Putting the "rad" back in radical

Taking Charge of Your Fertility: Review

theradgal — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:24:29 +0000

I just finished rereading the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, and I can’t sing its praises enough. The book explains a woman’s monthly ovulation and menstrual cycle and shows how to chart and interpret your body’s signs that signal if you are fertile or infertile. Whether you want to avoid or encourage pregnancy (or just learn more about your awesome body), that is great information to have at your disposal. (Check out Planned Parenthood’s write up of this method here.)

Now, you’ll need to consult the book and/or a Fertility Awareness Method class for the full scoop; that’s beyond the scope of this blog. I’ll just say that all you really need to do is take your waking temperature every morning and then check what type of cervical fluid you’re producing or not producing throughout the day. (Optionally, you can check your cervical position to corroborate the other two signs.) It is NOT about looking at a calendar or some stupid beads to guess if you’re fertile or not. It is NOT the “Rhythm Method.”

Analyzing these signs will allow you to predict if you are likely to ovulate soon or if you have already ovulated, and you can use that info to help you prevent or cause a pregnancy. You chart this information and use it as you see fit. If signs point to fertility and you don’t want to get pregnant, you can have non-pregnancy-inducing sexy fun, take a break from sexy fun, or make sure to use a barrier

Cover via Amazon

during sexy fun. If you want to get pregnant, you can make sure you are optimizing your baby-making efforts.

This is information every woman should know! Even if you don’t have sex with men, it’s cool to know what your reproductive system is doing down there. Even if you are on hormonal birth control that stops you from cycling naturally, I still recommend you read this book, just to expand your knowledge of your body. The author also wrote a book for teens called Cycle Savvy that I want to read. I think that having clear, detailed, debunking information about my reproductive system would have been great during my own adolescence. I will give it a read soon and let you know what I think.

I think that this kind of knowledge really is empowering. Sure, the Catholic Church might encourage people to use a kind of fertility awareness they call “Natural Family Planning” since they think birth control is a sin and all, so I know that the whole idea of fertility awareness bit might put some of my Radigans on edge, but don’t fret. First of all, the book isn’t an anti-birth control diatribe; Weschler is a cool woman who knows her stuff, not a religious fanatic. Plus, knowing what’s going on in your body each month is a good thing, and you can use that information however you want to!

Caveat: Safe (or safer) sex rules still apply, of course. Protect yourself from STDs by using condoms. This method is best for monogamous couples with no STDs. This method isn’t perfect; people still get pregnant on it sometimes. Check out a comparison different types of birth control here.

Yes, I’d like a religion-free room, please

theradgal — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:26:43 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I stumbled across this idea from an old forum discussion at Atheist Nexus, and I think it’s so simple in its brilliance. The next time that you reserve a hotel room, ask that you have a “religion-free” room, i.e. one that doesn’t contain a Bible in the bedside drawer. It’s an easy, simple request to make, and it’s a great way to nudge people into a thinking direction.
“I’d like a religion-free room, please.” Simple.

A Rad Reading List

theradgal — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:34:16 +0000

Cover of The Female Eunuch

Please help me create a rad reading list for fledgling Radigans! I want to create a tab/page with a suggested reading list for people on the verge of a political awakening who stumble across my page. Suggest works that personally challenged you or led you to some sort of new awakening. Fiction and non-fiction, ancient and contemporary – everything’s welcome.

Here are my first suggestions, off the top of my head:

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
The Better World Handbook by Ellis Jones, Ross Haenfler, and Brett Johnson
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer

I’m sure you have better ones, so submit them in the comments! Websites, blogs, artists, musicians, festivals, and so forth are also welcome, though I’m keeping the page limited to books for now.

Stop playing it so damn safe

theradgal — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:37:47 +0000

Life is meant to be lived. Wholeheartedly and unabashedly. We only get one shot here on this crazy planet, and we owe it to ourselves and our fellow earthlings to make our one shot count.

