual violence.

A lot has been done to address this in the FSL community, from weekly workshops last spring term to the creation of the FSL Sexual Violence Prevention Task Force. For Emily though, and for many others in the community, that just isn’t enough. Though The

Vagina Monologues is by no means a solution to sexual violence, the play’s content is a challenge to the culture that created the problem.

Lectures and workshops can only do so much -- changing rape culture requires a deeper paradigm shift from an often apathetic and defensive audience. A play can elicit unique emotional reactions, and Pi Phi’s hope is that this production will inspire new respect and empathy for women: a step toward a culture in which sexual violence is simply not tolerated.

I will not pretend that my sorority is a hotbed of radical feminism, but I do think this upcoming production highlights the potential for good and social justice that sororities possess.

There is something special about a group of 200 women coming together, embracing vulnerability, and speaking up about difficult subjects. Many women, myself included, have found comfort and support in their greek-lettered homes. The “sisterhood” we profess (and sometimes joke about) has untapped power to challenge the status quo. I’m excited to finally try to use it.

I’d like to think that this is the kind of experience that Eve Ensler intended

to create with The Vagina Monologues. When writing the play, she approached women that wouldn’t usually talk about what’s “down there,” and found powerful art in that challenge to their comfort zone. In a way, the same process will take place in February. I can’t wait to see my sorority sisters sit on a stage and tell a crowd what their vagina would say, if it could talk. I look forward to watching people who wouldn’t usually identify as “feminists” publicly challenge patriarchal taboos surrounding the female body.

Sometimes I feel like my feminism is separate from my affiliation with Pi Beta Phi. It’s inspiring to see those two parts of who I am intersect, and I hope this project inspires others as well. Talking about vaginas isn’t the answer to the many problems within Greek life and campus culture, but maybe it’s a start. words by rachel benner Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues has traditionally had a cisgender-based concept of womanhood, but activists within the movement are working toward a more inclusive production. We recognize that not all women have vaginas.

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“A SMALL FORM OF RESISTANCE” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. ERIN MOBERG Dr. Erin Moberg teaches in the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon.

Can you explain the issue of gendered language in Spanish classrooms?

EM: There are kind of different sects of what is considered an academic register, what’s considered formal enough and what isn’t. I study Chicano and Chicana cultural production and theater, so for me it’s fundamental to what I’m doing if I want to articulate what I’m talking about. A lot of what I’m looking at has to do with the fact that in Spanish the masculine can speak for the whole. So in Spanish you say “Chicanos plus Chicanas still equals Chicanos,” formally.

Is this an issue a lot of people are aware of?

I think I’m definitely in a minority in terms of the degree to which I pay attention to that and am very conscious and careful of who I’m referring to. And there are certainly people who would argue that there are no implications for that, but I strongly disagree, there

are huge implications for that, especially when you’re looking at a room of people who exist across spectrums of gender and sexual identity and ethnic identity.

What alternatives are out there for people trying to be conscious of who they are referring to?

In orthography one way to get around using o/a is the @ symbol, and I kind of use it for lack of something better to use, and sometimes because it’s less clumsy than constantly writing Chicana/o. It’s a small form of resistance, but after centuries of it being the other way around, hopefully calling attention to that, even if a student notices “okay there’s another way to think about this” or “oh, language has meaning in ways beyond what the word itself means.”

And is this mostly a written form, or is this something that can be applied in conversation?

EM: I actually had to deal with that yesterday in my Thesis defense, so every time I wanted to articulate a point about gender inequities or sexual inequities I had to

choose how to say the words Chicana or Chicano. So if I’m talking about the chicana or chicano movement what I tend to do is alternate in speech and in writing. Some of the theorists and writers I most respect do this, like Gloria Anzaldúa. Another alternative is to actually say “Chicanas and Chicanos,” because the point I’m making is that this binary has been created and I want to look at both sides of it even though I resist the fact that it’s a binary in the first place.

Could you talk about your thesis?

I’ve definitely seen that in Spanish classes at UO. EM: And it’s troubling. Men are writers and women are women writers. Men are dramatists and women are women dramatists.

Sometimes I work as a GTF, and it’s hard to teach a class where I have disagreements about the syllabus in and of itself. It’s just not an accurate impression of who is producing art.

@

EM: I got really into Chicana theater in my undergrad, and one thing I started to notice in theater

by Chicano and Chicana dramatists is that there was this either/or scenario created by scholarship in the sixties... It’s this either or scenario of either displace or ignore issues of gender and sexuality in works by Chicano male dramatists, or focus exclusively on issues of gender and sexuality in works by Chicana female dramatists, and the gender and sexuality of their characters, whether or not that has to do with the thematic material of the play.

Well thank you, this is going to work great for the magazine.

