Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.
- Teenagers who are raped leave school at earlier age
- Thoughts on Sodini
- What Does “Lust” Look Like?
- Despite Improvements, Rape Kit Billing Problems Persist
- Why doesn’t the media talk more about the fact that Laura Ling and Euna Lee were investigating sex trafficking?
- Actual Headline
– because most schools don’t cope properly with harassment of victims
– read about Violentisation
– a naked woman, because if there’s naked men it must be gay, apparently
– including that billing a victim’s health insurance for her rape kit opens up a whole can of other worms
– good question
– More fat-shaming fail.
Disclaimer/SotBO: a link here is not necessarily an endorsement of all opinions of the post author(s) either in the particular post or of their writing in general.
Categories: linkfest
The 109th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up! 
The 105th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up! 
Hoyden About Town 
What Does “Lust” Look Like?
– a naked woman, because if there’s naked men it must be gay, apparently
I’ve done that actually. A few months ago I wrote a poem about a conversation with ‘Sex’, who I envisaged as a goddess, sprawled out on a couch, ‘her red lips pouting on a cigarette’, etc. She then proceeded to get into an argument with the person who was telling the story.
I realised afterwards that this was obviously a standard portrayal of Sex, and I did briefly discuss the possibility of rewriting the poem with Sex as a man. But this would have required a substantial rewrite – basically, the entire poem would have been different, a new work, with an entirely different dynamic between the narrator and the’ God’, Sex. But it is an interesting idea and I may write it (perhaps in the form of a ‘reply’, or something like that) some time.
I’d be interested to follow the compare and contrast on that, Tim.
I’ll dig up a copy of the original poem and mail it through. Contradicting myself somewhat, I should note that I didn’t portray Sex as a naked woman, just an alluring woman, similar to the classic portrayals of the Eros, Aphrodite, etc. (I had been thinking at the time about tendency in classical poems to use Gods to represent powerful human urges, vices, and virtues.)
What Does “Lust” Look Like?
David Bowie!
TimT: Wow, I’d be interested in reading that. Me, personally, I’ve always imagined “Sex” or “Love” or “Beauty” or “Desire”… as a somewhat… androgynous entity. Your poem sounds really interesting!
I lolled at the David Bowie suggestion.
It’s interesting the conversation this has brought up, because last night I ended up discussing the classical representations of Cupid and his mother Aphrodite. Cupid is often represented as a baby or a boy (androgynous, presumably), but then again, the myth of Cupid and Psyche seems to suggest that he can be represented as sexually mature as well.
How do the Roman Cupid/Venus myths stack up against the Greek Eros/Aphrodite myths? I have a vague memory that Eros was generally a handsome youth rather than a chubby baby, but I’m not all that familiar with all the variations.
Apart from the Cupid and Psyche myth, and the conventional modern portrayal of Cupid on Valentines, etc, I’m not sure.
I think that portraying Cupid as a boy makes a lot of sense, dramatically/symbolically. He’s a character that could embody both the cold indifference to the adult world of the pre-pubescent, and the raging hormonal dramas of puberty.
Though in the case of my poem I was interested in giving a character to Lust/Sex specifically, not to Love.
“I should note that I didn’t portray Sex as a naked woman, just an alluring woman, similar to the classic portrayals of the Eros, Aphrodite, etc. ”
Eros is a bloke, surely?
Yep. Shows how much I know about classical mythology! Whoops.