{"id":1962,"date":"2005-11-15T04:46:14","date_gmt":"2005-11-15T11:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/11\/15\/finding-the-authentic-yes-and-the-authentic-no\/"},"modified":"2005-11-15T04:46:14","modified_gmt":"2005-11-15T11:46:14","slug":"finding-the-authentic-yes-and-the-authentic-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1962","title":{"rendered":"Finding the authentic "yes" and the authentic "no""},"content":{"rendered":"

I think this post by Hugo<\/a> is very astute. Here’s a sample:\n\n

To put it another way, I often argue that feminism is about helping young women to find both their authentic “yes” and their authentic “no”. By authentic, I mean that it is congruent with their deepest desires. And wherever they may ultimately lie, we know this: these “deepest desires” lie beneath the surface longing to please parents and partners. To put it crudely: many young women will encounter many young men who very much want them to say “yes.” Many of these young women will come from backgrounds where their cultural obligation is to say “no”. So whether she says “yes” or “no”, her own desires may well have already been silenced by the overwhelming pressure to please one faction or another in the audience. She will find it very difficult, it not impossible, to please everyone. […]<\/p>\n

Where good feminist work and progressive sexual education intersect is around this issue of “yes”, “no”, and quieting the “peanut gallery” of the internalized audience. My goal is not to get all of my kids in youth group, or my students at Pasadena City College, to say “yes” or “no” to sex! My goal is to help them arrive at an authentic, heartfelt, unambiguous “yes” — or an equally authentic, heartfelt, and unambiguous “no” — when it comes to the opportunity for sexual connection with another human being or with themselves. Encouraging young people of either sex, but particularly young women, to discover their own desires is not easy; and frankly, it isn’t an easy thing for young people to do, either. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I certainly agree with Hugo. Oddly enough, letting my mind drift, Hugo’s post led me to thoughts of fat and dieting.<\/p>\n

When we look in the mirror – when I<\/em> look in the mirror – where is my judgment (always unkind) coming from? A lot of the private mental work I do is an attempted aesthetic retraining; trying to judge myself in a manner that’s authentic to myself, rather than looking at myself and my body through the anti-fat matrix I’ve been taught by society. Is it even possible to clear all that dross away, and if I could what will be left behind?<\/pracut>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think this post by Hugo is very astute. Here’s a sample: To put it another way, I often argue that feminism is about helping young women to find both their authentic “yes” and their authentic “no”. By authentic, I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat","category-feminism-sexism-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}