EM: Yeah, well the topic of intersections is very related to this. That’s one of the things that a lot of Chicana scholars end up emphasizing, that if we really want to look at issues of Chicano and Chicana identity, we can’t look at, for example, just the coloniality of power, or race issues, or class issues, or just gender and sexuality.

We really have to look at this intersectionality because otherwise the woman of color fits within no group. interview by hannah lewman

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THERE IS THING

SINGLE-ISSUE BECAUSE WE

SINGLE-ISS

S NO SUCH G AS A

UE STRUGGLE E DO NOT LIVE

SSUE LIVES

- Audre Lorde

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FOOD JUSTICE:

MY KITCHEN, MY CHOICE I have been a very naughty vegan lately. It’s been one of those weeks: one of those weeks when my willpower is no match for the gravitational pull of a pizza slice. One of those weeks when I’m particularly generous in blurring the line between “treating myself” and “straight-up not being a vegan anymore.” One of those weeks when I don’t even bother asking the waiter whether or not the patty on the veggie burger has eggs in it, because to be frank, I don’t want to know. I just want to eat my fucking veggie burger in peace.

The point is, I am not a perfect vegan. I do not pretend to be. My veganism is an identity, but it is not isolated; it is dynamic and meaningful, even on days when I bend the rules. I am a vegan, I am a feminist, and I have an eating disorder.

In my experience, eating disorders are a lot like alcoholism.

You might be thirty years sober, but in medical terms, you’re still—and always will be— an alcoholic. These things don’t just go away; chemical imbalances do not simply

recalibrate themselves. I am past the point in my life when a day’s nourishment amounted to a package of dried seaweed and, maybe, a banana. But in medical terms, I am still—and always will be—a disordered eater.

The hardest part of veganism, for me, is not its potential to trigger calorie-counting or ingredient-watchdogging; it is the number of people— and especially men— who, upon learning of my veganism, fancy themselves entitled to a discussion of my diet.

Being a vegan does not mean I have forfeited the rights to nourish my body in whatever way I choose.

My decision to indulge in a scrambled egg every now and then is not an invitation to comment. Asking me, “Oh, so you’re going to eat that, but you’re a vegan, riiight?” is intrusive at best and body-policing at worst. I am, in fact, a grown woman.

When I put an animal product into my body, I understand the implications.

And, as a disordered eater, I do not need to be reminded of them.

Two years ago—which was, incidentally, the last time I was eating vegan—writing an article of this nature would have been a truly traumatic endeavor. To write openly and candidly of my love for food would have been an impossible undertaking.

Even now, a small, secret part of me wonders whether or not I should tone down the gastronomic imagery.

Does this article make me look fat?

But recently I’ve found that my eating disorder makes veganism all the more radical. I am a vegan because it makes my body feel better,

because it challenges me to become more comfortable in the kitchen, and because I do not support a food system that relies upon capitalism and cruelty. To feel good about what you eat is an emancipatory act that our society has habitually undervalued. The ability to prepare a meal for myself, to sit down and consume every last cruelty-free bite— that is powerful. I will not be shamed into submission. I love food too much for that shit. words by sophie albanis art by will vanroon

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AN ANONYMOUS INTERVIEW WITH THE UOPD

What is your position with UOPD? I am a security assistant for UOPD, so it is my responsibility to assure that the campus is locked up every night. I do this with the aid of my other coworkers but our primary functions are campus lock-up, serving as sources of information and as an extra set of eyes and ears for the police officers.

What is it like being a woman working in law enforcement?

Being a woman in law enforcement has pros and cons. The pros are somewhat backhanded because they stem from being underestimated so I sometimes experience less conflict than my male counterparts because people do not find me to be as threatening. This has worked in my favor because I have been able to deescalate situations solely on the basis that I seemed to be less of a threat and therefore the people I was dealing with were more cooperative.

Conversely some people do not respond well to being told what to do by a woman, and I’ve experienced this on multiple occasions over wide array of cultures. So it is interesting to experience these stark differences in my experience.

How has being a female-

identified person working in law enforcement influenced your views on feminism?

I have always been a feminist.

Working in law enforcement has definitely strengthened that passion, because I have come to find that it is a male dominated field. I think it has a lot to do with who you work with though.

UOPD has been nothing but respectful, encouraging and fair with me and my other female coworkers. They treat me the same as the male workers, and that is very important. I think that people hear the word “feminism” and instantly they think that it refers to women wanting more - when really they are asking to be equal. We have a female chief of police, and a hardcore female sergeant. A year ago there were more female security assistants than there were males. UOPD does a very good job of breaking the gender stereotypes of law enforcement.

We don’t care about gender; we care about professionalism, empathy, and the ability of our employees to maintain a safe campus environment.

