Sex/uality Artifacts

Hi class! My name is Amanda Tanzer and my artifact that I presented in class yesterday was a clip from the movie Easy A. This movie is about a girl named Olive who faked sleeping with her guy friend to help everyone believe he wasn’t gay. Other boys then find out from him that she did this so they all begin to ask her to do the same thing in exchange for gift cards. So at this point in the movie she is known for “sleeping around”. Then the man you see in the clip below learned he got chlamydia and so he blamed it on Olive since she was known for “sleeping around” when it was really the guidance counselor who was also seen in the videos above. When Olive goes to the guidance counselor about the matter, she basically convinces Olive to act like it really was her so she could keep her job/marriage.

I related this movie to the article “Damaged Goods: Women Managing the Stigma of STDs” by Adina Nack. Guilt and deception were both common reactions mentioned in the article for women with STDs. These were both reactions that could be seen in the movie Easy A as well as the guidance counselor chose to deny her STD, lie about it, and use a cover story (Olive taking the blame). This all eventually led to guilt once her husband finds out it was her later on in the movie. Everyone in the study, in the article, eventually disclosed the truth about their STD to a loved one, as did the guidance counselor in the movie.

The article also talked about how a woman living with a chronic STD has a shadow of disease cast on her and the health and desirability of her body as well as on her perceived possibilities for future sexual experiences. This can be seen in Easy A as everyone talked about Olive behind her back and the news spread around so quickly after the boy in the video said she gave him chlamydia. Later on she mentions how no one ever asked her on a real date anymore. They just paid her to say they did stuff with her, but everyone thought she had an STD from “sleeping around” too much that she really had no opportunities for sexual experiences. This made it seem as though Olive had an aura of undesirability around her as the article mentioned.

Videos shown in class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsHeCTEQ34o(started at 0:58)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhCmqzi5CL4 (started at 0:52)

Hello everyone, my name is Catherine Weaver. Today I presented an artifact in class about interracial relationships based off our article we had to read called Interracial Intimacy. Interracial relationships have always been something that is weird or made a skeptical of to the public and in the eyes of the media that is all around us. If heterosexual interracial couples are being made a skeptical of in the public, then homosexual interracial couples definitely are as well. In the reading, Interracial Intimacy, it explains how interracial couples have moments of invisibility and also moment of visibility to the public. Sometimes they feel like they don’t matter and aren’t given the time of day so they feel invisible. But other times, they have moments of visibility but not the good kind of visibility. It is the type of visibility that the interracial couples get prolonged stared and hearing the whispers of bad and rude comments. People’s reactions to interracial couples just goes to show how we view interracial relationships and what stereotype of relationships we see in our head. For example, if we think of white woman in a relationship in our head… we automatically pair her with a white man right along side of her. Or if we think of a black man, we automatically pair him up with a black woman in our head. Which in my opinion, is crazy. Love is love and it should not be discriminated in any way shape or form. Who are we to judge or decide who should love who.

The video that I found as my artifact that relates to the reading, Interracial Intimacy, is called Interracial Relationship Confessions. This short video was made by BuzzFeed and I thought it was a great example of how interracial couples actually feel about how people view their own personal intimate relationship. One of the lines from the short video that stood out to me the most was: “Yeah, people do stare. Sad, but true.” To interracial couples, it doesn’t matter what race their partner is or what culture he or she is from. And, if it doesn’t matter to them, then why should it matter to us?

Here is the link for the video I found:

Hello everyone, my name is Nichole Davenport. Today in class on December 1, 2015, I presented my first artifact regarding interracial intimacy and marriages. From last week’s readings, we were required to read the article entitled “Visibility as Privilege and Danger: Heterosexual and Same-Sex Interracial Intimacy” written by Amy C. Steinbugler. I felt that this article was very interesting and made very valid points. The article differentiates how respect and acceptance is demonstrated between different sexuality identities and preferences. Gayle Rubin wrote the pivotal essay entitled “Thinking Sex” in 1984, where she argues that sexuality is organized into systems of power: rewarding individuals and activities while suppressing others. This is referred to as a “sex hierarchy”. Rubin stated that “good, normal, and natural” sexuality is heterosexual, monogamous, same-generation, procreative, vanilla, which refers to “non-kinky” sex, and also in private. Basically, this version of what “good” sexuality looks like is based around societal norms. “Bad, abnormal, and damned” sexuality, however, is homosexual, unmarried, promiscuous, non-procreative, casual, cross-generational, or sadomasochistic sex. Rubin also explains that “good” sexuality receives respect, mobility, and legality while as “bad” sexuality receives dis-reputability, restricted mobility, and criminality. In this article, Rubin also introduces the concept of interracial sexuality and how it is looked over in research. In the United States, interracial sexual relations is not only frowned upon, but is also strongly discouraged as it is perceived to be “wrong” or as “betrayal” to the family. This is especially true for interracial relations between African-Americans and Whites, who have actually been restricted and criminalized for such relations. Mono-racial and heterosexuality, however, is legally, politically, and socially sanctioned. While researching more on this topic and why it is so much worse for African-American and White interracial couples compared to other races, I came across a video clip of an interview on the Bethenny Show with Tamera Mowry-Housley, who is a famous actress and has her own reality show with her twin sister. Tamera explains in the video that she is biracial or “mixed”, with her father being White and her mother Black, and that she herself is in an interracial marriage, with her husband being White as well. Tamera discusses her feelings about this aspect in her life and how her and her husband receive a lot of negative comments and looks because of their interracial marriage. She consistently expresses her opinion, stating “Who cares?!” regarding her social and personal life. She was receiving nasty Tweets on social media site Twitter, with individuals giving her grief about supposedly not having Black friends, and that all her friends are White. Not only was this assumption false, as Tamera pointed out, but also ties into the article written  by Steinbugler. Tamera and her husband’s interracial marriage is being looked at as “bad” sexuality, as it doesn’t tie into societal norms. Although Tamera is seen as a celebrity, individuals are still uncomfortable with her interracial marriage and are not afraid to voice their opinions about it. As Rubin indicated, interracial sexual relations have been restricted and criminalized, specifically between African-Americans and Whites. Respect and acceptance for interracial marriages and relations is still an issue in the United States, and needs to be addressed.

To find the link to this interview:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-SJYYaaLgE

To find the article by Amy C. Steinbugler: Files–interracial intimacy.pdf (Retrieved on November 24, 2015)

Hello, my name is Sami Parave and for my second artifact I chose the movie The Birdcage. In The Birdcage, Robin Williams plays a character that is the owner of a drag show club and he is in a relationship with the star drag queen. The couple has a son together who comes home from college and tells them he’s getting married, but soon the conflict of the other family’s values comes into play. The woman who the son is marrying has very conservative parents. They are not approving of homosexual relationships and they are not accepting of the type of lifestyle she’ll be marrying in to. In the video clip I picked, the girl’s father has just found out that it is a gay couple that raised her fiancé and he is not pleased with this discovery. He claims that because he is running for reelection and they are going through a scandal that this is the last thing that he needs. He also states that her mother is crying at the time and asks her how many more lives she is going to ruin before she realizes what she’s doing. He believes that the way her fiancé was raised is wrong and that the whole situation is preposterous. He is putting his family above others because of its “traditional” morals within it. In the “Proper Families” article, it is discussed how families see the importance of certain values and the value of early family experiences, but the conflict is that some believe homosexual households don’t provide the same type of positive experience. There is the idea that values should remain the same among all families and shouldn’t differ. Some people worry about “bad genes” being passed on or entering a family because they come from a homosexual background. These ideas are outdated and untrue in the majority of cases because it has been proven in many studies that children of homo and heterosexual relationships develop and grow the same way, which relates to the “Freeman Queer Belongings” article. This article also states that kinship can be skewed based on who is really taking care of the children and who is teaching the children the morals based off what their perception of parenting is. These morals that some families believe makes a traditional family so specific are slowly being phased out because the LGBT community is creating a safer living environment for people around the world.

The link to the video is below!

Hi my name is Chelsey Dupler. For my second artifact I choose a movie called the kids are all right. This is a film about two lesbians who wanted children so they went to a sperm bank so that they could make this happen. They ended up having two children with the same sperm donor. The children begin to grow interest in who their father is. The children legally have to 18 to go to the sperm bank to get information about their father. Thankfully, the daughter turned 18 pretty soon into the movie. This allowed her to go to the sperm bank and figure out who their father was. After that, she called her father and met up with him and her brother. They all enjoyed learning about each other. This prompted them to hang out more than their mother’s would like. At first when the mother’s found out that the children went to find their father, they weren’t very happy about it. Thankfully, they eventually came around to the idea that the children did want their father in their lives.

This relates to the article called Proper Families? Cultural Expectations and Donor Conception as it states that these children are growing up thinking about their identity, as they do not know every person in which their genes come from. If they come from a family in which they only know one parent because of a sperm donor then these children can be longing to learn more about their identity and their genes. Thankfully, in this movie the children both get to know their father so even though their childhoods were spent with a longing for learning more about their identity and genes, they were able to find it in their father when they met him.

