Today’s edition of Planet Waves FM was recorded Tuesday right before the Pisces New Moon, by your host, the Fire Breathing Fish. It morphs from a reading of the New Moon chart into a rant on women’s autonomy and what used to be called reproductive rights. Casting the issue as total sovereignty is more accurate. But it lacks a certain appeal — where there are rights, there are responsibilities. Privilege without a corresponding sense of duty is inherently toxic — and even well-bred royalty know this. If we’re wondering why any woman is willing to give up her rights, her autonomy or her sovereignty, the answer may be found in her relationship to being a steward of her own body and the power that it contains.
At a certain point in the podcast I launch into a tirade on the religious ‘right’ doing its takedown of women, and then describe a new video by my mentor and friend Betty Dodson. She’s recently come out with a new video in her series on women’s sexuality, a documentary of one of her bodysex workshops.
I highly recommend this video and I will be reviewing it more thoroughly soon. I recognize that it’s $40 so I suggest you go in with a few friends and make an evening or two of it. What this DVD offers is a model for a sane conversation about sex and sexuality. If nothing else, we get a model for how to think and how to speak — in an original way, but within a framework that includes boundaries, a sense of purpose and most important, a sense of humor.
It includes discussion of body image, sexual evolution, making choices, the struggle with sex within relationships and many other topics. Part of the problem we face is that we don’t know how to talk about sex, we’re embarrassed to do so, it rarely happens so we don’t get any practice, and we’re afraid that Western civilization (or at least our relationship) will collapse if we even try. I guess we will have to see.
It’s twenty-sodding-twelve and we’re really discussing whether people have a right to use birth control? Or rather a bunch of men who want to take public office and be commander-in-chief are discussing whether they think women have a right to use birth control? Most of the time I look at this and I cannot believe it’s even happening.
I recommend all of Betty’s videos but my personal favorite is Her Life of Sex and Art, a frank (and frankly hilarious) talk given by Betty in good old politically correct, may I please glance at you Seattle. This is Betty at her most authentic and spontaneous — an off the cuff description of her life, that is, her life of art and sex. This DVD is $10 and it’s nothing but fun. If you would like to read more about Betty, here is one of my articles about her.
Lovingly,
Note to readers — there are many more podcasts, the full archives, recordings and interviews from astrology conferences and much more at the Planet Waves FM homepage.
Thank you, stormilarue, for pointing me in right direction. <3
Granma, she means the “slideshow” at the top of the home page. 🙂
Hi Amanda –
Is there actually a PW “Slideshow” option?
I know there’s a “Video Selections” department – I just found it a few days ago (and enjoyed viewing the video there).
Hope you get this message… seems one needs to be quick with blog responses, since so many new and interesting articles keep coming…
Zerosity, I have to wonder the same thing about the home state. How did it get so whacked? Geographic isolation coupled with falling educational standards and a collapsed economy leads to cultural regression, it could be argued…
Oops. Can’t even type my own name this morning. Must be time to cut the fingernails, or at least drink more coffee. JannKinz
The badass horoscope fish in the slideshow could have been the poster boy (girl?) for this posting “The Fire-Breathing Fish”. S/he looks ready to belch forth with flames. Hmm. Do I detect a polarity: water dragons and fire fish?
Known at least two or three sociopaths, probably more. As to Socio-Santoro, I am sitting here in Michigan somewhat flummoxed by the polls that have that wackjob leading the Mittster by numerous points leading up to next Tuesday’s primary. Hmm. If the Mittster can’t take Mittchigan, what do that say? It scares me that Mittchigan might be more sociopathic than I want to see. Then again, there is Gov Snyder, and I have wondered why the state isn’t more up in arms about him and his clutch of evildoers in the state capital. Wonder if air can be imported from Madison, Wisconsin?
Thanks for the podcast.
JannKionz
We put in a request with Bev for “fish with attitude” and that’s what we got!
since i can’t comment under the slideshow, i’ll say here: *love* that fish for the monthly horoscope! he’s kinda bad-ass and kinda cute and fiery at the same time.
🙂
Here is a comment I received from a correspondent on Facebook:
I see Santorum as a pure sociopath (the kind described in Martha Stout’s book “The Sociopath Next Door”, which should be required reading for everyone, IMO).
Unpacking that, I see him as totally lacking in conscience or the slightest capacity for empathy. His appeal to Inquisition-style morality is an attempt to pass it off as an expression of personal conscience, which in fact he lacks.
My experience of the everyday sociopath (4 or 5 percent of the population, it turns out) is they love to do what is going to cause the most distress to others, to keep them endlessly on edge and suffering in one form or another. They are never who or what they appear to be.
“where there are rights, there are responsibilities. Privilege without a corresponding sense of duty is inherently toxic”
So well put. Exactly the argument I have for those who think I am somehow not “being all I could be” regarding my sexuality because I am intentionally in a happily, monogamous marriage with my spouse. It is the “delayed gratification is the hallmark of adulthood” argument and my duty to my family and all that. I don’t feel unfulfilled but getting some folks to understand that, especially the “be free to be yourself” folks is difficult. Saturn in the fourth house conjunct my fifth house cusp means I will see pleasure and take it in traditional ways as well as valuing some duty to family. Excellent podcast and writing as always.
Just as an aside, the FBI defines rape as “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” That means this bill would make rape, a-la the FBI definition legal. (source of definition: http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/attorney-general-eric-holder-announces-revisions-to-the-uniform-crime-reports-definition-of-rape)