None of these skills are gendered.

Do you see any issues happening on campus that primarily affect women?

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Of course. The nationwide issue of sexual assault is an issue on our campus and it is predominantly an issue that affects women. The statistics on this issue are disgusting; the fact that 1 in 5 women have been affected... the University of Oregon has over 24,000 students.

Those numbers are too high. It is important to talk about this and discuss why it’s happening. As a former member of the UO FSL Sexual Assault Task force I have discussed this issue in depth and I have found that we need to focus less on preaching consent and move towards having a discussion on WHY people are having sex. Consent should be a no brainier, but the hook up culture on college campuses tends to complicate this and it shouldn’t. Saying yes out of pressure is not a genuine yes, so I’m an not satisfied with preaching consent because to me it isn’t the real issue. Working for UOPD, I am proud to know that we offer safety escorts, so that people don’t have to walk home alone in the dark.

I have been walking around campus doing lockup and had people come up to me to thank me for keeping them safe. That’s why I love my job. From securing buildings, to providing safety information, to making sure that we are aware of

everyone on this campus, I am responsible for the safety of my peers. It is great to be a student employee because I serve as a liaison between the student population and the police department and I am proud of the strides I have made in better integrating the two. I want the students to feel like they can talk to the police about anything, like I feel that I can, and I have done my best to build that relationship for the entire student body.

What is the most rewarding part about working in law enforcement?

Working in law enforcement is a privilege. It is incredibly rewarding to be seen as capable of assuring that the students and staff feel safe on the UO campus. I am proud to work alongside the officers because they leave their families every day and work hard to make sure that other families are safe, putting their own lives at risk more often than not. It is a taxing job and it requires a specific type of person, but it’s not about us, it’s about the people that we protect.

That’s why we get up and come to work everyday. The students and staff make it all worthwhile. interview by amy rapillo

THE FDA DOESN’T DESERVE GAY BLOOD

On December 22, the FDA formally announced a policy revision that allows gay and bisexual men to donate blood - on the absurd condition they haven’t had sexual contact with another man for at least a year.

Straight folks might mistake this revision for progress, but let me be clear: this could not be further from progress.

This is sustained and deliberate homophobia that only serves to emphasize the misinformed stigma of gay men and HIV/AIDS. The FDA’s logic is that gay blood is substantially more dangerous than that of a heterosexual person’s because… well… there’s actually no logic to this whatsoever. Even though all donated blood goes through rigorous screening that tests for HIV and straight people are just as likely to contract HIV as gay people, the FDA continues to characterize gay sex as an act of endangerment that is intrinsically linked to HIV/ AIDS. The FDA does not want our blood. Instead, they want to keep our blood from organizations like the Red Cross (who have actively

stood by the policy) based on an embarrassingly archaic prejudice that has been outdated since the early 90’s. They want us to either shove ourselves back into the closet or abstain from an integral part of our gayness – having gay sex.

We will not comply. The FDA does not deserve gay blood. Though patients may need it, the FDA prioritizes homophobic stigma above the very lives in need of transfusions.

These consequences must be tangibly felt and visibly realized until the US government realizes stereotypes should never come before the lives of those in need.

So to my gay brothers: do not closet yourself or lie about your identity. Do not, god forbid, abstain from sex for an entire year. And if you do somehow happen to qualify to donate blood, I implore you not to. Make our presence felt: insist upon the vitality of our blood and do not devalue our lives and sexuality until the FDA realizes the importance of our presence. words by zach lusby

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MORE FIBER = LESS YOU This summer, I was standing in line at the grocery checkout when a magazine cover captured my attention. The woman on the cover beamed a radiant smile, framed by neon words: “More fiber = less you!” Above it, the magazine’s title glared ironically: Women’s World. As a feminist, this magazine disgusted me. It was a blatant endorsement of the body shaming that women face daily, and the infuriating concept that this is our world, that every woman’s top priority is dwindling herself down to an acceptable size. As a feminist, I was furious.

But as someone who has had an eating disorder, this magazine meant something totally different to me. It sent me back to a time in my life when “less me” was a very appealing idea, when I wanted very badly to shrink away indefinitely.

The feminist in me likes to think that I have learned to accept and love my body, and most days I do. But unfortunately, eating disorders are

something like addictions— they don’t just go away once you have “healed,” because your thought patterns surrounding food and body image have been rewritten with guilt, self-depreciation, and shame. Those patterns are stubborn, and I find myself struggling with the idea of taking up space years after giving up unhealthy outward behaviors.

But taking up space can be incredibly powerful, an idea that came up in a women’s self-defense class I took last year. One day, we role-played different emotions through body language, and it was clear that when we express positive emotions—pride, excitement, confidence, joy—we take up more space.