This movie also relates to the article as in the beginning it discusses how it used to be the norm that families would consist of a mother and father and they would only conceive that way. As we know this is not every type of family that America consists of nowadays. So over time, the type of proper family that used to be known in society has changed by allowing same sex couples and single women to be able to conceive a child. This is allowing people to become more accepting of mothers going to a sperm bank and becoming a mom on their own without a man in their lives to help. As in the movie the mother’s go to the sperm bank to get donor sperm to become help them conceive the children that they’ve always wanted. Overall, this movie helps to shed light on the subject and allows society to see that this is becoming more normal for people. Which allows for people to become more accepting of the changes that the old type of “proper family” of a man and woman is not the only type of family that can conceive a child in America today.

The trailer for the movie can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdDSqgZ87fM

Hello, my name is Jordan Nell and in this post I will be discussing my 2nd artifact that was presented on 12-1-2015. In this lesson I related my artifact to a clip from the Thanksgiving scene in The Blind Side movie. This clip relates to the proper families article. It talks about finding persona identities and goes to the extreme of a genetic connection for that to occur. The most important point from this article is that families need to create relatedness and a sense of belonging. People often refer genetics and biological aspects as relating to someone but it is more about being able to connect to their interests and providing a warm and positive environment. Kinship revolves around relating to one another and that was evident in this video clip when they all sat at the kitchen table with Michael instead of watching football while they ate their Thanksgiving dinner. Genetic kinship does not automatically lead to caring, loving, and close families. Family practices between non-genetic kinship can give rise to bonding, security, and a strong sense of belonging. The clip shows non-genetic kinship by relating the family to one another by having them sit down and having each others undivided attention while eating a very important family tradition meal. Michael grew up in an environment where he came from nothing and had a hard time relating to the rich family life style. The wife took him in as if she was his mother. In the future Michael goes on to continue to stay close with his new family due to their bond. He was very thankful for everything that they did for him to get him to Ole Miss for collegiate football and ultimately to the NFL. He would have never conquered his life long dreams if he didn’t experience the guidance and support that he did during his childhood. The follow video link that is attached shows the Thanksgiving clip from the Blind Side movie and the importance of non-genetic kinship when relating to one another. You can tell Michael feels the bond with the family in this clip and this goes a long way for developing these relationships in the future. This artifact seemed to go very well and proved the importance of relating to your family members.

Hello, my name is Jordan Nell and I will be discussing my first artifact from 12-1-2015 in this post. Billie Jean King is a former top 10 national female tennis player. She made history by taking on Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” which took place as a match in 1973. Bobby Riggs is known for being an extremely sexist individual. Billie Jean King ended up winning the match fairly easily. The only reason she chose to have the match with Bobby Riggs was to fight for equal prize money for female athletes. In 1981, a court case took place between Billie Jean King and her former ex-girlfriend. This forced King to come out publicly about her sexuality. She feared this knowledge becoming public because of the possibility that it could damage her image and relationships. Her fears became true because she sadly lost all of her endorsements. This article related well to today’s class when discussing Adults and Sexuality: Marriage and Intimate Relationships. This is because she felt that she was forced to tell everyone about her sexuality due to her circumstances. No issues occurred during the presentation but I felt like everyone was interested in the topic because no one really covered a sports figure before in any artifacts. Her story was more challenging because people were more upset that she had a husband although that was just a cover up so no one would question her sexuality. This is linked to the class content due to her situation. Many people do not understand the issues that could arise from public figures speaking out about their sexuality. This was even more challenging when discussing this issue in the 1970’s-1980’s. I cannot begin to understand the level of pain and suffering she felt keeping this secret for such a long time. I can’t comprehend how difficult it must be to come out publicly due to being forced. Unfortunately for Billie Jean King the repercussions were big and she seemed to never recover but now she is considered a major public figure. She stuck up for her own personal life and for the rights of women during this difficult time period. Attached below is the video link that I played when presenting my artifact to the class. This video gives you a background on Billie Jean King and her famous tennis match.

http://www.d2l.org/site/c.4dICIJOkGcISE/b.6035035/k.8258/Prevent_Child_Sexual_Abuse.htm#.VlPBib-rSf9

Hi class! My name is Hallie Hayden and I chose to highlight a website for my first artifact, dedicated to bring awareness to the frequency of childhood sexual abuse. This is a topic so heinous no one wants to think about the reality of it. The reality being one in ten children will be sexually abused in their lives before they turn 18. Something that the website also brings up is that most childhood sexual abuse is done by somebody close to the child and not strangers. This is something that we have discussed in class and was also mentioned in the articles on this topic. This website provides links to stories from survivors, and these stories highlight the different effects childhood sexual abuse can have on people. Some of the effects that are talk about were also mention in the article about long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse, things like experiencing guilt, shame and taking personal responsibility for the abuse. There were also recovery stories, in which the survivors reclaim a sense of empowerment in their lives and sexuality.

