The Good For Her Sexual Health, Education & Pleasure Project (SHEPP) is a new not-for-profit organization whose mission is to provide free pleasure based sexual health education workshops to youth and other marginalized communities. These workshops are available throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

We come to your organization or group to provide information on a wide spectrum of issues regarding sex, sexuality, health and pleasure. This includes topics such as healthy relationships, HIV/AIDS and other STI preventions, pregnancy, sexuality, communication and all kinds of different sex. Our focus is on inclusion and the promotion and respect for diversity.

We will be hosting a youth focus group on Thursday June 5 for all youth under 24 to assist us in developing relevant curriculum for the project. We want to hear the perspectives of youth on what pleasure based sexual education means to them, what they would like to learn about, and other opinions on sexual health and sexuality. This will ensure the creation of accurate materials and information for the efficacy of the project to empower youth.

Venue information and details:

Metro Hall
55 John Street
Room 302
(South-east corner of King and John, two blocks east of Spadina)
Toronto, ON M5V 3C6
Public Transit: subway to St. Andrew, then walk through “PATH” to Metro Hall or walk above ground 2 blocks west.

Time: 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

Dinner (including vegetarian options) and TTC tickets will be provided for participation. Door prizes will also be given away!

We ask that interested participants RSVP to Carlyle Jansen at carlyle@rogers.com

Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

So it’s no secret that I really hate that Canadian Club ad and have from the start. It’s also pretty clear that I’m not alone.

Good news is, there are some fantastic bloggers on the interwebs who turned their distaste for this ad into something fantastic and subversive. Michelle Schwartz has a great critique of the campaign:

Apparently, the only people invited to the Canadian Club Club are White Males, Ages 18-30, women and people of color need not apply. It’s not that surprising to me that a company is aiming at that small demographic, but the way they’re doing it is truly offensive. Basically, they are appealing to men who miss the days (whether or not they were born yet) of grabbing the asses of their secretaries, playing a few rounds at the all-white private golf club, and then going home to their wives, the happy homemakers who would mix them drinks, cook them dinner, and wait on them hand and foot. None of this women’s lib, civil rights, limp-wristed liberal bullshit that men are expected to follow these days. No, let’s go back to the days of rampant sexual harassment, before women could expect to be seen as equals and before the gays turned all those masculine men into pansies with waxed eyebrows. Let’s return to the days when men were men. Please.

Her thoughts are accompanied by some of her own (feminist) spoof ads that kick the campaign in the ass. There’s a whole series of them that include “Your Mom Wasn’t a Stepford” and “Your Mom Played Sports.” My fave? “Your Mom Had Groupies.”

As part of the project, Stark brings us this fantastic gem:

Thanks to Michele for alerting us to her great project!

Mother’s Day comes and goes every year, many of us finding ourselves doing the usual flowers and brunch deal. Yet the actual celebration of this day has a lot more significance than Hallmark would like to admit.

It’s worth a click on Wikipedia to read some of the history behind the creation of Mother’s Day, however one thing that sticks out in my mind is how it used to be associated with the honouring of women as goddesses for our physical ability to actually become mothers, which is one of the most powerful forces on earth.

It’s also worth noting that before the Western blitz of the second weekend in May being Mother’s Day, many cultures around the world had and still perform ceremonies that recognize the strength and vitality of motherhood.

Being a mother is of course more than blood and skin deep. I am blessed to have many great friends who have been wonderful maternal influences on my life and whom I see really take care of everyone around them (see my pic below!)

So to all the rockin’ mama’s out there doin’ tha damn thang, nya weh! (thank you!)

Tina and Ariana Lopes who have been amazing mother figures to me.

Spirit is Canada’s leading Aboriginal magazine, featuring cutting edge material from the Native community across the country.

This current publication is their very first SEX issue and I am so darn excited and happy that it exists. The beautiful young woman you see on the cover is none other than Métis burlesque extraordinaire Veronika Swartz, photographed by the Über talented Ojibwe photographer Nadya Kwandibens.

Within these pages you will read some of the most progressive and provocative literary masterpieces as they pertain to sex and sexuality. The sweet essence of breaking down social taboos will linger in your mind as you are drawn into the demystifying truths of how beautiful and sacred sex really is in the Indigenous world. What remains is pride and ownership over our own bodies (a concept we actually started!)

It moves me to tears to know that we are taking back what has been exploited so harshly from us and letting it out now on our own terms. And it’s a pretty powerful thing.

