This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy,

Yours,
Hopefully Bi

Dear Hopefully Bi -

I want you to breathe. Your partner is just starting a journey. He may end up fully transitioning, he may end up occasionally wearing women's clothing, or he may do none of the above. Regardless of what his journey will be, you want to be supportive (which is great). However, you are already going into full-fledged end result mode. That's not helpful, either for you or for him.

I think your supporting of him is wonderful. You self-educated, which is great, as too often non-trans folks expect trans people to educate them. You are showing him love and support - also great. Have you asked him what he needs? Does he have other people that he talks about this with? You can support each other, but you cannot be each other's only support.

I can't tell you what your sexual orientation/attraction looks like. I don't think you can at this point either. Instead of trying too hard to anticipate the future, keep going with the flow. As he takes steps, see how that feels in terms of your emotions, your desires, and your relationship. You are trying to predict his desires and your reactions, his body and your reactions, his sexuality and gender and your reactions. If he transitions, he may fancy men. You may find the need to sleep with men. You may become polyamorous in your relationship or just your sex life. You can't know all of that at this point: just keep talking.

You know what the potential concerns are not only around his possible transition but also around your own habits, so keep an eye out for your unhealthy patterns. Think about how you're supporting yourself. Do you have friends you can discuss this with? Have you found any on-line communities of people going through similar situations? How is he supporting you? Make sure that you have built-in structures for taking care of yourself. For example, a set dinner or coffee date with a friend to discuss what is going on with you, your partner, and your relationship.

Put telling the parents to the side for now, as you don't know what the situation is and you can't explain until you know where you stand with it.

Breathe, honey. You have a great partner, good communication, and a journey in front of you. Keep taking care of yourself and him, and make sure he is doing the same. You have no idea where this journey ends, but you have a great basis for a relationship, be it romantic or friendship, and either one is a blessing.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

Senator Al Franken is a man who hardly needs, but certainly deserves, an introduction. Franken's start in politics was purely satirical: After graduating with honors from Harvard, Franken moved to New York and joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, where he wrote and performed for fifteen years. As the years went on, he continued combining comedy and politics, writing several books including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and the New York Times bestseller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

In 2004, Franken launched his radio show, The Al Franken Show, on Air America. The show, which ran for three years, was inspired by Franken's belief in the power of talk radio and his concern that the talk radio airwaves were dominated by conservative commentators. The Al Franken Show ran for almost three years, with Franken broadcasting for three hours a day, five days a week. On the final episode, in 2007, he announced his candidacy for the US Senate.

The 2008 election was a tight one, so tight that it wasn't actually decided until June 2009, when the Minnesota State Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by his opponent and declared Franken the winner of the election that had taken place seven months earlier. He was sworn in July 2009 and now serves in the Senate alongside his fellow Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

Since taking office less than a year ago, Franken has shown himself to be a genuine feminist ally. Most notably, he took up the cause of Jamie Leigh Jones, a young woman who was gang-raped by her fellow KBR employees while working for the defense contractor in Iraq in 2005. Jones was unable to take civil legal action against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that the case - and any other sexual assault, harassment or battery cases - be heard in private arbitration rather than in the courts. In response, Franken proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would prohibit any contractor with such a policy from being granted a contract with the US military. The amendment passed 68-30 in October 2009, with all "no" votes coming from the Republican side of the aisle.

It was an honor and a distinct pleasure to be able to interview Senator Franken, who, as you'll see below, is not a big fan of Xena, Warrior Princess, but who loves him a good stew.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Senator Al Franken.

It's LGBT Pride Season! Most US cities host a pride parade and/or festival during the month of June. I'm attending DC Pride this weekend!

Florida Governor Charlie Crist vetoes the mandatory ultrasound bill. Yay!

Two gay best friends were elected prom king and queen in upstate New York.

Our community site has some awesome content up right now. Check it out.

We're super excited to announce that Rose Afriyie, Feministing contributor, is back from her hiatus!

We really wanted to announce why she had to disappear from the site, but her WHITE HOUSE INTERNSHIP prevented us from blogging about her. But the good news is she's back and with so much amazing experience to share from her time inside the administration.

Welcome back Rose and stay tuned for her content.

A local news station in Donna Texas reports on a piñata store that is selling piñatas of topless women, some with stripper poles between their legs. The report says that the piñatas are popular for bachelor parties.

You can't see the actual piñatas very well in the video since they have the fuzzy grey strip covering their breasts, but they look pretty characteristically pornographic, big breasts and long blonde hair.

I think I'm more disturbed by the act of breaking open the piñata woman, and the violence that that invokes, than I am disturbed by the nudity. Piñatas are traditionally filled with candy, tied to a tree or hanging from the ceiling, and broken open by people swinging sticks at them, blindfolded.

