You don’t buy, I don’t sell.

“You don’t buy, I don’t sell,” is the international campaign currently supported by the topless sexual activists of Femen. Courageously protesting in order to change the law on prostitution in countless countries to lay the blame on the purchaser and not the women who are usually forced in to the act of selling their bodies for sex. The UK already instates this view on the trade, with it not being illegal for a woman to offer her self for sex in exchange for money.

I can firmly say that I whole heartedly agree with this campaign but can confidently say that this is not the answer. The UK has obviously proven this. We still have vulnerable women roaming our streets, searching endlessly for someone to pay for the privilege of entering their vagina. They are hungry, thirsty, cold and addicted to the life they have come accustom to. For some of these women, this is all they have. Without their sexually driven customers, where would they get their next meal, their next hit, their next cup of strong coffee? Why aren’t we helping them?

Some of these women, are different. Some of them see the longing need in these pathetic men for some form of human contact. Some see gold mines walking through the dark, dirty streets of twenty first century Britain. They make fools out of these men, because they have exactly what these men want, what these men can’t get without a quick transfer of the queen’s head.

Two WI members made a documentary a few years ago to try and raise awareness of the problems that surround prostitution. I also went to a debate about prostitution at university where one of these feisty older ladies were present. I really do think that these two birds had their heads screwed on. As women we have been through a tough few centuries, pining and scraping the bottom of the barrel to simply earn the most basic of rights. Yes, of course we have come far, but yes we have got a hell of a lot further to go. I’m sure any person could admit to the fact that the problem of prostitution is not going to go away with a few extra flashings of bare breasts.

I propose we dig deep down to that mothering, caring, warm nature that all of us women have, but have tried so hard to destroy in order to progress in this male dominated world. Grab it, reach for it, embrace it and hold out your hand to the women who have found themselves stuck in this world of sexual slavery. Being a feminist can easily make you turn your back on the women who are using their assets to please men. But these are the women who really need our help. We need to stop shaming. I propose all feminists work together and take on one of two roles. We need the fighters who are battling for an end to prostitution. More importantly, we need the care givers who are looking after these women who are living this life RIGHT NOW, not potentially in the future. Give them comfort, give them support, give them hygiene and protection so they can carry out their work with as little danger to them as possible.

Witches who wank.

On all Hallows eve, I decided to do something a bit different from my previous years of dressing up as a dead sexy nun or Amy Winehouse. Instead a friend and I decided to watch a discovery in to the world of women’s masturbation, a topic so fearful it could inevitably only be performed on Halloween.

Not entirely aware of what we were going to watch, we fell in to the foyer to discover that it was an improvised show, with the main ‘fool’ intending on gaining inspiration from the audience. Inspiration about wanking from a prude british audience? Would this work?

The lights remained off for the first 10 minutes of the show, I guess to ease us in to the topic. As the lights turned on and our pupils constricted we began to adjust to the unsettling journey we were about to take.  As predicted the audience were rather frosty. It almost felt like trying to get an orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone. As much as Joanne Tremarco the magnificent fool tried to engage in a conjoint stimulus of both the clitoris and the mysterious g spot of the audience, it didn’t seem to warm the cockles.

A wonderful fit of laughter bellowed the room as she danced around performing as, what I can confirm to be an incredible impression of a clitoris. “Fear me, I’m the only organ of the human body designed solely for pleasurrrrre”. An impression I have shared with many a friend since seeing the show.

She not only simply acted the fool, Tremarco also shared obvious wisdom she had on the topic. Playing on the times of Freud and the use of orgasms to cure hysteria. Tremarco certainly knew her g spots. But in an improvised play on a topic so sensitive to some people she certainly didn’t get to really release all that was built up inside of her.

I came away from the performance in a fantastic mood, ready to tell everyone how great it was, however the following morning I woke up in anger.

What a prude, pre-historic audience I was a part of. Towards the end of the performance, Tremarco encouraged us all to get up on stage and start dancing. After much reluctancy we all did. Dancing to the sounds of a violin and a melodica we all began to loosen up slightly. As our nerves began to melt away Tremarco spotted a couple engaging in, what can only be referred to as a very sloppy snog. “LOOK AT THEM SNOGGING! LET’S HAVE A WEDDING.” she screamed. Everybody clapped and cheered and instantly came alive. We shared out roles for the wedding. A lovely short chap offered to be the wedding dress, another the priest. Four women played the part of the bouquet, another the ring and so forth. The neurones of the room were flying, electrified with excitement. I took a glance at Tremarco as she stumbled back to take a seat in the first row of chairs of the audience. Exhausted she allowed the audience to continue the performance of the ceremony. We needed no guidance or push to reach this height of pleasure by no means. As expected us Brits know how to celebrate a marriage. We revel in it. We engage in it. We FUCKING LOVE IT. But no it’s not just weddings, it’s anything in the heterosexual world of love, sex and marriage. Keep it clean and keep it hetro. Cheer on the men that are trying their best to please their ladies, by rotating that clitoris the wrong way. Ignore and BOO the women who are cutting out the middle man, and who have got that clockwork finger motion down to a tee, because we obviously don’t want to hear about it.

