Monday 31 October 2011

A big Cunty welcome!

So maybe you bumped into us on White Night and bought a badge or saw us perform surrounded by cunty artwork in Chez Dimitrina. You might have stumbled across the grafitti cunt in the Level or were wowed by our exhibition upstairs in Northern Lights. Or you found our flyer somewhere around Brighton. Either way if you are new to the blog, welcome!
If you are offended by the word 'cunt' then please become aware of the intense feeling these four letters create within you. Sit with it for a bit and ponder... why? Why is this? What makes these four little letters joined together stir up such negative reactions? think, think, why?
One of our aims is to inspire, encourage and challenge people to turn these intense feelings that the word 'cunt' provokes into a more positive conotation. We all know there's a thin line between love and hate...
We plead with you to use this positivity to concentrate on what the word 'cunt' actually represents which is the female genitalia in all its stunning and wonderous glory. It is related to words from India, China, Rome and Egypt. These are either titles of respect for women, priestesses and witches, or derivatives of various goddesses (Muscio 2002). Negative reactions to the word 'cunt' resonate from a learned fear of the power, diversity and beauty of female gentalia. For more information about the origins of the word, scroll down to an older post which goes into more detail...
We use the word 'cunt' not only because of its important origins but also because we simply don't have another word. The word 'vagina' only refers to the inner entrance meaning 'tunnel' or 'sheath' and the vulva refers to the clitoris, outer labia majora and minora. There is no real recognised word that is for both together.
Our reasons for the White Night 'Cherish Your Cunt' campaign were to raise awareness that plastic surgery on the labia is becoming more popular particularily amongst young women. This scares us deeply. 
Labia plasty is a painful proceedure which holds the risk of affecting a woman's capacity for sexual pleasure. The fact that it is has grown by 300% in the last 5 years is terrifying.  
Please get in contact with your thoughts on our campaign through our blog or email iheartmyvagina@gmail.com
Big Cunty Love!
({*}) The Cliterati
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Friday 30 September 2011

White Night - 29th October

Watch this space for the Cliterati's plans to spread the love once again on White Night. We are a campaigning against labiaplasty and the impact of pornography on young women's body image.There has been a 300% rise in labiaplasty in the last five years and it is the fasted rising plastic surgery in the UK.
This has been linked to pornography's unrealistic portrayal of female genitalia. We aim to raise awareness of the diversity and beauty of female genitalia and will have exhibitions in venues accross Brighton each
with it's own specific theme. The Cliterati will also be out on the streets handing out maps and conducting street surveys.

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Time to talk about good sex?

So the blog hasn't been updated in awhile... this is because Lady Cunt has had her academic hat on and has been finishing a research report titled: Time to talk about good sex? A study on the inclusion of Sexual Pleasure within Sexual Health Promotion. 
I've been interviewing sexual health workers, youth workers and young people on their reactions to a controversial sexual health resource produced by The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV in Sheffield. It was a booklet called simply 'Pleasure' and gave a straight forward arguement why we need to focus on the primary reason we al should be having sex - for pleasure. Advocates of this "pleasure propaganda", such as myself, Steve Slack and Liz Wilson from The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV in Sheffield, The Pleasure Project, Susan Jolly of the Sexuality and Development Programme in Sussex University, believe that we have been focusing on the dangers of sexual encounters for far too long.
It's time to talk about ways in which we can have safe, satisfying sex. 
The main reason cited for why people don't want to use condoms is the lack of pleasure. This needs to be counteracted with strategies to encourage people to find ways to enhance sexual pleasure whilst using a condom - vibrating cock rings, the french tickler, ribbed, spotted and ultra thin are examples. Durex and Pasante have been doing this for years as part of their marketing ploy, how long is going to take for sexual health promoters to join them? And it's not just the male condom, the all new improved FC2, femidom is said to enhance sexual pleasure for both the woman and the man. The outer rim stimulates the clitoris and the inner rim is said to produce a unique tingling feeling for the man at the tip of his penis which in fact, has enticed Nigerian men to invent a special name for the sensation!