The Darkness to Light website also provides avenues to getting help if you or someone you know is being abused, as well as ways to help recover if it happened in your past. This website offers all kinds of help for survivors, but also provides resources to help prevent the act from ever happening. They run programs in different counties across the nation that inform parents and community members alike in the steps they can take to protect their children. A brief look into their program would be the five steps, which are to; learn the facts, minimize the risk, talk about it, recognize the signs and react responsibly. They go into more depth in the program and on the website. This is a useful website if you are a parent, are in child care, or even if you’d just like to be more informed on the subject.

For my second artifact, I picked this episode of That 70’s Show because I feel like it encompasses not only today’s topic but also a great deal of the topics we’ve discussed for the last few weeks.  In the beginning of the film, Kelso (the kid with long hair), begins feeling uncomfortable during the X-rated film because he is getting back together with his ex-girlfriend, Jackie. As he leaves the theater, Fez (the foreign exchange student) tells him to “not forget his dress on the way out.” Kelso is male, so he is expected to enjoy watching X-rated films. If he does not, to Fez, this means he is acting like a female. In some ways, however, this episode does not conform to sexual scripts. As we’ve discussed, sex is often portrayed as very easy. The clothes just fall off, it is immediately enjoyable for both parties, and everything goes smoothly. That 70’s show does an excellent job of showing how sex cannot go smoothly. Clearly it does not go smoothly in this episode, as Donna leaves because of a move Eric tried which she found too perverted. Also,  the show has episodes in which the character’s first time was not that enjoyable, where the mother goes through menopause, and many morethat show sex in a different and often more realistic way. The second topic from class that can be applied to this video is the negative effects of pornography. The boys watch an X-rated film and Eric immediately feels inadequate. This leads him to incorporate one of the moves he had seen in the film into his own life, which turns out to affect it negatively. The last part of the clips apply to consent. Eric does not discuss with Donna what he is about to try in bed. Donna is uncomfortable with it, leading her to exercise her right of consent and leave the bedroom. People often think of consent as something to be exercised against strangers, not people whom they are dating. This episode provides a great example of how consent can be practiced within the context of a relationship.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6a6cu_s3-ep19-eric-s-naughty-no-no-part-1_shortfilms

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6a6ha_s3-ep19-eric-s-naughty-no-no-part-2_shortfilms

For my artifact, I chose this clip from an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. The episode features a controversial sequence of events in which Spongebob, Patrick, and Spongebob’s boss (Mr. Krabs) break into a house with the intent stealing woman’s underwear. Spongebob and Patrick even admit they “score here all the time.” The crew is eventually caught and punished, but it did raise quite a controversy. Many parents were concerned about the reaction the episode may draw from their children. Does it expose kids to an invasive and illegal aspect of sexuality at too early an age? What sort of questions does it raise? During the episode, going on a “panty raid” was described as the cool thing to do. Will seeing their favorite cartoon characters partake in this activity also make them think it is “cool”?  This is also not the only episode of Spongebob which causes parents to concern. Originally intended for adults, Spongebob features episodes involving references to jail rape, public nudity, and gay marriage (controversial for some parents). Outside of the sexual realm, there is even an episode where Spongebob and Mr. Krabs murder a health inspector and spend the rest of the episode trying to escape conviction. While these depictions seem to trivialize major breaches in morals, Spongebob continues to be a very popular show. One may wonder, how could a parent let their children watch these images? That is because it is debatable whether this actually has a negative influence on children. As an avid watcher of the show while growing up, I can tell you I almost never understood any of the sexual references in the show. The jokes were meant for a different age level, and I did not question them. Also, even if children are understanding the concepts shown, that does not necessarily mean they adopt them. For the moment, not enough research has been done to determine how these small exposures influence how children develop sexually, mentally, or emotionally. At the moment, the decision is given to the parent.

