CRITICAL

MOMENT
FREE ISSUE #9 MARCH-APRIL

defining our own

sexual liberation

CRITICAL
MOMENT
Issue #9, March-April 2005
Editorial Collective
Andy Clarno • Joel Devonshire
Andrea Dewees • Tarek R. Dika
Yoni Goldstein • Michelle J.
Kinnucan • James Leef • Kate
McCabe • Mike Medow • Erick
Michael • Jennifer Obidike • Max
Sussman • Bashar Tarabieh • Anna
Vitale
Critical Moment is an Ann Arbor-based
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2 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
From the editors
In working towards social justice we must not
Contents
FEATURES
only challenge institutions and systems of power at 3 What I didn’t learn in Women’s Studies Class
the macro level—such work must also challenge by Elizabeth Sy
and impact the way we conduct our personal lives. 5 The Queer Politics of Spanglish
by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
Our personal lives do not exist in a vacuum. 6 Defining Our Own Sexual Liberation
by YK Hong and Ingrid Ravera
The personal is influenced by dominant systems of
10 HIV/AIDS: The Neo-Liberal Pandemic
power that exist around us. The systems of racism, by Claire Decoteau
patriarchy, and capitalism all impact the way we live 12 Fight or Walk: The Chicago Transit Fare Strike
our personal lives and develop intimate relationships by Midwest Unrest
with our lovers and our friends. 14 Strong Hearts and Poisoned Waters
by Puck
16 A Working Mother’s Feminism
The interrelationship of the personal and the po- by Floyd Peterson
litical is explored in the articles featured in this sex- 18 Activist Scenes Are No Safe Space for Women
themed issue of Critical Moment. The articles in this by Tamara K. Nopper
issue, some playful, many serious, reveal that the 20 A New Fat-Positive Feminism
work of fighting oppressive systems and of fighting by Emi Koyama
22 Israeli Anarchism
for the people’s right to self-determination is deeply an interview with Yossi by Aaron Lakoff
connected to the process of building a world where
our personal lives and our intimate relationships can FICTION
be more liberating, more fun and more beautiful. 8 Torpedo Through the Tulips
by Rachel Shukert
In this issue of CM, you will find articles on repro-
POETRY
ductive justice, HIV/AIDS, sex work, sexual assault, 26 “Elation...”
body image and strategies for achieving real sexual by CD Wright
liberation. We hope that you find some of what’s in
REVIEW
here interesting, inspiring, or otherwise useful. Read
24 Black Women’s Adventures in Sex and Reading
these articles with your lovers and your friends. Fig- Ayesha Ki’Shani Hardison reviews Zane’s Addicted
ure our what you can do to make you intimate rela-
tionships more rewarding and more revolutionary. SHORT THINGS
8 MichiganIMC Newswire
Sincerely, 10 “Just Shut Up”
19 Questions on Consent
Critical Moment
Upcoming Issues - Calls for Submissions
May/June: Environment May/June: Religion & Spirituality
Deadline: March 30, 2005
Deadline: May 30, 2005
Consumption comes at the expense of our natural world; from species loss to suburban
sprawl to global climate change, somewhere the price must be paid. Low-income com- Religion and spirituality are powerful and influential factors in
munities of color are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards - the “hidden” human affairs throughout the world. They intersect with poli-
tics in many areas, including race, gender, and class. How does
side-effects of the economic growth paradigm under which we live. Our technological
advances often cost us thehealth of our children, our communities and sometimes entire religion and/or spirituality inform your own political perspective?
In what ways are you and your community treated differently be-
cultures. Environmental issues are, therefore, not limited to the protection of wilderness
areas, but extend to include a broader range of social, economic, and geographical issues cause of your religious/spiritual beliefs? Do you reject religion?
that affect life everywhere, from farmers in developing countries to residents of urban Why? How has religion and spirituality played a role in political
public housing. movements in the U.S. and around the world?
` How does the intersection of race, class, and political power affect how envi- Critical Moment encourages our readership to explore
ronmental decisions are made? What effects do those decisions have on our ability to the theme of Religion and Spirituality from a wide range of per-
build healthy, sustainable relationships with one another and the land? Critical Moment spectives, including but not limited to fundamentalism, liberation
seeks contributions from local writers, activists, artists, and academics that both address theology, religion and political organizing, religious persecution/
prejudice, religion and sexuality, church and state in the US, the
and challenge the forces that combine to create environmental injustice, and attempt to
Christian right, Armageddon, spirituality and the left, religious
provide insight into the future of environmental justice for all communities.
violence, and more.
The content of Critical Moment consists primarily of works submitted by local writers, artists, and activists. Submissions are not limited to our
theme. We welcome news, analysis, commentary, art, short stories, poetry, music, book, and movie reviews, and other forms of expression
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and/or letters to the editorial collective at momentboard@umich.edu. Art and image submissions should be sent to momentart@umich.edu
 Wh a t I
didn’t le arn
in wo m en’s st udie s cla ss
BY ELIZABETH SY

W
hen I was eight years old, I wanted to be the next
Bobby Fischer. I was a chess champion, a spelling
bee fanatic, and a classically trained violinist; I was
the all Asian American role model student. I never thought
that I’d end up where I am today, a former sex worker and a
fuck what we had been taught about them growing up; we
were on a mission--we wanted to see what stripping was like
and why so many women did it. After the initial shock of
seeing a sex venue wore off, I decided to buy a lap dance.
After all, I was a paying patron, why should I feel intimidated

letters
sex workers rights activist. as a female client in a strip club? I was entitled to the same
Sex. Sex Work. Sex Worker. Titillating words that things the other male clients were entitled to.
illicit strong reactions. From the completely disgusted to By the time I left the club, I was offered a job and was in
the all-knowing, these words never fail to arouse curiosity awe of how glamorous every woman had seemed. My former
I recently started reading your paper and was matched with endless questions. image of the coked up sex worker was quickly replaced with
pleasantly surprised by its range of opinion and
by the overall format as well as the quality of the
content provided by the writers.

However, I was shocked and extremely

dismayed by Matt Erikson’s piece on the current
state of what he calls “confinement” within
Americas school systems [Teacher or Prison Guard?,
Critical Moment #8]. Not only is the article devoid
of any real substance concerning actual data or
research into the nature of classroom discipline, it
makes several sweeping generalizations about an
entire school system based upon Matt’s experiences
a substitute and as a student teacher. What the hell
was he thinking? I could have understood if he was
examining the current state of sub teaching and
the ways in which it is inadequate, but this kind of
slanderous and misinformed ranting is not what I
would have expected from you guys. Really.

Maybe the reason that Matt feels ineffective

as a teacher has less to do with the systems focus
on conferment and more to do with his own
limitations as a teacher. In the future, please take
more time to quality control articles like this that
diminish your reputation as source of information
and exploration for our community.
Aaron Jackson
CRITICAL MOMENT welcomes letters and
comments from our readers. Please submit
letters to momentboard@umich.edu
SEX WORKER RIGHTS ADVOCATES GET TOGETHER TO ORGANIZE AND PLAY A GAME OF CHESS.
I remember my first discussion about sex work and sex
worker politics. I was eighteen and in a women’s studies class
listening to some fellow classmates express how the support
of sex workers seemed fundamentally wrong in regards to
the rest of the feminist movement—that if women wanted
to exist out of the patriarchal paradigm, they shouldn’t be
selling their body image or themselves for male pleasure. A
few women had dissenting views and brought up that the
feminist movement should be supporting all women and that
if the feminist movement wanted to move forward, it would
have to include everyone, including women who chose to do
sex work.
The first time I went to a strip club: the flashing lights,
gaudy Mardi-Gras-like decorations, and nude undulating
female bodies. It is still fresh in my mind. My roommate
and I had gone because we decided that we were going to be
strippers and that we were going to make a shit load of money
doing it. Fuck what everyone had said about sex workers and
the sex goddess, the femme fatale, and the innocent school
girl. The pendulum had swung—from the misconceived
negative values that a sexually repressed culture had socially
ingrained into me, to a new naïve and equally misconceived
positive outlook on sex work.
Within the first few weeks of working as a stripper at Lil’
Darlins, I quickly realized that sex work wasn’t a glamorous
job. I’d walk in at 5 pm to cake on layers upon layers of
cosmetic products, stuff up several tampons into myself and
tuck in strings when I was bleeding. I’d let other working
women spray feminine hygiene products on me and then
get horrible yeast infections, painstakingly walking around
in nine-inch stilettos for hours at a time. I’d make up stories
about where I was from, slink up to patrons to seductively
offer lap dances, tell patrons to keep their hands off of me
and always, always demand more money. I would go home at
3 am, baggy raccoon eyes and tell inquisitive housemates that
I was returning from my waitressing job in the city.
continued on next page

3
 continued from previous page
Most of the women I worked with were single mothers,
many of them had been working there for over five years.
Our favorite topic to discuss was what we were going to
do once we stopped working at Lil’ Darlins. We all were
“temporary” workers, talking about the day that we’d be able
to quit and start working “real” jobs. Panther was training
to be a masseuse, Jasmine was planning on going back to
school to become a veterinarian, and Tony was going to
become a professional ballet dancer. I had long given up
my dreams of becoming the next Bobby Fischer but I was
putting myself through college.
In my women’s studies class, we had moved far from
contemplating why women did sex work. We decided that
it was more important to discuss the politics of sex work.
We had a discussion about unionizing sex workers, what it
meant and if it was important.
San Francisco’s clubs are practically monopolized by a
chain called Déjà Vu. Déjà Vu owns strip clubs all over the
United States. In San Francisco’s infamous North Beach
district, there are two blocks chock full of strip clubs. Déjà
Vu owns the vast majority of these clubs and is closely
associated with the other clubs with the exception of the
Lusty Lady. There have been several efforts to unionize the
Déjà vu strip clubs in San Francisco; none of them have
been successful. Aside from the reluctance that many have
for labeling themselves as sex workers because of social
stigmas and discrimination, the main reason women haven’t
successfully unionized within the Déjà vu chain is because
the vast majority of them have signed on as independent
contractors after being pressured by managers to do so.
At Lil’ Darlins, I was charged “tickets” as an independent
contractor, which I found out to be illegal years later when
I got involved in a class action lawsuit against Deja Vu. I
rented out the stage for all of my stage shows as well as the
private booths for all the lap dances that I did. I also had
to pay extra tickets if I came into work “late.” Basically, if
I walked into work at 8 pm, I automatically owed the club
$80 and if I gave 13 lap dances and did 20 stage shows then
I owed another $260, a total of $340. The money I took
home depended solely on tips and I usually brought home
anywhere from $0 to $1000.
As an independent contractor, I was given no health
benefits or sick pay, I had no rights to complain about
working conditions and knew that on any given night
I could be fired and blackballed from any of the Déjà vu
clubs.
According to the women I worked with, the Lusty Lady
was a peep show that paid women by the hour. I found out
that in 1996, workers at the Lusty Lady joined the Exotic
Dancer’s Union in the Service Employees International
Union Local 790. Workers demanded and then received,
among other things, health benefits. Years after unionizing,
management decided to shut down and sell the Lusty Lady.
The workers of the Lusty Lady organized themselves and
decided to purchase the Lusty Lady themselves and turn it
into the first worker-owned cooperative peep show in the
U.S.
The unionizing efforts of the Lusty Lady workers proved
that sex workers could organize themselves to demand
rights. Beyond that, it challenged society to recognize sex
work as valid work.
I started to seriously question myself. Did I think sex
work was valid work? Did I identify as a sex worker? Did
I feel entitled to having basic rights as a service industry
worker? Despite the fact that I knew I wouldn’t be a
stripper for the rest of my life, despite my reluctance to let
friends and family know that I was stripping, despite my
non-existent voice that wanted to tell my manager’s to fuck
off and stop charging me all those illegal stage fees, I knew
the answer to all those questions was yes.
4 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
For the first year that I was involved in sex work, I
hardly shared any of my experiences. All of my friends were
worried about my decision to strip and many of them had
told me that they could not be supportive of me. Desperately
wanting to prove why sex work was something worthwhile
to me, the only experiences I shared were positive ones like
reclaiming my sexuality or making quick money. I never
talked about incidences of work related assault (being ripped
off financially by my employers, sexual harassment from my
managers, sexual assault by a client) or my heightened body
image issues. I have no doubt now that had I had the support
that I needed or lived in a culture where sex, sexuality and
sex work weren’t taboo and sensationalized topics that I
would have been able to effectively communicate more of
my experiences, and perhaps sought out professional help,
legal and psychological, and utilized more community
resources such as the various sex worker support groups
within the city.
After finally coming to terms with identifying as a
sex worker, I started to critically think about other issues
that doing sex work brought up. For instance, I recognized
that as a sex worker, my definition of sexual harassment
had become completely skewed. I no longer considered
my manager slapping my ass or coming onto me as sexual
harassment. I questioned how my quasi-illegal work (the
private lap dancing booths in San Francisco are an illegal
set up that is currently being disputed in public hearings
by the San Francisco Entertainment Commission and city
officials) would affect my ability to access legal services. For
example, if I were being stalked by a client, even assaulted
or raped, could I report the incident to the police or a
social worker without being outted as a sex worker and
consequently arrested for doing sex work?
Beyond my own personal issues with sex work, I
recognized that my experiences as a privileged college
student choosing to do sex work (as opposed to the many
men, women and children who’s experience with sex work is
a survival strategy) was drastically different from the other
women I worked with. It was then that I realized in order
to truly understand all the political and social implications
of sex work and sex workers, there must absolutely be a place
where sex workers can freely express their thoughts and
advocate for themselves and their experiences without fear
of prosecution and/or discrimination. Until then, society’s
view of sex work would still swing wildly from one end of
the pendulum to the next.
Since my day at Lil’ Darlins, I’ve worked at the Lusty
Lady, as a dominatrix, helped SWOP put a measure on the
Berkeley ballot to decriminalize prostitution, done outreach
to trafficked sex workers and have started a youth program
that works with Oakland’s minors involved in prostitution.
The more I get involved with the sex worker culture, the
more I realize how much more there is to learn about all
the different sub-cultures and issues within the sex worker
world. I’m convinced that taking top-bottom approaches
will never fully address all the issues that these populations
face.
Maybe I’ll return to my aspirations of becoming
the next Bobby Fischer and start my own community of
supportive and sexy sex workers who play chess. Anyone
down for a game?
Elizabeth Sy has worked as both an exotic dancer and professional
dominatrix. Sy has also facilitated female sexuality classes and
volunteered for sex worker and sex culture focused non-profits
such as Sex Workers Outreach Project. She is currently involved
in starting Banteay Srei, a non-profit dedicated to social justice
for sexually exploited young southeast asian women, and
lushorchid, an economic development project that works with
Cambodian sex workers.
Th e Q ueer
between Spanish and
English) as an “impure
language,” opposed to
pureza de la lengua, only
in trilingual Spanish/ Italian/ English exchange (that of the
Woman from the Sea or la Donna del Mare), or through the
figure of Sam Fat, the Afro-Chinese/ Puerto Rican/ Loisaida
detective in “Página en blanco y staccato” (1987), it is always

politics of a stone’s throw away

from pureza de sangre o
de raza [purity of blood
with a certain daintiness and detachment that betray a true
lack of comfort. But this is not something that the gay writer
ever hid, as is evidenced in his interview with Marithelma