Another blatant reason why we should talk about sexual pleasure to young people in particular is that if we don't, they will turn to pornography for the answers instead. 
You Gov (2008) found that almost sixty per cent of young people aged fourteen to seventeen have seen pornography on the internet, on their phones, in magazines, films or on the television and twenty seven per cent of the boys surveyed access pornography at least once a week. In the same study, it was discovered that five per cent of these boys viewed it daily. 
A survey of over eight hundred young men and women aged eighteen to twenty six found that eighty seven per cent of young men and thirty one per cent of young women watched pornography (Malamuth et al 2000).
 The porn that the majority of these young people are watching is the hard and fast free stuff on Red Tube, Porn Hub etc and these videos objectify women, ignore the clitoris and depict unrealistic portrayals of sex.
They make us feel inadequate. Men feel they should have huge cocks AND keep it up for hours on end whilst periodically sticking it into every possible orifice of a woman. They feel they should have hairless chests, perfect pecs and a Hollywood tan. The women in popular pornos have gigantic tits, hairless cunts minus most of the outer labia and an amazing ability to reach a screaming climax anytime a massive cock comes near her. 
It's hysterical really when you think about it and very very far removed from real life, consensual, mutally pleasurable sex. 
Porn is all about fantasy and it has it's place but the problem is that we've taken it too far. Many men and women are now trying to BE like porn stars and ACT like pornstars. Sex becomes about PERFORMANCE, not about pleasure. Young, impressionable teenagers are watching porn in sustitute for sex education and this scares me to death. By talking about sexual pleasure  - about masturbation, about sexy safe sex, about how to give good head or the best moves to guarantee  to stimulate the clitoris - we are providing our young people with an alternative to porn. An alternative to faking orgasm, to hating your body, to spending more time wondering if your belly flab is showing (and we all have belly flab!) and most of all, an alternative to the fucked up fantasies of the human sexual pysche.... because that's all they really are - fantasy and no one ever said fantasies had to impinge on reality!

I'll be writing more about this in the future but wanted to let everyone know what I've been up to and welcome any comments/ questions on this subject. It can get heated in more ways than one!!

Monday 30 May 2011

Cuntversations and Cuntnections!!

We are overwhelmed by all the beautiful and enlightning women and men we met over the last month.

So much so that we are taking a little break to reflect.

Dates for your diaries:

First women's meeting to discuss ideas for the future - Wednesday 6th July at the Impure Art Gallery and Bar, Brighton

Cunt Crafternoon 1 - 4pm on Saturday July 30th
also at the Impure Art Gallery and Bar.

Let me know if you want to attend... or have any ideas/ suggestions.

Big Cunty Love

LC

Friday 6 May 2011

A Celebration - Sponsored by She Said Erotic Boutique and Impure Art

Come and see The Cunt Haven which was originally exhibited for a recent production of The Vagina Monologues.
Groups of women across Brighton got together to find creative ways to express their feelings about their vaginas, their yoni, their pussys (or whatever they called theirs!).

And we felt this powerful bond that we share as women on this crazy and beautiful planet.
Pop in to see us on Saturdays and Sundays 12 to 6.
Tea, coffee and wine served.
There will be the opportunity to contribute to the exhibition (anonymously if preferred).
We will also have coffee mornings and evening workshops throughout May and will post details here once dates confirmed.
We are a non profit community project.
Men most welcome!!! 
The Brighton Fringe Festival, Impure Art Gallery,
42 Ship Street Gardens, Brighton, BN1 1AJ



Monday 2 May 2011

The Word 'Cunt'


The word 'Cunt' is related to words from India, China, Ireland, Rome and Egypt. Such words are either titles of respect for women, priestesses and witches, or derivatives of the names of various goddesses (Musio, 2002)”.

Derivative of the Oriental Great Goddess as Cunti, or Kunda, the Yoni of the Uni-verse …

Cunina”, a Roman Goddess who protected children in the cradle,


Cunctipotent” an all powerful (I.e having cunt magic);
Cunicle,” a hole or passage;

Cuniculate,” penetrated by a passage;

Kin” meant not only matrilineal blood relations, but also a cleft or crevice, the Goddess' genital opening.

A Saharan tribe called Kuntahs traced their descent from this holy place.
Indian “Kundas” were their mothers' natural children, begotten out of wedlock as gifts of the Goddess Kunda.

Of old the name applied to girls, as in China where girls were once considered children of their mothers only, having no connection to their fathers.

In ancient writings, the word 'cunt' was synonymous with 'woman', though not in the insulting modern sense. An Egyptology was shocked to find the maxims of Ptah-Hotep “used for 'woman' a term that was more than blunt”, though its delicacy was not in the eye of the ancient beholder, only in that of the modern scholar.

Medieval clergymen similarly perceived obscenity in female-genital shrines of the pagans: holy caves, wells, groves. Any such place was called cunnas diboli, “devilish cunt” …
Scared places identified with the word – cunt – sometimes embarrassed Victorian scholars who failed to understand their earlier meaning”.

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets,
Walker, 1983

Negative reactions to “cunt” resonate from a learned fear of ancient yet contemporary, inherent yet lost, reviled yet redemptive cunt power. Eradicating a tried and true, stentorian-assed word from a language is like rendering null the Goddess Herself.
It's impossible.

Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Musio 2002

Friday 29 April 2011

Beautiful Quote from a UK research into young women's perceptions of sexual pleasure within safe sex

'Safe sex is as pleasurable an experience as actual penetration. Oral sex, just things like touching somebody else's body in a very gentle way. Kissing. Appreciating one another's bodies. I think it's as much fun if not more. You concentrate on each others needs a lot more. Instead of twenty minutes of bang, bang, bang, you've got the whole night; you watch the dawn come up and you're still there. Before they know it they're converted, and they suddenly realise 'well we haven't actually done it'. [Young woman aged 21].

Lady Cunt in the Easter Bonnet Parade

So it was a very hot day in Brighton and I tottered about on Western Street amongst the other Easter Bonnetees. There was beautiful array of bonnets.



My favourite (besides my own Cunt one of course) was one of Barbie and Ken in a risky sex position surrounded by flowers and feathers. 
This girl came third, I didn't get a look in. 

As a 5 year old girl told me, mine wasn't a BONNET, it was just SOMETHING stuck to a HAIRBAND! I almost told her what that SOMETHING was but felt that even for Lady Cunt, it would be going too far.
She did say I looked like Little Bo Peep too which quite excited me.

Second place was an elderly woman wearing a wedding dress (I think in tribute to the royal wedding... not sure, I chased after her to try get a photo but she disappeared). 

First place was a woman wearing a Carmen Miranda style Fruit Bonett which I feel was no more about Easter than mine but ho hum...


 I managed to get a photo with the Deputy Mayoress before she was whisked away by someone with a bigger camera.
 I did have a very interesting conversation with a gay guy in a stripey dress who said it was the first cunt he had ever seen. I liked his immediate, unflinching acceptance of this use of the word CUNT and let him look at my clitoris.

The nice man in purple told me his bonnet was a cunt too but his boyfriend said he was only joking... so I'll never really know. 

I met an irish man and as irish people do, we had an stumbling conversation in Gaelige. I know what I said and he knew what he was saying but not sure we really understood each other.

Lots of people did the usual "we're shocked but  very very interested" reaction and the girl who's bonnet had Barbie and Ken Fucking ran after me as I left, to take a photo. I obliged.... hoping she would let me take Third Prize but after much debate, we decided that she deserved it.

I walked away not sure if I'd really shared with other people why I was in the parade but I knew in my heart and in my cunt that I'd done my best and that was all that really mattered.






Saturday 16 April 2011

Photos of The Cunt Haven to "Beautiful Flowers" by India Irie

The Vagina Monologues, Brighton April 2011

I heart my cunt recently helped organise a community production of The Vagina Monologues with the beautiful Lily Rose Double from Loba productions and an amazing cast of incredible, passionate women. 

Lady Cunt performed the monologue “Hair” and Queen Clit, The Cuntess and our newest member, Princess Labia were positioned at front of house, meeting and greeting audience members.
Some arrived excited, some apprehensive and some plain scared but they all left feeling lighter, wiser and more connected with each other and the cast.

I heart my cunt also had the task of decorating the venue and turning it into
The Cunt Haven. This included 20 gold framed Collages of Cunts, big 3D vaginas
and Cunt bunting (“Cunting”).
Groups of women across Brighton got together to find creative ways to express
their feelings about their vaginas and to share stories.  

We laughed, we cried but most of all felt this strong,indescribable bond that
we share as women. We'd like to dedicate the exhibition to Eve Ensler, the
courageous shining light who created The Vagina Monologues. 

Thank you Eve, you managed to put into words what we are all feeling deep
down inside of us, in our hearts and in our cunts.
We would like to continue this experience by sharing with more and more
women by giving them the opportunity to contribute and are also looking
for a place to exhibit so if you are interested, please contact us.

A special thank you to:
Taboo of Surrey Street
Lust of Gardiner Street
Louise Everett
Liz Dean
Lis Long
 Louise Taylor and her 4 year old daughter, Lily Anna Taylor.









Saturday 19 March 2011

Moon Inside You - Diana Fabianova Interview

The Moon Inside You - documentary on how menustration affect us ALL!

Update on the shenanigans of I heart my cunt

We haven't had a chance to update the blog for awhile as we have each been super busy getting about in town shouting our heads off about how the cunt truly is the core. We have been out, talking to women and men and hearing what they have to say. Some we agree with, some we don't but we learned alot in the process and we'd like to say that we still entirely stick by our original point - that the cunt cannot be ignored, that it's the time for the cunt to be celebrated.

We aim to entice women;
To get their creative juices flowing.
To listen to their core, their centre and find a way to express what they hear.
To connect with what's really going on in our bodies and learn to be gentle with ourselves.
To break down feelings of guilt and shame that we have internalised by simply being a woman in
modern society.
To begin to challenge our personal and social barriers to talking about our sexuality to each other.
To find a way to then impart new found knowledge to others so we can unite and begin celebrations together!