Facing the Vagina
Posted: April 18, 2014 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Female Power, Feminism, Pleasure, Vagina, Woman | Tags: 101 Vagina, Babies, Bodies, Body, Body Image, Labiaplasty, Memory, Menstruation, Philip Werner, Vagina, Women's Bodies 48 CommentsI am a 9-year-old living with my family in Argentina. The day is so hot that if it weren’t a Saturday and we were at school the teachers would have fed us popsicles at recess to keep our temperatures from rising.
We are swimming in the shallow end of a pool. There are five of us.
It’s my turn to use the scuba mask. The other girls are bobbing around in a row.
I take a deep breath before dropping underwater… as I float by, each girl pushes the bottom of her bathing suit to the side to show me what’s behind the nylon fabric… thin slits between flesh are all I see… and then I’m up and out of the water, greeted by giggles as I gasp for air.
I take my place in line and pass the mask down to the next curious girl.
Birthing Sofia: On Whether to Mother
Posted: March 18, 2014 Filed under: Body, Feminism, Sexuality, Woman, Womb | Tags: Babies, Birth, Bodies, Body, Feminism, Memoir, Mother, Motherhood, Pregnancy, Woman, Women's Bodies 59 Comments“Honey, I’m not pregnant!” I told my boyfriend the other day.
“That’s good.” He replied.
But the news to both of us feels bittersweet.
The Female Body in Pleasure
Posted: February 28, 2014 Filed under: Body, Creativity, Female Power, Feminism, Movement, Pleasure, Sexuality, Uncategorized, Woman | Tags: Body, Creativity, Feminism, Food, Human rights, Memoir, Pleasure, Power, Woman, Women's Bodies 37 CommentsThe Vagina Talks
Posted: January 31, 2014 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Feminism, Sexuality, Uncategorized, Vagina, Woman | Tags: Bodies, Body, Body Image, Eve Ensler, Feminism, Memoir, Memory, Sexism, V-Day, Vagina, Vagina Monologues, Woman, Women's Bodies 58 CommentsWhy is it that I feel squeamish about saying “vagina” in public? I didn’t realize how much of an issue this still was for me until about a month ago when on a crowded plane, my boyfriend cracked some joke with a punch line ending with the word “hoo-hoo.” Immediately turning into a word monitor, I looked at him and said “SHH!!”
As I turned to make sure that the little girl seated in the row behind me didn’t hear what he said—I caught myself. Why am I freaking out?
WANTED: My Own Desires
Posted: December 30, 2013 Filed under: Desire, Feminism, Woman | Tags: Bodies, Body, Desire, Feminism, Memoir, Relationship, Self-Care, Woman, Women's Bodies 35 CommentsWhat do I want? What do I really? This hasn’t always been as easy a question to answer as you would think.
For many girls, there seems to come a point when we stop being in tune with our own desires and begin to worry more about being desirable. I know this happened for me sometime after age 11—when I started to like boys and wanted them to like me.
When I turned 16 and replaced my glasses for contacts and my braces came off, boys started to pay attention to me—and I remember for the first time since I was a young girl suddenly feeling like I mattered to someone other than my family. Boys were looking at me and wanting me instead of finding me wanting. I felt seen.
Lose the Labels, See the Woman
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Body, Feminism, Sexism, Women in Media | Tags: Body, Body Image, Feminism, Gender, Memory, Sexism, Woman, Women's Bodies 29 CommentsAs someone who was born in the Philippines, I was thrilled to find out about the Pantene commercial airing there that has gone viral online. In it the contrasting ways that successful men and women are stereotyped are shown.
My first job out of college was as a video journalist for CNN. I worked so hard during the 4 ½ years I was there that every time I was eligible for promotion, I got the job. By my third year, I was writing and producing international news for the network’s CNN International channel.
I enjoyed what I was doing so much that working overnights, weekends, and coming in on my days off were not inconveniences but part of the job description as far as I was concerned. But what I hated about getting ahead—at the time, my movement in the company was considered rather rapid—was the whispering that went on behind my back.
I Think I Found My Thigh Gap
Posted: November 25, 2013 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Woman | Tags: Body, Woman, Women's Bodies 43 CommentsThis morning I went to the mirror to try to figure out what this “thigh gap” trend is all about. To be honest, reading about it has been very confusing for me and I’m not sure I totally get it. I thought it must be a super-young-person thing—kind of like when my nine-year-old nephew tried to explain to me how to play Bakugan with him and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about—but then I read that women as well as teen girls have been measuring themselves against this latest “ideal” of beauty.
Curious, I gave it a go. I stood in front of my reflection to try to find a gap between my thighs that—if it existed—would supposedly mean I was more attractive than those who didn’t have it. Standing with my feet together, I definitely didn’t have one. Spreading my legs apart a bit so my feet weren’t touching each other—leaving just an inch or so between them—I still didn’t have one.
Freeing the Female Orgasm
Posted: November 15, 2013 Filed under: Body, Feminism, Sexuality, Woman | Tags: Body, Feminism, Memoir, Sexuality, Women's Bodies 28 CommentsSpoiler Alert: Details from Episode 6 of Showtime’s Masters of Sex are revealed in this blog post.
There are a lot of orgasms happening on the TV show Masters of Sex—mostly in the name of science. At a hospital during the late 1950’s, women and men are climaxing in their bodies both solo and together so that the two lead characters, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, can study their sexual responses.
You would think that with so many people climaxing, no particular orgasm would stand out. Yet in Episode 6, one female woman’s sexual release was so profound, I had to write about it.
Me & My Belly: A Love/Hate Story
Posted: October 18, 2013 Filed under: Body, Body Image, Dance, Feminism, Movement, Woman | Tags: Body, Feminism, Memoir, Movement, Woman, Women's Bodies 29 CommentsIf there was a Facebook option asking for my relationship status with my belly, I’d have to choose the one that says, “It’s complicated.” I belong to a family whose women usually grow up to have big, round, female stomachs, and while I love being part of this full-bellied tribe, I’ve often wished that our physical trademark could have been natural washboard abs.
My belly was round from the time I was a little girl. My mom says that’s how I was born to be. “You’re like me,” she told me when I was ten, patting her own bump of a “puson,” which is the Filipino word for abdomen.
I didn’t want a round belly. I wanted a flat one, like the bellies of the three detectives on the popular 1970s TV show Charlie’s Angels. Jill Munroe, played by Farrah Fawcett, had a stomach that was flat even when she wore a bathing suit—unlike me, whose tummy stuck out in my one-piece.
The only time my belly was flat was when I lay on my back. At night in bed, I would run my hand up and down my stomach, enjoying its horizontal shape and wishing it would stay that straight when I stood up.
