Sunday Shoutouts: Yes, I Know I'm Beautiful

Married life is keeping me busy! Almost too busy to blog, but I also spent a fair amount of time working on some paid writing this past week. 

Biggest Conversation-Starter: I read this great article last week called "What Happened When We Gave Our Daughter My Last Name." I shared it to my personal Facebook page, which sparked a great conversation. The biggest takeaway is that naming children should be a discussion, not an assumption. 

Best Criticism of Musical Tropes: I've been saying for YEARS that I'm sick and tired of pop romance songs saying that girls are beautiful, but don't know it. And their not knowing it makes them more beautiful. I'm not arrogant. I don't think I'm some supermodel. But I know that I'm pretty. How does that somehow make me less pretty?

Best on Gaslighting: Stop calling women crazy. Seriously. Just because you disagree with us, or dislike what we have to say, does NOT mean we're crazy. 

What did you read last week?

Spring Fling Giveaway! Show Me Some Love and Win You Some Cash!

If you're a big fan of Bonnie at Life of Bon, you might have noticed my brand-new, married-person button on her sidebar. I had the chance last year to buy a month's worth of advertising at a discount, and I quickly snatched up one of her May spots!

My husband doesn't realize the amount of money I spend on my blog, but it's way less than he spends on his Miata, so I think we're even.

I teamed up with some of her other sponsors to give one lucky reader $120. Since you're already reading my blog, you probably have some easy entries that don't require doing much! Bonnie did make it mandatory to like her facebook page, but that's still really easy. And when I enter giveaways, I use my blog page to like other blogs. It keeps my personal facebook personal, and my blogging one bloggerific!

Most of you already follow me on Twitter... But have you liked me on Facebook yet? And even though Bloglovin has attempted to silence me, my blog does still exist there, and you can gain an additional entry in the giveaway by following me on Bloglovin. I'm hoping that if I can get my numbers up, they might be more inclined to whitelist me. 

That's three entries, right there, for doing what I hope you're already doing...

Brought to you by Long Drive Journey, The Kay Times,  The Loud Mouth Lifestyle, Designs by Katy, Belle Femme, Sparrow in the Treetop,  When you're making plans...,  Small and Trivial and Always, Lissa

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In a Sex-Saturated Society, Honest Discussions of Healthy Sexuality are Stifled

Most of the time I blog in this Christian feminist bubble of sex-positivity and critiques of purity culture, so sometimes I forget that not everyone associates virginity with religious values or patriarchy.

But three things happened to my blog recently that reminded me that with everything wrong about proponents of purity culture, they make at least one good point:

Feminists make this point too, but I try to find common ground with everyone for the greater good.

FACEBOOK

I recently got a custom url for my facebook page. I tried to choose the url facebook.com/FindingMyVirginity. But when I tried it, this is what happened.

On the off chance that someone else had already taken the url, I tested it, but the url only took me to a page saying it didn't exist or had been moved. 

For whatever reason, a custom url with the word "virginity" in it is not okay with facebook. I had to settle for the French form of virginity.

Have you liked me on facebook yet? 

New custom url is https://www.facebook.com/FindingMyVirginite

 BLOGLOVIN

I was recently looking at my profile on bloglovin when I noticed that the dropdown box prompted me to "Claim my blog." Since I had already claimed my blog about a year prior, I was confused. I searched for my blog, and nothing came up. So I contacted Bloglovin's support, and this is the response I received. 

So yes, you can still follow me on bloglovin, but no one can search for my blog on their website. 

Email

I received this gem in my inbox.

I guess I should be happy that it's taken almost three years of blogging about sex and virginity via a Christian feminist lens for someone to sexually harass me via email?

No matter how hard I try, I can't always escape the prude/slut dichotomy. Just the other day, I wrote that my blog is not porn, and yet I'm being treated as though it is.  

Women's sexual autonomy, even the choice not to have sex, has been distorted into male fetish. 

And just like women who are called sluts and whores when men are called studs and players, those of us who write candidly about our own sexuality must be punished. 

Girlhood is becoming more and more sexualized, but when teenage girls absorb those messages and try to be "sexy," we judge them for leading teenage boys astray. 

Add in abstinence-only education and church lectures about dirty roses, and suddenly we're stuck in the cesspool of fucked-up American attitudes towards female sexuality. Oh, and don't forget the stubborn insistence that a woman's "first time" MUST BE PAINFUL OR ELSE!

But I won't be silenced. I won't be shamed for writing honestly about sex and virginity. I stand by both my sexual choices and my decision to share them with the world. I am SO OVER the male gaze and the paternalistic control of female sexuality, and my blog is my small attempt to change that. 

To write about women's sexual choices from an actual woman's perspective, not a man's creepy or controlling vision of slutty virgins. To be an advocate for healthy sexual relationships. To share medically-accurate information about sex. 

While keyword-filters might dismiss my blog as pornographic, I hope that you do not. I encourage you to share this post if you agree that women should be free to make their own consensual sexual choices. 

Celebrating One Hundred (And One) Blog Followers!

This summer has been great for my blog numbers. I think posting to the subreddit /bigboobproblems, writing about modesty, and working with Casey were my biggest contributors to my strong numbers.

I know numbers aren't everything, but they're nice. Very nice.

