Today NSFW Sunday is all about you. Sex-positivity, body positivity and all of that hippie shit.
+ I’ll Show You Mine: The (relatively) new book I’ll Show You Mine, according to the editor Wrenna Robertson, was “conceived as a reaction to the increased anxiety [she has] witnessed in women regarding their genitalia, coupled with the widespread increase in surgical procedures such as labiaplasty.” It’s a photography book — each 2-page spread features two vagina pictures and the story of the woman who goes with that vagina. (For example, here’s Cynthia and her vagina (very NSFW)). Although queer women generally have seen many more up-close vaginas than your average straight women, it’s still somewhat shocking to realize, while looking through this book, that you’ve truly never seen anything like this before. Not ever. You’ve never seen so many actual vaginas of normal women in a book or any printed matter ever before. All kinds, obviously. Shaved, pierced, bare, transgender, old, young, all shapes/sizes/colors. It’s kinda magical and compelling. You should get it.
+ Betty Dodson did some illustrated vulva action for her book Sex For One, which you can see reprinted on Scarleteen.
+ Sex + The Fat Girl: Subjectivity and Self Image: “Using perceived attractiveness (to a partner or potential partner) as a means to maintain your positive self-image is cheating on doing the work necessary to promote self-love.”
+ Lingerie: Awesome or Awkward? “I’ve tried teddies, fishnets, thongs, push-up bras, camisoles, bustiers and garters, but when it comes right down to it, I love wearing cotton underwear and cotton pajamas. Which are not sexy, I guess, in the traditional sense. But at least I don’t feel like a leg of lamb trussed for the oven. Strappy doodads and crotchless panties look painful, and I feel sexy when I’m comfortable.”
jiz lee and varina adams
Pubic Hair. Sorted: “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not feminine enough, or sexy enough if you choose to keep your bush. And don’t let anyone tell you you’re not radical enough, or queer enough if you choose to make it bare.”
We’ve linked to this before but will link to it again: The Normal Breasts Gallery.
Tortilleras Unidas! The Radical Feminist Queer Sex Positive Potential of Reggaeton: “I love this video and it really nails all the radical feminist queer sex positive potential I see in reggaeton music and culture. Because so much of the discourse about reggaeton focuses on how it oppresses women, we often miss how women are engaging with and transforming the genre into a vehicle to address the complexities of sexuality and desire. ”
photograph by ben hopper
Gender + Body Acceptance: “I’m twenty-four now, and the other day, I looked at my stomach and realized that it’s looked the same nearly all of my life. So I asked myself- what exactly is the point of not accepting this?”
Briana Reed of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company
Sex Positive Photo Project: “Shilo McCabe is a sex positive feminist photographer documenting the diverse, awesome and inspiring people who are a part of the sex positive community of the San Francisco Bay Area. This project is an ongoing and inclusive exploration of the sex positive movement and culture.”
photo by blythe shepard
Waking Vixen/Audacia Ray’s Speech from SlutWalk: “Like many people who lay claim to the word feminist, I am a white cisgender woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor, and I am a former sex worker, and so I want to complicate a few things for you.”
Beauty, Virtue and Vice: “Most of the prints in the exhibit “Beauty, Virtue and Vice: Images of Women in Nineteenth-Century American Prints” were designed simply to please the eye, but they are also useful to historians who would like to understand how nineteenth-century Americans thought about the world in which they lived.”
Disclaimer: All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email our tech director at cee [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.
love this post. i tried to order that book, but it wouldn’t process my credit card. :(
Hi Moose,
I am one of the publisher’s of the book. If you are still having trouble ordering from our site, use the “Contact Us” page on our site to send me a note and I will send you an alternate payment method.
Thanks for everyone’s support!
Whelm King, Show Off Books
Reading the bklyn boihood post made my day. Even though we have very different gender identities, I identify completely with the struggles the narrator has gone through (both with belly acceptance and the requisite eating disorder that never produced that acceptance however hard I tried.) I realize now that I will never have a totally flat belly unless I lose such an unhealthy amount of weight that I barely have breasts anymore–and that is not cool with me. So ima keep my cute belly and continue to feel totally free of self-consciousness when strutting around naked in front of my girlfriend. :p
It’s sad, though, that even women who are masculine-of-center are unable to escape the absurd standards that women in our society are conditioned to hold their bodies to. I used to think it was a straight-girl thing to struggle with body acceptance but now I realize that it affects people both male and female, cis and trans, straight and gay and everything in between.
