Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

Gender Across Borders

Welcome to Gender Across Borders’ series on stigma, shame, and sexuality, cross-posted with Rewire and in partnership with Ipas.

This series addresses stigma. The bulk of the series focuses on abortion, but there are also pieces on sex work, queerness, sluttiness, and more. They are as follows:

Tuesday, 9/20

The Fence, Wendy Ortiz
Stigma, Shame, and Sexuality: A Reflection on Abortion, Leila Hessini
The Hegemony of ‘LGBT,’ Judith Avory Faucette
A Day in the Life of a Web Cam Model, Eva Rivera
A Pastor’s Daughter, Taonga Lisulo
Studying Down: Thoughts on Sex Work, Steinem, and Self-Representation, Melissa Petro

Wednesday, 9/21

Abortion, Small Towns, and Young Lives, Paige Johnson
Oh, The Things These Socks Have Seen, Lindsay Smith
Ester’s Eyes: Returning from Uganda’s War a Bush Wife, Lauren Wolfe
The “H” Word, Sarah Elspeth Patterson
Pivotal Positions: Transforming Abortion Provider Stigma, Jennifer Coletti
Navigating Sin and Karma in Thailand, Santi Leksakun

Thursday, 9/22

An Open Letter to My Mother, Jessica Borusky
Late One Night, Gemma Mason
What We Can Learn From “Pro-Life” Patients, Kate Cockrill
Abortion On Demand and Without Apology, Sunsara Taylor
Institutionalized Stigma in Ghana, Jessica Mack
Abortion in Malta: When Silence Kills, Marie Anne Zammit

Oh, the Things These Socks Have Seen

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

It’s dismaying to learn that some of the most “dedicated” pro-choice supporters still subscribe to the idea that more than one abortion is irresponsible and that anything later than 6 weeks is cruel.

Abortion, Small Towns, and Young Lives

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

Abortion was a rite of passage for most of the girls I knew in the small Southern town where I spent my teenage years. As a contraceptive measure, teenagers did what teenagers have been doing forever -- they pulled out. Any other birth control was a premeditated sin.

Studying Down: Thoughts on Sex Work, Steinem, and Self-Representation

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

Some people perceive all women’s participation in the sex industry as a product of coercion. For me, this couldn’t have felt less true. Though circumstances had been a factor, the first time I stripped was no act of desperation. I made a choice.

A Pastor’s Daughter

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

How far would a father go in destroying his daughter’s life to save his reputation? Have his actions surely made his daughter’s life better? And finally, in this whole mix, surely didn’t Emily have a right to a say of hers?

A Day in the Life of a Web Cam Model

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

Camera ready. Lights on. Pink mesh top and matching thong loosely tied. I smile and sweetly greet my morning customers with bright eyes. I'm a web cam model four days a week.

The Hegemony of ‘LGBT’

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

The mainstream Western LGBT movement has become a commercialized monolith in the years since 1960s “gay liberation,” and its impact is in no way limited to the US and Europe.

Stigma, Shame, and Sexuality: A Reflection on Abortion

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

"The one that has an abortion is treated as…as bad, as a killer and…the other one is…is a good woman, she has a good heart, she loves children.” Sound familiar? Let’s face it: individuals who have had abortions or provide them are too often labeled, discriminated against and dehumanized.

The Fence

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

It takes immeasurable courage and compassion, strength and caring, to choose to have a child—and equal amounts of the same to choose not to have a child. The choice of either could be, for any particular woman, sacred.

Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series

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