Today (11/19/15) I, Michenzi Hoffman, present my artifact on child abuse in media. I showed two movie clips, one clip was from the movie the Lovely Bones, and the second was from the movie The Butterfly Effect. The first video clip that I present was of Susie Salmon easily being coerced into a bunker set up by Mr. Harvey a fellow neighbor. That touches on a major point our guest speaker brought which was 2/3 of perpetrators of childhood abuse are trusted adults like “fellow friendly neighbors.” There are certain parts of this scene that also hit on main points the guest speaker pointed out. Some of them being that children are abused because they are “seductive.” Susie is fully clothed, states she doesn’t have a boyfriend, and is very timid (not sexual at all). Childhood abuse occurs because children are expected to do as they are told, trust adults, and they are vulnerable to coercion and trickery. Susie Salmon fell victim to all of those: Mr. Harvey asks her to stay to have a Coke Cola with him and she feels like she can’t say no. She ends up in the bunker in the first place because she is tricked into thinking it is going to be something fun and enjoyable for kids, and feels like she can trust Mr. Harvey. Lastly, her abuse occurs at the end of the scene and is inevitable because when she tries to escape Mr. Harvey has a huge power differential compared to her; he is bigger, stronger, smarter, and understands what he is doing, leading to the rape of Susie Salmon.

The second clip I showed was of a flashback in the Butterfly Effect where a drunken father (once again not a stranger, but a member of the family) is taking a little boy and girl (Kaylee) down in the basement to “act out Robin Hood.” I thought this was a nice way to depict the opposite of child abuse because instead of the children obeying the adult, being vulnerable, and possessing a little knowledge about the topic, they instead have a plan. They stand up to the drunken father, tell him no, and do not do as they are told (to take their clothes off and kiss). At the end of the clip Kaylee tells the father that he will never touch her again. This touches on the fact the guest speaker stated which is: child abuse is usually thought of as intercourse, but really it is more typically dealing with touching and fondling. The last part of the clip the boy is saying to the father all the mental detriment the little girl is going to go through because she doesn’t have loving father, how her only concept of trust is betrayed by her own father, and how she will be more likely to commit suicide.

With that being said I would now like to tie in the reading we had over child abuse and the long-term effects that are likely to occur to the one that had to withstand the abuse. “Childhood sexual abuse has been correlated with higher levels of depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, somatic concerns, anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual problems, and relationship problems” (Hall, M. and Hall J., 2). Depression is the most common symptom to come about after a child has went through abuse. A lot of the time the survivors think that it is their fault, they blame themselves, they think they “liked it,” and take on personal responsibility for the abuse. According to the reading other symptoms may include “experiencing amnesia concerning parts of their childhood, negating the effects and impact of sexual abuse and feeling that they should forget about the abuse” (Hall M, and Hall J., 3). Sexual difficulties are common for survivors to experience and opening to up to new partners is extremely difficult for them. There are many symptoms that can occur after abuse, so the reading suggests using the negative thoughts and turning them positive to empower ones self, create boundaries, and promote power. I think that it as great technique to consider, and important for the survivor to begin the healing process. I did not have any questions to answer after my presentation. I hope I was able to get my point across about childhood sexual abuse, and how serious of a topic it is. Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L2dyDpd7LA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-APah17AQA

https://www.counseling.org/docs/disaster-and-trauma_sexual-abuse/long-term-effects-of-childhood-sexual-abuse.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Danielle Friedrich

Today in class I showed a video clip from the TV Show “Scrubs”. The video clip was of Elliot and Carla, two female leads in the show, and Dr. Cox, a male lead in the show, discussing two patients test results. Elliot and Carla ran several tests on the couple, but all the tests came back negative. Dr. Cox realized they didn’t test the couple for any STDs and immediately sent an order to get them tested. When the test results came back, the doctors found that the couple had Syphilis. At the end of the video clip, one of the nurse’s went to deliver the news to the couple since the other doctors weren’t able to do so. Upon entering the room, Carla told the nurse that he didn’t have to do it because she already did and that the couple told her all about their sexual activities.

This clip is an example of how the elderly population tends to be overlooked as sexual beings. This clip is also an example of how doctors seem to overlook STDs as a possible diagnosis in the elderly populations due to the misconstrued idea that they do not engage in sexual activities. The article, The Unexplored Story of HIV and Aging, stated that many older individuals everywhere are sexually active, although interest in sex and frequency of vaginal intercourse decline with age. This shows that even though the older population’s sexual activity declines, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still partaking in sexual activities on a regular basis. Another example from the article on how the clip relates is that the article discusses how there is a failure to consider STDs as a cause for illness in older adults. In the clip, Carla and Elliot didn’t even test the couple for an STD because it didn’t cross their mind. This shows that even doctors, who should be highly educated, still don’t think of the elderly population as people who partake in sexual activities. Dr. Cox realized that Carla and Elliot didn’t test the couple for any STDs and realized right away, as if it was the easiest thing, that the couple needed to be tested for possible STDs. This shows that most people do not see the elderly population as sexual beings, whereas others, few, do. The article talks about how screening for STDs is less common for older adults because they are assumed to not be at risk.

