Smart Girl's Guide to Porn

Today’s episode of Oprah is bound to raise a few eyebrows, both among her viewers and the scads of ladies who are going to go out and buy some porn after watching the show. Advance word on the show is that it’ll be a sex-positive look at women viewing porn, with guest porn starlet-come-businesswoman Jenna Jameson, and author Violet Blue. Blue, author of the Smart Girl’s Guide to Porn, wrote a column earlier for O Magazine, which undoubtedly opened Oprah’s eyes to the fact that plenty of women get their rocks off watching porn. My hope is that the clear message that comes out is, “Gals, enjoy your porn. And if you don’t like what you see, make a ruckus so the adult filmmakers start making porn that suits your needs.” After all, that is exactly what happened with the adult toy industry–it was not until women started buying their own sex toys that the manufacturers learned we’d rather have a clit-loving designer toy like the Gigi than a fleshy fake appendage with no power.  Tune in to the show today, or catch clips here. Or, embrace your own love of porn, and go straight to some of our buyers’ guide to find the porn that’s right for you. You can look for Award-winning porn, get tips on how to choose an adult video, or focus on women-directed porn.

Stupak

If you’re like me, you may have been feeling at excited that we were finally getting somewhere on health care coverage. Then, the House passed the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. In case you haven’t had time to read up on just why this amendment is horrible, here’s a brief primer on what it will do:

The Hyde amendment requires that no federal funding go for abortions, under health care reform, this already would have included the public option plan, which most people were expecting and which everyone had agreed to.

The new Stupak-Pitts amendment bans private for-profit insurers from covering abortion as a part of women’s reproductive healthcare for all plans in the insurance exchange created by the healthcare bill, even if women pay most of the premiums. That would mean a drastic reduction in the coverage that millions of women already have.

If a version of this amendment makes it into the Senate bill, it will most likely remain in the final bill and may get signed into law. If this happens, it will be the most dramatic reduction in women’s reproductive health care we’ve seen in decades.

Please do the following:

• Call your senators. Tell them that you do not support any amendment like Stupak-Pitts.
• Find out how your House representative voted on Stupak-Pitts. If they voted no, call them to say thank you. If they voted yes, (especially if they are a democrat), call them and tell them how much you disagree with their vote.
• Sign a petition to Harry Reid not to allow any anti-choice amendments into the bill.
• Send a coat-hanger to the 20 pro-choice Democrats (all men, might I add) who voted for Stupak-Pitts
• Join a phone bank at NARAL from your home

President Obama wants Congress to vote on a final bill by the holidays so this is all happening right now. The senate may start debating a bill as early as next week. The time to call is NOW!

Ever wondered what an engraved Eleven looks like? Attendees at the First Annual Fleshbot Awards found out last nice since instead of statuettes, winners won their very own Eleven, engraved with the name of the award that they won. Babeland co-sponsored the event along with some of our favorite organizations and it was really the place to be. From Belladonna to Joanna Angel to Jiz Lee and Syd Blakovich, it really was a party. Belladonna closed the night with a dance that people will be talking about for months.

For a play by play of the event, check out the live blog from last night at Fleshbot.

UPDATE: Some video from the event!