S panglish
BY LAWRENCE LA FOUNTAIN-STOKES
“Queer,” a somewhat untranslatable term with no exact
equivalent in Spanish, is used in Anglo-America and its
linguistic contact zones as a resignified marker of sexual
difference: that which is askew or off-center, as in the case
of lesbian and gay; a position beyond identity politics and
more closely associated to the postmodern decentering of
the subject. Like saying “lo raro,” in other words, “extraño,
singular, muy diferente de lo corriente, de lo que se espera o de lo
que es razonable y justo,” following María Moliner, referring
not to the term that concerns us but to one that helps us
approximate its meaning. But who decides what is “very
different from what is reasonable and just,” as the Spanish
linguist and lexicographer would have it?
Nations, constituencies, and groups define themselves
and consolidate their identities through the imposition of
norms, limits, and parameters. The control of language, just
as that of many other socio-cultural traits such as clothing,
food, music, and dance, can (and often does) serve toward
these purposes. The formation of linguistic communities
does not necessarily imply homogenizing, exclusivist stances;
multilingualism is accepted in many locations around the
globe. Yet monolingualism, closely associated to some
imperialist projects and to modern processes of nation
formation, is exacerbated in contemporary ultranationalist
movements, ruled and defined as they are by racist and
xenophobic ideologies. Present debates in the US regarding
“English Only” are an example of nativist positions that seek
to literally and symbolically silence immigrants as well as
indigenous populations, including both Native Americans or
Indians and Hispanics / Latinos who trace their roots to pre-
1848 Mexican territories or to later conquests, such as that
of Puerto Rico in 1898.
What does “queerness” (understood as a sign of sexual
difference) have in common with non-monolingual linguistic
practices such as bilingualism and code-switching? One
answer would be the way both relate to notions of purity and
impurity: of that which is civilized or nominally acceptable,
as opposed to that which is considered to be taboo, savage,
or degraded. There is nothing intrinsically pure or impure
about sexuality or language, except how they are constituted
and defined in different socio-cultural and historic moments.
Yet the two, as well as another key pairing—language and
gender—are often inextricably intertwined.
Mestizo Languages
Nowhere is the link of Latino/a multilingualism and
queerness more clearly articulated than in Gloria Anzaldúa’s
fundamental text, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
(1987), more specifically in the chapter “How to Tame a
Wild Tongue.” Here we see how the body’s organ becomes
by synecdoche a symbol of a rebellious, non-conforming
state, something that brings Anzaldúa close to another
transgressor, Malintzín, also known as La Malinche, the
indigenous translator and lover of Hernán Cortés who was
also referred to as “lengua” (tongue) and criticized for her
linguistic and sexual identity. Anzaldúa’s revolt occurs in the
context of a dominant view of Spanglish (the code-switching
or of race]—ideologies Costa, in which he candidly discloses his unease with the
intrinsically opposed to English language.
the fundamental reality of Frances Negrón Muntaner’s film Brincando el charco:
Latin American mestizaje. Portrait of a Puerto Rican (1994) presents, from its very title,
Politics in both English a different position regarding bilingualism. This film, part
and Spanish-language documentary and part fiction, presents a history of Puerto
communities, which attempt to promote “la defensa de la Rican migration to the US with a particular focus on gay and
lengua” [the defense of language], deny the heterogeneity lesbian experience; the documentary segments are framed in
and mixture that characterize the New World. Anzaldúa’s the context of a semi-autobiographical story of a character
affirmation of her lesbianism, feminism, and multi-voiced called Claudia Marín, an exiled lesbian Puerto Rican
and multilingual identity challenges traditional concepts of photographer living in Philadelphia. The film freely switches
submissive, quiet womanhood, of subservient victims and back and forth between languages and disparate themes such
obedient spouses. Anzaldúa lists the languages of her own as race, history, discrimination, and the dynamics of personal
and of Chicano/a experience: standard English, working relationships between island and mainland-born lesbians. In
class and slang English, standard Spanish, standard Mexican
Spanish, North Mexican Spanish dialect, Chicano/a Spanish
(with its regional variations), Tex-Mex, and Pachuco or caló
(55). Half and half—mitá mitá—in the sexual and linguistic
mitá y mitá
sense.
Yet queerness is not an exclusive province of any one
sexual orientation, be it straight or gay. “Me siento muy. . .
excited!” says Selena (as portrayed by the Puerto Rican actress
Jennifer López) in the 1997 film of that name, drowning
by the sheer strength of her charisma the xenophobic anti-
multilingual instincts of her possible detractors. Selena draws
on her own self-crafted politics of affect, by which linguistic
“insufficiencies” are masked, transposed, or embroiled in
complex negotiations of charm, physical touch, and rapport.
Selena’s body and emotion become her tongue, la lengua,
much as her singing in English and Spanish served to reaffirm
ties of common ancestry and culture across the Mexican-US
border. The queer circumstances of her death (murdered by
a woman accused of being a lesbian) and her beatification by
scores of admiring fans add to the complexity of her legacy.
Puerto Rican Linguistic Queerness
When the conceptual/linguistic divide of sex/gender/
nation and language is not a geographic expanse but rather an
immensity interrupted by the Atlantic Ocean, as in the case
between Puerto Rico and the United States, the expressions
of queerness and language are bound to be different. “But “CHUPAROSA,” ALMA LOPEZ, 2002
how does one invent a language? Jerigonza would do!” fact, by focusing on the relationship between Claudia and her
exclaims the lesbian Puerto Rican poet Luz María Umpierre Nuyorican girlfriend Ana Hernández, the film enacts a scene
in “The Mar/Garita Poem” (1987), to later affirm in code: ““yo of queer national romance in which the encounter between
tú nos/ necesi/tamos lenguas; si las lenguas/ no se unen/ no habrá/ the island and its diasporic population is enacted through
la unión salvadora/ del mundo y de la guerra” [I/you/we need language and sex. This occurs quite noticeably by criticizing
tongues; if the tongues do not unite/ we will not have/ the intolerance, as in the case of Claudia’s condemnation of her
redeeming union/ of the world and of war] (34). This final girlfriend’s cousins in Puerto Rico, who laughed at Ana (and
poem of the Margarita series attempts to bring resolution to stunted her Spanish learning) for incorrectly translating
a lesbian process of love and loss as well as to a situation of “grocery store” as ““grosería” (which means coarseness
estrangement and transformation: the cultural threat posed or rudeness); but grosería is precisely what the threat of
by appropriating gestures camouflaged as friendly exchange, lesbianism (and of migration) is constantly portrayed as in
commented on in “Only the Hand that Stirs Knows What Puerto Rico: familiar, as the ubiquitous bodega on every
Is in the Pot”: “No handing out my set of ingredients,/ they barrio street corner in the US diasporic atlas; shocking; and
sauté in my head,/ inside a Corning food dish” (25). queer.
Umpierre’s highly successful integration of bilingualism
and code-switching contrasts greatly with the experience of Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is an Assistant Professor of
another first-generation gay Puerto Rican migrant, Manuel Latino/a Studies and Spanish at the University of Michigan,
Ramos Otero, who never truly integrated the English language Ann Arbor, where he teaches courses on the queer Caribbean and
into his work, at least not in a successful manner. While the on theater and performance. He was born and raised in San Juan,
lack of linguistic diversity of early stories such as “Hollywood Puerto Rico. His book of short stories Blue Fingernails/Uñas
Memorabilia” (1971) is addressed in later narratives such as pintadas de azul is forthcoming from Bilingual Press (Arizona).
“El Mar” (1979), which actually engages
El cuento de la Mujer del Mar He can be reached at lawrlafo@umich.edu.

5

Defining Our Own
Sexual Liberation
Ingrid’s story
I began my non-monogamous sexual
self-exploration after breaking up with a
woman I spent five years with. The last year
of our relationship, we mutually decided to
“open it up”. Our years together had been
very fulfilling but after several years together,
came to the conclusion that our love for one
another did not diminish the lust, attrac-
tion and need for other queer people in our
lives. We embarked on a journey that most
of our friends had only whispered about. It
was a process that seemed natural to us but
a process all too unfamiliar. We struggled
and I believe our break-up had much to do
with the lack of information and community
around this lifestyle.
After our foiled attempt at an alterna-
tive relationship I was not deterred. I knew
it would be difficult due to societal views but
I felt monogamy was a societal construct I
did not want to be controlled by. Control-
ling mechanisms ranged from being viewed
and named a “whore”, my motherhood being
put into question because I was not setting a
good example for my daughter, being told I
would get a sexually transmitted disease and
eventually live a lonely existence due to my
selfishness. Regardless of those roadblocks I
continued to explore. I ventured into other
open relationships, being “single” and dating
several people and experimenting with pri-
mary partners and swinging. This journey is
a continual one that I cherish because I am
creating my own view and ideas about what
intimate relationships, love and sex mean to
me.
YK’s story
My relationships have always been un-
conventional in some ways, whether because
of my queerness, my gender identity or my
color. This is one of the reasons I began a
6 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
We believe it makes sense to live a life that allows us a right to
enter into multiple intimate relationships. We believe the notion of
finding everything you’ve ever wanted in one person, whether a
friend or lover, is a huge expectation for any one person to ask
for or fulfill.
BY YK HONG & INGRID RIVERA
This is our story of how we met, found community, and are building a vision together.
self-evaluation process to find out what felt
right to me outside of the limitations of what
I was told to feel, think and do.
My personal exploration of non-mo-
nogamy came about as I began to recognize
that my attractions for many people were not
validated when I was in relationships with
one person. I felt strongly that it was healthy
to name, express and pursue desire when I
felt it. This desire was never limited to one
single person, yet I was told by society and
laws to limit myself to desire only one. I was
also told that everyone else was supposed to
find one person. I had many different types
of relationships that I cherish, felt happiness
in, and learned lessons from. Yet throughout
all of this, I felt that society’s constructs were
limiting me by controlling my body, mind,
sex and sexuality.
As a person who strives for personal
liberation in all aspects of my life, as a per-
son who constantly struggles to grow and
change, I have been finding that I am able to
find my own path, create my own relation-
ships and define my own ideas of sex, sexual-
ity, love and relationships. I look forward to
my future growth and embrace my personal
journey of purging, unlearning, creating and
naming.
Finding Community
When we met, we had been traversing
through our separate paths along an unwrit-
ten script of non-monogamy. There is no
guidebook for how to live your life, if you
live it outside of social convention. As with
any situation that is exploratory, or without
a script, we had each been learning through
trial and error and self-exploration.
We met through our political organiz- cause it strives to break from social construc- capitalist idea of ownership and property.
ing work and found that we had many things tions of what it means to be in any kind of What is polyamory?
in common, including being political non- relationship with another person or persons. How many friends do you have? Do you
monogamous queer people of color. It also aims to break from the mentality of have just one? Most people would say, they
Non-monogamy is political to us be- “I own you,” which we believe comes from a have many different kinds of friends. Friends
that are supportive, friends that you hang out
to have fun with, friends that offer commu-
nity, and friends that give you love.
We have many friends because we have
many sides to each of us. Friends touch upon
and access different aspects of our personal-
ity, background and experiences.
This is how we feel when we talk about
intimate relationships.
Even when you think you find someone
that fulfills many or even most of your wants
and needs, we cannot assume that person will
never change, and we cannot assume that
you will never change. Growth is a natural
process of life, we learn this as we find and
lose friends and have lovers come and go.
We hope that there is never a moment in our
lives that we do not grow, learn or change.
Our belief is in a philosophy that opens
our minds up to thinking dynamically about
ways we can interact and grow. In this con-
text, we are people who have different identi-
ties: being queer, being people of color. We
explore different ways to find this with and
through our interactions with people around
us.
We call this philosophy polyamory.
Polyamory goes beyond non-monoga-
my. It is negotiated, ethical non-monogamy.
Polyamory is the non-possessive, honest, re-
sponsible and ethical philosophy and prac-
tice of interacting intimately with multiple
people simultaneously. It gives one the op-
tion of having relationships outside of social
norms. Polyamory is from the root words
Poly (meaning “many”) and Amour (mean-
ing “love/lovers”); hence “many loves” or
Polyamory.
Polyamory is an umbrella term, it can
mean many things, such as being in a triad
(when there are three people who are inti-
mate with each other), having a primary
partner, being single but having multiple
lovers or relationships. To us, revolutionary
polyamory means purging the seeds of op-
pression that try to corner us into ownership,
control of our bodies, and illusions of secu-
rity through something outside of yourself.
Examining and coming into this phi-
losophy is not an easy task.
Similar to coming out as a queer or
transgender person of color in a homopho-
bic/transphobic, racist society, we have need-
ed to learn the process of shedding the ways
in which society at large has taught us how
to live, love and navigate through this world.
This means unlearning and challenging most
of the information we are given on a daily
basis. This means questioning the ways we
are told the world is supposed to work. Even
with polyamory, we knew that many models
of intimate relationships were largely based
in the dominant culture, i.e. white culture.
As people of color, we work to find cre-
ative ways to expand our culture, language
and relationships outside of the box that we
are pushed into by dominant culture.
The boxes we are often pushed into are
“family values”, religion, and “ethics”. We are
initially taught that a family is a man and a
woman married with children. Even now,
family values are being challenged as be-
ing queer people with children, but perhaps
we need to think about breaking from the
framework of conventional structures alto-
gether. We are taught that there are ways to
conduct ourselves in relationships even when
we are dating, that there is one religion with
its values that takes precedence over other
beliefs, that society dictates what is wrong
and what is right.
Being polyamorous is not anti-love or
anti-relationship, but simply thinking differ-
ently about relationships that were created
for us. The government and state have always
tried to enforce how we are supposed to use
our bodies as queer people, poor people and
people of color. Poor women of color going
through forced sterilization, past sodomy
laws, sex work, abstinence until marriage
policies and Bush’s Healthy Marriage Initia-
tive are examples of our bodies being con-
trolled by others, not by ourselves.
Polyamory fits into our life, because
of our politics, our practice and our beliefs.
Even when we are considered outsiders and
not understood because of these beliefs, we
continue to pursue our desires and ideas with
passion. We don’t claim to be perfect or bet-
ter than anyone else, but we do understand
that we live in a country that oppresses our
actions, thoughts and desires. These are the
things that we are trying to break out of.
A Revolutionstar Experience
Revolutionstar Experience is the effort
we, as two queer political polyamorous people
of color, put together to bring to our larger
communities. It is our philosophy of detoxi-
fying our people of color bodies, minds and
spirits from oppression within and outside
of ourselves. As we walk through our lives
we are bombarded with dominant culture
and systemic oppression. Purging and un-
learning these is key to finding personal and
collective liberation. We emphasize constant
self-evaluation and self-criticism as part of
our personal work and growth. Only after we
have gone through individual growth and are
fully conscious with ourselves can we begin
building with our larger community.
We started Revolutionstar Experience
to bring our personal experiences of purging,
and still continuously purging, ourselves of
the seeds of poison that we as people of color,
especially queer, genderqueer and trans folks
of color, experience, and how these seeds al-
ter our existence and intimate interactions.
Revolution can mean many things, in
this case, to us, it means upsetting the setup.
Polyamory is revolutionary to us because it
is a way to deconstruct and dismantle the
systems and setup that attempt to oppress us
through sexism, racism, homophobia, trans-
phobia and other oppressions.
We do many things to try to help our
queer, genderqueer and trans communities
reach this radical vision, such as workshops,
a retreat called Purge to explore our bodies,
sex and sexuality, an effort called OP3 (Op-
pressed People’s Protection Plan) to talk
about violence within our own communities
due to systemic control, and also organize
-with special guests Laura
Whitehorn, Climbing Po-
etree, Njeri Earth, Miz Ko-
rona, and Psalm One.
-Panel discussion on in-
carcerated women’s lib-
eration through.
-workshops on: poetry,
turning media into art,
breakdancing, screen
printing, linoleum cuts
play parties, events where we offer space for
queer, genderqueer and transgender people
of color to express themselves without inhi-
bition.
We aim to make our play parties spaces
for people to think about and exercise sexual
liberation without guilt, shame, judgment or
single-mindedness. We think about these
as opportunities for queer, genderqueer and
transgender people of color to reach a radical
vision collectively.
These projects are liberating in that they
allow us to question, act, and feel freer with-
in our own bodies and minds outside of the
ideology that bombards us. Our workshops
have focused on the important intersections
between politics and “alternative” ways queer,
poor people and people of color can begin to
consciously use our own bodies that the state
has historically tried to police. We not only
emphasize the importance of sexual libera-
tion but also how our sexual oppression has
been tied to policies, politics, the state and
laws. We try to address how sexual libera-
tion is not just about the sex we have but it is
also hindered by the systemic control of our
thoughts.
Our collective and individual growth
continues through our work with Revolu-
tionstar Experience. We look forward to this
lifelong journey.
www.revolutionstar.org
revolutionstar@riseup.net
Ingrid Rivera is a queer, Black Boricua, highly
seasoned and experienced community organizer
and consultant. She is also a poet /performance
artist and self proclaimed sex educator.
YK Hong is a trainer, organizer, writer, leturer,
artist and revolutionary dedicated to talking
about accountability, anti-oppression, grasroots
organizing and sexual liberation, particularly
for people of color, queer and trans folks and poor
communities.
7