Scrubs, STDs, and the Elderly TV Show Clip:

Hi class! My name is Chelsey Dupler. My artifact was a video called Age, Sex, and HIV which is about a woman named Veronica who is 61 years old and has HIV. She is having trouble receiving medical treatment because she is older and they claim that she should know better than to have unprotected sex and contract HIV. The place that Veronica went only seemed to be concerned with younger people getting help. When in reality the reading The Unexplored Story of HIV and Aging states that older people are going to participate in unprotected sex than younger people (Schmid 2009). This means that people in the older generation are just as likely, if not more to contract STD’s such as HIV. In the reading it states, “There has been a jump from 20% to 25% in 3 years in people who are aged 45-65 years old contracting HIV” (Schmid pg. 459). This means that people who are older deserve just as much of a chance to get medical help because of the large jump of HIV contractions. Not only that but studies show that HIV progresses faster in older people than in younger people (Schmid 2009). With all of this being said, it is important to help older people with HIV because there is a lack of appreciation to them according to the video. Especially because in the reading it discussed that if a 65 years old contracts HIV, without proper treatment, their life expectancy is only about 4 years as a result in the decline in their immunity (Schmid 2009). In the video, Veronica is getting close to 65 years old as she stated she was 61, without adequate treatment (which it does not seem like she is receiving any), her health will decline and so will her life expectancy. Overall, this just shows that older people are really not receiving as much adequate treatment for HIV as younger people are, which they should be able to have access to which relates to the course through the readings. The reading on The Unexplored Story of HIV and Aging was all about how people in their older years are not being looked at as sexual beings and are being dismissed when it comes to their STD’s such as HIV in this case.

The video Age, Sex, and HIV can be viewed here:

Reference: Schmid, G. (2009). Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2009. The Unexplored Story of HIV and Aging.

Hi Class! Again, my name is Alison Skok. I showed the video about a high school student who invented the wheelchair with capabilities to hold/push a baby carrier. This video relates to the sexuality and disability class material. This video proves many myths incorrect. Including the myth that people with disabilities should not have children. Because this invention is allowing an individual with disabilities to have easier access to a child carrier this is an example of the world becoming more accessible for people with disabilities.

One thing I thought that was interesting with this video, however, was this invention being advertised as a wheel chair/stroller for disabled moms. Maybe instead it should say a wheel chair/stroller for parents/caregivers with disabilities. The wording in the advertisement suggests that only disabled moms would use this product. Instead it should be more gender neutral.

Wheelchair strollers are on the market and seem to be easily accessible. Doing further research I found many different brands and styles. Just like there a many different styles of infant and toddler strollers.

Here is the link to the video I showed in class:

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/921766774580114/

Hi, my name is Heather Andrews and I did my second artifact presentation on childhood sexual abuse. I am actually doing my resource manual project over childhood sexual abuse. So, if anyone is looking for more information, tools, resources, etc., I encourage them to come talk to me and I will help assist them in any way that I professionally can. Before getting too deep into this, I want to define what sexual abuse is. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual abuse is “unwanted sexual activity, with perpetrators using force, making threats or taking advantage of victims not able to give consent.” Many research has shown that when child sexual abuse takes place, it is actually by someone that they know and are very close to. Our guest speaker really highlighted this in her presentation on Thursday. Research has also shown that there are many harmful effects of childhood sexual abuse, both short-term and long-term. The article that we read for Tuesday, November 3^rd, was from the American Counseling Association from VISTAS. The article spent the majority of the time focusing on the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse. Their research shows that childhood sexual abuse has been correlated with higher levels of depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, somatic concerns anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual problems, and relationship problems. To highlight these effects, I wanted to share a video with the class. For my presentation, I did not highlight the entire 5-minute video. Instead, I showed a specific clip from about 1:10-2:10. In this short minute, Hannah (a sexual abuse survivor) explains the aftermath and effects of her childhood sexual abuse. She says that felt guilty and shameful. She also used a lot of self-harm as she cut her legs, arms, and sometimes even her face. She states that she even attempted suicide. This correlates exactly with what we have been discussing in class and exactly what the article stated. She experienced the same feelings, the same self-harm, and suffered so much from depression that she even attempted suicide. This is just one short video that relates to what we have been discussing in class.  At the end of my presentation, the question was asked, “How does she talk about surviving the abuse?” To answer this question, at the end of the video, Hannah states what she knows now and I think this has helped her deal with the abuse. For example, she has kind of redirected her thinking into something more positive and seeing herself as valuable and important. She also constantly reminds herself that she is forgiven and that she is not guilty for the things that took place. She says that love is the most important and most powerful thing. Therefore, with the help from a counselor and her loved ones, she has been able to cope with/survive the abuse and she now has a new outlook on herself and her worth.