We stand straight and pull our shoulders back, expanding our interactions with the world by looking around and keeping our heads up.

On the other hand, negative emotions are accompanied by mannerisms and postures that make us smaller: crossed arms, eyes down, slouched shoulders. The instructor pointed out that, as women, we are taught to make ourselves small and that it is inappropriate for us to take up space. Hearing this, I remembered that at the height of my anorexia,

any time I was in public I would wrap my arms around my torso, suck my stomach in, and slouch down— becoming as physically small as possible, as if I could eventually become invisible.

My defense instructor gave another example: on sidewalks, men rarely move aside to make space for someone passing, but women often step off the path to make room for others, as if this is not our world and we must not displace anyone in it. It is expected that we be small— we step aside, cross our arms, diet and deprive until we can barely function. More fiber = less you!

As a feminist, let me politely say fuck that. Though we do not all struggle with eating disorders, we all face the societal voice that says: you’re too much, tone it down, step back, get small.

It is up to each of us to abolish that voice, to take my defense instructor’s advice and stand tall, hold our heads high, use our loudest voices, get big.

It is not always easy to take up space; it is not always guilt-free; but it is what each of us deserves. words by natalie pearson

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SAD GIRLS DO IT WELL PLAYLIST IN ANTICIPATION OF A BLEAK 2016 THE SOFTIES HELLO RAIN CHASTITY BELT JOKE VERUCA SALT FORSYTHIA CASSIE RAMONE I DON’T REALLY WANNA MITSKI I DON’T SMOKE PJ HARVEY DRESS DEAR NORA WHEN YOU WRITE A BAD SONG VARSITY SO SAD, SO SAD RAMONA LISA IZZIT TRUE WHAT THEY TELL ME HUNDRED WATERS MURMURS ESKIMEAUX ALONE AT THE PARTY DIDO THANK YOU ANGEL OLSEN SWEET DREAMS GIRLPOOL CHINATOWN HOPE SANDOVAL AND THE WARM INVENTIONS LOSE ME ON THE WAY playlist by sophie albanis

“

FEELING SAD ALL ON MY OWN. I DON’T NEED YOU FOR THAT ANYMORE.

”

- HELLO RAIN, THE SOFTIES

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GYMS ARE THE NEXT GAY FRONTIER

Like most other gay men I know, my relationship with my body is pretty shit. I’ve wasted an inappropriate amount of my life shirtless in front of a mirror wondering why I don’t look like the men I’m attracted to - too much weight in one place, not enough in another. I obsess over every photo of myself, scanning my frame and the outline of my face for any “excess” fat until, like a word said over and over again, my body seems to lose meaning and my own image becomes unfamiliar.

So this year, I really wanted to make some active changes to my perception.

Most of these changes have been mental - working on practicing more affirmative self-love and focusing on the features I do like about myself (my arms and my hair, lately) rather than possess myself with the qualities I’m not so fond of. I’m trying to take more selfies, I’m trying to communicate what I like about myself more, and I’m trying to accept my body for what it is.

My personal efforts for self acceptance also unfortunately meant more trips to my least favorite place on campus.

Listen, I hate the fucking gym. No place in the world

is as ripe with the straight masculinities of sweaty, raging, pumped up dudebros than the weight room at the rec. It’s not a welcoming place by any means, and The Siren has done well already to commend its efforts at building a more inclusive rec and criticize the limited accessibility and safety it can guarantee to people with disabilities and trans people.

Despite a sizable amount of time allotted to women’s only hours and speciality activities, LGBTQIA+ people are still entering a hostile space to put their bodies to measure.

The first time a few girlfriends took me to work out, we were entirely silent on our march to the ellipticals.

Once we climbed on, we remained perfectly quiet, occasionally trading a few words before retreating back into our earbuds. After an hour, we left, and that was that. Meanwhile, the aforementioned dudebros dressed in brotanks that looked more like scraps of a washcloth were throwing their weights to the floor and literally screaming as if we weren’t aware they were there already.

Why am I not screaming at the gym? Why do I quietly retreat to the cardio machines when I want to

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be in the weight rooms? My presence should be known, and it struck me: gyms have the potential to be a whole new forum of social justice.

When Sophie, a good friend of mine and fellow Siren editorial board member, convinced me to attend a spin class with her a few weeks ago, she told me, “This will make you feel like you can do anything.”

And she was right - I was so demolished by the fifty minutes we spent on the bikes together. I felt like anything was possible. At no point was I “happy” by any means, but looking over at my friend and sighing in disbelief at the pain my body was experiencing felt somehow reassuring. It was empowering to push my own self forward entirely by my own initiative - in this little cycling class, I claimed more agency over myself than I ever could in almost any other space.

