Sex Gets Real 159: Jaclyn Friedman on stealthing, sexual liberation, & rape

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This week Jaclyn Friedman is here. Known for her incredible work around sexual assault, sexual violence, consent, and sex education, it is a really intense discussion that I can't wait for you to hear.

We talk about sexual liberation and why sex positivity must include conversations around sexual violence if it hopes to achieve it's aim.

We dive into stealthing and why removing a condom without consent is rape. Jaclyn explores the ways that stealthing is dehumanizing and why this power move is about erasing the humanity of the person you're sleeping with.

She also talks about what centering humanity in sex has meant for her - being able to relax into her truth by getting off the sexual Olympics train. Plus, why all this buzz about hook-up culture on college campuses is actually a myth and the impact that myth is having on students.

Then we go deep into victim-centering justice, needing community to step in and hold sexually violent people accountable, why transformative justice is not the answer, and she even challenges me on being too generous around people who commit acts of sexual violence.

We may not have answers, but we certainly have a lot of feelings and even bigger questions. So strap in and prepare yourself.

Don't forget to send in your sex confessions about May's theme of FOOD! I created a guidelines page for you.

Follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter and Facebook. It's true. Oh! And Dawn is on Instagram. About Jaclyn Friedman

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, speaker and activist, and creator of the hit books Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers' Weekly's Top 100 Books of 2009, and #11 on Ms. Magazine's Top 100 Feminist Nonfiction of All Time list) and What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl's Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety. Her podcast, Unscrewed, is paving new paths to sexual liberation, and was named one of the Best Sex Podcasts by both Marie Claire and Esquire.

Friedman's work has popularized the "yes means yes" standard of sexual consent that is quickly becoming law on many US campuses. Her insistence that authentic sexual liberation is a necessary condition to end the systemic sexualization and violation of women led Lyn Mikel Brown (Co-founder of SPARK and Professor of Education and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Colby College) to call her "this generation's version of Dr. Ruth."

Friedman is a popular speaker on campuses and at conferences across the U.S. and beyond. She has been a guest on the Today Show, Nightline, PBS News Hour, the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, and numerous other radio and television shows, and her commentary has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, Vox, Time, The Washington Post, Glamour and The Guardian. Friedman is a founder and the former Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media, where she led the successful #FBrape campaign to apply Facebook's hate-speech ban to content that promotes gender-based violence. Friedman also holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College.

You can stay in touch with Jaclyn at jaclynfriedman.com, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @jaclynf.

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