newswire
ARTICLES FROM THE MICHIGAN
INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER
Lynne Stewart Guilty;
Faces Up to 45 Years in Jail
I n a blow to the abil-
ity of lawyers to de-
fend clients suspected
of terrorism, a jury
in Manhattan today
found radical lawyer
Lynne Stewart guilty
of aiding terrorists.
She was found guilty
on every charge as were co-defendants.
Many of the harshest charges against
Stewart were originally dismissed, but in a
surprise move, then-Attorney General John
Ashcroft filed new charges against the law-
yer.
from the AP: “A veteran civil rights law-
yer was convicted Thursday of crossing the
line by smuggling messages of violence from
one of her jailed clients -- a radical Egyp-
tian sheik -- to his terrorist disciples on the
outside.”
In a development on Feb. 8 that may
provide grounds for an appeal of the verdict,
members of the Jewish Defense Organization
(JDO), a right-wing terrorist organization,
posted fliers on the Manhattan courthouse
door calling for Stewart’s death.
Citizens to Bush:
‘Hands off Social Security’
D ETROIT – Protesters organized by the
National Campaign for America’s Future
chanted “Privatization, no way; Social Secu-
rity is here to stay” outside Cobo Hall Feb.
8. Inside, Pres. George W. Bush addressed
the Detroit Economic Club about his plans
to privatize the social security system by
allowing workers to put their contributions
into private investment schemes.
“The current system is working fine,
and has been for 70 years,” Byron Frazier of
Michigan Citizen Action said. “We’re scared
to death of what this man is proposing.”
Linda Teeter added, “One out of three people
in most cities like Detroit depend on Social
Security. The only people who would benefit
from Bush’s scheme are Wall Street and the
president’s large contributors.”
8 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
fiction
Torpedo
through the tulips
BY RACHEL SHUKERT
W
hen I was living in Amsterdam,
a friend who worked in PR
and knew about such things
suggested to me that I might have
some sort of future in writing for men’s
magazines—the “cool girl” feature so
popular in Maxim, FHM, Details, etc—
if I could manage to be a little more
pornographic and slightly less intellectual
in my work.
“You think I’m an intellectual?” I
asked, taken somewhat aback. “I mean, I
have yet to read any Chomsky where he
writes about getting his period all over his
bicycle seat.”
He surveyed a recent story I had
written, looking for evidence of my
brain. “Well, there are some awfully long
sentences in here.”
At the time, faced with the impending
prospect of returning to New York with no
foreseeable career opportunities, I figured
that writing some narrative prostitution
about how much chicks LOVE anal sex was
worth a shot. I’d be like a brainy phone-sex
operator—like the brothel of intellectual
harlots in the Woody Allen story “The
Whore of Mensa.” I’d have to spice up
my sex life a little; let my hair down, but
that was okay. I was already kind of slutty
in the name of bohemianism—downing
large quantities of “art juice” every night
and sleeping with tattooed Scandinavians.
Now I’d research, record, get paid. “I am
a camera,” said Christopher Isherwood.
Well, I’d be a camera too—just without the
Nazis.
It was with this goal in mind that I
headed to the red-light district to buy a
vibrator.
I have slowly come to the conclusion
that I have become, despite all my efforts
to the contrary, that most predictable of
creatures; a single woman in her mid-
twenties. It’s time to make some kind of
investment in the future. A girl my age
who is the newest associate at a law firm,
say, or works in P.R. or marketing, might
put a down payment on an apartment, start
an I.R.A., buy a car or a grown-up purse.
My means are considerably more limited,
and I was in Amsterdam, where you must
traverse the seven levels of the Dildo
Forest, raft across the mighty Lube River,
and answer the riddle of the beautiful Ball
Gag Fairy in order to get to work in the
morning.
I munched Gummi sweets from a
striped paper sack, browsing the human
wares of the ancient streets admiringly,
until I came to a shop called PRIVATE—
SHHH! It was large and clean and the
salespeople wore shirts with their names
embroidered on the breast pocket like gas
station attendants. I situated myself in
front of a large selection of vibrators against
the back wall, fascinated by the paroxysms
of pleasure their packaging promised. A
trio of Muslim teenagers in headscarves
and flowing tunics giggling girlishly over
a rubber maid’s uniform.
An enormous man approached me,
a man who would not look out of place
sternly shielding Britney Spears from
prurient photographers. (By the way—
according to a British magazine I read here,
a reporter recently asked La Britney—la
Bretagne? —what the last thing she had
in her mouth was and she replied coyly,
“A vibrator.” Somebody needs to explain
a few things to that girl.) The giant spoke
to me in the elfin singsong of the Dutch
language, and gauging my terror, switched
to English.
“Are you finding everything? Can I
help you?” His bald pate gleamed ivory in
the soft light.
I’d had a similar experience once
before in junior high school, cutting across
the park on my way home from the bus. As
I made my way through a small, wooded
area, I heard an unmistakable gasping
coming from behind a tree. Gingerly, I
approached, to see a man who appeared
to be in his late thirties, rubbing his bare
ass against the bark like a cat and furiously
grappling with the one-eyed warrior.
Disturbing, yes, but mortifying was the
fact that whole way home, I had been
thinking feverishly of a certain boy who
sat in front of me in Social Studies—oh,
let’s call him Matthew Patrick Calloway—
and all the things I would let him do to
me should we ever find ourselves locked in
the band closet during homeroom. I felt
as if this frightening, sweaty man, staring
at my thirteen year old haunches with a
look that would peel paint, could read my
mind. He knew what I wanted. He knew.
Probably everyone that looked at me knew.
Including Matthew Patrick Calloway.
The point of this charming little
digression is that when an obvious pervert
somehow intrudes upon your erotic reverie,
be you pre-pubescent or fully pubed, it
throws you for a loop.
I searched for words to answer the
giant pervert. Blankly I stared at his
vast shirt, where his name, Jeroen, was
embroidered in bright yellow—coward’s
yellow, I thought, crazily. Oh. He wasn’t
a pervert. He worked there. A flicker of
something—amusement? condescension?
love? --traversed the laugh lines around his
eyes—the cool, placid blue that so many
of his countrymen are blessed with, like a
space shuttle photograph of Planet Earth,
so peaceful, so right.
From a distance the world looks blue and
green/And the snow capped mountains white/
There are no guns, no wars and no disease/No
hungry mouths to feed.
Clearly, I was going mad.
“Um, I’m okay. Yep. Just fine.”
“Why don’t you come over here, ja? I
have some samples with batteries—I make
a little demonstration and you can decide
which one is for you.”
How could I refuse?
I think of myself as a fairly
sophisticated person. I’ve read Camille
Paglia and um, Candace Bushnell. I see
the post-modern significance of porn. I
have worked through most of my sexual
inhibitions, aided by a therapy and a circle
of friends that would curl the hair of Freud.
Still, watching a man with fingers the size
of hot-dogs operating a lavender dildo
shaped like a bunny was somehow beyond
my comfort zone.
They had vibrators that revolved.
Vibrators that gyrated. Vibrators that held
you and asked about your feelings.
My apartment in Amsterdam had a
large framed portrait of Richard Wagner
hanging in the living room. For some
reason, his aquiline profile popped into
my head and refused to budge. “Great,” I
thought. “For the rest of my life, I will be
unable to orgasm without thinking of Richard Wagner.
Richard Wagner wrote the melody of “Here Comes the
Bride.”
Oh dear.
I kept it reasonably together until he brought out a
monstrous fuchsia penis with curved attachments on each
side, looking for all the world like a veiny, pornographic
cactus. “This one is for your clitoris, and this is for your
anus,” said Jeroen, with medical clarity, manipulating the
dolphin shaped pellets gracefully. “And this,” he caressed the
shaft lovingly “then goes in between.”
I lost my shit. Lost it. L-O-S-T it. My howls of laughter
distracted even the Muslim girls, now perusing a display of
leather restraints at a nearby counter.
Jeroen glared at me as if I were a sixth grader who
cackled every time someone said “hard.”
“Well, of course we have the technology for it to be
possible, so why would you not do it?” So practical. So
matter-of-fact. So Dutch.
“I HAVE A VIBRATOR IN MY PURSE.” YONI GOLDSTEIN, 2005.
In the end, I chose a fairly simple model made of heat-
sensitive rubber in teal. Cute, I thought. It’ll match my iMac.
The cashier wrapped my purchase up in pert polka-dotted
paper, free of charge, and I made my way to the next stop
of the day, the Uitmarkt, the giant outdoor festival that is
the official opening of the Dutch cultural season. Hundreds
of dance companies, theater companies, concert halls, and
cabarets set up booths on the Museumplein, just a few feet
from the Vermeers and the Rembrandts at the Rijksmuseum,
to give their spiel and hand out their pamphlets and candy and
complimentary ball-point pens. I perused the offerings. The
Abridged Works of William Shakespeare in Dutch! A Streetcar
Named Desire in Dutch! Various modern dance troupes full
of concave stomachs and blank expressions that make you
think of scary ballet teachers and how much you hate your
body. In Dutch!
I tried to be a good, international artist, a young up-and-
comer who deserved to be taken seriously.
“Hi, I’m an actress and a writer from New York City. Do
you mind if I ask a few questions?” and all I could think was
I’VE GOT A VIBRATOR IN MY PURSE!!! I’VE GOT
A VIBRATOR IN MY PURSE!!!
“How do you get your funding here in the Netherlands?
Because in the States it’s very difficult for young companies…”
I’VE GOT A VIBRATOR IN MY PURSE!!!! I’VE GOT
A VIBRATOR IN MY PURSE!!!
With the possible exception of the New York Times
Sunday Crossword, sex is undoubtedly the number-one
obsession in my life.
I am no better than the man behind the tree.
Desperate, I bought a beer. VIBRATOR! VIBRATOR!
NO! FOCUS, RACHEL! FOCUS!
I bought a sandwich.
I turned the corner. And caught my breath. It couldn’t
be! No, it couldn’t be! But it was! It was!
Lounging on a marble bench, his long legs
tossed carelessly over the side, his fiery hair
glistening in the golden sun of Vincent Van
Gogh, was Paul Bettany.
Paul Bettany. Hot, English, hallucination of
Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind”. Shirtless
English poet Geoff rey Chaucer in “A Knight’s
Tale” with Heath Ledger. Conflicted, English,
tennis player in the upcoming “Wimbledon”
with Kirsten Dunst. I realize that the readers
of this particular publication might not read Us
Weekly with the same voracity as I do, but Paul
Bettany. Paul Bettany. Paul Bettany. In a second
he was going to turn his leonine head, our eyes
would meet, and he’d take me back to his hotel
room and say all the naughty things British
men say in bed because they’re uncomfortable
around women—things like “Get that gorgeous
ass of yours over here, you nasty little tart.” And
we’d shag and shag and shag, even though he’s
married to Jennifer Connelly, and I’d never tell
the tabloids, no matter how much money they
offered me, because I’m noble and I knew we had
shared something very special.
AND I HAD A VIBRATOR IN MY
PURSE!
Lost in a world of my own, I tripped over the
high curb and went flying, my bag of promotional
materials with me, scattering over the deep
emerald grass. Paul Bettany turned slightly. Was
it my imagination, or did one divinely formed
cheekbone twitch in a semblance of a smile?
I had a brand new vibrator. I needed to go
home right away.
Rachel Shukert is a playwright/author/performer
based in New York City. Her work has been featured at Nerve.
com, Culturebot.org, and e74. She is alsothe co-founder of the
performance group the Bushwick Hotel. Thanks, Dan Nester!
newswire
(continued)
ARTICLES FROM THE MICHIGAN
INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER
‘Bus cuts will ruin Detroit’
I f Detroit Mayor
Kwame Kilpatrick
goes ahead with his
plan to cut 24-hour
bus services, he will
breed more trouble for
the city than he ever
imagines, bus drivers
and riders told the Detroit City Council Feb. 21.
At a public hearing in the Coleman A. Young
Municipal Building, bus drivers and residents
told the council that the trouble could mean an
increase in crime, homelessness and many other
societal ills.
source: Michigan Citizen
Reclaim Your Health! A Com-
munity Conference on Do-It-
Yourself Health
M arch 18th-20th at the Cass Community Neigh-
borhood Development Corporation, 3535 Cass
Ave and the Cass Community Food co-op, 4566
Charlotte in Detroit, MI.
The Detroit Health Collective is sponsoring a
Do-It-Yourself health fair. This will be a weekend
of workshops, discussions, networking, and train-
ings with a place for activists, health providers,
and interested community members to network
and learn.
The kickoff of this event will be Friday night
with keynote speaker Maureen Taylor, president of
the Welfare Rights Origination. She will talk about
the difficulty of accessing the current healthcare
system. After her speech there will be a coffee and
social as well as a dance. Saturday and Sunday will
be filled with discussions, workshops and hands
on trainings.
The Michigan Independent Media Center web-
site features an open publishing newswire
where you can publish your story in your voice.
Visit http://michiganimc.org/publish to get
started!
9

HIV/AIDS:
The Neo-Liberal Pandemic
N you wonder what, if anything, they
INE THOUSAND PEOPLE
throughout the world die ev-
ery day from AIDS. 24,000
people die of poverty each day.
In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s,
the world was struck by two simultane-
ous calamities – HIV/AIDS and neo-
liberal economics. But in addition to
sharing chronology, these developments
have grown together, fed off one anoth-
er, and exacerbated each of their horrific
effects. Unfortunately, our movements
are not making links between the two
– or at least, not in the sustained and
vociferous way they should be. His-
torically, groups like ACT UP (AIDS
Coalition to Unleash Power) and ME-
DECINS SANS FRONTIERES
(Doctors without Borders) and more
recently the People’s Health Forum,
the Third World Network and Health
GAP (Global Access Project) have em-
It is exceedingly important that global jus-
tice activists begin recognizing that poverty
and inequality are causal factors for infec-
tion—not simply effects.
phasized the connections between HIV
infection and the social oppression and
marginalization caused by neo-liberal
capitalism and neo-colonization. Such
movements should provide us with
both inspiration and blueprints for
mass struggle. Instead of learning from
these social movements, which have
taken a political economy approach to
fighting HIV/AIDS infection and stig-
ma, most leftists are still ignoring the
relationship between HIV/AIDS and
neo-liberalism. In fact, within many
leftist groups, the issue of HIV/AIDS
is not addressed at all. This silence can
too easily be interpreted as indiffer-
ence.
If we combine the statistics, 33,000
people are dying everyday worldwide
from disease and hunger – that’s 11
times more victims than 9/11 every day,
that’s “the equivalent of one tsunami
a week” (Lula da Silva, “An Indivis-
ible Destiny”), that’s a Holocaust ev-
ery year. This is global genocide, and
it should be commanding every ounce
10 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
of our energy to resist and revolt. If
we don’t start revitalizing, broadening
and globalizing our efforts to conquer
these joint executioners of the world’s
marginalized populations, they will be
annihilated. Neo-liberalism will have
succeeded in ridding the world of the
people they define as both unproduc-
tive and undesirable.
In my opinion, the left’s over-
whelming silence and absence in HIV/
AIDS activism is largely due to the fact
that struggles surrounding HIV/AIDS
are not commonly understood as anti-
capitalist in nature. However, it is ex-
ceedingly important that global justice
activists begin recognizing that poverty
and inequality are causal factors for
infection, not simply effects; the neo-
liberal macro-economic structures and
corporate logic that have insidiously
infected international and domestic
policies for the past three decades are
primarily to blame for the unequal dis-
tribution of HIV infection between
the North and South. HIV/AIDS
unveils, with horrifying vividness, of-
ten obscured fault lines of economic
and cultural inequality. On an inter-
national scale, this is illustrated by the
vast schism between former colonies
and industrialized nations; the rates of
infection hover around .1 percent in
industrialized countries while in most
Sub-Saharan African countries, HIV/
AIDS infects on average 25% of the
population. Within most nations, HIV
infection parallels inequalities of class,
race, gender, sexuality, health, and dis-
ability.
There are three primary reasons
why the HIV/AIDS crisis is not com-
monly analyzed in socio-economic
terms and is thus excluded from anti-
capitalist/anti-neoliberal struggles.
First, the way in which HIV/AIDS
policy is imbued with neo-liberal agen-
das is often complicated and obscured
BY CLAIRE DECOTEAU
– on both an international and national
level. Neo-liberal policy and coloniza-
tion are largely to blame for the endemic
poverty that plagues the ‘Third World,’
which has resulted in high rates of HIV
infection, as well as an inability to care
for those infected. For example, World
Bank and IMF policies force states
to cut funding on social services (for
health care, education, the provision of
basic services, etc.) and impose policy
restructuring at a national level, which
encourages the corporatization of state
governance and privatization of basic
services. As a result, health (along with
water, air, electricity, etc.) is commodi-
fied, and only those who can afford to
pay have the luxury of healthiness. “The
current economic policies would rather
view health as a private good that is ac-
cessed by the medium of the market”
(World Social Forum People’s Health
conference).
In addition, the WTO’s TRIPS
(Trade-Related Intellectual Property
Rights) agreement globalizes US pat-
ent laws – enforced by trade sanctions
authorized by the WTO Dispute Set-
tlement panel. Often, the US forces
countries around the world to pass
national laws that support restrictive
trade policies and benefit US pharma-
ceutical corporations. These imposi-
tions on national sovereignty are hid-
den in bilateral negotiations over trade
and investment strategies. Although
the TRIPS agreement allows for the
parallel importing of generic drugs,
which should be applicable to countries
throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia,
South America and India, pharmaceu-
tical multinational corporations ada-
mantly disallow the implementation of
this particular TRIPS clause and unre-
servedly punish those countries who at-
tempt to bypass IP’s on anti-retrovirals
(this occurred in both South Africa and
Brazil). Even though the pandemic is
continued on next page
“JUST SHUT UP”
BY DAVID SALYER
Every year, people all over the world
say stridently stupid, misinformed or
absurd things about HIV and AIDS.
Here’s a list of some folks who make
were thinking before they opened
their mouths. Their comments are best
met with three little words: Just shut
up.
Jose Batista
Down in Bexar County, Texas, the Alternative Housing
Corporation (AHC) secured federal funds to develop an
eight-unit transitional housing complex for single moth-
ers with HIV/AIDS. AHC conducted more than a dozen
meetings with local neighborhood associations and met
no opposition to the structure. Vacant land was chosen
on a bus line across the street from Stephen F. Austin El-
ementary School in the Five Points neighborhood of San
Antonio. At a town hall meeting near completion of the
transitional housing, Bexar County officials finally heard
from the opposition, led by Jose Batista. His fear? Chil-
dren could be infected with HIV if a child carrying the
virus bit them. Batista felt no better when Bexar County
Housing and Human Services representatives explained
that there has never been a documented case of child-
to-child HIV transmission by biting. “There’s no cure,”
Batista brayed. “The causes [given by health officials] are
always changing. As adults, we get scared when we don’t
know what’s going on. But kids don’t even know [what to
be afraid of ].” The transitional housing plan is about get-
ting homeless HIV-positive single moms back to work
and back into the community -- a compassionate en-
deavor. Batista promotes the nonsense that these women
have birthed a bunch of rabid little vampires poised to
gnaw away at the unsuspecting population of the local
elementary school.
William Donald Schaefer
William Donald Schaefer, Mary-
land’s Democratic (yes, Democratic)
Comptroller, has been a lifelong
public servant. Now 82, the former
mayor of Baltimore and former gov-
ernor of Maryland remains an un-
flagging source for bad ideas and re-
pugnant quotes. At a Board of Public
Works meeting last October, Schaefer got in the state
AIDS administrator’s face, demanding to know why she
does not establish a public registry listing HIV-positive
Maryland residents. Looks like he’s not going to let this
one go -- Schaefer called for such a registry three times
in the 1990s and it was defeated each time by the state
legislature. Interviewed later, Schaefer declared, “As far
as I’m concerned, people who have AIDS are a danger.
People should be able to know who has AIDS.” Not
knowing when to stop, he also reminded everyone that
people with AIDS “brought it on themselves.”
 Phillippia Faust
Got a lame, one-dimensional abstinence-only message for
America’s adolescents, ages 12 through 18? Get a grant!
That’s what Phillippia Faust, a nurse at Georgia’s Rockdale
County Medical Center, did last year. Faust was awarded
a federal grant of $177,809 a year for three years (that’s
$533,427, or half a million dollars) to create an abstinence-
only program. Now, Faust can afford a staff, supplies and a
real curriculum. “We do discuss teen pregnancy and STDs,”
says Faust. “But abstinence is all about strengthening the
family. Abstinence upholds the family as the basic unit of
society and recognizes marriage as the framework for the
family, which equates childbearing within the context of
family. Abstinence identifies marriage as the only accept-
able and legitimate place for the sexual experience and that
avoidance from premarital sexual activity, including but not
limited to sexual intercourse, is the expectant standard for
the unmarried.” It’s entirely possible that Phillippia Faust
is a really nice person, but she sure does sound like an in-
sufferable, proselytizing control freak with an astonishingly
narrow and oppressive view of human sexuality. How does
she stop teens from engaging in premarital sexual activity?
By staging mock weddings -- complete with props, scenery,
bridal attire and graphic slide show presentations of the
ghastly things sexually transmitted diseases can do to your
body. After two mock weddings last May, Faust told The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “I just wanted kids to have
a grand visual of what their day-to-day decisions can lead
to for their families, with an image of two beds -- the bed
of poor choices and the bed of ‘we made good choices by
waiting.’” Those are your tax dollars at work ... and a half a
million bucks can buy a lot of mock weddings.
continued from previous page
claiming 9,000 lives a day and the rates of infection are ris-
ing, pharmaceutical corporations are not prepared to lose
profit in order to save lives. “The combined sales of the
world’s largest pharmaceutical companies exceed the South
African Gross National Product” (Oxfam, “Priced Out of
Reach: How WTO Patent Policies will Reduce Access to
Medicines in the Developing World”). And yet, we are re-
liant on these multinational pharmaceutical companies to
provide the world with treatment. We should be attempt-
ing to build the generic drug market to bypass this system
of neo-liberal colonialism.
The second reason HIV/AIDS has not become a pri-
mary focus of global justice movements is representation.
The images HIV/AIDS activism invokes are those of “care
and support” – hospitals, nurses, social workers, NGOs –
not militant anarchists storming fences, blocking roads, and
occupying buildings (though ironically, this adequately de-
scribes many of the activities of ACT UP New York, Phila-
delphia and San Francisco during the 1980’s). This problem
of symbolic representation is dangerous for many reasons.
First of all, it encourages and sustains the feminiza- son these theories hold so much sway with disenfranchised
tion of the disease. Throughout the world, HIV/AIDS is populations around the world). I am simply saying that
a ‘gendered epidemic’ (Roth and Hogan 1998) in primarily while people need to practice safe sex, use clean needles,
Eurocentric (and often racist, classist and sexist) approach
to management and the provision of care, this is a truly dan-
gerous tendency to encourage. Thirdly and finally, repre-
senting HIV/AIDS as a “soft” issue obscures the reality of
radical political movements that have been fighting against
the discrimination and inequality intrinsic to HIV/AIDS
politics for the past three decades.
The third reason HIV/AIDS has failed to capture the
attention of mass leftist movements is perhaps the most
important because it also explains the global indifference
shown to the 61 million people currently infected world-
wide: HIV transmission is portrayed as the result of individ-
ual behavior. It is absolutely essential that we fight against
this individualization of the disease because it obscures
the socio-politico-economic causal factors of the epidemic
and excuses those responsible for carrying out this ongoing
global genocide. By insisting that there are international
forces and actors responsible for the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
I am not offering another ‘conspiracy theory’ about AIDS
being constructed in some laboratory in order to rid the
world of the undesirables (as much as I understand the rea-
etc., we need to take a broader perspec-
tive. There are structural reasons why
certain populations are more vulnerable
to infection (womyn, people of color,
the poor) which have more to do with
the relationship between health and
deplorable living conditions, patterns
of inequality, and exploitative inter-
personal relations than with individual
behavior. “Blaming the victim is part
of the neoliberal approach to health. It