(Sorry, this isn’t a very sexy post on lesbosexy Sunday.)
also I’m super excited that someone addressed the pubic hair issue. I have definitely had moments where I’m like “AM I SUPPOSED TO SHAVE IT? AM I SUPPOSED TO KEEP IT? WTF DO I DO WITH THIS THING?!”
DO WHAT YOU WANT
NO FUCKS TO GIVE
I have those moments all the time too! They have led to some seriously ill-advised DIY waxing situations. Here’s to not giving a fuck!
I bet 100% that your girlfriend loves your belly. My ex was suuuuper thin and in shape but she had a tiny belly and it was the best thing ever, but then she started working out more and the belly went away and I missed it. :(
sad times! Bellies are adorable. Plus rock hard abs make terrible pillows.
If there’s not at least a lil bit of lower belly roundness Marika is a sad panda.
I agree, you gotta have somewhere to rest your head when you get a lil tired down there.
I love normal breast galleries, not because of wooo boobs but because whoa boobs that look like mine which most certainly do not look aaaaaannnnything like boobs you see on tv or in the movies (but also wooo boobs).
that is one fucking great post, chrissie, I love it.
I read this post through my iPod constantly shutting down safari on me.
I am committed!
(ps, have I ever mentioned these posts rock?)
Love everything about this post. I struggled with body shit for years (and of course still do sometimes), particularly RE my belly. But one day I was reminiscing about some good times with my super-curvy femme of an ex and I thought, “Whoa. Why don’t I let myself be the kind of girl I’m attracted to?” Major epiphany! Realizing how little I’m attracted to the generically beautiful, impossibly Hollywood-ish female body and how much I love NATURAL bodies (womanly curves and tiny bois and everything in between) really made it harder for me to beat myself up about mine.
Oh, I know what you mean. It’s like, I can fall hard for some curvy girls but for some reason don’t like myself unless I’ve got a flat stomach. It doesn’t make any sense.
All those links are going to keep me busy for a while. Good stuff!
Just want to mention, in the first paragraph it should say “vulva” instead of vagina. Aaah, sorry I just had to point it out!
Was reading and looking at the Normal Breast Galery, having a jolly old time and so glad that ppl love their breasts until I looked at the “flat chested” page.
The comments bothered me so much. Almost all of the women with flat chests felt that something was wrong and that they need bigger breasts. O.o Jeez.
I love being flat chested!
Here’s why: (and don’t think that any of this is a bad thing, I just personaly apreciate these things)
My boobs don’t bounce, I don’t need to wear a bra, people can’t pull back and release my bra-strap, I feel no pain when I am wacked in the boob, people don’t stare at my chest, and I don’t have to embarass myself bra shopping.
Hooray for no breasts!
:)
This is like a collection of all the things I wish somebody had told me in high school.
Muy, muy like.
“I’ll Show You Mine” was profoundly moving for me. It might be my new coffee table book!
I also super like the photos for this weeks post! Oh, the wedding photo! It almost makes me wish my wife and I wouldn’t have eloped. The photo of Briana Reed is breathtaking. The one under it my Blythe Shepard gives me warm fuzzies.
slutwalk NYC was amazing. love belly roundness. feminine bodies often (not always!) have some lower belly roundness for that little thing called pregnancy (not that women with super sexi flat abs can’t have awesome strong pregnant bellies with healthy babies, whatever). itz hot.
Shilo is awesome! Here’s a photo she took of me for a project we did:
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/252094_136046069815392_100002299985571_236970_5732213_n.jpg
I used to work as a nurse at a women’s health clinic and would see vag’s all day five or six days a week. it was very interesting work, especially with the queer aspect (actually three out of the five of us are queer!) i saw about 30 to 40 a day and they really all start to look the same pretty quickly! shaved, pierced, longer labia, thicker lips, or darker color are all variations on the same theme! i have so many friends who are very self-conscious about their “nethers” and i was/am constantly reassuring them that they are normal! everyone is!