Maybe there is no point to all of this. In the grand scheme, we’re just a bunch of chunks of carbon and water in the vast universe. There is no grand purpose, fate, destiny, karma, or any other grand schemata that will make meaning for us. We have to make our own meaning.

In our day to day choices, in our own ways, in our outrageous acts and everyday rebellions, in our words, in our purchases, we make meaning. We craft our purpose daily. It doesn’t just happen; it has to be sought after and fought for.

Start a feminist book club. Protest outside your local town hall. Write a manifesto. Go vegan. Make music. Do something, anything, that shouts to the universe, “I’m here, and I matter!”

Make your mark on this world, Radigans. You’re going to die someday, maybe even today. Don’t waste a day in this beautiful and terrible world. Make every day count.

Rape apologist speaks. Speak back.

theradgal — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:01:37 +0000

Dan Rottenberg recently wrote this post essentially blaming journalist Lara Logan for her gang rape. She once wore a low-cut dress to a red carpet event, and Rottenberg posts that picture on his site, The Broad Street Review. Since she once wore that dress, she apparently invited rape into perpetuity, as do all women and girls who show any skin. Ever. So, if you wore a low-cut shirt in America, you deserve to be gang raped in Egypt. Apparently.

You can sign a petition at change.org to voice your disgust. I did.

Moregasm: A Review

theradgal — Tue, 31 May 2011 15:07:02 +0000

Image by rachelkramerbussel.com via Flickr

I had a great time reading Moregasm, Claire Cavanah and Rachel Venning’s female-friendly how-to sex guide. The owners of Babeland, a famously women-run and women-friendly sex toy shop, Cavanah and Venning detail all kinds of sexy fun, with consent and pleasure at the center.

What I loved

Pictures. The models in this book are fantastic; beautiful and not at all plastic-looking. An occasional tattoo here and there. A mix of man-woman and woman-woman couplings. Lots of gear pics.
Tone. The book is playful and accepting. Lesbian, bisexual, genderqueer, trans, and intersex folks are all addressed and welcome. Advice are offered in the spirit of fun.
Instructional content. The basics of major sex acts, such as oral on a guy, oral on a gal, anal, and so on, are covered, with some hints and techniques I’ve never heard before. The section on anal sex was particularly awesome, in that it focused on real pleasure for a woman, debunking myths from porn and the cultural milieu.

What I disliked

Products. The writers own a sex toy shop, so they show lots of pictures of products, which is okay sometimes, but it definitely feels like they are trying to sell you stuff by the end. For example, they show 3 types of lubricant in “The Lube Guide” and all 3 are Babeland brand.
Lack of information. The bases are definitely covered, but I was left wanting more. I loved the conversational tone and the number of pictures, but they seemed to cover up a lack of breadth and depth.

I would highly recommend Moregasm to people interested in great sex, regardless of gender identity or orientation, though cisgendered women seem to be the target demographic.

Oprah goes vegan (again)!

theradgal — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:10:48 +0000

Oprah and her staff went vegan for a week, and an episode about the experiment will air tomorrow. This isn’t the first time that Ms. Winfrey has dabbled in veganism, and I am interested to see if this “challenge” will stick, with The Divine Miss O or with any of her staff.

I think that anything that encourages the American public to think about their complicity in the modern food system, especially animal agriculture. I think that phrasing the experiment as a “challenge” might be misleading or off-putting to non-vegans, but it remains to be seen how the show portrays veganism.

So, I will be live-tweeting the entire show with my reactions!

http://www.ecorazzi.com/2011/01/30/oprah-and-her-staff-take-vegan-challenge/

A letter to vegetarians (and vegans)

theradgal — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:54:15 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Dear vegetarians,

You are awesome. I love how you decided to stop eating meat. Maybe you think that animals shouldn’t be tortured and eaten by people, or maybe you are trying to keep your cholesterol down. That is a wonderful choice for you. I was vegetarian for years, then fell off the wagon for a few more years because I felt like I wasn’t making a difference. I started eating meat again. I still thought it was wrong to eat meat, since I had so many other, healthy, animal-friendly options, but I did it anyway. Oh, I’d buy free-range eggs (right along factory farmed meat), but my values were out of sync with my actions. I had given up.