Abott Laboratories nicely avoids any discussion of struc-

Around World AIDS Day 2003, pharmaceutical giant Ab-
bott Laboratories increased the U.S. wholesale price of its
HIV drug Norvir by 400%. Marketed since 1996, protease
inhibitor Norvir exists primarily due to a grant from the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Never
in the history of antiretroviral therapy has
a company announced such a price increase
on an existing drug. Abbott did not bring a
“new and improved” version of Norvir to the
market, nor did it raise the price of its other
protease inhibitor, Kaletra, which happens to contain Nor-
vir. Shocked AIDS activists, consumer groups and HIV
physicians responded with sharp criticism. Slammed from
all sides, Abbott representatives and spokespersons spent
2004 justifying the price hike. The spokespersons roboti-
cally repeated the same worn-out public relations prattle
and transparent lies as always. “This new price is necessary
to support our ability to continue research to bring a next
generation of HIV medications to market. This pricing ac-
tion supports our ability to continue research and develop-
ment.” Year in and year out, pharmaceutical companies like
Abbott are the wealthiest and most profitable corporations
in the world. Number of new HIV drugs Abbott had in
research, development or clinical trails in 2004: ZERO.
Number of the Seven Deadly Sins Abbott gleefully em-
braced in 2004: ONE. Greed.
Read the full version of this article at www.criti-
calmoment.org
tural violence, which would be deeply
threatening to the status quo of current
international economic arrangements”
(Interview with Alison Katz, Clamor
Magazine, Jan/Feb 2005, page 55).
HIV/AIDS not only unveils
schisms of difference between the
AIDS ACTIVIST CONFRONTS THE SFPD ON CASTRO STREET. SAN FRANCISCO, OCTOBER 6, 1989 North and South, and between the haves
two ways. Womyn are often portrayed and blamed as the and have-nots in each society, it also allows for the coales-
primary vectors of the virus, and they also bear the brunt cence of various social movement struggles, including: resis-
of care-giving for those infected. Womyn are more likely tance to World Bank and IMF debt, WTO trade policies,
to be infected (and in fact have a higher rate of infection and privatization; demands for the rights of womyn, chil-
than men in most parts of the world) both because of the dren, people of color, LGBT communities, and the disabled;
physical mechanics of transmission and because men too the accessibility of basic services like water, electricity, hous-
often wield control over womyn’s bodies. In addition, ing, education and health care; and the promotion of com-
womyn are blamed for the high levels of infection (because munity self-sustainability. HIV/AIDS activism must be
of prostitution, the weakening of traditional morals and in- waged at global, national and local levels. Living in South
stitutions - like the family, shifts in ideologies of sexuality, Africa has shown me the power of community-based activ-
etc.) and as such, they carry the added burden of stigma. ism and networks of care, but we must work to ensure the
This cloaks their plight in silence. In addition, due to the sustainability of autonomous community movements and
global gendered division of labor, womyn are also taking their capacity to undermine, challenge and transform state-
on the tremendous responsibility of caring for the victims sponsored structures. Such community-based struggles
of this epidemic – both the living and the dead. However, must proliferate, expand in scope, and unite across borders
womyn are also the ones fighting back. The growing ranks to ensure the growth of the ability of grassroots movements
of AIDS activists worldwide, combating both state and in- to undermine and subvert neo-liberal capitalist structures
ternational inaction, the pharmaceutical companies’ exploi- throughout the world. It is also essential that HIV/AIDS
tation, and their own communities’ discrimination, are pre- becomes a major component of the growing international
dominantly filled by womyn. However, the feminization global justice movement – and not simply as a sidelined,
of HIV/AIDS only rarely celebrates womyn as leaders of secondary issue, but at the forefront of any and all anti-
the struggles against HIV/AIDS and instead invokes and capitalism campaigns.
reinforces anachronistic and discriminatory gender norms.
Second, the ‘image’ problem of HIV/AIDS activism allows Claire Decoteau is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the UM.
NGOs to be the primary delegates of HIV/AIDS preven- She is currently living in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she
tion and treatment. With the increasing corporatization is engaged in research and activism focusing on the connections
of NGOs around the world, and their largely patronizingly between HIV/AIDS and neoliberal capitalism.

11
 Fight or
the Chicago Transit Fare Strike
Wa lk BY MIDWEST UNREST

In this article, we discuss the strengths and weakness-

es of our fare strike campaign in Chicago, as well as to
help groups in other cities who want to organize around
transit issues. When we first decided to do this cam-
paign, there wasn’t much to read on how other people
had organized fare strikes. Hopefully this can be useful
to other groups who want to use similar tactics.

The Campaign Begins
In July 2004, we heard in the news that
the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was
going to raise fares $0.25 at the start of the
2005. We thought that this was a lot to ask
of transit riders whose fares had already gone
up from $1.50 to $1.75 at the start of 2004.
The CTA claimed they were facing a budget
crisis but we could not see justification, in a
city as stinking rich as Chicago, for them to
pass their crisis onto the poorest section of
the population.
The idea of a fare strike made sense to us.
As an anarchist collective we had no illusions
about lobbying politicians. We wanted to win
our demands through direct action. If drivers
stopped collecting fares and riders stopped
paying them, then we could pressure the
transit agency without disrupting the lives of
those who depend on transit service. It was
also a very easy way to involve all the riders
who would be affected by the fare increase.
We started passing out one flyer for
riders and one for drivers suggesting a fare
strike as a tactic. This got a decent response.
Then in September the CTA announced that
they weren’t simply going to raise fares but
instead had an entire “Doomsday” budget to
be passed unless they received $87 million
from the state legislators. This did not fool
community groups who had had prior
experience with the CTA. The CTA had
made similar cuts before in 1997 and did
not use extra money received from the state
to restore them. The “Doomsday” budget
threatened a 20% cut to service and the loss
of over 1000 jobs. Whether or not money
was received, they also had plans to increase
Para-transit fares for disabled riders by a full
100%.
While the obvious connection of not
paying fares in resistance to a fare increase
was lost, we decided to use the tactic of a fare
strike against the Doomsday budget anyway.
The elimination of several bus routes and
a lot of night and weekend service would
be even more devastating and angering for
people. The attack on bus drivers’ jobs also
would make the necessary alliance between
riders and drivers a lot easier. We continued
to pass out flyers, this time sure to have “No
fare increases, no service cuts and no labor
cuts” as our demands.
Hearings and Lobbying
In October, the CTA held four public
hearings throughout the city. They were a
joke. The CTA bureaucrats sat there with
bored looks on their faces, drinking bottled
water and occasionally giggling to each other,
while people talked about how they will lose
their jobs without their bus lines, will starve
if they have to spend $150 of their monthly
disability checks on a transit pass or
just yelled at the officials for being idiots
and told them to watch their backs (and of
course some leftist wing-nuts lectured on
why only a revolutionary party could solve
the problem). They were more like public
tribunals against the CTA officials than
public hearings. Midwest Unrest used the
opportunity to begin publicizing the idea of
a possible fare strike, passing out flyers and
getting contact info from people.
The final hearing was the CTA’s annual
budget hearing at the Palmer House (a
fancy-ass hotel). Hundreds of people
attended: various transit groups, community
organizations, CTA workers, disabled CTA
riders and other angry transit riders. Many
people gave angry speeches about how
the service cuts would affect them and
the audience continually heckle the board
members. While one Midwest Unrest
member gave a crowd-rousing speech,
another member got on the stage and ripped
up the poster board with the Doomsday
budget on it. Both people were detained and
kicked out of the building while members
from the crowd yelled at the security guards
to let them go.
The public hearings had no impact on
the CTA’s decisions to cut service, of course.
They were used as a way for the CTA to have
angry riders vent off their anger (sometimes
against impolite, stressed-out bus drivers)
and to promote the idea that only the state
legislature could fix the problem.
The trip to lobby the state legislature
on November 9 left people feeling like
they’d wasted their time. The CTA’s request
for funding was not even on the legislators’
agenda and a couple days later it was
announced that no extra money hade been
allocated. This shattered the illusions of
those who’d previously been convinced that
the state would supply the money.
Meetings and more Meetings
Around this time, we started to flyer
the bus garages in town and talk to workers
more about a fare strike. Often workers
were in the middle of a conversation about
the cuts when we approached them so they
were usually happy to talk to other interested
people. The drivers were all pretty pissed and
stressed out—at the CTA and at their union
(ATU Local 241). When we brought up the
idea of a fare strike, the response was usually
quite positive. Only a few drivers ever told us
it was a bad idea and most said they would
support it.
We had a hard time pushing the
campaign to a more coordinated level.
Originally we had planned to call a meeting
with all the contacts we had collected at the
hearings, through email and from phone
messages, but we decided to call an initial

12 Critical Moment • January-February 2005

meeting solely with drivers before proposing a fare strike to December 15 to disrupt the meeting upstairs. The students led others in
riders, hoping to have a more solid plan of action. chanting that continued for a good 2 hours.
We returned to the garages with over a thousand flyers On December 15, the day the strike was to begin, the The meeting eventually restarted however. The decision
inviting CTA workers to a meeting about a fare strike. We Chicago Sun-Times reported that a deal had been struck in the end was in fact, like the Sun-Times had hinted
realized it was pretty sketchy leaving flyers for workers with state legislators and that all the cuts and any decision the previous day, to delay any service cuts or decisions on
around where management could see them but we didn’t feel on them would be delayed 6 months. The CTA refused to them 6 months. Furthermore, the decision to double Para-
like there were any other options. comment on the matter. This announcement actually served transit fares in January, which had already been passed, was
A lot of drivers told us they would try to make it but to weaken the fare strike as many people thought the issue reversed.
when the evening came, only two employees actually showed had been resolved.
up. The meeting was still useful though. They were interested Still, many bus drivers and station booth attendants did A Partial Victory
in the idea of a fare strike, but worried about management let people ride for free that day. In one instance, a bus driver
cracking down on employees who participated—especially if let a rider sit at the front of a bus, handing out flyers for the Midwest Unrest put out a statement declaring partial
fare boxes were sabotaged. On the other hand, they said that entire route, letting about 200 people on for free. Due to the victory and stopped organizing fare evasion. We estimate the
they doubted that any drivers would call the cops on people decentralized nature of the fare strike, we’ll never know how number of people who fare evaded on the 15th and 16th in
for evading fares. This pointed in the direction of a rider-lead many people, either workers or riders, took part. From stories the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands needed to
fare strike. we’ve heard though we would estimate at least a 50% success put real economic pressure on the CTA. Nevertheless, it is
The next week we had our open meeting. About 35 rate when riders tried to get on for free. no coincidence that the cuts were delayed when the pressure
people showed up, all riders. They were of all ages and from The CTA reported 4 arrests for fare evasion that day, was being put on the CTA itself. In a context where there
different groups such as the Little Village Environmental which seems about average for a weekday, and none of the is widespread anger against the CTA and the beginnings of
organization (a group based in a working class Latino arrestees ever got in touch with us. We were not encouraging radical direct actions, it could quite easily snowball and
neighborhood, that has been fighting for restoration of transit anyone to get themselves arrested by participating in the fare cause a major disruption of management of the transit
service to their neighborhood cut in 1997), a high school strike. We were counting on the groundwork done with bus system. In this situation, it is not unreasonable to assume that
group, the Campaign for Better Transit and many other drivers to make it likely that people could get on the bus for the bureaucrats in the CTA, the city government and even
folks. We proposed callinga fare strike starting December free, without incident. the state legislature wanted a cooling off period in order to
15th, just over two weeks before the Doomsday budget was keep this from happening.
to go into effect. Cuts Delayed Of course the fight is not over. We are encouraged by
We felt it was key to have the fare strike before the cuts our successes so far and will continue to organize against the
went into effect so that the drivers being fired would still be After months of stalling tactics and leaving the decision CTA.
working, be pissed off and not have much to lose. Also the on the Doomsday budget until the last minute, it was finally
idea of starting the strike the day the cuts went into effect on the agenda at the December 16th CTA board meeting. Midwest Unrest is a class struggle anarchist collective based in
would be undermined if the CTA delayed or was unclear The CTA had this “public” meeting so filled with their own Chicago. We are dedicated to direct action organization around
about when this would happen. We wanted it to be more people that very few of the 200 riders who showed up, on a issues which effect our lives and the lives of those around us. Formed
than just a single day strike. We wanted it to continue until weekday afternoon, could even get in. The public comment in the summer of 2003 to protest at the FTAA Ministerial in
our demands were met (and even then we wouldn’t issue a call process is very strict, allowing 3 minutes each to only 5 Miami, we have since shifted our focus to provide a radical voice
for people to start paying fares). The proposal was passed. speakers, who must book their space a week in advance. in more local struggles.
After giving Frank Kruesi a lump of coal for Christmas, high
Getting the Word out school students from Students for Transit Justice walked out
and started chanting in the lobby downstairs, loud enough
We had then about 3 weeks to promote the strike.
Unfortunately, our lack of resources were a constant problem.
We had an entire city to cover with over a million people
riding the CTA everyday. We had English and Spanish
versions of posters and flyers and a flood of people calling us
wanting to pass them out. While there was tons of work to do
we probably spent 80% of our time finding ways to get free
copies printed. Due to limited copies and the fact that we
had flyered the bus garages so often already with fare strike
propaganda, we decided to simply poster the December 15th
date around the garages and save our flyers for riders. The
most disheartening thing about not having enough resources
was that the response was so good to the limited flyers that
we did have; we knew that having more could have made a
much greater impact.
We sent a press release out the week before the strike
but even before that we started getting a lot of calls from
smaller media outlets. On December 14th, a bogus press
release was sent out in the name of Frank Kreusi, claiming
to apologize for the service cuts by declaring a “fare holiday”
on the 15th. Although the CTA publicly blamed Midwest
Unrest, we were not the ones responsible. We did appreciate
the autonomous action though. The fare strike was suddenly
getting coverage from almost all the major media. The CTA
denounced us and said that they would have extra cops on the
CTA that day. The ATU encouraged its employees to follow
all CTA rules—that is, not allow people to ride for free. On
the down side though, it was often covered by making it seem
that since the press release was a hoax, the “fare strike” people
might have heard about was as well.