One of my goals on my list of 101 Things in 1001 Days was to reach 100 blog followers. Although some people like to add up their followers from facebook (13), twitter (585), instagram (68), bloglovin (56), Google+ (15), and GFC (101) and spout out some really big number, the truth is those categories overlap. 

So I couldn't just take my followers from bloglovin and my followers on GFC and celebrate when I reached 100 total. It wouldn't actually be 100 people.

But I recently hit 100 followers via GFC, and I wanted to celebrate! I even received an email from my 100th follower, Paulina at Color Me Brave.

Using the crayon function on Paint.

Mixing it up with the marker on Paint.

I officially have over 100 people following my blog in a single way. That totally counts as having 100 blog followers. 

My next goal is to reach 30 likes on facebook so I can access my statistics. So... like me on facebook?

Top 5 Reasons I Am Not a Lifestyle Blogger

A very welcome BONJOUR, Y’ALL to the friends of Casey who might be reading my blog for the first time. I’m very excited to be “sponsoring” y’all know that’s just a fancy blogger word for advertising Casey again this month. I loved working with her before, and when she announced her new format, featuring just two bloggers a week, I knew I had to paste my button to her sidebar once again.

I haven’t read the glowing review Casey gave me just yet, I’m assuming it’s glowing but y’all probably figured out at some point that my blog isn’t exactly like other blogs.

The all-encompassing word for all-encompassing blogs is lifestyle. Not quite a fashion blogger, not quite a beauty blogger, not quite a insert-faith-group-here blogger… When you blog about it all, you’re a lifestyle blogger.

That’s not me.

I'm the blogger who tries to take a picture with every bronze animal at every zoo.

I mean, yeah, sometimes I blog about clothes and nail polish. Sometimes I blog about my faith. I definitely blog about my relationship. These are characteristics of lifestyle bloggers, right?

Except that’s so not me. In fact, I’ve even compiled a list of why I’m totally not a lifestyle blogger.

A Month of Birthdays

My birthday month might be over, but I always find new occasions to celebrate! This weekend, Beau and I are in Denver for my second cousin's wedding (yesterday!) and for a big family party (today!) thrown by my first cousin once removed and his wife, aka the groom's parents. These are my French/American cousins, so happy Bastille Day!

I love my birthday. I love a celebration that's all about me, true, but it's more than that. I love taking the time to reflect on my growth in the previous year, to reminisce about fun and/or new experiences, to focus on my goals for the next year.

My birthday was June 8th, but I celebrated all month long, as I do... Highlights included:

Buying a rattan table and chairs for my apartment

Joyeux anniversaire à moi

My boyfriend and my besties coming over for a wine & cheese night

Going to a big city with my boyfriend for the weekend, my first time ever visiting this city

In this city, visiting several museums and the zoo

Yes, I love taking pictures with all the bronze statues. Especially silly pictures.

Just outside this city, seeing a community production of Shrek the Musical

In this city, going to a major league baseball game

Catching up (a little) on my reading

Going to my local Pride Festival

The Pride Festival included booths for several sex shops. I couldn't resist taking this photo.

Seeing a Broadway show on tour

Spending several mornings and afternoons in a bikini, at a pool, causing men to lust after me

The only bad part of my birthday was H proposing to his girlfriend the day before our birthday, aka stealing the spotlight away from me. That, and finding out that his girlfriend now fiancée had defriended me on facebook. That, and seeing that none of our mutual church camp friends bothered wishing me a happy birthday.

Sometimes, taking the high road and not telling all your mutual friends about exactly why you're not speaking to someone really SUCKS, because he's obviously told them all that I'm overreacting and that he's the victim in this situation. 

Other than that, my birthday month was PERFECT. My boyfriend spoiled me rotten with all sorts of lovely prezzies, like two humongous bags of gummy candy, and a bottle of Bordeaux, and a laptop cooling board, and a new set of wine glasses, and a new bikini, and something I'm not blogging about that's just between us. (Fine, I told Lauren and Hardy too. And my parents. But I'm not blogging about it).

My birthday month was perfect this year, but the boyfriend has already figured out a way to give me an even BETTER birthday month next year... Too bad y'all will have to wait until then to find out his plans for us.

The #FBrape Campaign

If you follow me on twitter, then you have probably seen my tweets in regards to the #FBrape campaign, started by Laura Bates, Soraya Chemaly, and Jaclyn Friedman. 

I first discovered this because I follow Soraya on both twitter and facebook, and I read almost everything she writes. She's my favorite current writer and activist. She tweeted a link to the open letter to facebook that she co-authored with Laura and Jaclyn.

(I was also familiar with Laura because she created Everyday Sexism, a blog that chronicles the sort of commonplace sexism women (and sometimes men) face, via user submission. Jaclyn is new to me, but she founded Women, Action, and the Media). 

According to facebook's policies, "You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

The problem is how this is enforced. Photos of women post-mastectomy or of women breastfeeding are removed for "violating" policy. But photos of women being beaten or raped don't violate policy... Accounts who call out sexism on facebook are banned or deleted. Groups called, "Dumping your girlfriend via head kick" stay up.

We are calling on facebook to change its policies, and until they do so, we're calling on companies to pull their ads from facebook. Some companies have already done so!

You can help by commenting on company's facebook pages, tweeting at them, and emailing them. Personally, I have been in touch with Shabby Apple, who has promised to look into it. I hope they do the right thing and pull their advertising.

I am only one voice. But if we all work together, we CAN make a difference.