I had piñatas at my parties as a kid, but they were never of women--usually animal shapes. I definitely understand the cultural significance of piñatas in the Latino community, but this takes symbolic violence against women a bit too far.

The news story doesn't mention the violent aspect of the piñatas, just the passers-by and their children being exposed to these naked women hanging in the shops.

These "stripper" piñatas are a far cry from the traditional ones, shaped like a seven-pointed star.

Our girl Samhita is quoted in this recent Forbes piece about the White House and Women's Issues.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay, 32, executive editor of feministing.com, believes female support is slipping. "Using reproductive rights as a bargaining chip was a big setback, and it made him lose morale with a lot of women's rights groups."

Still, Mukhopadhyay says young women, particularly those who quit their jobs and moved to swing states to campaign for Obama, are frustrated. "They don't feel what they fought for is being legislated. They aren't going to go join the Tea Party, but I think there is a risk that they will check out again."

Read the whole article here.

Hello everyone.  It's been quite a while since I've been around here.  Technical difficulties, and lot's of work to do have kept me away, but I now find myself returning for a special occasion; the invasion of MY area by perhaps the most radical of the nations prominent pro-life groups,  and MY first chance to get out and DO something about this issue in the REAL WORLD, instead of just ranting on the internet.

I live in a small town in New Mexico, called Los Lunas.  It's an easy half hour drive to Albuquerque, which is one of only two real cities in this state.  Since the horrific death of Dr. Tiller, in Kansas, Operation Rescue, headed up by it's truly insane, misogynistic president Troy Newman, has declared Albuquerque the New "abortion capitol".  You see, a new doctor, Dr. Curtis Boyd, has just opened an abortion clinic in Albuquerque, which offers late term abortions, now the third such clinic in the nation.

I subscribe to the e-mail news letters of several anti-choice groups to keep tabs on them, and from an Operation Rescue news letter, I have learned that they have already sent their "truth truck" to scope things out.  IT seems that they will be renting a permanent office space near Dr. Boyd's clinic, to make it trivial to drive down the street a couple blocks and terrorize him, and his patients.

Apparently Mary had an ultrasound machine in that barn where she gave birth to the baby Jesus!

At least that's what a UK anti-choice group would like you to believe. In a new anti-choice ad campaign, billboards featuring a simulation of Jesus Christ's ultrasound will be rolled out, according to a recent article in Salon. The campaign will be a seasonal one, rolled out during Christmas time next year with the slogan "He's on His way: Christmas starts with Christ."

John Smeaton of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child says, "This advertisement sends a powerful message to everyone in Britain ... Whenever we kill an unborn child in an abortion, we are killing Jesus."

Update: This comment was too good not to amend to this original post.

MLEmac28 said: That ad is actually very effective. I promise that if I become pregnant without having sex and an angel tells me that I am carrying the savior, I will not have an abortion.

However, given that I am not a virgin, I think giving birth to the messiah is probably out of the question, so I'll have as many guilt-free abortions as I please.

Amen!

UPDATE II: Turns out the billboard is supposedly not meant to be an anti-abortion campaign, but a campaign to promote the religious origins of Christmas. It's being read as a pro-life message though, and I would say rightly so.

Vanessa mentioned this in a quick hit last week, but it deserves some more air time because it's spot on.

From Jessica in the Washington Post:

Today, however, Palin is happily adopting the feminist label. She's throwing support behind "mama grizzly" candidates, describing the large number of women in the "tea party" as evidence of a "mom awakening" and preaching girl power on her Facebook page.

It's not a realization of the importance of women's rights that's inspired the change. It's strategy. Palin's sisterly speechifying is part of a larger conservative move to woo women by appropriating feminist language. Just as consumer culture tries to sell "Girls Gone Wild"-style sexism as "empowerment," conservatives are trying to sell anti-women policies shrouded in pro-women rhetoric.

For realz. Go read the rest if you haven't already.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act by President Kennedy in 1963. It was a big deal, to put it lightly, and in the 47 years since it was signed, we've still got a long way to go when it comes to pay equity.

Courtney mentioned this in the What We Missed yesterday. Here is what President Obama had to say about Equal Pay Day:

On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, which sought to end wage discrimination on the basis of sex. At the time, women were paid 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. 47 years later, pay parity remains far from reality, as women in the United States still only earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, this gap is even wider. This remains unacceptable, as it was when the Act was signed. All women - and their families - deserve equal pay. Women now make up nearly half of the nation's workforce, most homes have two working parents, and 60 percent of all women work full-time. As we emerge from one of the worst recessions in American history, when families are struggling to pay their bills and save for the future, pay inequity only deepens that struggle and hampers our economy's ability to fully recover.

I'm really glad he mentioned the race gap disparity. I'm still shocked by the report I wrote about a few months ago (and that Latoya at Racialicious examined in depth) which explained how big the gap between white women and women of color is when it comes to wealth.

There is much work to be done.