13
Strong Hearts and Poisoned Waters:
The Exclusion of Women of Color
and the Reproductive Rights Movement in the U.S.
Who Receives Abortions?
Currently, Latinas are two times as
likely as white women to have an abortion;
Black women are three times as likely. Black
women obtain 24 percent of abortions in the
US. Indeed, polls show that over 80 percent of
African Americans support family planning,
yet few are members of the prominent
reproductive rights organizations.
Why? A look into our recent past shows
that people of color have valid reasons to
suspect the motives of predominantly white
groups advocating for the single issue of
abortion rights.
During the last century, the pro-choice
movement, or the family planning movement,
often dismissed or ignored concerns of
women of color when they weren’t problems
for white women as well. Devastatingly, the
reproductive rights movement of the past
at times allied with eugenicists and other
white supremacists in opportunistic political
coalitions meant to further the abortion
rights movement.
Understanding the Past
Being pro-choice or a feminist today
14 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
means having to acknowledge and transcend
the racist legacy of collaborations between
white feminists, conservatives and eugenicists
who shared common ground on parts of the
abortion issue. How we fight for reproductive
freedom today must be informed by the
reality that for many women of color,
abortion is just one fight in a larger struggle
of class and racial oppression. Unlike for
some white or middle class women, the lack
of access to reproductive freedom that many
women of color face has more to do with the
limitations placed upon them by their ethnic
and class background than by the actual legal
status of abortion or geographic availability
of abortion clinics.
Early on, the Black community saw
reproductive control as being an essential key
to liberation, and they have fought for it since
the times of slavery. Black women have been
underground providers of safe and affordable
abortions. Later, African American women
organized with other women of color and
brought tens of thousands to participate
in rallies demanding an end to forced
sterilizations.
Then and now, many feminists of color
challenged white feminists who framed
abortion rights as a woman’s issue that was
unconnected to other social injustices.
Abortion is not and has never been only a
“white issue.” Although few people today re-
alize it, women of color have been involved
from the very beginning. Women of color
have played and continue to play a crucial
part organizing for and shaping the struggle
for reproductive freedom in the US.
As Black feminist and activist, Loretta J.
Ross explains: “Many Black women still do
not see abortion rights as a stepping stone
to freedom because abortion rights do not
automatically end the oppression of Black
women.”
Sadly, the vital participation and
intellect brought to the reproductive rights
movement by women of color are noticeably
absent from many white feminist accounts of
history.
The Privilege of “Choice”
Until recently, mainstream and
preeminent pro-choice organizations have
promoted a narrow view of reproductive
liberty that focuses on the “right to choose”
abortion. Such language can come off as
consumeristic. Even so, the language of
abortion rights politics can be culturally
insensitive and alienating to recent
immigrants and to women who come from
religious backgrounds- even those who
support and get abortions.
Women of color have also been subjected
to controlling and coercive reproductive
policies and, as a result, many continue to
distrust public health services and are more
BY PUCK
apt to view family planning programs with
apprehension.
As Brenda Romney, an African
American activist, explained: “When our
children were [white men’s] property, we
were encouraged to have children. When our
children are ours, we are not worthy parents.
Those are the messages, the background and
the context of health care in general.”
This is some of what Black women
bring with them when they seek health care
information or abortion services.
Therefore, many women of color feel that
it is more central to their needs to demand
economic justice and healthcare- including
reproductive rights- instead of focusing
on the aspects of “choice” and availability
regarding abortion and birth control.
An Issue of Survival: Birth Control
as Social Control
Eugenicists promote the idea that
essentialist traits such as intelligence and
criminality are biologically determined,
and can thus be eliminated or emphasized
through the selective breeding or elimination
of “pure” races.
The ideology of eugenics became applied
to public health policy in the U.S. during the
1960s and 70s. Industrial tycoons like the
Rockefeller family funded it; prestigious
universities studied it, and governors
introduced legislation proposing the
compulsory sterilization of Native American,
Black and poor women in order to “fight the
war on poverty.” In truth, these policies were
aimed at decreasing the explosive political
potential of minority populations and
pacifying white fears of social unrest during
a time of increasing militancy in the struggle
for civil rights.
During the 1960s, family planning
services became accessible for large numbers
of poor women of color through federally
subsidized programs like Medicaid. Although
this was seen by most feminists as a victory,
on the flip side, the government also began
coercing Native American and Black women
on public assistance into getting State-
sponsored hysterectomies by threatening to
revoke their welfare benefits if they refused.
During the 1970s, it is estimated that up
to 60,000 Native American women and even
some men were sterilized. Indian Health
Services had a “captive clientele,” since
Native women often lacked access to services
other than paternalistic public ones located
on reservations. In 1975, for every seven
babies born, one woman was being sterilized.
Shockingly, the IHS sterilization campaign
was paid for entirely with federal funding.
Puerto Rican women were also sterilized
at astronomical rates by U.S. tax dollars.
During the same time, several Mexican
American women were sterilized at a
County hospital without much explanation
or information. A national fertility study
conducted by Princeton University found that
20 percent of all married African-American
women had been sterilized by 1970.
Given that experience, it is no surprise
that in the communities of color targeted
by government-controlled depopulation
programs, birth control and abortion were
equated with genocide for years to come.
Many poor women of color felt that they
had been “tracked” toward sterilization and
were outraged at having been denied the
opportunity to have children in numbers of
their choosing.
“While birth control was demanded as
a right and an option for privileged women,
it became an obligation for the poor,” Ross
recalled.
When women of color organized
successfully for laws requiring the
“informed consent” of patients undergoing
hysterectomies, in an effort to cut down on
forced sterilizations, they had to do so often
without support from mainstream white
abortion rights groups. These groups were
then too obsessed with their own narrow
self-interest to see the broader feminist
struggle at hand.
No Substitute for Social Justice
Access to abortion and birth control do
not exist free of social values. White people
of all political motivations have supported
abortion when it suited their interests and
set the stage for years of racial tension
and mistrust in the arena of reproductive
rights policy. Today, eugenicist ideas like
“overpopulation” and biological determinism
continue to influence public health and
social policies that blame poverty, crime and
pollution on the rising population growth
of Brown and Black people. These ideas
ignore the root causes of social ills: unequal
distribution of resources in a society deeply
segregated by white supremacy.
A recent example of this phenomenon
was the Norplant controversy during the
1990s. Norplant is unusual because it is a
contraceptive that is 99 percent effective
and can last up to 5 years after its initial
administration. However, it requires the
insertion of six matchstick-sized capsules
under the skin of a woman’s forearm.
Although Norplant is expensive and
can cause negative side effects including
depression and irregular, heavy bleeding,
public subsidies covered the costs for many
poor women of color. Politicians framed the
initial cost as an expenditure that could save
millions of dollars nationally in the welfare
costs it would take to raise the children of
“irresponsible women.”
Several states wanted to require
mothers on welfare to use it as a condition
of receiving their benefits. Debates ensued in
the national media: “Can Norplant Reduce
the Underclass?”
Commonly, women who suffered
negative side effects and asked for their
Norplant’s to be removed were denied and
had to endure paternalistic, bureaucratic and
controlling service providers.
Hope Prevails
During the 1980s, feminists of color
clamored louder than ever to be heard.
Women of color gained in numbers as well
as prominence within mainstream pro-
choice organizations, and some assumed
leadership positions. Reproductive rights
groups put more energy into reaching out
to people of color. Health activists of color
broke through the “conspiracy of silence”
surrounding abortion in their communities,
framing reproductive rights as a human
rights and healthcare issue. The first “March
for Women’s Lives” was organized in 1986.
Ross, who worked with the National
Organization for Women (NOW), was
employed to find organizations of women
of color to endorse this first national march
dedicated to abortion rights. She reflects on
the changes in the years since:
In 1986 Black women were skeptical
about joining a march for abortion rights
sponsored by what was perceived as a white
woman’s organization. Although all the
leaders of the Black women’s organizations
I contacted privately supported abortion
rights, many perceived the issue as marginal,
too controversial, or to ‘white.’
By 1987 NOW was responding more
clearly to the voices of women of color.
By 1986, the annual march was
endorsed by 107 organizations of women of
color, and by 1989, “more than 2,000 women
came together to form the largest delegation
ever [at the time] of women of color to
support abortion rights.
Women of color were responsible for
expanding the focus of the abortion rights
movement. Their influence can be found in
the shifting language used by mainstream
groups -- from one centered on abortion to
one emphasizing reproductive rights. The
work women of color had been doing all along
in their communities to support reproductive
freedom slowly began to be recognized and
at times supported by mainstream feminist
groups. Most importantly though, women
healthcare activists of color continued to
push for more and more justice- for more
social justice in the pro-choice movement
and more feminism in their communities.
We should reflect on the mistakes of
the past and the injustices of the present. We
still have a long way to go. Let us constantly
strive to bring about more instances for
increasing numbers of people to experience
self-determination, true democracy and
justice in their lives. We must not let our
vision of liberation be obscured by political
compromises that promise only a few of us
legitimacy and victory. We must all be free
simultaneously, or none of us can truly be
free.
Puck works with San Francisco Bay
Area Anarchist People of Color and Critical
Resistance, a prison abolitionist organization.
15
 A Working Mother’s
Feminism
BY FLOYD PETERSON
Dear Momma: You are the
Reason I Keep Fighting
My mother is at once degraded,
exploited, abused, tired, addicted, and self-
defeating, while managing to be optimistic,
caring, content, wise, and legendary. She has
fought off all of my worst enemies: bosses,
abusive partners, and general patriarchy,
capitalism, and racism. She existed for her
and I alone - that was it.
But she was also missing in my childhood.
She was missing because she was in battle 24
hours a day, 7 days a week with these fiends of
oppression. I did not know her, because she
spent her waking hours making sure I had
at least two meals a day, and shelter over my
head. I hated her for most of my childhood,
because she wasn’t physically present. She was
either at work, finding new work, or dealing
with the cultural expectations of patriarchal
relationships. Men wanted her labor, her
rent, her bills, her sex, and her nurturing. She
was forced to comply, and she didn’t ask for
any thanks, she did it to survive.
She couldn’t defend me from abusive
babysitters, abusive peers, and abusive live-
in boyfriends. Working as a bartender, she
spent anywhere between 50 - 80 hours a
week waiting tables and pouring shots,
listening to sad stories and broken hearts for
measly blue-collar tips. She was single and
alone, and drunk men took advantage of this.
She drank and smoked away most of the
money she made after the bills were paid for.
I often lived with babysitters, and would see
my mom only a couple nights a week.
Besides the small wages and tips, her
unpaid work included raising and feeding
me, preparing her make-up for a half hour,
and hours of guidance counselor work in
bars. My mom gave excellent, practical
advice. The blue-collar workers in the late
night pubs loved her endless smile, her slim
waistline, and her friendly ear. While I’m on
the subject of unpaid work, let’s breakdown
what work is for a second, because I want
to make it clear what kind of work women
16 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
like my mom do every fucking day in order Patriarchal capitalism has historically feminism of the 60s and 70s. Not wearing
to please men, without the slightest bit of depended on a massive disenfranchisement makeup, not shaving her legs and not wearing
fucking appreciation. of women from being in control of their own bras are nothing but bourgeois choices that
bodies, because their reproductive choice, offered her no liberation. Her feminism was
Back to Basics: Sexuality as Service their preparing of children for the workforce, her literal survival and the courage to come
and Production and their sexuality are all powerful forces in home with the ability to see me survive.
society.
My mother spent all of her time working
When a man visits a massage parlor or in order to reproduce another worker - me. My Mother’s Resistance
a strip club, he expects to be entertained, She only got paid a wage for a fraction of her
and his exchange for the entertainment is actual labor and production though. Every There were times when her hard work,
monetary. This is acceptable by law, as long man she met and flirted with was another and relentless networking presented windows
as either the workplace that sex work takes exchange of labor. She didn’t love any of of opportunity for her to shed burdens
place in follows regulations, or if it doesn’t, them at all. She lied to herself in order to and dependencies. When she could kick
the enforcer of regulations is bought off to ease the suffering of more alienation from patriarchy in the butt, she did it fiercely.
My mother wasn’t interested in the feminism of the 60s
and 70s. Not wearing makeup, not shaving her legs and
not wearing bras are nothing but bourgeois choices that
offered her no liberation. Her feminism was her literal
survival and the courage to come home with the ability
to see me survive.
shut up about it. A sex worker usually makes her body. She fucked men, so they felt an There were times when I saw my mother
a profit for the owner of the property from ownership and management over what cry through drunken hazy stares, golden
whom (s)he is renting space from in order she was responsible for - her shelter, her opportunities to peer into her struggle. I
to provide the service. This production is payment, her child, her sex. Every hour she usually only saw this after something good
exploited by the property owner, and is put on makeup for work, every conversation happened to us - like when she finally got
protected by property-loving capitalist with a customer, every diet plan she took on, a raise, or when some rich tourist dropped
system. In other words - sex work is criminal, every drink to ease the pain, they were all a her a $100 tip, or when she won the limited
unless a property owner is sanctioning it, and process of application for more work - sex version of the lottery. Having an extra $100
exploiting its labor. Why? Because most of work. Her dependence on this patriarchy was a world of options for a single mom in
the exploiters are men, and the exploited are forced her into an endless string of labor. the mid eighties, believe me. We’re talking a
usually women or trans. In a profit-driven Live-in boyfriends were “business deals.” The few extra days off from work, a couple of nice
society that offers limited opportunities for way she walked around the bar was tailored chicken dinners for the weekend, and maybe,
women to enter the workforce, sex work is to the wandering eyes of lonely construction a trip to the shore for a day. This precarious
historically a common option for women. workers—men socialized to pursue more bit of economic independence offered mom
Imagine if women controlled their own sex property. And when men can’t seem to meet a bit of bargaining power in her sexual labor
work!? There would be a massive disruption the expectations of property ownership in exchange, and she utilized this power at every
in the infrastructure of class society if women a society that rests every foundation on the opportunity. Suddenly dude was sleeping on
were able to control their own bodies - in the celebration of property, men will find ways to the couch, he would come home with roses,
form of healthcare, reproductive rights, and take ownership of women’s property. he would take her out on her first date in
the social value of sexuality and childrearing. My mother wasn’t interested in the months, suddenly he turned into a romantic,
caring, thoughtful sweetheart, instead of the usual dickhead women. we can attain a piece of their property in return. I understand
around the house attitude. In our minimal states of reaction we blame other that this paints a bleak picture of the working class concept
This kind of property-driven relationship reveals the workers for our failures, like immigrants stealing our jobs, of people loving and sharing their time with one another, but
complex ways in which capitalism enforces abusive social other racial/ethic/national groups of workers for selling their I must say that even when we feel, share and communicate in
interactions between fellow workers. The sexual politics of labor for cheaper wages, when heterosexual men can’t meet mutually reaffirming and supportive ways with our partners,
working class men and women are defined and socialized to the sexual expectations that we are fed, we scapegoat queers, there still exists a social phenomenon that springs from our
fit in with the demands of the class system. This weakens the breakdown of traditional family relations, etc. We literally drive to gain more property. Even if we have nothing left,
our common power against bosses and landlords, and creates become failures to ourselves, we can’t break out of it, and we and we are not willing to terrorize other workers and steal
hostile environments for workers to reside in and coexist. are willing to rape, kill, and steal in our most desperate of property, we terrorize ourselves with mental illness, loss of
There are variations on the theme of course, including queer times in order to fulfill what is expected of us. self-worth, and in some cases suicide.
relationships, unorthodox/poly This is the force that drives the actions
family structures, but in the end, my mother’s boyfriends took. Often, she
many of the relationships that was forced to concede some of her property,
workers enter into are intertwined and when she had a chance to withhold
into property relationships, her labor and ownership, she went on a
sexual exploitation, and further personal general strike.
alienation from our labor beyond
what is classically considered Toward a New Strategy for
the “workplace.” Within these Working Sons
experiences, single, blue-collar
mothers, especially mothers of
color face a virtual labyrinth of There are many meaningful ways that
labor exchanges and patriarchal we can offer support and real solidarity
subordinations in order to survive. for working mothers, ways that aren’t
Why are working class men patronizing or vanguardist. Start with
interested in continuing to exploit your mom. Try and understand what kind
women this way? of obstacles she has faced to make sure
you are where you are today. If she was
This Hurts the Boys Too negligent or abusive, attempt to look at the
sources that led her to react in such ways.
I believe that the class system Spend time with her, and offer your own
is based on power structures that labor to ease the time she spends doing
are rooted in the continual and your dishes, laundry, and making your bed.
state-sanctioned drive for profit Our working class mothers have put their
and exploitation of working time in, and they are often battered and
people. We are taught endlessly beaten on the inside, even when they don’t
in capitalist schools, media, and show it, or admit it.
cultural traditions, what they are Finally, when moms work together
expected to live up to as workers. to build organizations or show solidarity
Our purpose is to continue with one another, we need to do whatever
selling our labor in exchange for it takes to offer our labor to support them.
resources that supposedly enable They deserve the world for what they have
us to further our struggle to reach gone through for fucking thousands of
our goal. I believe this goal is a years of breaking their backs for us, taking
spectacle of freedom, power and abuse for us, breastfeeding us, harvesting,
independence for men, and (for cooking, cleaning, and hunting for us,
conservatives) the women’s goal is nurturing us, spreading their legs for us (in
to support these men in their drive many cases unwillingly) and finding the
toward their goal, (for liberals) compassion to forgive us for not valuing
the women’s goal is to vie for a and supporting their labor and efforts.
piece of this freedom, power, and We owe it to them. It is in our interest
independence. These goals revolve as men, as workers, and as humans. If we
around the core of what we hold intend to build a powerful working class
to be the most important pillar movement that is liberating and equal for
of capitalist society - property. If all of its adherents, we must do our best to
you have it, you are socialized to make a very safe and supportive space for
exploit the power that comes with our mothers.
its ownership, and if you don’t you
are socialized to get it. When I say property, I don’t just mean Why? Floyd Peterson is a blue collar thug, raised in small Jersey
money, a house, land, or a DVD player, I mean these things, towns by a single mom. He’s a proud interracial queer and former
as well as people’s labor, their bodies, their individual and Because we are told that we are supposed to. Meanwhile, homeless drug addict, with a history of making bosses VERY angry,
collective identities, their communities, their resources, their we are destroying ourselves, our lovers, our families, our and a tendency towards building working class power. Floyd has
abilities to bargain for pieces of other’s properties, etc. friends, and our class. We are weak and powerless, and when worked over 26 seperate jobs in 26 years of living, spanning a
Within this struggle, working class men face many we can’t get what we are expected to, even after busting our dozen industries, including but not limited to, sex work, cooking,
obstacles to reaching what our bosses have. If we don’t attain asses for many years, we become so destroyed inside, that the telemarketing vaccuum-cleaner salesperson, bodyguard, audio
these properties, we are shamed, considered failures, and are most vile and dark reactions we hide from ourselves come engineering, drug-dealing, ditch digging, and dishwashing.
not rewarded with social status. This struggle that men go out in rageful and vengeful manners.
through is very real, and is at the core of what drives our We are faced with a myriad of social compromises in
sexual choices, our disregard for other’s safety, our abusive order to reach our goal - property. We attempt to manage our
relationships with our partners, and our unbridled attraction lover’s lives, control their labor, and guarantee a relationship
to objectifying everything as potential property, including that forces our other halves to rely on our labor as well, so that