This summer, after visiting the feedlot where my brother-in-law works, I started doing some research on how animals are raised and killed here in the United States, and I was sickened by what I learned. I went vegan this summer, and though I’ve had some slip-ups out of ignorance here and there, I’ve done my best to stick with it.

Sometimes people tell me they could never be vegetarian because they love meat so much. Or they couldn’t be vegan because they love cheese. I liked meat and cheese pretty well, but once I knew the reality of their production, I just couldn’t do it.

I feel better. I lost 7 excess pounds in 2 weeks without even trying, and then my weight stabilized. My skin cleared up a bit, too. And I’m not sure if it’s being newly married or veganism, but I have been told that I look “glowing” by people who haven’t seen me in a while. Best of all, I’ve discovered so many new things. I’m cooking more and better than I ever did while omnivorous, I’ve made vegetarian and vegan friends, I’ve fallen in love with the whole Post-Punk Kitchen franchise, and I know that my food is relatively germ-free. Best of all, I feel good about my dietary choices.

I love being vegan. I couldn’t be happier about my decision, and I’m glad that others are out there making a difference, too.

Love,

Rad Gal

PS- Vegans, you rock, too.

Consuming Less: A Personal Challenge

theradgal — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:48:07 +0000

Pledges to consume less are consuming me. Everywhere I look, someone’s giving up buying clothes for a year, shopping at the Evil Empire for a month, or buying anything ever. I feel like I want to do a little experiment of my own and blog about it. Why do I feel this need? Honestly, the amount of waste produced in this country makes me a little ill. When customers at the restaurant ask for 2 Styrofoam boxes so that they can keep their small amounts of food separate, the waste makes me cringe. I schlep reusable bags to the grocery store, and I only bag wet, leafy produce. I stood alone in a grocery store aisle, and I looked at all the prepackaged food and realized that all the containers were landfill-bound, and I felt a little ill and panicky. I want to do a little more to waste a little less.

Beyond the material waste that ends up in the landfill, I am bothered by the spend-work-spend-work-spend rat race we seem to find ourselves in. I’m not a big shopper, except when it comes to books. I went to a big chain bookstore to purchase Taking Charge of Your Fertility yesterday, and I tortured myself by walking up and down the aisles looking at wonderful books that I’d love to own. Maybe that’s how other people feel when they shoe shop?

From a selfish, purely monetary standpoint, I’m interested to see how much money I can save if I purposefully shop less. I should be starting grad school in the summer, and I won’t be able to work much, if at all, for about a year. I don’t like to be stressed about money, and sometimes I bring little money crunches on myself by spending too much.

I’ve found some guidelines in The Compact. A movement that began in San Francisco in 2006, the Compact is a pledge to purchase very little for one year, though some Compacters may continue these spending patterns indefinitely. According to the GOOD article linked in this paragraph, “The premise was simple: barter, borrow, or buy secondhand for a year-food, drink, health, and safety necessities excluded.”

So, the brakes I bought this year – fine, I needed them to keep other drivers and myself safe. The secondhand jogging clothes from the thrift store – alright, it was secondhand, so no new waste was created. The ingredients to make tamales – no problem, it’s food. The book I bought yesterday? Not so much. I suppose I might argue that it was a health necessity, but that would be a pretty big stretch.

I will be an unofficial Compacter starting January 1st, 2011. I will also write a little more in-depth about the nuances of the Compact and its aims.

