What inspired this campaign?
February 14—March 24, 2024 is the nation's largest anti-abortion campaign: 40 Days for Life. The Women’s Center’s Ejaculate Responsibly campaign (a poster series with twelve unique messages) is an invitation to think differently about abortion, sexual politics, and accountability. This awareness campaign is inspired by Gabrielle Blair’s (2022) book, Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion. 
 
The purpose of this campaign is to provoke deeper interrogation of the pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy, which is a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different. Using Blair’s framework, we aim to bring a fresh perspective through awareness and attention to men’s choices and their primary role in causing unintended pregnancies. Knowing this, how can we change it?
 
Ending unintended pregnancies and abortion is simple!

• Condom usage is the bare-minimum requirement for responsible sex. Men[1] must take initiative to supply their own condoms and use them correctly during each sexual encounter, every time. This must also be done without being asked, regardless/independent from the birth control choices their partner makes.
• Getting a vasectomy

 
Men are responsible for their own sperm—they choose where it is placed. Men must be ethical, intentional, and accountable for potential harm caused by their sexual decisions and ejaculation (whether causing pregnancy or infecting a partner with STIs).
 
The choice to prioritize one’s own desires/pleasure at the expense of others is an example of entitlement rooted in power inequality and privilege. Unfortunately, this is rarely discussed. There are many reasons for this, mainly that “our society is set up to protect men from the consequences of their own actions” (109).
 
How have men’s choices impacted women?
Historically and today, we live in a patriarchy. A patriarchy promotes and centers male/masculine privilege and maintains systems in which most positions of power, authority, and control are dominated by men. Putting the burden of all sexual and reproductive responsibility on women is a form of male privilege and sexism. While men have the most control and choice in the context of sex, it is women’s choices and bodies are endlessly critiqued, controlled, punished, and shamed. Despite how patriarchy naturalizes (“this is just the way things are”) women being over-responsible and men being under-accountable, women are never responsible for men’s behavior. Men are responsible for their own choices, behavior, and bodily fluids.
 
Men have the most control and choice in the context of sex by:

• Causing pregnancy—a woman cannot get pregnant without a viable sperm
• Choosing where they deposit their sperm
• External/ “male” condoms are usually free, accessible, and have no side effects. Internal/ “female” condoms are hard to find and rarely free. 
• Vasectomies are low-cost, low-risk, reversible, and one-time effective procedures that only take a few minutes. Vasectomies are often covered by insurance.
• Birth control for women is often not free or accessible, requires multiple follow-up appointments and ongoing monitoring, and has many dangerous physical and mental health-related side effects. Emergency contraception is also expensive, usually $30-50 per pill.

 
Pregnancy Concerns

• Pregnancy itself can put women at significant risk, including death.
• Professionals from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states, “risk of death associated with childbirth is approximately 14 times higher than that with abortion.”
• “The United States, one of the richest countries in the world, is ranked #56 in maternal mortality—that's dead last among industrialized countries” (Blair, 95). 
• While women of color are sometimes sterilized without their consent, white women often are denied permanent birth control solutions that they want—such as tubal ligations, which is a high-risk surgery compared to options for men.

 
These differences matter and impact women’s lives long-term, especially in the context of our social and economic systems that have been set up to intentionally pay women less and/or not be compensated for their labor at all.
 
Gender Violence Impacts  
In addition, the prevalence of men’s sexual and relationship violence are significant factors that take away the reproductive choices of women.

• 42.2% of SCSU students who identify as women have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime (2023 College Student Health Survey). 
• “Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, often committed by the man who impregnated them” (Blair, 86). 
• Most teens who become pregnant are impregnated by adult men over age 20.  
• Sexual coercion and abuse are statistically common and normalized experiences.

 
Conclusion
People of all sexual orientations and genders who want to have sex can have wonderful, fulfilling sex lives without causing pregnancy.
 
There are many ways to experience sexual pleasure without the risk of pregnancy: masturbation, using hands/fingers/mouth/tongue to stimulate your partner, using sex toys, or only having sex with people who are unable to cause pregnancy.
 
Abstinence is also a great option for some. After all, let’s be clear: no one is entitled to sex, ever. 
 
Responsible ejaculation is both a pro-choice AND pro-life solution that is not rooted in controlling, coercing, or forcing women to give birth. This solution places responsibility where responsibility belongs: it is men’s responsibility to ensure they don’t impregnate. Men must take personal responsibility for their own sperm. 
 
We need to raise the bar for men. We share these messages because:

• Men must be as responsible as women for their own sexual and reproductive health and choices.
• Men have the power to reject the confining script offered by patriarchal society.

 
We believe in men’s ability to make safe, thoughtful, and equitable choices that respect women.
 
We believe men can and must ejaculate responsibly.  