17
Activist Scenes
are No Safe Space for Women:
On Abuse of Activist Women by Activist Men
BY TAMARA K. NOPPER
As a woman who has experienced physical and
emotional abuse from men, it is difficult to learn from other
activist women that they are being abused by activist men.
The interrelated issues of sexism, misogyny and
homophobia in activist circles is rampant, so it is
unsurprising that women are abused physically and
emotionally by activist men with whom they work on
various projects.
I am not speaking abstractedly here. Indeed, I know of
various relationships between activist men and women in
which the latter is being abused. For example, a long time
ago a friend of mine showed me bruises on her arm that
she told me were from another male activist. What was
additionally heartbreaking to see is how the woman was
shunned by activist circles when she tried to have her abuse
addressed. Some told her to get over it, or to focus on “real”
male assholes such as prominent political figures. Others
told her to not let her “personal problems” get in the way of
“doing the work.”
I struggled with my friend’s recovery too. As a survivor
of abuse, it was difficult to meet a woman who in some ways
was a ghost of me. I would run into this woman, and she
would randomly tell me about another fight that she and
her boyfriend had gotten into. I would find myself avoiding
this woman because it was hard to look at a woman who
reminded me of who I was not too long ago. I too had gone
through the desperation of trying to get out of an abusive
relationship and needing to tell people what was happening
to me. And similar to how this woman was treated, most
people, even those I called friends, shied away from
listening to me because they did not want to be bothered or
were dealing with their own emotional struggles.
The embarrassment associated with telling people that
you have been abused, and like myself, stayed in an abusive
relationship, is made worse by people’s responses. Many
times I was told by people that they were “surprised” to
find out that I had “put up with that shit” because unlike
“weak women,” I was a “strong” and “political” woman. This
response is downright misogynist because it denies how
dominant patriarchy is, and instead tries to place the blame
on women. We are to ignore that men abuse women and
to instead emphasize women’s character as the definitive
reason for why some are abused and others don’t “put up
18 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
with that shit.”
Regardless of one’s politics, women can be and do
get abused. Anyone who refuses to believe this either just
doesn’t listen to women or think about what women go
through on the regular. And this is because they are just
hostile to recognizing how pervasive and normalized
patriarchy and misogyny are—both outside of and within
activist circles.
A lot of us want to believe that activist men really are
different from our fathers, brothers, old boyfriends, and
male strangers we confront in our daily routines. We want
to have some faith that the guy who writes a position paper
on sexism and posts it on his website is not writing it just
to make himself look good, get pussy, or cover up some of
his dangerous practices towards women. We want to believe
that women are being respected for their skills, energy
and political commitment and are not being asked to do
work because they are viewed as “exploitable” and “abuse-
able” by activist men. We want to believe that if an activist
male made an unwarranted advance or physically/sexually
assaulted an activist woman that it would promptly and
thoughtfully be dealt with by organizations and political
communities—and with the input of the victim. We want
to think that activist groups are not so easily enticed by
the skills or “name-power” that an activist male brings to
a project that they are willing to let a woman be abused
or have her recovery go unaddressed in exchange. And
we would like to think that “security culture” in activist
circles does not only focus on issues of listserv protocol or
using fake names at rallies but actually includes thinking
proactively about how to deal with misogyny, patriarchy and
heterosexism both outside of and within the activist scenes.
But all of these wishes tend to go unaddressed. Instead,
I know of activist men who troll political spaces looking for
women that they can politically manipulate or fuck without
accountability. Some of these men move from city to city
looking to recreate themselves and find fresh meat among
those who are unfamiliar with their reputation. And I have
seen activist women give their labor and skills to activist
men (who often take the credit) in hopes that the abusive
activist man will finally get his act right or appreciate her as
a human being.
While romance between activists is fine, I think it is
disgusting how activist men use romance to control women
politically and keep women emotionally committed to
helping the man out even when his politics are problematic.
I know activist men who were abusing and
manipulating female activists and at the same time, writing
position papers on sexism. Sometimes the activist male
will pen the position paper with his activist girlfriend in
order to gain more legitimacy. I know of activist men who
quote bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, or other feminist writers
one minute and are harassing or spreading lies about their
activist girlfriend the next.
What is heartbreaking is the level of support abusive
activist men find from other activists, male and female but
most usually other men. Activist communities may talk
a good game but in the end could give a shit about the
victims’ emotional and physical safety. For example, when
I was sharing with an activist male my concerns about how
an activist female was being treated by an activist male who
held a prominent position in a political group, the man
“listening” to my story said in a snide, accusatory voice, “Oh,
she’s probably just mad ‘cause he started dating someone
else” and went on to make fun of her. He continued to
tell me that while he “acknowledges” the man is wrong,
the woman needs to stand up to the man if she wants the
treatment to stop. His comments revealed an attitude that
assumes that if activist women take issue with activist men,
they are “crying abuse” to cover up hidden sexual desires and
anger over being rejected by men who “won’t fuck them.”
While activist men will pay some lip service to
how they need to keep their mouths shut when women
are talking or how women only spaces are necessary, all
too often “critical” and “political” people do not want to
confront the fact that women are being abused by male
activists in our circles. When the issue is “addressed,” more
often than not attention will be given to “struggling with”
the man. I have even seen some situations where abusive
men become adopted, so to speak, by other activists, who
see rehabilitating the man as part of their project and
think little about what this means for the women who are
trying to recover. In some cases, the male activist abuser
was adopted while the woman was shunned as “unstable,”
“crazy” or “too emotional.” Basically, these groups would
rather help a cold, calculating guy who can “keep it
together” while he abuses women rather than deal with the
reality that abuse can contribute to emotional and social
difficulties among victims as they work to become survivors.
In some cases, activist women will avoid going to the
 Questions on Consent
police because she is critical of the prison industrial complex but also because other activist
men will tell her she is “contributing to the problem” by “bringing the state in.” Meanwhile,
the activist male is not chastised for the problems he has created. Thus, women are stuck
BY CINDY
having to figure out how to insure her safety without being labeled a “sell-out” by her
activist peers. How do you define consent?
Have you ever talked about consent
While I am a strong believer that we need to try to work towards healing rather than with your partner(s) or friends?
punishment per se, I am painfully aware that we often put more emphasis on helping men Do you know people, or have been
stay in activist circles than supporting women through their recoveries, which might involve with people who define consent differently
the need to have the man purged from the political group. Basically, the group will usually than you do?
determine that the activist abuser must be allowed to heal without asking the woman what Have you ever been unsure about
she needs from the group to heal and be supported in her process. whether or not the person you were being
sexual with wanted to be doing what you
When groups are unwilling to address abuse, some women will still remain involved in were doing? Did you continue what you
because they believe in the organization’s work and frankly, there are few spaces to go, if any, were doing because it was pleasurable to
where she is not at risk of being abused by another activist or have her abuse unaddressed. you and you didn’t want to deal with what
Others will simply leave the organization. I have seen how these women get treated as “sell- the other person was experiencing? Did
outs” for letting the personal get in way of “the work.” you continue because you thought it was
your duty? How do you feel about the
Or, if activist women who have been abused are “supported,” it is usually because she choices you made?
does “good work” or that not addressing the abuse will be “bad for the group.” In this sense, Do you think it is the other person’s
the physical, emotional and spiritual health of women is still sacrificed. Instead, the woman’s responsibility to say something if they
abuse must be addressed because if it is not, she might not continue doing “good work” for aren’t into what you’re doing?
the organization or there might be too much tension in the group for it to run efficiently. How might someone express that
Either way, women’s safety is not viewed as worthy of concern in and of itself. what is happening is not ok? Do you look
only for verbal signs or are there other
Overall, activist scenes are no safe space for women because misogynists and abusive signs?
men exist within them. More, many of these abusers use the language, tools of activism and Do you think it is possible to
support by other activists as means to abuse women and conceal their behavior. Perhaps it is misinterpret silence for consent?
time we begin proactively addressing this as an integral part of the “work” that activists must Have you ever asked someone what
do. kinds of signs you should look for if
they have a hard time verbalizing when
Tamara K. Nopper is an educator, writer and activist living in Philadelphia. something feels wrong?
Do you only ask about these kinds of
This article was edited by Critical Moment with permission of the author. things if you are in a serious relationship
or do you feel comfortable talking in
casual situations too?
Do you think talking ruins the
mood?
Do you think consent can be erotic?
Do you think about people’s abuse
histories?
Do you check in as things progress or
do you assume the original consent means
everything is ok?
If you achieve consent once, do you
assume it’s always ok after that?
If someone consents to one thing, do
you assume everything else is ok or do you
ask before touching in different ways of
taking things to more intense levels?
Are you resentful of people who want
to or need to talk about being abused?
Why?
Have you ever tried to talk someone
into doing something they showed
hesitancy about?
Do you think hesitancy is usually a
form of flirting? Are you aware that in
some instances it’s not?
Have you ever thought someone’s
actions were flirtatious when that wasn’t
actually the message they wanted to get
across?
Do you think that if someone is
promiscuous that makes it ok to objectify
them or talk about them in ways you
normally wouldn’t?
If someone is promiscuous, do you
think it’s less important to get consent?
If someone dresses a certain way, do
you think it means that they want your
sexual attention or approval?
If someone is dressed in drag, do you
take it as an invitation to make sexual
comments?
Do you ever try to get yourself into
situations that give you an excuse for
touching someone you think would say no
if you asked? (i.e. Dancing, getting really
drunk around them, falling asleep next to
them)
Do you make people feel “unfun”
or “unliberated” if they don’t want to try
certain sexual things?
Have you ever used jealousy as a
means of control? Do you use jealousy to
make your partner feel obligated to have
sex with you?
Do you feel like being in a relationship
with someone means that they have an
obligation to have sex with you? What if
they want to abstain from sex for a week?
A month? A year?
Do you whine or threaten if you’re
not having the amount of sex or kind of
sex that you want?
Do you think it’s ok to initiate
something sexual with someone who’s
sleeping?
Do you behave differently when
you’ve been drinking? Do you seek
consent the same way when you are drunk
as when you’re sober?
Do you ever talk about sex and
consent when you’re not in bed?
Have you ever raped or sexually
abused someone? Are you able to think
about your behavior? Have you made
changes? What kinds of changes?
Do you avoid talking about consent
or abuse because you aren’t ready or don’t
want to talk about your own sexual abuse
What if months or days or years later,
someone tells you they were uncomfortable
with what you did, do you grill them?
Do you initiate conversations about
safe sex and birth control?
Do you take your partners concerns
about safe sex and birth control seriously?
Do you think that if one person wants
to have safe sex and the other person
doesn’t really care, it the responsibility of
the person who has concerns to provide
safe sex supplies?
Do you think if a person has a body
that can get pregnant, it’s up to them to
provide birth control?
Do you complain or refuse safe sex
or the type of birth control your partner
wants to use because it reduces your
pleasure?
Do you think there is ongoing work
that we can do to end sexual violence in
our communities?
A longer version of these questions
originally appeared in Slug & Lettuce.
19
A New Fat- P ositiv e
Fe minism
Why Fat-Positive Feminism (Often) Sucks
and How to Reinvent It
BY EMI KOYAMA
A while back, I went through my entire ‘zine library to
decide which ‘zines and chapbooks I want to keep and which
ones I should give away or recycle, since the sheer volume of
other people’s DIY writings I’ve accumulated over the years
began to overwhelm me.
My goal was to consolidate three medium-size card-
board boxes full of ‘zines into one big box that would only
contain those select ‘zines that I am actually likely to read
again. In the process, I’ve come across quite a few ‘zines ad-
dressing the topic of fat oppression and women’s self-esteem
written by other girls who are, like me, fat, proud, and fierce.
Even though I’ve never been deeply involved in the “fat-
positive” feminist movements, I’ve been around them long
enough to know how much it has impacted fat girls like me,
and how zine-making is the perfect medium to confront and
contradict the anti-fat, pro-diet biases in the mainstream
media and the anti-fat industries that finance them. None-
theless, after skimming through several of these ‘zines, I felt
empty and ended up tossing many of them in the “give away
or recycle” pile.
And I know that this is the same empty feeling I get
after attending just about every “fat positive” workshops and
events (and I’ve attended many) including even the other-
wise fabulous “FatGirl Speaks!” event in which I performed
a spoken-word piece last year. This essay is an attempt to
verbalize the shallowness or emptiness that I frequently feel
within the fat-positive feminist movement, and how we can
reinvent it.
The greatest turn-off for me with fat-positive work-
shops--and it somehow manages to take place in just about
every such workshop--is hearing the comment that “fat op-
pression is the last remaining socially acceptable oppression”
or that “if this was done to Blacks (and it’s always Blacks, or
else other people of color), there’d be an outrage.”
Sometimes, this is the premise that workshop present-
ers (almost always white) speak from, and other times these
comments are made by regular participants (again, almost
always white). And it is extremely rare that someone would
point out how wrong it is to rank severity of various oppres-
sions, or to assume that the mainstream society is no lon-
ger tolerant of racism (or classism, or heterosexism, or any
other oppressions, for that matter) before I do. Or sometimes
don’t.
The view that the fat oppression is the only socially tol-
erated oppression negates the experiences of not just Blacks,
but all people who are marginalized by various intersecting
and overlapping systems of oppressions, while at the same
time erasing the presence of fat people who are dealing with
multiple oppressions. Together, these factors function to lim-
it the appeal and the membership of the fat-positive feminist
movement almost exclusively to the fat women who are rela-
20 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
The view that the fat oppression is the only
socially tolerated oppression negates the
experiences of all people who are marginal-
ized by systems of oppressions.
tively privileged otherwise.
This brings us to the second problem with the “fat-posi-
tive” feminist movement: the inability of fat-positive work-
shops and ‘zines to address multiple layers of meanings the
society attributes to fatness. Contrary to the idea that the fat
oppression functions in some sort of socially accepted vacu-
um, the anti-fat attitudes and systems have everything to do
with racial and class politics, not just the gender politics.
For example, the debate over the “welfare reform” has
been intrinsically shaped by the fiscal conservatives’ manipu-
lation of the public perception of inner-city welfare recipi-
ents as fat, Black, lazy single mothers. Exploiting such per-
ception, they managed to convince voters that the solution
to the problem of poverty is to send the poor mothers back
to work, nevermind the fact that few jobs today actually pay
“family” wage. In order to counter such propaganda, it is not
enough to criticize the use of fatness or fat stereotype as the
symbol of laziness or unworthiness; we must take apart its
anti-fat, sexist, racist, and classist overtones piece by piece
until lies and bigotry are exposed as such.
Third, the fat-positive feminism must pay attention to
many other ways in which human bodies are socially regu-
lated. For example, there appears to be natural opportuni-
ties for the disability movement and fat-positive movement
to work together as both movements challenge the society’s
definition of normal and acceptable bodies. However, this
potential alliance is hindered by the fat-positive movement’s
oft-repeated insistence that fat people are healthy and pro-
ductive.
These notions of health and productivity both assume
a certain type of body to be “normal” based on its ability to
participate in the capitalist labor market as it exist today, and
denies the basic human dignity to those bodies deemed too
“crippled” to participate in the workforce. However, it is not
our physical differences that limit the ability of people with
“crippled” bodies to fully participate in the society; it is the
lack of accessibility and accommodation based on the lim-
ited view of humanity that does.
Also problematic is the fat-positive movement’s disdain
of people with “eating disorders,” especially toward members
of the so-called “pro-ana” movement (i.e. women who cel-
ebrate extreme dieting and purging as personally gratifying
and empowering). Dieting and purging are often form of
self-help, two of many creative ways women cope with life
and reclaim the sense of control in a society that robs from
us genuine control over circumstances of our lives. If so, we
could recognize that both fat-positive feminism and pro-ana
movement are basically made up of women who are refusing
the society’s labeling of their bodily differences and coping
methods as “unhealthy” or “maladaptive.”
In fact, similarities between the two movements are
many. Both groups are primarily made up of women who
are considered sick and in need of “help” to alter who they
are. Women from both groups report strong sense of alien-
ation and isolation prior to finding others with
similar experiences. A common statement made
toward someone who is anorexic is that “most
men aren’t attracted to fat women, but neither
are they attracted to extremely thin women,” as
if that is all that matters in a woman’s life.
Sure, dieting and purging could be, if not
careful, harmful to one’s health; but so is be-
ing fat: why do we need to judge or fight each
other? Some fat-positive activists refer to those
who diet and purge as “brainwashed” or as vic-
tims in need of our rescue, but how is that dif-
ferent from the society telling the fat women
that we should lose weight for our own good?
As we criticize the anti-fat element within the
pro-ana movement, we must also confront the
paternalistic and pathologizing gaze our move-
ment sometimes imposes on other women.
Lastly, if I may entertain a little snobbism in
me, I find a large portion of fat-positive personal
essays and performance art boring. Too often,
they provide such a simplistic and linear narra-
tive of complete victimhood to complete pride
that it is laughable. I find them devoid of human
complexity and contradiction that make essays
and art meaningful. The concept of fat pride is
revolutionary when you hear it for the first time,
but after third or fourth time I begin to yearn
for something more real, something that I can
relate to.
And most women in America simply do
not relate to feeling completely proud and un-
ashamed about their bodies, whether they are
fat or not. It’s just not realistic. Most women
in America, myself included, struggle with our
bodies. Or rather, we struggle with voices in
our heads and outside telling us how dirty and
ugly our bodies are, no matter how we look, and
sometimes we end up agreeing with it. I’m not
saying that this is right or wrong, but that is how
it is.
Through the writings and performances
like those I described above, the fat-positive
feminism fosters a political climate that idolizes
complete pride and shamelessness as an ideal.
By doing so, however, we are in effect setting
up yet another unattainable set of ideals that
women are somehow expected to live up to, just
like the “beauty myth” itself.
In such climate, women who feel ashamed
of their bodies--that is, most American women
at some point in their lives--are made to feel
ashamed of their shame, and are thus doubly
silenced, because an admission of body-shame
or desire to be thinner is interpreted by those in
the movement as the proof of their ideological
impurity, or as the evidence that she is still un-
der the patriarchal brainwashing and needs to be
liberated further. We need art that imitate and
enrich life, not those that dictate or condemn
perfectly reasonable life experiences of women
living in an unjust society.
I envision a new fat-positive feminism that
does more than just confronting fatphobia. We
need to pay attention to many ways in which fat
oppression is embedded not only in sexism, but
also in racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism,
and other oppressions. Instead of merely argu-
ing that fat is normal and healthy, we need to
challenge the concepts of normalcy and health
altogether, and question who is arbitrating these
categories and who benefits.
In addition to the army of “fat and proud”
women and activists we already have, a new fat-
positive feminism needs to attract, not repel or
patronize, weight watchers, pro-anorexics, wom-
en struggling with eating disorders (i.e. those
who are not pro-ana), and ordinary women in
America who are concerned about their weight
either somewhat or great deal. And by that I am
not talking about “liberating” them from their
body image “pathologies” and converting them
to be just like us; I am talking about starting
from the assumption that other women’s ways
of coping with this woman-hating, body-hating
society may be just as valid as our own.
Instead of belittling or condemning the vast
majority of women, a new fat-positive feminism
focuses on dissecting political and cultural values
imposed on our diverse bodies. It will promote
pro-women and pro-body attitudes by validat-
ing creative ways in which women cope with
struggles of daily life and breaking the silence
and isolation that separate us. The fat-positive
buttons
feminist movement must take over the main-
stream, rather than settling with the consolation
patches
of being the righteous fringe--and we can do so
without compromising any of the key progres-
disc golf
sive values.
Along with the rampant violence against
books
women, fat oppression is one of the oppressions
targeting especially women that is so ubiquitous belts
that it can be readily identified once one begins
to notice it. This fact suggests that fat-positive stickers
feminism could be an entry point for millions
of women to embrace a full range of progres-
sive politics that seek to create a more just and
equitable society.
So far, the fat-positive feminism has been
able to enlist only a relatively small number of
women--and from a relatively thin socioeco-
nomic layer of the society--partly due to the
problems discussed above. If we were to change
how the society ranks and regulates our bodily
differences, instead of secluding ourselves in the
homogeneous enclaves of affinity groups who
think and act just like us, we must seize this pre-
viously untouched opportunity and rally for it.
By combining the dedication of pro-an-
orexics, persistence of weight watchers, and, yes,
our fierceness and pride, we will be able to bring
in millions of women and men (and people of
other genders) into progressive social change
movements. And then, the fat-positive femi-
nism will become a new common sense in the
American mainstream.
Emi Koyama is a multi-issue social justice
activist and occasional manifesto writer who cur-
rently works for Intersex Initiative (www.inter-
sexinitiative.org). Emi has been putting the emi
back in feminism through eminism.org.
21
 Yossi is a young resident of Jerusalem and a member of
the International Solidarity Movement. He is part of many
social movements in Israel and Palestine, including
Anarchists Against the Wall and Black Laundry, a radical
queer group. Yossi is currently working at the Alternative
Information Center. Here he speaks about anarchism in
Isr a e li Israel, it’s relationship to the Palestinian struggle, and
