Category: Looking back
-
Vibrators & Choice-Feminism
“Since I began to understand feminism, I love to [masturbate with a vibrator],” says a woman participating in the 1976 Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality. [1] Second-wave feminists were divided about the relationship between sexual pleasure and women’s liberation, which prompted debate about the vibrator as a “‘male-identified’ and anti-feminist form of…
-
Aristophanes’ Speech from the Symposium
Aristophanes’ speech from the symposium attempts to define love and explains why people love who they love. A symposium was a social gathering for men in ancient Greece and included activities that were meant to bring people together. This speech was recorded by Plato in Greece in the fifth century BCE. Aristophanes was a comedic…
-
Brief Timeline of Reproductive Rights
1873: Comstock Act Anti-obscenity law Made it a federal crime to send or receive any material deemed as “obscene, lewd, or lascivious,” including birth control and anything related to sexual health. 1916: Margaret Sanger, fellow activist, and sister opened the first U.S. abortion clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. 1921: Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control…