Exposed and in control? I want to be too!

I’m a rejuvenated, revitalized, and renewed young feminist having just attended the planning session for the TOUJOURS REBELLES/WAVES OF RESISTANCE! Pan Canadian Young Feminist Gathering.

So if you haven’t heard of the next big FEMINIST thing in Canada, get yourself to the REBELLES website and fill up with some information on how to get involved and make sure YOU are a part of what will be the greatest woman-power event these parts have seen in a long time.

I was holed up in rural Outaouais with some of the most amazing and inspiring young women’s advocates this country has to offer. These movers and shakers came from all across Canada in solidarity, ready to mobilize on all forms of oppression against women.

Ideas, frustrations, passions, differences, and tears were shared this weekend in the hopes of creating a conference that will truly speak and include as many issues as possible that are eminently affecting young women. We want to redefine what it means to be a feminist and ensure that what it HASN’T been will be what it NEEDS to become to encompass everyone.

I want to thank all of the participants for sharing their authenticity and originality, nowadays getting that in true feminist form is hard to come by. Be proud of giving it to the world just as you are, every day.

This is going to be one heluva kick-ass conference this coming October if these ladies have anything to do with it!

Your 2008 REBELLES! Feminist Action Team

Not tied to any particular event or anniversary, but because I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, and I’m a sucker for emotionally compelling Canadian history. And I find us Canadians so darn cheek-pinching, moose-hugging, maple candy cute when we tap into our nationalism.

So start your week off right with a Canadian Heritage Minute (it’s like oatmeal for the mind):

Emily Murphy: Women as persons under the law.

And then (related?) the bonus round — on the success of the beaver in Canada:
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Yesterday marked the end of the first National Reproductive Justice Week in the United States.

Reproductive justice is not a term we use too often here in Canada, but on my travels to the U.S. I have learned about it and am trying to bring that school of thought over here since I truly believe it speaks more to what’s realistically going on in the actual world of reproductive rights. It will enhance the pro-choice movement, and not only leave it for the select few who feel like they can join or has anything to do with them.

The pro-choice, like many “feminist” movements in the Western world, has had its fair share of white, colonial influence and over-representation. It’s more than time to addres, include, and advocate for our bodily rights and the way we understand them across diverse social, economic, racial, and sexual backgrounds.

So what is reproductive justice you say? Take a look at the video here:

What does reproductive justice mean to you?

Want to be part of the next big FEMINIST thing in Canada???

REBELLES Waves of Resistance

On our way towards our Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Gathering!

11th, 12th and 13th of October 2008 – Montreal

Mobilize, network, energize, and deepen the roots of the young feminist movement across Canada!

For all you Torontonians to learn more about the gathering and how you can get involved, come out to our INFO SESSION:
Monday, April 21st, 6:30-7:30PM
563 Spadina Avenue, Rm. 100 (Centre for Women and Trans People at UofT)

This is a call to all young feminists, students, workers, un(der)employed women, artists, researchers, mothers, feminists of all tendencies and of all types, and of course emerging feminists…

Organizing meetings are happening across the country, so if you are not in Toronto contact info is as follows:
info@rebelles2008.org - www.rebelles2008.org - 514-876-0166 ext. 253.

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Hello out there all you Shameless people! I am excited to be blogging on this brazen space and giving it to you straight up.

I am writing in the Vancouver airport on my way back to Toronto from being part of ’Nał’namwiyut: We Are All One, Transforming Understanding Into Action. It was the First National Aboriginal Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgendered, Queer, Questioning, and Two-Spirited Summit!

It was a phenomenal opportunity to get together in solidarity with folks from around the country to discuss, strategize, and action plan what we need to do for some of our most marginalized brothers and sisters. It was hosted by the BC Assembly of First Nations, the Urban Native Youth Association and a committee of incredible, passionate community partners. I strongly encourage all of you to check them out and support the amazing work that is going on.

WE NEED ALLIES!

I saw so much power in the strength of family and community united for acceptance and acknowledgement these past three days, with the beautiful profusion of tradition and culture. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in the mindset of the place we live in and miss out on the chance to look across the country and see how we can really connect and make great things happen!

So this is how I’m going to be dishing it out; notes from the field, rants on racialized issues, notions of Indigenous feminism, recognition of the incredible youth out there, and operations of anti-oppressive activism. I encourage you to think outside the box with me and challenge what you think you already know.

I want to hear your voices and I look forward to rocking each other’s worlds!

Me and the beautiful new generation of activists!