[1] Binary language is used for the purpose of conciseness. When we reference men we are referring to cis men, people who have sperm, and people assigned male at birth (AMAB). When referencing women we are referring to cis women, people who have the capacity for pregnancy, and people who are assigned female at birth (AFAB). 

The gorgeous art piece pictured above is appropriately named "Glitoris." It's a powerful and imposing figure that we have been moving around campus. It is, you guessed it, a replica of the internal structure of the clitoris. This sculpture was inspired by Sophia Wallace's "cliteracy art" project.

We paid a fabulous art student, Stephanie Shoemaker, to create a 3 x 4-foot mobile sculpture to raise awareness and educate people on the sexual pleasure of women/AFAB people.

Even as a feminist in college, and as someone who has been very open about topics related to sex for most of my life, I don't think I heard someone say the word "clit/clitoris," out loud until I was in my early 20s.

​Even today, this word, this body part, is treated like a slur, a secret, a subjugated knowledge.

How people (do not) talk about the clitoris is precisely why our campus Women's Center chose to do programming--events, speakers, tabling, awareness, outreach, postering, and hosting (the now infamous) "Find the Clit: Campus Sex Ed Scavenger Hunt."

Women genuinely enjoying sex, especially outside of patriarchal prescriptions, incites astronomical levels of misogyny. How dare she. 

Only in a sexist culture would such discomfort occur as a result of us unashamedly speaking and educating about this--even on a college campus, a space for adult learners, a space that many people see as protective "free speech," embodies "liberal values," and/or is supposedly "sexually open." 

Not so much. It was a wild semester. We received all sorts of strange responses and angry backlash for these events from inside and outside of our campus community: continuous complaints, threats, people trying to cancel or hide our event, taking down posters and advertisements, people calling to yell at us for how "offensive" the porgram is, labelling us as "groomers" that are apparently promoting rape... because we are educating grown adults. On anatomy and sexual pleasure. On a college campus at a public university. In the year 2023. 

In the past when I spent significant time speaking and educating in faith communities that were often both religiously and politically conservative, I would remind them what they already knew but didn't want to acknowledge: That sex IS for pleasure and pleasure IS the primary reason people have sex.

On what ground could I make such a claim (besides the fact that people who are capable of reproducing are only fertile a few days per month)?? Well, I had to remind church-goers in the pews that someone created the clit, and according to their belief system, it was God.

Cool, right? I could feel the deep exhale from a very tense religious crowd. What a relief for folks to know that the sole and only purpose of a clitoris is for sexual pleasure. As I let that statement sink in, I could visibly see the wheels turning and belief systems challenged/shifted. 

Why is knowing this so powerful? Because a penis has multiple functions. A vagina has multiple functions as well. But God/the creator/universe very intentionally chose to bless the female body with an extra part for no other function but sexual catharsis. Oh, AND women can have multiple/endless orgasms!! So clearly the creator cared a whole lot about pleasure and women enjoying sex.

​In addition, the most clitoral sensitivity and nerve endings are external on the vulva, not inside the vagina. (Side note--that should also make the heteros question the centrality of penis-in-vagina, penetration-focused sex). 

Maybe all this female sexual power and capacity for pleasure is why men in this world have gone to such extreme lengths to control and colonize our bodies and sexuality. Maybe God is less uneasy and uncomfortable with female sexual pleasure than us humans are.

God is less of a prude than your average dude or patriarchal church.

Despite this, women's sexual pleasure is still so taboo and shamed--not only in conservative or religious communities--everywhere. 
​
Women's sexual pleasure is still treated as a frivolous privilege, a bonus, afterthought, etc. Research shows that even after multiple waves of sexual revolutions, the sex lives of women have not improved all that much over the past 50 years. Beliefs around sex roles and men's sexual entitlement/self-centeredness is still deeply-rooted. 

All hope is not lost. Women do enjoy pleasure and orgasms. NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of women orgasm regularly through masturbation. So, women aren't sexually dysfunctional or broken. They are very capable and knowledgeable about what gets them off. They just aren't getting the right stimulation from a partner or their partner is disregarding their wants and pleasure entirely. 

But that experience is not true across the board for women. Lesbian women are the most sexually satisfied demographic, in stark contrast to women who have sex with men. What can men learn from lesbian and queer women? A whole lot. Men should be taking notes from lesbians... oh, and maybe ask their own female partners what they want in bed? For a society that is convinced it is so sexually liberated, we can't even get the most basic stuff down (saying anatomical body part names out loud, respecting boundaries and consent, and valuing the sexual pleasure of all). 

