Question 1:
What inspired you to become vocal about female sexuality -- a specific event, a general frustration, a philosophical imperative, a sexual desire . . . ?
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Question 1: What inspired you to become vocal about female sexuality -- a specific event, a general frustration, a philosophical imperative, a sexual desire . . . ? |
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 A whole slew of spontaneous reactions to hypocrisy and stupidity. I'm almost forty now, I was a teenager in the early '70s. I remember being in the locker room at high school and overhearing the girl next to me ask another if she could borrow one b.c. pill because she had a date that night. Another friend of mine was pregnant already and I took her to the Venice Free Clinic for an abortion. I myself had no sexual experience other than masturbating up a storm, but I was really indignant about women's ignorance and vulnerability, particularly in sexual matters. I read The Female Eunuch while I was ironing my family's laundry during lunch breaks in seventh grade. I remember being thrilled about her dare to taste your own menstrual blood because I had just had my first period, so I could try her experiment on my second month of my period. My father sent me a subscription to Ms. magazine when I turned fifteen, which was the first subscription I had received since Goofus and Gallant's Highlights. I thought is was so fantastically radical -- that's one of the reasons it's so painful that they are such p.c. dopes nowadays. I wasn't alone at my high school, there were a whole group of radical girls who organized everything from an abortion referral center out of the janitors' closet to inviting a panel of lesbians to come talk about gay liberation to the rest of the school. All of these projects were met with agony and suppression from the school administration, but we successfully pressured them into it every single time. We had plenty of feminist parents on our side, it was just in the air -- to protest, to "make a difference," to question everything, to reject the status quo. I would look at the cheerleaders who put "Down with Communism" notes in my locker and wonder what century they were operating from. 
- Sallie's response to Susie |
Question 1 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 2 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 3 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 4 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 5 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 6 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale |
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