radical anarchist and queer culture.
A nar achism INTERVIEW BY AARON LAKOFF
Can you tell me about the anarchist
being young, movement in Israel?
Well, anarchism in Israel, or may
queer, and we say in Palestine, was never a big
movement or a popular movement.
It’s because Zionism was a nationalist
radical in the movement, and most of the refugees who
came here held beliefs of nationalism
and zionism, and supported the idea
‘Promised Land’ of a Jewish state. And they chose to
come here and not to other places. They
chose to come into Palestine and build
the Jewish state. So anarchism was very
strange to them - it was not in their
agenda. There were a lot of socialists
coming here, but they were socialist and
nationalist at the same time. They were
not trying to overcome the nationalist
visions of socialism. So for historical
reasons, anarchism was very small here.
In the 60s there were a few more
because of the student movement in
Europe, and people were influenced by
all the revolutions outside of Palestine
and Israel. You can see only at the
end of the 60s and beginning of the
70s more and more anarchist groups
coming together, but mostly from the
same milieus. In the 80s the movement
grew bigger because of punk. Punk fans
came into the anarchist movement.
The animal rights movement was really
big here and still is big and it was very
anarchist in the beginning. All of this
was happening in the 80s and 90s. There
were beginning to be more and more
books and pamphlets about anarchism
in the 90s. At the end of the 90s more
people became anarchists because of
the wave of anti-globalization that was
sweeping the world, and this came to
Israel as well. Up until the beginning
of the Intifada, there were many groups
who were anarchist, anarchist-affiliated,
or non-hierarchal.
You mentioned different issues that
anarchists in Israel have been involved
with over the decades, and then you
22 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
mentioned the Intifada. Then recently
there has been the Anarchists Against
the Wall. Can you talk a bit about this
group and what you do?
When the Intifada came, there
were two processes going on at the same
time. There was the mainstream left-
what we call the Zionist left-in Israel,
which became much more right wing.
They began to show their real racist face
again. The radical left became more and
more radicalized at the same time. You
can say that both the mainstream and
radical left were becoming polarized.
This process brought more actions into
the radical left.
During the Oslo-era, the radical left
was much more quiet. Today, since the
beginning of the second Intifada, there
is a demo almost every day. So many
new movements came to life, working
really hard against the situation. All of
this energy, and people seeing what was
happening in the occupied territories,
made people more alienated against the
state. People could see that the state is
the enemy when the state is shooting
at you. It ceases to be theoretical, and
becomes very much alive to see the true
face of the state. When the apartheid
wall was beginning to be built in 2002
and 2003, many people – very young Tel
Avivian people, punks, gays, lesbians,
and transsexuals – came to a village
in Palestine. It was a very conservative
village, but they were invited by the
village to come there and to build a
peace tent against the wall. This was in
Mas’ha. That was for 5 months, and it
was to make Israelis and internationals
realize what was happening with the
fence, what it was, where it was going
to be built, etc. All throughout those 5
months, a new thing came about in the
radical left.
It was the first time we were
meeting Palestinians daily and living
with them. It was a new thing for
Palestinians as well. This was really
a place of dialogue. Out of this came
a very close relationship between
anarchist Jews and Palestinians. Of
course anarchists were always against
the occupation and the oppression
of the Zionist state, but I believe that
this camp brought these issues into our
daily lives. I think that this was the first
step of Anarchists Against the Wall.
We began doing actions in the last
days of the camp. We did direct actions
against the wall in other villages. We
tried to stop the building of the wall
in Mas’ha, and the camp was destroyed
by the army. They ordered us to never
return there. This was the beginning
of a direct action group that was
anarchist-organized, non-hierarchical,
and directly democratic. We began
doing more actions in villages all over
Palestine and all along the route of the
wall. Then there was one action again
in Mas’ha when one of the anarchists
against the wall was shot in the legs,
seriously hurt, and almost died on the
way to the hospital. This was in late
December, 2003. Before that day, the
group always changed its name. We
were Jews Against Ghettos in one
action, the Mas’ha Group on one day
– we never stuck with one name. But on
that day, we used the name Anarchists
Against Fences. We got a lot of media
on this day, much more than we had
gotten before.
The media was really interested in
us. People actually began asking what
anarchism was. It was not very known
in Israel – people knew the word, but
they didn’t know what it meant. After
that action, we became much more
active in the fight against the wall or
against the occupation because a lot of
Palestinian villages began to recognize
that there is an Israeli group which is
coming and doing stuff in Palestine.
Palestinians started to rebel against the
wall as well as it came closer to their
homes, and there were many villages,
especially Budrus – one of the symbols
of non violent opposition to the wall – when we were there for
almost a year to stop the construction as much as possible.
We were really going to Budrus almost every week for a
long time. Every day people got shot. Some days people were
killed. Until now, there were 6 or 7 Palestinians shot dead by
the Israeli army in non-violent demonstrations against the
fence. These Palestinians were shot dead at demonstrations
when Israelis were not there at the time, because the army
does not like to use live ammunition when there are Israelis
in the area. So we were acting as well a bit as human shields.
This is not why we were there, but the fact that we were there
made the army a bit less violent. The army thinks we have
better blood.
There are many groups in Israel who are working in the
peace movement to put an end to the occupation; Gush Shalom,
Ta Ayush, and Peace Now are just a few. How do the anarchists
differ from these groups in their actions?
First of all, there are many groups in the peace movement
who are very close to us. Black Laundry, for example, is a
queer group against the occupation who are working a lot
with the Anarchists Against the Wall and vice versa. Ta
Ayush is quite active, and we work with them. We are not
organized the same way, we don’t work in the same methods,
but we do work together.
In terms of our ideology, we don’t have a list of our
demands. Of course, most of us would like a ‘no state solution’.
We are against any kind of separation, and we are against the
wall no matter where it is going to be built. We are against
the Palestinian Authority as well. We see the PA as another
tool of oppression. We will work with them sometimes, but
we still don’t support the PA like Gush Shalom does. We
don’t agree on a lot of things as well. We act differently to
the police than most groups. We would never inform the
police on an action. But in the end we all support each other
and work together. There are arguments, but we maintain
a dialogue. There was a coalition against the fence of many
groups in the radical left, and there were no big problems in
this. If there are problems that are so crucial, all those endless
debates about anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism
become insignificant.
You mentioned that anarchism doesn’t have a tradition in
Palestinian culture. How do you feel that anarchism relates to
the Palestinian struggle?
Of course, we’re always in demonstrations with Hamas,
Islamic Jihad, nationalists, racist people, and we fight alongside
them for the same goals. But there’s always a problem; how
do we uphold anarchism, animal right, women’s rights, and
queer rights while working with people who are against them?
It’s hard. We work with Palestinians all the time and we still
say we don’t want a Palestinian state. I’m not fighting for a
Palestinian state, I’m fighting for the end of the occupation
and that’s the main goal. And we’re not alone in fighting
for this. There are many Palestinians who are not anarchist,
but who are on the left – communists, socialists. There are so
many that are fighting for the same goal; a one-state solution,
and this is very close to our goal. I still believe that you need
to fight alongside national-liberationists sometimes, because
the main thing within that is to liberate themselves from the
oppression of the other. Before you liberate yourself from the
oppression of your own society, you need to liberate yourself
from the oppression of the other society, which is usually
much more cruel. This is evident in Palestine. First, we need
to end the occupation and give the Palestinians their rights.
After that, we can speak about how we want to live here. If
the Palestinians chose to have a one-state solution, we will
be with them. If they chose to have their own state, we will
be with them. We have nothing to say about it. There are
Palestinians who are working with us for the same kind of
solution. http://michiganimc.org
Can you explain the group Black Laundry and its
relationship with the Palestinian struggle and the anarchist publish your news. become the media.
movement?
Black Laundry was a group formed at the beginning
of the second Intifada. It was formed in Tel Aviv, just prior
to the pride parade. At the pride parade, there are a lot of
handsome, naked boys dancing on big trucks with lots of
corporations trying to sell you stuff. It’s quite disgusting
most of the time, very capitalist. It was the first pride parade
after the Intifada began, and we came there with the slogan,
‘no pride in the occupation!’. We were trying to say there is
no real liberation without liberating our neighbors. We, as
a queer community, have an interest to stop the oppression
of other groups, and other groups have the interests to stop
the oppression of us. We try to always connect struggles;
Palestinian liberation, animal rights, queer rights, sexual
freedom, body oppression, capitalist oppression. All of this
we try to connect, usually working in a performance-art
way. We try to make a show out of our work. We work a
lot inside the queer community about the Palestinians and
about teaching people that their fight is part of a bigger fight
against oppression. Being gay and rich in the center of Tel
Aviv is not liberating yourself because it’s not liberating your
community. About the Palestinian struggle, Black Laundry
has never done actions inside Palestine. People in our group
always go to Palestinian demonstrations, but we have never
organized our own activities there.
It’s always very hard. You’re not allowed to be queer in the
Palestinian culture. I work quite a lot in occupied Palestine,
and I’m not out most of the time. It’s not something I would
mention in a demonstration. But again, I am not there to
educate the Palestinians or tell them how to act. And it’s
not like Israel is the most liberated society, either. The main
queer population in Israel who are being oppressed are the
Palestinian-Israelis. If the Shin Beit (Israeli secret service)
catches two Palestinian men in an Israeli park having sex,
they often force them to become collaborators by saying that
if they don’t cooperate, they will tell their families. This is
a death threat in some instances…Even queer Palestinian-
Israeli couples aren’t allowed to stay together. So again, it’s
Israel that is not good for queers. Many queer Jews are being
oppressed here in Jerusalem, so it’s not as if the Palestinian
society is dark and cruel and the Israeli society is open and
free.
Often times you hear that Israel is remarkably open
towards queer culture….
No, it’s the center of Tel Aviv which is open for queers
who have money and who are consumers or part of the
system. It’s not open for poor queers who are coming from
Jewish-oriental families, it’s not open for Palestinians, and
it’s not open for religious queers. Israel can say one thing,
but usually they act differently. The situation here is a lot like
in the US, and you wouldn’t say the US is queer-friendly.
Maybe San Francisco, but not in general.
Aaron Lakoff is a member of the International Solidarity
Movement, and a journalist with CKUT community radio in
Montreal. He is currently travelling and working throughout
Palesine. To view his previous writing and photos, visit http://
aaron.resist.ca. He can be reached at aaroninpalesine@hotmail.
com
23
 Black Women’s Adventures
in Sex and Reading:
Addicted: A Novel
Written by Zane Zane is the Same Ol’ Same
Paperback, 336 pages.
Pocket Books, October 2001
REVIEWED BY AYESHA KI’SHANI HARDISON
you see, my whole life
is tied up
to unhappiness...
it’s a sex object if you’re pretty
and no love
or love and no sex if you’re fat
get back fat black woman be a mother
grandmother strong thing but not woman
gameswoman romantic woman love needer
man seeker dick eater sweat getter
fuck needing love seeking woman
-Nikki Giovanni, Woman Poem
I
T’S A CONUNDRUM—to be black and female. And when
a black woman places sexuality into this discursive
mix, she enters an additional, traditionally limited
space of oppression and provinciality. To have a liberating
black female sexuality is to move beyond the stereotypes
purposefully created during slavery and to move past those
images that have been revised yet continue to persist. Be it
then or now, lascivious Sapphire tempting ol’ master is just
as destructive to black female sexuality as asexual Mammy
being a mother to everybody’s children but her own. Didn’t
Aunt Jemina look like a maid until the 1980’s—and really,
who’s aunt is she? Is it too taboo for Halle Berry to win an
Oscar for a film in which she has sex with a white man, or as
some blacks critical of the film argue, she won because she
“got fucked by a white man” (which clearly changes whether
or not Berry or her Monster’s Ball character has agency)?
In my epigraph, Nikki Giovanni’s “Woman Poem”
explores the Sapphire / Mammy continuum. A black
woman’s unhappiness swings between two poles: sex but no
love or love and no sex. If she’s fat, she’s maternal; and if
she’s maternal, then she’s not a woman—no subjectivity, no
desire. Mothers and grandmothers are not and never have
been sexual objects! And if a black woman proclaims herself
a “gameswoman,” i.e. player, pimp, seductress, or Jedi mind
trick master, she is still needy of a man’s love while running
around “seek[ing] dick.” Even the poem’s “dick eater[’s]”
powerful potential to castrate (a thematic frequented in Gayl
Jones’ fiction) is caught up in being man needy. Clearly, none
of these options are viable ones for sex and love because when
a black woman is seeking liberating sexuality (which could be
defined as sowing her wild oats without the double standard,
24 Critical Moment • January-February 2005
or maybe even exploring how to balance good love, good
mothering, and good sex), sometimes it’s more erotically
empowering to declare, “fuck needing love seeking woman!”
in the face of the conundrum.
Enter Zane into the black female sexuality matrix.
I had heard of the writer, but I had never read one of her
books until my flight was canceled and I had several hours
to entertain myself in a D.C. airport. Interestingly enough,
I was trying to return to my earlier eclectic roots of Anne
Rice, John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, and All-Black-
Men-Are-Trifling Romances (ABMATR) when the
Borders’ salesperson sent me back to my gate with Addicted,
a free Zane publicity pamphlet, and an ominous “I’m sure
you will enjoy it.” All I had heard about Zane suggested
to me that I was reading a sexier ABMATR, but when I
opened the pamphlet titled “I’m reading / ZANE / Why
aren’t you?” I realized this was something more like soft-
core porn. Immediately, I thought, “Ohh my gawd, let me
hide the cover!” Yet, when I read Zane’s address to her
“Dear Readers and Friends,” I began to feel empowered by
exercising my right to buy and read Zane’s illicit book. In the
Within the very escapades that are supposed to
free Zoe, the struggle for a liberating, fulfilling black
female sexuality becomes restricted, oppressed,
and, ultimately, punished.
letter, she explains, “Most of the emails from women thank
me for letting them know that they are normal. That there
is nothing wrong with being sexual and that men are not
the only ones who should demand hellified sex. My whole
thing is why have bad sex? Life is short.” And in my mind,
I said, “That’s what I’m talking about. Why have bad sex?
Life is short!” Yet, despite my sense of adventure for reading
a tale of sexual empowerment, I was sorely disappointed. I
am not going to deny that this book was entertaining (I read
it in a few hours) and that there are some hot moments (the
protagonist, Zoe, and her “rough sex” lover come to mind),
but I can’t see many sexually liberated woman finishing the
book and feeling anything close to “normal.”
The simple plot of Addicted is as follows (if you
don’t want me to ruin it for you, stop reading now): woman is
sexually bored with husband, woman has hot steamy affairs,
woman almost loses husband, woman recommits to marriage,
woman has hot steamy sex with husband. Now, the more
complicated (and problematic) plot is as follows: woman is
sexually bored with husband, woman has hot steamy affairs,
woman seeks counseling for sex addiction, woman almost
loses husband, through hypnosis woman realizes she has
childhood sexual trauma, by finally communicating with her
husband woman realizes husband has past sexual trauma,
thus concluding both have sexual issues, both commit to
counseling and recommit to the marriage, and then they have
steamy hot sex after woman’s past lovers attempt to kill her.
No, I am not making this up.
Let’s be clear: I believe in marriage; I do not
advocate adultery; I do not dismiss counseling; I do not
belittle people’s addictions (yes, I think you can have a sexual
addition, and, yes, we should talk about mental health more
in the black community); and I do not make light of sexual
traumas be it man, woman, or child. However, what I find
problematic about Addicted is its circulating guise among
readers as a liberating jaunt through black female sexuality
when it really is a cautionary moral tale of black woman’s
sexual pathology. This is not a how-to for “hellified sex,” it’s
a WWF smackdown on black women’s desire for sex.
Unfortunately, Zoe is caught in the conundrum:
either she remains committed to her perfect yet sexless
middle class marriage or she gets sexually satisfied through
a string of promiscuous extramarital affairs. To add insult
to injury, her husband, Jason, is an ideal Prince Charming.
He and Zoe fall in love in childhood, he wants to wait
until they’re married to have sex, and he marries Zoe when
she gets pregnant during high school. Despite their sweet
relationship, there are signs that things are not right. Not
only does the novel begin with Zoe talking to her therapist,
but during her recollections, Zoe admits that she started
masturbating at a very early age and, in a gender role reversal,
she continuously pressures Jason for sex. For Zoe, her sexual
aggressiveness in youth, her compulsive masturbation, and
her affairs are evidence of her sexual addition.
Yet, the troubled wife’s confessions to her therapist
are problematically characterized as much as her therapist’s
own sexual voyeurism as Zoe seeking help for her addiction
to exploring her desires. And if the therapist
is a voyeur, what are we dear readers? As
much as I liked Jason, my mind was still
framed by Zane’s own question: why have
bad sex? Unlike Jason, who is traditional
and lacking sexual intimacy, Zoe has the sex
of her fantasies with her passionate painter,
her young mechanic, and her experimental
female lover. In spite of this, Zoe is trapped
by asexual, “cult of true womanhood”
expectations of what it means to be a wife
and mother just as she is limited by her
unsuccessful exploits as a “gameswoman.”
Where is the sexual empowerment? Zoe is as
bound and disciplined in her affairs as much
as she is in her marriage. Forget “normal”;
whether it’s loving, exploratory, sensual,
kinky, or freaky, all the sex in Addicted is bad
sex.
Within the very escapades that
are supposed to free Zoe—and vicariously
her audience—the struggle for a liberating,
fulfilling black female sexuality becomes
restricted, oppressed, and, ultimately,
punished. For instance, even though her
female lover is the most stereotypical
representation of Zoe’s scandalous
exploration, the story never details these
encounters and leaves the identity of Zoe’s
last lover as one of the many plot twists.
In response to the female lover’s biting
comments about their sexual interactions,
Zoe adamantly claims, “I never asked you to
do that either! You insisted, and it’s not like
I returned the favor!”(280). Zoe explains, it
doesn’t matter who did what, as long as she
is getting some and not giving it: i.e. I’m not
a lesbian, I’M NOT! Problematically, Zoe’s
lesbian sexual encounters are supposedly
the ultimate sign of her addiction, but
what Addicted really does is box in black
female sexuality by associating lesbianism
with Zoe’s sexual pathology. Nonetheless,
all Zoe’s affairs are pathological. Her
lesbian lover tries to smother her, her young
mechanic is an ex-con who tries to choke her,
and her passionate painter is a serial killer.
Repeated attempts on one’s life are clearly an
appropriate punishment for exploring black
female sexuality!
The novel’s pathologizing of black
female sexuality comes as a double-edged
sword. Not only are Zoe’s lovers forbidden
because she’s married and they’re all crazy, but
her sexual desire has been problematic from
the start. With the help of a male specialist
in sexual addition (because the black female
therapist is both voyeur and inexperienced),
Zoe discovers that she emotionally buried
two childhood sexual traumas. In addition,
Jason contributes to Zoe’s trauma with his
own sexual dysfunction caused by witnessing
his mother have sex with her johns. Due to
the lack of a true exploration and an opening
of the matrix of black female sexuality in the
novel, Jason’s conservative ideals about sex
are not so much depicted as a product of the
confining images of black female sexuality
(for him, his wife and the mother of his
children must be kept in line by “all-your-
friends-are-sluts” speeches) but his justified
shame of his promiscuous, unredeemable
mother (167). In every twist of the plot, the
latent textual message returns to the idea that
black female sexuality is wrong, bad, dirty,
downright pathological, and punishable by
death. Zoe’s single best friend, the woman
in the novel who should be having good sex,
is killed by her abusive boyfriend—who,
of course, also attempts to kill Zoe. The
saddest affirmation of the novel’s abuse
is when Zoe, realizing that Jason is going
to leave her, walks into oncoming traffic
saying, “This one’s for you Boo!” (240). At
this point, I was uncomfortably laughing at
this new plot twist because I was amazed
at how Zoe/Zane just upped the ante to an
impossible cost for black women and their
sexuality—life and no sex, or sex and no life.
Despite the novel’s intended blissful ending
of marital reconciliation and counseling,
black female sexuality was ultimately, again,
“tied up to unhappiness” for me, and the only
closure I could find as a reader was to conjure
Giovanni’s poem and chant “fuck needing
love seeking woman.”
Admittedly, Zane has made a big
accomplishment in popular fiction. The New
York Times details how the writer started by
circulating an erotic story via email, launched
a website, published her book, and now she
has her own publishing company, providing
opportunities for other young black writers
(Ginia Bellafante, “A Writer of Erotica
Allows a Peek at Herself,” 22 Aug. 2004).
Bellafante identifies Zane’s appeal as the
writer’s “aversion to presenting an unmitigated
fantasy of sex-without-consequence.”
Hmmm…I cannot admonish a housewife
turned author for being successful in tapping
into black women’s sexual fantasies. I can,
however, question the sexual capital attached
to the novel in context of the readers’ need for
fatal consequences. When has black female
sexuality never been about consequences?
And I can identify this book as being less
erotically empowering or sexually freeing
than a bad porn flick in its distortion of
liberating demands for “hellified sex” and
its paradoxical affirmation that “normal”
black female sexuality is pathological. The
only thing provocative about Addicted is the
explicit language in which it describes Zoe’s
exploits: a proliferation of d, p, c, and f-words
that make the sexually conservative blush in
their bluntness. Yet, if those words cannot
move black female sexuality beyond simple
sex objects, fat and black bodies, mothers,
grandmothers, gameswoman, love needers,
man seekers, and dick eaters (and in case
you’re wondering, I don’t believe they can),
then black female sexuality is just trauma and
pathology. And there’s no agency in that.
Ayesha K. Hardison is a lover of literature
and a doctoral student at the University of
Michigan. In her free time, she occasionally
likes to indulge herself in “bad” popular culture:
fiction like ABMATR, independent/low budget
films, and rap, R&B, and pop music.
25
Elation washed over our absence
toward everything in the increasing
darkness.
The soft coloration of his longing in the indifferent
environment has never deserted me.
My husband saving the spermaceti to light
our eyestrings. My husband charting my obsessions
with characteristic cool. Singing sacerdotally
in the shower, my husband intoning every cleft in my skin.
Our syncopated breathing. My husband who flew often
at night as a child. Above the very ground
of our writing (even as power poles were falling
on volvos). My husband equally popular with women
of all ages. His nail parings, his running legs, his scriptoria.
O his ludic hard head. Who cut down
his own hair with a bone-handed knife. His rack
of gorgeous unworn ties. My husband touching
even the insular men; whenever fear bred
its mushrooms under rugs, a cleaning frenzy commenced.
Our bed irrigated with my blood. Watching me burn
from within; tendering his cross pen. O predominately
white guilt. Whenever it rained