Gyms are often looked at as spaces of improvement and betterment, places where we work our bodies into ideal molds sculpted by social norms and media imagery. Folks approach gyms as places to accomplish a goal of some ideal body, but perhaps they’re better venues for literal exercise. And I mean

“exercise” like the verb, “to use or apply,” not the noun of “activity requiring physical effort.” When we exercise our bodies, applying and utilizing them, we are actively exercising and asserting our independent power where we, and no one else, is entirely in control.

That’s a startling notion for marginalized people: where we are powerless in so many settings, we can create and exert our power exclusively through ourselves in the gym.

When Sophie and I walked into the weight room, we felt almost immediately uncomfortable. One guy stared and squinted his eyes at us, another hovered by a machine we approached only to leave as soon as we turned away - but when we stand in the mirror and exercise our own bodies all by ourselves, there’s nothing anyone else can do about it.

We are all powerful, and we deserve the space to assert that power. words by zach lusby

THE ASUO WOMEN’S CENTER PRESENTS:

THE NEW JERSEY 4

Prepare for the visit of Renata Hill, Patreese Johnson, Venice Brown, and Terrain Dandridge) by attending a screening of the documentary Out in the Night. Check blogs.uoregon. edu/women or the ASUO Women’s Center facebook page for updates on the details of location, date and time.

Out in the Night is a documentary that tells the story of a group of young friends, African American lesbians who are out one hot August night in 2006 in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City. They are all in their late teens and early twenties and come from a low-income neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. Two of the group are the focus – gender non-conforming Renata Hill, a single parent with a soft heart and keen sense of humor, and petite femme Patreese Johnson, a shy and tender poet. As they and their friends walk under the hot neon lights of tattoo parlors in the West Village, an older man sexually and violently confronts them. He says to Patreese “let me get some of that” as he points below her waist. When she says that they are gay, the man becomes violent and threatens to “fuck them straight.”

He spits and throws a lit cigarette. Renata and Venice defend the group and a fight begins, captured by security cameras nearby. The man yanks out hair from Venice’s head and chokes Renata. Then, Patreese pulls a knife from her purse and swings at him. Strangers jump in to defend the women and the fight escalates. As the fight comes to an end, all get up and walk away. But 911 has been called and the man involved has been stabbed. Police swarm to the scene as their radios blast out warning of a gang attack. The group is rounded up and charged with gang assault, assault and attempted murder. Three of them plead guilty. But Renata, Patreese, Venice and friend Terrain claim their innocence.

They are called a “Gang of Killer Lesbians” by the media.

In activist circles they become known as The New Jersey 4. words by suzie barrientos

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ASK THE

SEXPERTS

You had questions for the team at As You Like It, Eugene’s body positive, feminist sex shop. Here’s what they had to say.

This is so surreal to even be writing, but I think I’m embarrassed by my vagina and I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s not that I think I have a bad vagina, it’s just I’m worried that when I go to have sex with someone new they’ll think it’s weird or gross or not right. I have nothing to compare it to so I don’t even know if it’s normal or not! How do I stop being so freaked out?

to “clean it up.” At a developmental time when we should be taught- both visually and intellectuallyabout the beauty and REALITY of labial/vaginal diversity, the only visual examples accessible are very monochomatic images depicted in mainstream pronography.

It makes perfect sense why you, and such a large percentage of people, feel self-conscious.

Friend, you are SOOO not alone! There have been tomes written over decades on the topic of “ways people are taught to feel insecure about their vaginas.” Its smell, its shape, its hair growth patterns, its fat distribution, whether it is an innie or an outtie, clitoral size, how “tight” it is, the list goes on and on.

How might this help you feel less freaked out by your vagina and paranoid during sex? You already stated “I have nothing to compare (my vagina) to, so I don’t even know if it’s normal or not!” Here is a fantastic homework assignment: Take some time to explore the following works: Show Off Book’s I’ll Show You Mine a “non-porn” example of diversity in vulvas and vaginas; the Cunt Coloring Book by Tee Corinne;

When Western youth are taught in school about vaginas, we are taught

Joani Blank’s Femalia; Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, most specifically the piece, Because He Like to Look at It. Allow yourself to laugh, cry, explore, play. Surround yourself with positive and DIVERSE images and articles that you visit regularly. Take some time to take your vagina on a date with you, a mirror, and the touch/toys you find the most pleasurable and get to know one another in all your states of arousal. Write a vagina monologue of your own. You may scoff, but our guess is that it has a lot to say!

I’m new to the gay dating scene and still trying to figure stuff out. I hear a lot about “tops” and “bottoms” and about stereotypes associated with each, and I want to know what the deal is with that. What does it say about me if I’m a top or a bottom? How can I figure out which one I am without totally embarrassing myself? Please save me from looking totally stupid.