Vote with your cup

theradgal — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:31:56 +0000

Starbucks claims that they will begin to work on a recyclable paper cup, in this article available on the New York Times blog. Some recycling facilities don’t recycle Starbucks cups, due to that waxy, plastic-y coating on the inside that makes them waterproof. In theory and practice, I support recycling. However, there is still so much waste and destruction that goes into creating the cups, even if, in the end, they are recycled. The recycling process itself then takes more energy and chemicals to reengineer the cup into something else. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot better than throwing in the landfill to slowly rot, but I think we are working on the wrong problem. We’re operating on the assumption that it is okay to go to a place and purchase a non-essential good for pleasurable consumption in a disposable container. Maybe it’s not.

So while the head honchos at Starbucks get crackin’ on the recyclable cup conundrum, here are some Rad Alternatives.

Rad Alternative #1: Stop drinking coffee.

Whoa, Nelly. That is radical indeed. I pretty much only drink organic green tea at home these days. I love the taste, it’s quick and easy to make, and I’m not as jittery. Plus, green tea is hella good for you. I drink free coffee at the restaurant if I work a double shift, and I go out for a girls’ coffee night with some seriously rad friends of mine once a week. I still love coffee, but I’m not a pot-a-day junkie anymore.

Rad Alternative #2: Make your own damn coffee.

Alright, I know this might sound crazy, but you can make your own coffee! This is better than going to the Bucks for a couple reasons. One, you save money, and you can invest your daily latte money in a mutual fund and retire with enough money to be able to go volunteer with the Peace Corps in your old age instead of living off Social Security and working part-time as a greeter for the Evil Empire. Or, if you’ve got your radical retirement plan in place, you can donate that money to Amnesty International.

Okay, aside from the money you’ll save, you’ll save time. It doesn’t seem that way, I know; you want to dash out the front door as quickly as possible so you can wait in line for five minutes. Or you could just make your own latte in less than five minutes. You’ll save gas, if you typically drive to the Bucks and idle there waiting for your tasty treat. You’ll be able to control the quality of your drink. I’m not a great barista, but I got a little espresso machine/milk steamer from one of my girls’ night coffee chicas when I got married, and I do alright. I can use products that I know are organic and fair-trade and cruelty-free. There’s a small upfront investment, but you’ll save money in the end.

Rad Alternative #3: Carry a reusable cup!

This option is the easiest thing in the world to do. You don’t have to quit drinking coffee or make it yourself. All you need to do is bring your own cup along. This probably means you can’t use the drive-thru at some Bucks locations, but we both know a quick step inside to interact with the people is good for you anyway. If you are worried about remembering to clean the cup, it’s no big deal. You can put a tiny dot of soap in it in the morning and blast it with hot water if you forget to put it in the dishwasher the night before. I will even allow you to buy 2 cups so that you always have a clean one. (I’m firm, but fair.)

If you already have a reusable cup, you should start using it today. From this day on, you are a reusable cup user. If you don’t have a reusable coffee cup, the Rad thing to do is to check out the local thrift stores and see if you can find one there. Remember, it’s all about reducing consumption, Radigans! If nothing shows up at the thrift stores, a natural, hippie-granola store might have one. Whole Foods and markets of its ilk probably will. Discount stores will. If you can wait for some shipping time, why not get a reusable mug that supports a cause you love?

Rad Alternative #3 Bonus Points

If you still plan on going to coffeehouses frequently, make sure you ask for fair-trade coffee. The world’s coffee workers and their environments are being exploited! Organic, shade-grown, fair-trade java gives you a boost without first stepping on the weary backs of the Third World to get it. Ask for fair-trade.

Also, look into non-mega-chain coffeehouses in your neighborhood. I found an adorable one down my street. Now, girls’ coffee night features local artists’ work on gallery walls, fair-trade coffee for purchase in bulk, and the occasional local band performing.

DIY Recycled, Reusable Coffee Cozy [DIY] (lifehacker.com)
Starbucks Testing Paper Cup Recycling in NYC – How About More Reusable Ones, Too? (treehugger.com)
Starbucks Wants Baristas to Slow Down; Can Caffeine Craving Customers Wait? (fastcompany.com)
Green: Starbucks Sets Goal for Recycling (green.blogs.nytimes.com)