after h.l. hix

 3 Steps to Better Sex:
Sound, Stated Desire, Anticipation BY VIOLET ROSE

The way Americans learn about sex is sheltered, full of

Christian taboos, distorted by corporate porn and the media.
Because of this, too many people are having bad sex. It is time
we openly discussed all aspects of sex--from its power dynam-
ics to its physicality.
If you are not comfortable talking about safer sex before
and during sex, then you should not be having sex. If you can-
not talk about safer sex, then you probably cannot talk openly
about your sexual desires, but it is never too early to start.
The purpose of this article is to get people thinking creatively
about sex.
Sound
Verbalize Your Desires Out Loud
There are several things that can make
sex better. One of the most obvious, yet often Too many women, when asked what
overlooked, is sound. Little is more stimulat- they would like sexually, say, “Whatever you
ing than your lover audibly overcome with want is fine.” That is not an answer. Too many
rapture. I know in group sex environments, women do not experience sexual fulfillment
once you hear one voice overcome in plea- because they have no idea what gets them
sure, things loosen up for the whole room off. And how would they know if they have
and people want to be more sexual imme- been experiencing sex as a silent receptacle?
diately. The first step is to get honest and to assess
You can learn how to make noise during what actually excites you, and then, the big
masturbation, just as one learns other things step is to learn to verbalize your desires. This
through masturbation. (I had one friend is much bigger than people realize. Saying
who suggested making love to yourself in a out loud to a sexual partner what you want is
full length mirror, orgasming while looking difficult and requires mutual trust. The tricky
in your own eyes to learn how to be more part is telling your partner what you do not
present in sex). I have noticed that women, like sexually, as it is happening, without them
more than men, have learned how to be quiet becoming defensive. (One exercise around
in sex. I know I was taught through Chris- this is to of- fer two different things to a
tian brainwashing that women did not show lover, and have them choose one. Do this not time wasted when mind-blowing plea-
this dildo to be used...” I was stunned and
pleasure during sex. You were supposed to be over and over to learn what they like.) sure is the result. For penis play, you can start
envious as hell! Here I had been given 20
a complacent and submissive vehicle for men Say out loud, “That feels really good,” with a few light strokes for about 4 seconds
minutes to ask for whatever I wanted and
to masturbate in! But I found out that lov- during sex, to become present in your love- on the shaft and head. Then, stop and go
I wasted it. Who was my uptight bullshit
ers liked women who were rowdy and alive, making and to guide your lover. Allow your- to something else. Then, return and stroke
serving? Now this woman was going to leave
craving sexual fulfillment. self and your lover to acknowledge your plea- the shaft and head for 8 seconds. Then, do
sexually fulfilled instead of sexually frustrat-
One way to play with voice and sex: sure and joy. something else, so your partner thinks you’ve
ed, like me.
Start with sighs that are low, then raise the I used to go to women-only erotic mas- moved on. Next, go down on the shaft with
My lesbian partner and I were envious
pitch incrementally, and consciously, as you sages with my lesbian lover/partner. The mouth or hand. Intensify it each time you
of the women who openly asked for what
start feeling more intensity. This has the ef- massages involved about 20 women and return.
they wanted. Just becoming open lesbians
fect of sounding like you are getting more 4 massage tables. We would each get 20 For women, there is “ringing the door-
had been a big change for us. To learn to re-
excited. Or, do the reverse. Start high and go minutes on the table in groups of five. We bell.” Push the clitoris lightly like ringing a
claim our sexuality as ours, and to redefine
low. This sounds ike someone going from in- would meet at one woman’s house and take doorbell, very casually, and with proper fi-
it, was a huge task. We tried asking for what
tense excitement to sedated and pulsing ec- off our clothing and each group would then nesse, and then move on to other things, as if
we wanted out loud at home and even that
stasy. You can try sighs and grunts as you find put one woman on the massage table with 4 you did not ring the doorbell. Then, go back
was hard, but we worked on it by practicing.
new places you never knew your vocal chords women around her who asked her what she and lightly ring the doorbell again. A bit of
could take you. wanted sexually. I remember my first time. I this and most women I have played with (in-
Anticipation
Play with different words, too, such as said, “Anything will be fine.” These women cluding myself ) want you to quit ringing the
looking in your lover’s eyes and saying their would not have that. They said, “Do you want doorbell and come inside for a spell of more
Anticipation: This one tool can drive
name. Also, making these sounds directly us to touch your genitals?” I said, “Okay.” bell ringing and other fun.
someone mad with desire. Much of BDSM
into a lover’s ear, when you have to be more The next woman on the table said what So there you have it, three things you
sensation play is based on withholding ec-
quiet, when your sound responds directly to she wanted. “I want someone to make out can work on today for better sex.
stasy until anticipation has built to a fantastic
the lover’s moves, can be very erotic. A good with me while someone else plays with my
level. Playing with teasing and reeling one in
sound for the ear is breathing in with teeth nipples and I would like hand sex with my
through incremental stages of excitement is
slightly clenched, as is the classic “oh.” vagina and then after a while, I would like

27