Hello! My name is Sami Parave and my first artifact was about two news articles that pertained to the assignments we had to read in class about the rape and consent and boundaries articles. The news articles I found were about known singer, Kesha, and a recent rape case that she has been involved in. She claims that her music producer had been “abusing her sexually, physically, verbally and emotionally shortly after she signed a contract with him when she was 18” (Buckland, Mirror Magazine). Her music producer, known as Dr. Luke, denies that this was the case, but more investigation is still occurring.

In reference to the article “I Wasn’t Raped, but…” by Nicola Gavey, there are some direct correlations with Kesha’s situation with some of the points made throughout the article. In the article, it discusses the fact that some women feel more worried about the dangers of sexual assault and violence because of stories they hear about in the media. In the article it states, “these gendered ways of being may be further enhanced by the exacerbation of women’s fears about rape through the media reportage and through warnings about violent sexual attacks that emphasize women’s vulnerability to rape” (Gavey 585). This can be seen in many ways such as reports of other women being in the situations and the constant warnings that are given to women about sexual assault. One way that Kesha contradicts this idea is when she was able to give a jaw-dropping performance after the case had been brought to the surface of the media. She showed her strength as a women and her strength as a survivor of sexual abuse. As “I Wasn’t Raped, but…” states, women should taught to be strong after these events, not that they should hide and be in the background for forever because of what happened.

In the other article in class titled “Consent and Boundaries,” the aspect of unwanted sex and sexual abuse are both discussed because they both involve the idea of not giving consent to the actions that are happening. What was different about Kesha’s case was that she also felt obligated to keep allowing these abusive acts to keep happening because Dr. Luke was her music producer and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to keep singing and performing if she didn’t allow him to keep going. Now, she has realized that she is stronger than this and she doesn’t have to keep it a secret, which meant that she finally stood up for herself and told someone what was happening so that she could move past this unfortunate situation. Which brings us to how she is moving forward now with performing better than ever and continuing to fight for her right and trying to get justice for what Dr. Luke has been doing to her.

Here are the links to the articles on Kesha’s case:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/kesha-rape-lawsuit-against-ex-5916602

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kesha-alleged-rape-dr-luke-place-virgin-source-article-1.1976933

Hi all, my name is Imari Lloyd and my first artifact was two clips pertaining to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Upon showing the two clips, I asked has anyone heard of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch or Cathouse the TV series and almost everyone in the class said they never heard of except for one other student. The Moonlite Bunny Ranch is one of eighteen legal brothels in Nevada and views as the of the most famous. Within this facility, women are able to receive money for sexual activities. Dennis Hof is the owner of this brothel along with a couple more also located in Nevada. An interesting thing about Dennis runs the business is that he stated in an interview that the women who work have open contract, which allows them to work whenever they want, this could be weeks, months, etc., they can leave and then come back. Cathouse is a HBO series that shows the ins and outs of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch where almost nothing is censored except certain body parts. Cathouse shows everything from the line up the women when a customer comes in, how customers decide on the women of choice, the sexual activity taking place and more.

My artifact relates to the articles “legalized prostitution” and “sex work for middle class” discussed on Tuesday October 27.  One of the main points of the article “legalized prostitution” included the policies of criminalization and decriminalization of prostitution in countries. Countries where prostitution is criminalized, this type of work is not legal and unsafe. On the other hand, with decriminalization, brothels have to follow certain requirements to ensure safety for both the workers and individuals involved. Since prostitution is legal in Nevada, this relates to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch because this and the other brothels have to follow certain regulations such as condoms usage, women having weekly testing for sexually transmitted diseases/infections, monthly HIV tests and they cannot handle money transitions directly. This takes steps in making sure the workers are maintaining a healthy welling being throughout their jobs. This also relates to the article of “sex work for middle class” because of the women stating the reasons why they chose to go into this type of service. There was another interview I watched with some of the girls from this particular brothel and a lot of them choose to be into this profession because the money is fast which helps them achieve and maintain a certain lifestyle that they want. The article mentioned that this profession is a choice and many women understand this. There were some women on the other hand whom felt that since they were exposed to this type of environment early on, were raped and already lost their virginity why not go into this. Although it seemed like the lifestyle somewhat choice them, they still chose to follow it because why not get money for something they were so familiar with. In addition, the article mentioned the role of new technologies and how this helps business thrive through advertisement. The cathouse series has definitely had an influence on the popularity of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch as well as the TV promotion and celebrity visits.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Take-a-Tour-of-the-BunnyRanch-Brothel-in-Nevada-Video