We witnessed a daring fool try and engage people in an act that I for one try and enjoy at least once a day. An act I’m sure most of the audience were very familiar with, but they didn’t want to know. We threw her ambition and courage of discussing such an important topic right back in her face, and covered it with a sprinkling of hetrosexual sex sprinkles.

I want to apologize for my reluctancy to get more involved in the subject, I even surprised myself with my hesitance. I mean I walk in to my housemates room every god damn morning screaming “ARE YOU HAVING A WANK”. I can only applaud Tremarco for her efforts, an excellent, courageous performing fool. I only hope that some other audience can fill the gaps that Bristol were so reluctant to fill.

The day I was asked how much I would charge.

Working in the hospitality industry, I don’t get phased by much.

I’ve thrown burly men out of my bar, when they start to become rowdy, and then get told that it must be my “time of the month”. 

I’ve had to endure countless comments on the fact that I can move a barrel even though I have a vagina and not the strength of a penis. 

I’ve been breathed on by an endless amount of beer soaked breath, while being asked for my number. 

I’ve encountered wolf, dog and pig whistles, too many to keep track of. 

Yet only one thing has stopped me in my tracks; the moment the kitchen porter asked me how much I would charge for sex. 

Rage obviously hit first, but then slowly translated to pure perplexity.

For the entire shift I tried to place a price tag on a few hours spent basking in the glory of my genitals. 

Not very familiar with the going rate of prostitute services I tried to think of a fair offer. Would I charge for each act separately? £20 for oral, £100 for anal? The whole package? £200 for whatever you like? 

Where on earth would I begin? I mean I can crack a mean joke, so would I include this in the services I offer? Surely the punter would enjoy a bit of humour, perhaps it should come as an extra to try and masquerade the fact that he has to pay for something that most women would usually do for free if you treat them with some form of respect. 

During the time of questioning, I had a few bills to pay. This threw in all sorts of different prices in to the equation. Would I forget my dignity and simply ask for the £35 I needed to pay the gas bill. I also really fancied a new pair of boots I’d seen, so there’s another £55 I added to the cost of my vagina. And let’s not forget that Glastonbury tickets were going on sale soon. What easier way to pay your way in to a dirty field than to get dirty, possibly in a field. 

Thinking back over the numerous one night stands I had encountered, there had been some that didn’t really float my boat, but through bitted tongue continued anyway and regretted later. Would it be the same when charging…Would I charge more if I didn’t find the punter remotely attractive? Would I give a cheeky discount if said punter was an insanely attractive man that was just looking for a good time?

As time went on I thought and thought, and I still had no price tag to hang from my lingerie. 

I’ve always been remotely supportive of prostitution. It’s the controlling and mistreatment of women within the industry that I disagree with. If a woman is of stable nature and is in complete control of the situation then surely she has a right, and should be supported rather than shamed and made to hate the society that most probably forced her in to the situation in the first place. However I completely understand that this is most usually 99% of the time not the case. 

If I was forced in to this world of mistreatment and abuse of women, then I know my price tag would not be my decision, and here in lies the problem;

 

If we women were able to decide how much we were worth then there wouldn’t be a sex industry in the first place, because no man, in his right mind could bleeding well afford us. 

Unanswered screams.

How I am still unable to understand why FGM is still a problem.

Why is no one listening to their screams? Why is no one answering their screams?

I was a young girl, on a beautiful sunny day, rolling around in the grass in my fruitful garden with my beloved doggy, without a care in the world when I suddenly looked up and saw a huge bumble bee sat on the end of my foot. As the venomous poison filled my little foot I let out a blood curdling scream, that filled the voluptuous valley in which I resided. By the time I managed to take my first breath my dad came running from the house lifted me up and carried me back inside and sat me over the sink. Without any hesitation or doubt he sucked the venomous stinger from my foot, to extract the burning poison. He suffered for hours later, as he relentlessly tried to get the stinger out of his gums. When I screamed he came running. He answered my scream; he sucked out the stinger to protect his little girl, although it resulted in a painful afternoon for himself. A scream is a sign of pain, a sign of torture, a sign of discomfort. Most importantly a scream is a cry for help. We scream, because we want to be acknowledged. We scream for freedom. We do not want our pain to go unheard. So why are these poor, young & vulnerable girls screams not being answered?