Thanks.

Simply put, a Top is someone who likes to be in charge of what happens during a “scene” and enjoys being the one inflicting or providing sensations.

A Bottom is someone who likes to relinquish or

give away control during a “scene” and enjoys being the one receiving or enduring sensations.

If you identify strongly with one of these roles, you may choose to label yourself as Top or Bottom or you may use one of the many other names people employ to communicate their preference during Power Play (Dom/sub, Master/servant, etc.). Some people play different roles with different lovers. If you choose not to pick a side, you may be a Switch! All being a Top or a Bottom says about you is that you enjoy playing with power and sensation! Deciding to play roles during sex isn’t an indication that there is something wrong with you, so don’t worry about that!

Talking about sex can be embarrassing. Talking about kinky sex can be even more embarrassing. Try reaching out to the kink community near you through FetLife, your online kink resource.

There are regular “munches” which are casual gatherings, where like-minded people can meet and get to know one another in public without any sexual pressure. There you will meet other people who share your curiosity and interests. We also have lots of books in the store that can help you better understand

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how to spice up your sex life with Power Play!

build up, your involuntary muscle will eventually relax.

My boyfriend and I are thinking about trying anal sex, but we aren’t really sure how to get into it.

I’ve heard about how horrible anal can be, but we think it’s worth trying.

Is there anything I can do to prepare or make it more fun? Help me out here!

When you are ready for your boyfriend to penetrate you with his condom-sheathed, well-lubed member, go slowly. Use even more lube. Keep breathing. You set the pace, pushing back onto him whenever you are ready, but not more than you want. Change positions if things don’t seem to be progressing. Once your involuntary muscle relaxes, his member will rub against you from the inside. If you are a person with a penis, you also have a prostate gland that loves to be rubbed this way. If you are a person with a vagina, the internal clitoris loves to be rubbed this way too. Either way, anal sex can be an orgasmic experience for both of you!

Anal sex can be scary, but it can also be lots of fun! Your body has two anal sphincter muscles. The trick to anal sex is controlling your voluntary muscle, which will lead to a relaxation of your involuntary muscle. Use plenty of lube. Because the anus is not a self-lubricating area, you want something that is very slick, like silicone or a silicone hybrid. You literally cannot use too much lube. (Just remember: never use pure silicone lube with silicone toys.) Go slowly.

Start with a gloved finger or a beginner’s anal toy.

Give your sphincters plenty of opportunities to relax after stretching. When you first accept penetration, breathe deeply and push your hips toward him while actively relaxing your anus.

Your boyfriend should move slowly and gently.

If something hurts, stop, breathe, and try to relax. If you take time to enjoy the

Have him hold on to the condom when he pulls out. Your sphincters will reflexively contract and may pull the condom right off his member. Shower then snuggle to finish things off.

- From As You LIke It

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THE ESSENCE OF COOL A NIGHT OUT WITH THUNDERPUSSY We were late to our meeting with Thunderpussy.

The plan to rendezvous for drinks and an interview at 16 Tons Taphouse & Bottleshop was last-minute, impulsive, and bold, much like Thunderpussy’s decision to add a house show in Eugene to their seven-gig tour. Scheduling a pre-show interview only a couple of hours in advance was ambitious for The Siren, but to the ladies of Thunderpussy, it was another day on the job. Vocalist Molly Sides, guitarist Whitney Petty, bassist Leah Julius, and drummer Lena Simon have been producing intense, wailing vixen-rock for just over a year and a half, but despite their short track record, it’s very possible that Thunderpussy could be “your new favorite Seattle supergroup.” The band’s website bills the ladies-only four-piece as “rock n roll’s new diamond in the muff,” and concert-goers voted Thunderpussy Seattle’s Best Show of 2014— which means these self-proclaimed “punk kids” out-performed Beyoncé. Never has the phrase “jam out with your clam out” been more appropriate. Their sexed-up stage presence has inspired critics to describe Thunderpussy’s aura as a cross between theatrical performance art and a heavy metal orgy, but in their own words, “It was always about the music.”

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When we arrived at 16 Tons, it was immediately apparent which table belonged to the band. The ladies of Thunderpussy had chosen a table next to the window; although their backs were turned to us, the furry coats draped across chairs and the tabletop littered with pint glasses and enormous black hats were a dead giveaway.

They didn’t mind that we were late. Whitney helped us to pull up some chairs, and just as we were noticing that only three of the band members were present, Molly drifted in from outside, fresh off a phone call with her mom. Upon learning that Hannah was under 21, Leah offered up her own ID and quipped, “You kind of look like me… Right?” After that, the talking came easily.