My artifact was a video clip from the organization GLSEN’s new national survey. The video clip was describing the different experiences the LGBTQ+ community and how we as a community and school system can make it a better environment for everyone. During the video, it was discussed that there are over 8,000 middle and high school LBGT students in the U.S. and that number is growing since 2013.  Progress is being made to ensure that no matter what your identity every student has a safe place to thrive and learn. GSA’s are a way this progress is being made. GSA often run clubs and organizations for the LGBTQ+ community in schools. Students have said that having GSA’s in their schools have made them feel safer and they were able to focus more on their school work. Also when GSA’s were present in schools students were victimized less by their fellow students. GSA’s are an amazing tool to use but since 2013 only half of LGBTQ+ students have these in there schools. Having this positive and supportive representation in there schools helped them to preform better academically and socially. Not having GSA’s or any representations of the LGBTQ+ community in the school rather it be teachers, in the curriculum, or socially has a negative affect on students. Students have experienced bullying and hate language from students in their schools. Because they don’t have the support they need from the schools they tend to avoid school all together. This tends to lead to lower academic reports.

This artifact relates to our class because during class on the day I gave my artifact presentation we had to read an article titled “The experience of LGBT youth in America.” My artifact relates a lot to that article because it reemphasizes the experiences LGBTQ+ youth go through that were talked about in the article. The GLSEN video discussed different ways we could be more  proactive in making sure these students have more positive experiences than negative ones. My artifact also relates to class because even thought same-sex marriage is now legal in all states. People are still mean. Like stated during my presentation, if we all treated each other like human beings first, with dignity and respect, the differences wouldn’t matter so much.

Hey everyone! My name is Jadon Nichols and my artifact is a commercial for an Easy-Bake oven and a Barbie Power Wheels Jeep. We discussed in class a few recent cases of Gender Neutral parents, specifically the story of Storm, the child without a gender from Canada. The parents have hopes that Storm will choose his/her own gender and not be confined to the gender driven society we live in. After the birth, Storm’s parents put out this statement, “We decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a standup to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime” (Davis). To say that the family of Storm is without skeptics would be lying. Many people have claimed that the parents are doing Storm an injustice and could cause him/her a lot of distress in the future. Other went as far as saying that the family was raising a “freak” of some sort. We discussed the possible positive and negative outcomes from raising a child like this and it seems that in our day and age raising a child to be completely gender neutral would cause a lot of issues but would have it’s benefits if for instance Storm was born with one set of parts and identified as another. Ultimately, Storm is missing out on a normative experience and is being used as a social experiment. As far as gender neutrality goes in some of our own lives, many times parents will reject the thought of buying their child a toy or object that is identified with another gender. In my own experience, when I was a child I really wanted an Easy-Bake Oven, and my parents, despite being very conservative, were open to the idea. Looking to a different side, my own girlfriend was given a Barbie Power Wheels Jeep when she was a kid for one of her birthdays and rejected it because she wanted the “cooler” corvette model that was marketed for boys. Looking at all of the examples that people have of playing with different gendered toys can be a good example of how as parents we can be more supportive of what our children want and how they express themselves.

Reference:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/genderless-baby-controversy-mom-defends-choice-reveal-sex/story?id=13718047

Hey everyone my name is Devery Manier Jr. and my first artifact that I presented to class on Thursday was the top 10 sex ed books for the modern parent. These books range room telling kids about where babies come really come from and what happens to their bodies when they are developing over time. I found these  books to be very interesting to me because I remember as a child my mom not telling me where babies come from and why my body was changing as I got older. I’m glad that they now have books that allow to know many of the answers to questions that parents are afraid to ask. These books help parents have the conversation with their kids about sex and puberty at a level they might understand and make it easier for . I’ve seen that of the course of time, Sex Ed is being discussed more and more, both in the media and even at home. From abstinence to proactive protection, more parents than ever are making a point to answer their kids’ questions at home. Keeping the dialogue open with kids is the best way to maintain a bond with children. When parents don’t tell their kids about these serious conversations, it doesn’t prepare them when they get into those predicaments or how to prevent situations from happening.

This Articfact relates to class because we have been discussing how important parental and school reactions are when it come to talking about gender and sexuality to children. We are now seeing schools have more sex education classes and books being made for children in regards to informing kids about sex. I also remember in class, we discussed that its okay to tell the kids about body parts and how they work because kids are curious and want to know, but we don’t have to go into full detail. for example, if a little points at his penis and ask what it is and what does it do, you can simply say its what makes pee from. I enjoy that schools and families are taking sex education a little more serious and are willing to have the talk about sex and gender with kids