Yes Means Yes

Someone found my blog by searching for “female rape pics” yesterday.  And today, it was “mind rape” and “Jessica Alba gagged.”  Wonderful.  Although I imagine I should be pleased that they ended up clicking on my blog and not something else.  Hopefully a message or two got through.

I tried searching for these terms on Google and Yahoo! to see where my blog ended up, and I can tell you that it was nowhere near the first page.  In fact, I had to stop looking because the results were so disturbing.  I recommend that you don’t try it.

I went to the Cambridge reading of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and World Without Rape last night.  It was amazing.  There was such energy in that room, both from the readers and the audience, and Seth and I got into a great debate last night after the reading.  I love these chats, and I love that we went into Boston(ish) on a weeknight and it got us out of the house and it was something we were both interested in.  The only thing that would have made it better is if I had remembered I had cash in my purse, bought the book, and had the readers autograph their essays.  As it was, we left once the reading ended and skipped the after party.

Do you ever get into that zone when you go to a poetry reading or a concert or a theatre show where you get swept up into the moment?  And then later, when you read the words to yourself or see the performance again it doesn’t have the same powerful quality?  I took down a quote from Jaclyn Friedman last night that said in response to something during the Q & A session:

Unless you have equal freedom to say yes and no, you do not, in fact, have sexual freedom.  Pleasure is a human-given right.

That spoke to me last night, but today I read the words and don’t feel anything.  Maybe it had to be taken in context with everything else that went on at the reading.