Thunderpussy seemed to

want to know as much about The Siren as we wanted to know about them. Here’s how it all went down.

HL: So, what are your first impressions of Eugene, how are you liking the town?

WP: Eugene was actually my portal to the Northwest. I’m from the South and I decided to drop out of college and I just wanted to do something really weird, and I had never really been to the West Coast before. I found a trail building company for youth, called the Northwest Youth Core, and it’s based out of Eugene. I just got a job online, I actually lied about my age, but I realized the Northwest is actually super dope, so Eugene has a special place in my heart.

SA: So I have a question. I was just thinking about the name that you all chose for the band, and wondering the back story on that and your opinion on the word “pussy?”

LJ: The shock factor is definitely a part of it though.

Like, it’s good that you question it. It’s kind of the point. It’s good, it gets peoples attention.

WP: We’ve all been in a million bands, you’ve got to have a catchy name.

LJ: But also, as like a feminist thing, I feel like we’re also taking the word and being like “fuck you we’re gonna use it as a positive badass lady thing and not an insult, not telling someone they’re weak.”

MS: I think too, it’s more about empowerment. It’s not like “we chose this name because fuck off” but it’s like “we chose this name because we’re all women, the majority of us like women [to Leah] you just haven’t found the right one. And we’re all powerhouses in our own right... At least we aren’t Cuntpunch.

HL: Is that the alternative?

WP: That or Dumpsterfuck.

HL: So I saw an interview

where you were described as dominatrixes of music, do you identify with that?

WP: That’s actually one of my favorite quotes, I’m trying to remember it. It was like “Thunderpussy is the dominatrix standing over you as you cry tears of joy.”

I think it’s fantastic, because I think a dominatrix is a woman being in charge.

HL: A lot of people focus on with you, the use of sex and sexuality in your music and performance. What do you think about that?

LJ: I mean a lot of times there’s a whip onstage, I don’t know if we brought the whip on tour, but, uh, yeah, sex sells.

WP: I mean, you guys know Beyonce, right?

You’ve heard of her? I mean, she’s a powerful, powerful woman and she shows her ass all the time, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her vulva a couple of times on tv. Everyone’s sexy all the time. Not enough bands are sexy. This is a market for selling yourself.

MS: Well, and, I think there’s nothing wrong with that.

LJ: There’s not! It’s healthy.

MS: There’s nothing wrong with being able to indulge in

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your sexuality and have fun with it but also flaunt it.

LJ: Sometimes it’s definitely frustrating to get offstage and instead of someone saying “that was great, your band is awesome, you rip at guitar” they’re like “you looked so hot up there.”

SA: Has the sex-positivity aspect been beneficial to any of you in your own self-confidence or on a personal level?

WP: I think the reason that even exists at all, this all evolved very organically, it’s not something we talked

about. I think that the reason that, if we are conceived as being sex positive, is because that’s who we are.

LJ: I think it’s an interesting chemistry, too. I’ve been in a lot of bands, we’ve all been in a lot of bands, but this is definitely the band that’s taken off the fastest.

People just immediately, after our first show, were like “I’m ready. Bring it to me. Let’s go.” So I think we felt like we needed to keep upping our live show. I never would have thought, even two years ago, that I would have been standing on stage in a fucking sparkly bra and

parallel universes—we don’t fucking care about what people think about us or whatever. So if people think we’re sexy I’m like “cool.... whatever.”

MS: It’s funny because I was hesitating using the term “we don’t care what people think” because I think in your subconscious you totally do.

LJ: I think when we get onstage we don’t care. I think last night was a really good example. I think that the audience can really feel that we are enjoying ourselves, we’re having fun.

I never want to get offstage, you know? Like can we keep playing? pleather pants. I’m a punk kid! That’s how I grew up.

It definitely is a confidence builder.

WP: I always thought that if anyone had a crush on me or thought that I was quote unquote sexy all they really were seeing was “she’s confident.” I had a boyfriend once who told me “you’re super confident and I think confidence is the essence of cool.” And I started thinking about all the people I thought were cool and I realized they’re like... they’re nerds at heart, because that’s what we are, we’re nerds! We just geek out and talk about

MS: Last night I, oh god last night... I kept looking at them, and I just felt like I was beaming, like I had sun rays shooting out of my cheeks. I was just so stoked to see all of them.

HL: What are your goals for the rest of the tour?

WP: We get to play Molly’s home town, which is kind of a big thing.

MS: And we’re playing my first kiss’ venue. I mean, he’s a good friend. It’s pretty cool that people have always been like “come home, when are you gonna come home

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and play?” and I’m always like “I dunno” and now it’s happening.

WP: I’m gonna try to get my high kicks extra high.