I have a clitoris and I’m not afraid to use it

Crusty eyed, and still revelling in the dreams I had just escaped from, I carry out my morning facebook news feed scroll. I dread to think of being out of the loop while engaging in my necessary 8 hours. My thumb comes to a halt as I read a status from one of the lads that attended my small, rural secondary school;

 

“there’s nothing cool about girls being slags. End of.”

 

I jault up and get ready to type out an essay in the comment box, but my fingers aren’t able to type my wrath quick enough on the teeny tiny keyboard. I take a deep morning breath and stop myself.

 

I start reminiscing about my school days and try and remember this boy for who he was. Now i certainly never partook in any sexual activity with this sexist that’s for sure. But a few of his friends have definitely seen a few more parts of me than I’d like to detail down some dark alleyway or behind a portaloo. Would I be one of these ‘slags’ he’s referring too? Do I care? Hell no!

 

Why I don’t care, goes far beyond my view on the word ‘slag’, and how men deicide to interpret this word. This boy, that I call a ‘boy’ for obvious reasons, went around with a group of other ‘boys’ that were incredibly proud of their ‘slag statuses’, and how many women they had conquered. So what’s different for girls? Why am I unable to proudly wear my slag sash?

 

I love sex. I love booze. I love food. I love fags, and I don’t care who knows it, Apart from maybe my mother. My over consumption of the list does not make me a slag, it does not make me an alcoholic. It may make me a smoker and slightly larger than I would like to be however. In a world where consumerism is at it’s height, I feel no shame in the amount of men I sleep with compared to how I feel with going to Tesco for my weekly shop to bask in the savings.

 

I have been royally fucked over by more men than I care to remember. I have healed wounds that I thought would never be healed, and still nursing others. My mother warned me once, “If you keep letting men in to your heart, there won’t be any heart left for the right one”. So how is a woman in this day and age meant to feed her sexual needs and desires, if she is scared to commit to another relationship, with the overwhelming fear of being hurt, and believe me a rampant rabbit and the wide selection of porn catered for men just doesn’t cut it. I’ve tried.

 

I have learned that I am capable of two modes. Relationship mode, and what I previously used to call ‘slag mode’, before my inner feminist kicked in, and which I now refer to as ‘casual sex mode’.

 

I feel I have always been a feminist. Never once have I fallen sucker to the social construction of gender roles, my dad did the ironing in my house after all. And of course descending from a long line of strong, feisty landladies in the back end of Wales, who have covered their bellicose customers in cows shit, if things ever got out of hand, doesn’t leave much room to become a weak woman. But I started realising the severity of the sexual repression women had been forced in to while I was at University.

 

I remember the moment with as much clarity as the women who have suffered from FGM remember their cutting. I had never heard of the inhumane practice of FGM until I sat in one of my film lectures with my feminist male lecturer, who I believe taught me more about feminism than any woman ever has. We studied an African film called, Moolade , that told the story of a strong African woman called Collé Gallo Ardo Sy who had herself suffered from FGM as a child, and was now trying to protect the children of the village from enduring the same pain she once, and still goes through.

 

For those of you unaware of the brutal act of female genital mutilations, I’ll briefly explain. A strong tradition that is still very alive today, where young girls must have their entire outer genital area removed, including the clitoris with dirty blades, in order to be pure for their future husbands. It results in serious health risks and removes all prospect of sexual pleasure. All in the name of men.

 

Having not seen the film for over two years, two scenes will remain in my memory forever. The first is of her having sex with her husband. It is not erotic. It is not

passionate. It does not feed her sexual need. It is painful. The only shot we are shown is of her face while she is biting down on her little finger, to try and forget the pain she is receiving from her husband. It is brutal. The second scene is of her husband punishing her in front of the entire village for protecting the young girls. She is being whipped.

 

I most certainly have not been whipped for my promiscuous lifestyle, but words have repeatedly in the past bruised me.

 

I do not have sex with many men because I am a slag.

 

I have sex with many men because my sex life is exactly that. MINE. I have grown up in the western world and I will not let social construction and repression of women make me feel guilty for wanting to engage with people I am sexually attracted to, but don’t have time to build a stable relationship with first.

 

I look back at the boys status, and suddenly feel sad. I thought as a country we were forward thinking. There are 140 million women who have undergone FGM in the world. And learning of the amount of women at risk in my city of Bristol made me feel physically sick. These men that want their women circumcised, they don’t want their women to enjoy sex. They are simply there to bear their children. They do not want their women to enjoy sex, so they don’t feel the need to run off with other men. This boy’s opinion along with the millions of other BOYS that believe women who enjoy sex to be slags, carry the same pre-historic opinion that we women are simply here for their pleasure. Well I’m afraid, to all you men with this narrow minded, warped vision of female sexual desires and needs; I have a clitoris and I am not fucking scared to use it!