I highly recommend reading one of my most favorite books for more analysis on this: The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward. Ward is a lesbian who feels like she needs to be an "ally" to straight women. She feels the experience of too many straight women is a lifetime of suffering trying to be in relationship with sexist men... men who only want women because of what women do for them. And women who respond by exhausting themselves trying to convince/change/rehabilitate/fix men.

Included in this straight-woman-suffering is enduring serious sexual violence, trauma, and simply mediocre or bad sex. I have observed this as a frighteningly common experience of women and resonate with Ward's findings as an advocate who has worked all of my professional life with survivors of sexual violence and on issues of patriarchal violence, feminism, and gender equity. 

I feel this has been a life-long frustration of mine: I constantly see fabulous, brilliant, powerful women in my life stifled by dweeby, clueless, or downright dangerous men who don't give a shit about them. Women should not have to beg their partners for basic mutuality. Men's sexual entitlement to women's bodies, with minimal/no knowledge or care regarding how to please them, is not only pathetic, it's very disturbing. 

It should be fundamental, expected, and *required* that people having (supposedly??) consensual sex are both enjoying it and putting forth effort so their partner can experience pleasure. When bombarded by porn and media that portrays sex in a patriarchal, competitive, transactional, coercive, conquering, male-centered, and violent way, clearly this is a wild concept and needs more attention. 

When grown adults cannot even say the word "clitoris" out loud (and if they do, are deeply embarrassed/uncomfortable), clearly, we have significant work yet to do to end misogyny and shame around women's sexuality. 

The personal is political and the political is personal. 

Women's sexuality and pleasure is not trivial. The fact that women's sexual pleasure is so devalued and stigmatized simply imitates, mirrors, and reflects broader structures and systems that devalue women as an entire class. If we are going to end patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny, our sexual practices, and how we talk about them, matter.

​We all need to become cliterate because women deserve better. 

In March of 2022, I piloted this new presentation with women student leaders at the College of St. Benedict's and at a St. Cloud State University human sexuality class.

​The session was titled, The Revolution is COMING: Sexual Politics, Pleasure Equity, and Cliteracy.
​
This session gives participants an opportunity to (re)learn and discuss the politics around women's sexuality, pleasure and orgasm in/equity, cliteracy, and examine cultural messaging about sex and gender roles, desire, and the impact of sexual trauma on sexuality. I also share resources and strategies for change.

This is a great presentation topic for college students, adults, women's groups, men's groups, pre-marital/marriage groups, conferences, etc. 

What inspired me to take on this new topic is recognizing how little people of all genders know about the clitoris and the lack of prioritization of pleasure for people who have them!

I have had many conversations with women of all ages who had been having sex for years (even decades!) and did not know where their own clitoris was located and/or never had an orgasm. This both pained me... and pissed me off. THIS IS A FREAKING TRAGEDY YA'LL... 

Our "sexual education" system protects patriarchal sexual norms. "Sex ed" is purposefully designed to invisibilize and fail women, queer, and gender-marginalized folks.

At the college I work at, students were really interested in inviting a speaker to talk about the orgasm gap on campus. We searched... and there were only a handful of speakers we could find throughout the country that spoke on this topic... and only one or two speakers who lived in our state.

​So, here I am. Talking all about clits and other important stuff because women's sexual lives are not trivial. 

Another one of my many life missions is for women to have better sex and to openly, proudly, unashamedly talk about women's sexual pleasure and orgasm equity. The personal is political and the political is personal! 

​I am a feminist practitioner with a social and political science background. No, I can't tell you the biology or give the detailed specifics surrounding the science of arousal and orgasm, but that's not really what I see audiences are looking for anyway.

Pleasure/orgasm inequity has far less to do with biology, sex/gender differences, or actual orgasm difficulties as it has to do with power, social and cultural norms, patriarchy, sexism, sex/gender roles, sexual entitlement, and this fabulously accurate new term I'm hear more: "strategic incompetence."

It also has a lot to do with who defines "sex."

• Who defines sex and how do these definitions impact our sexual experiences, norms, and reality?
• Whose sexual pleasure is prioritized, whose isn't, and why?
• Why is it that women can orgasm just fine on their own, or with a partner who is a woman, but when a woman has sex with a man, suddenly there is a vast pleasure gap?

Those questions are mostly rhetorical, as the answer(s) is literally hitting us on the head with a giant brick.

​So, is the content I share in this presentation cutting-edge, earth-shattering, wildly innovative, and novel?

​Nope.

​Sometimes, we just have to collectively face the music. I'll be sharing the research, allowing us some space to discuss, learn, unlearn, and think critically to confront the silly sexual messaging we receive about the "mysterious female orgasm" because, oh heavens, women's bodies are sooooo complicated. *Eye roll* 

​Yes, there a bit of snark in this presentation. How could there not be?

​Sometimes, we must laugh at the absurdity. And then... fight for the revolution. It's COMING.