HL: Okay, last and most serious question. Which is more important to you and why: lettuce or wind?

SA: Lettuce or weed?

HL: Wind.

LJ: I mean lettuce or weed that’s an easy choice.

LS: Why would lettuce be important to me?

WP: I say wind because I think wind energy is the future.

LS: Oh exactly.

WP: I think we all collectively are thinking wind now.

LJ: How dare anyone pick lettuce.

WP: I would be real upset if there was no wind. The oceans would have issues, even though the oceans are pulled by the moon, which still fucking trips me out.

MS: That is AMAZING. HL: Molly, which is more important to you?

MS: Oh my GOD, that’s so hard. I’m a vegetarian so I eat a lot of lettuce, but wind is very important.... It’s hard for me I can’t distinguish one from the other. It’s all part of mother nature. That lettuce wouldn’t even be here without the wind.

WP: Fuck this question, it’s too hard.

So this is what it’s like to hang out with a rock-nroll dominatrix. The whole experience was sort of like talking to a cool big sister that you only get to see a few times per year. Our conversation covered all the most important bases: marijuana e-cigarettes, Josie and the Pussycats, and Leah’s pitbull, Sachi.

But the conversation always returned to what these ladies do best: rocking out, having fun, and not caring who knows. Of course, all good things must come to an end.

As show-time grew near, the band members began pulling on their coats and paying their tabs. Outside, they piled into the tour van, a Ford Ecoline affectionately known as the Pussy Wagon.

The next time we saw them was two hours later, as they emerged from their makeshift greenroom into a houseful of zealous undergrads.

They had transformed; the dominatrixes were finally

out to play. For a band with as vibrant a reputation as Thunderpussy’s, a house show in a college town might seem almost anticlimactic.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Molly’s choreography—which involved a series of kicks, dips, and thrusts, as well as a few sultry forays into the welcoming embrace of the sweaty crowd—was as captivating as it was unusual, and Whitney’s heavy, dirty guitar blasts punctuated the room’s dense energy like a snapping whip. The thrashing audience members moved in closer to the band until the line between the two parties was almost nonexistent, and Molly crawled around on the floor, stroking the feet of onlookers and gazing up at

them, almost lovingly. The front row was, for the most part, made up exclusively of girls, and whenever a dude somehow managed to shoulder his way to the front, the wall of female limbs smoothly but firmly pushed him back to whence he came. This was a celebration of bodies and desire, rejection and gratification.

This one was for the ladies. If Thunderpussy doesn’t make you question your sexuality, you’re not listening hard enough. photos by hannah lewman words by sophie albanis and hannah lewman

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UO CULTURAL FORUM PRESENTS:

ANDI ZEISLER Students, as consumers, have the power to take control of the media campaigns and messages that infiltrate the lives of everyone. Through strategic media response, we can keep outlets in check to avoid harmful and offensive media messaging.

The mission of Bitch Media is to do just that, provide and encourage an engaged, thoughtful feminist response to mainstream media and popular culture.

On February 2nd at 6pm in Straub 156, the University of Oregon’s Cultural Forum will welcome the co-founder of Bitch Media, Andi Zeisler, to show and tell us how. Andi will be giving a talk titled “Don’t Just Change the Channel: Why Pop Culture Matters to Feminism, Activism, and Social Justice” followed up by time for Q&A. This talk will be accompanied by a workshop open to audience participation, where Andi will ask audience members for examples of harmful media messaging, and then collaboratively craft a response plan.

Andi Zeisler is a writer, editor, and cultural critic. She is the cofounder of Bitch Media, the author of Feminism and Pop Culture, and the coeditor of BitchFest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine.

Her writing on feminism, popular culture, and media has appeared in Ms., Mother Jones, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and Salon, and she has discussed feminism, activism, and current events on radio programs like The Sound of Young America, Forum, and World Have Your Say. Her new book on pop culture and the commercial co-optation of feminism, We Were Feminists Once, will be out in May 2016 from PublicAffaris.

The talk and workshop will be fun and informative, designed to help students realize that we, as individual media fans have the power to make change in media and popular culture – whether or not we have previously identified as activists. words by hayleigh swartz photo courtesy of bitch media

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art by natalie pearson

QUEEN PAULINE

In this piece I was interested in exploring the differences in the ways we perceive masculinity and femininity. It is somewhat boring to simply state existing differences, but is instead more intriguing to scrutinize what is deemed only acceptable for certain gender identities. To do this I put a male-bodied person in feminine clothing, reversing a gender norm around dress that is taken for granted. Queen Paul(ine) specifically touches on the fact that it is seen as shameful for male identified people to dress effeminately.

This reflects the widely held belief that it is shameful to have the characteristics of a woman. words and art by molly zaninovich

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SUBMIT

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