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Fawzia Koofi began her political career in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban, promoting the right to education of girls in her "Back to school" campaign. In the parliamentary elections in 2005, she was elected to the National Assembly for the Badakhshan district in the northeastern part of the country and became its Vice-President.
Koofi was the first female Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the history of Afghanistan. She was re-elected in the parliamentary elections of 2010 and then elected MP from a total of 69 female members of the Assembly. She has escaped several assassination attempts. Today, she is a candidate in the 2014 Afghan presidential elections.
Roya Shams is a 16-year-old Afghan girl who walks to school every day to get her education, regardless of threats of violence from her neighbours and community. Roya is not only determined to learn and to finish high school, but she intends to go on to university and get a degree. She then plans to stick her neck out even further: in a country where a woman is easily cut down for having the nerve to speak up, the burning ambition of Roya’s young life is to become a politician. “We have to study,” she insists. “We have to show them the way.”
On July 5, 1884, a special act of Congress granted Canadian-born Sarah Emma Edmonds, who fought with the Union Army during the Civil War disguised as a man, an Army pension and bonus. The act also granted her an honorable discharge after she was cleared of charges of desertion while fighting as Private Frank Thompson.
“I am naturally fond of adventure, a little ambitious, and a good deal romantic – but patriotism was the true secret of my success.”
I love God. He was so good to give us the gift of masturbation. It allows us to explore our sexuality in a safe way when we are not ready, willing and/or able to share it with others.
Masturbation gets a bad wrap because it is so often associated with pornography. I plan to write several entries on pornography but for right now lets imagine masturbation with out pornography. Just you alone in your bed. Or in the shower. Or in the car. Or wherever.
Masturbation (without pornography) is just like chocolate cake. It's wonderfully delicious. God didn't have to make chocolate cake taste good. The pleasure we get from eating is an added bonus to getting the nutrition we need to make our bodies run. In the same way, sexual pleasure is an added bonus to the act of procreation. I believe sexual pleasure has many more levels to it, but more on that later.
I was in a preschool classroom the other day where the teacher asked her students "Should we eat chocolate cake every day?" and the group of three-year-old's chimed in "No, just sometimes". Can you imagine a world where teachers asked their students "Should we touch our genitals all the time?" and the kids answered "No, just sometimes."
Like chocolate cake, masturbation should be experienced in moderation. We go through different sexual seasons in our life. Sometimes we masturbate every day. Sometimes every week or a few times a month. Sometimes we do it many times a day or once in six months. The point is not how often, but what our intent is in masturbation.
Am I doing it to experience pleasure? Or am I doing it to soothe myself? Am I doing it to cover something up which I don't want to think about? Or am I periodically exploring what turns me on? How do I know the difference?
Find one or two or five people you trust and can be open with. Start sharing with each other about masturbation. If you're young, you may masturbate often because of the fluctuation of hormones. Talk with someone about it. When we discuss things in the open, there is less opportunity for unhealthy things to grow in the dark.
Masturbation that covers something up or soothes a hurt or tries to solve a bigger problem is not healthy. If you find yourself using masturbation in an unhealthy way, talk with someone about it. It may be just a phase or you may need help figuring out the part of your story that you're trying to solve through masturbation.
Love,
Aunt Sissy
No one taught me about sex. Like so many people I know, I learned by listening to other people's stories and experimenting on dates. Is sex something that you can teach anyways? I recently went back to school to learn how to teach sexuality. I really love what I'm doing but it occurred to me the other day - we don't need to teach sexuality to kids. They already know what it is. Humans are sexual from before they are born. When baby boys are in the womb, they get tiny erections. Infant baby girls have physical symptoms of arousal. And it's amazing how quickly toddlers figure out that it feels good to touch their genitals.
Where we need help is in understanding our sexuality in a healthy and holistic way. So few people are out there talking about sex, let alone talking about healthy sexual experiences. Instead, we experience sexuality on the internet, on TV, at school, in books, at work, in our beds alone at night and don't discuss it.
I bet you never got a class in elementary, or junior high or high school or even college where you learned about the 5 elements of holistic sexuality. And I bet no one in your Sunday school class ever talked about sexual pleasure as being a gift from God.
There are so many negative messages we hear about our sexuality that I want to start a new trend. Or rather, I want to do my part to join those who are discussing sexuality as a healthy and positive human experience.
Love,
Aunt Sissy
Sissy Rommely, or "Aunt Sissy", is a character from the novel "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith which tells the tale of a girl coming of age from 1912 to 1917. If you've never read it (and you enjoy reading novels) then pick it up next chance you get. You won't regret it. There are many strong women in the girl's life, one of whom is called Aunt Sissy.
"At ten, Sissy was as fully developed as a woman of thirty and all the boys were after Sissy and Sissy was after all the boys. At twelve, she started keeping steady company with a lad of twenty. Her father nipped that romance in the bud by beating up the boy. At fourteen, she was going with a fireman of twenty five. Because he licked her father, instead of the other way around, this romance ended in the fireman marrying Sissy. They went to city hall, where Sissy swore that she was eighteen, and were married by one of the clerks. The neighbors were shocked but [her mother] knew that marriage was the best thing that could happen to her highly sexed daughter."
Because this blog is exploring sexuality and because I want to convey a sense of familiarity with my readers, I have chosen the name Aunt Sissy to represent my opinions and thoughts about this sensitive subject.
