Sexual favours for a price. On the side of the road. Down an alley. In your car. In your hotel room. In your house. On the corner. Wherever it is, it’s likely to be unsafe for the sex worker. Why? You might refuse to use condoms and risk exposing him or her to sexually transmitted […]
Jen Thorpe
Jennifer is a feminist, activist and advocate for women's rights. She has a Masters in Politics from Rhodes University, and a Masters in Creative Writing from UCT.
In 2010 she started a women's writing project called 'My First Time'. It focuses on women's stories of significant first time experiences. Buy the book on the site http://myfirsttimesa.com or via Modjaji Books.
Jen's first novel, The Peculiars, came out in February 2016 and is published by Penguin. Get it in good book stores, and on Takealot.com
Posted inGeneral
2009: What did we learn?
2009 revealed some incredible things to the ordinary person. It was a startling year jam packed with scandal, drama and some serious historical events. A blog is just too short to list all of them, so excuse the number of links here. Hope you enjoy. We learnt that… Nothing is impossible. Nobody is predictable. Nobody […]
Posted inGeneral
Video sex
“You saying that you want me. So press record, I’ll let you film me”. Sounds enticing? Well what about “Do you like what you see? You want to video me”? Even better –“What? You want me naked. If you liking this position you can tape it on your video phone.” Beyonce is one of the […]
Posted inLifestyle
The (sur)name change debate
Why do people get so worked up when women get married and the issue of surname change arises? Over the past few weeks several people that I know or know of through friends have decided to get married. In all cases the issue of whether the wife-to-be should take on the husband-to-be’s surname came up. […]
Posted inGeneral
Ditch the guilt
Christmas traps us. It holds us tightly between layers of expensive non-recyclable wrapping paper smothering our creativity, freedom and genuine feelings. The Christmas season seems to bring our lack of freedom sharply into focus. We are tied by cute ribbons and tassels to the consumerist lifestyle, buying up the shops and making sure that we […]
Posted inGeneral
Let’s talk about masturbation
Most people masturbate. And by people, I mean women too (for the chauvinists out there who haven’t caught onto our people-status yet). It is interesting then that this topic is treated as taboo by most media sources, life-skills counsellors and women. Sexuality is by necessity an intimate and personal thing, and discomfort around public speaking […]
Posted inSport
If soccer were war…
Imagine if instead of winning billions of rands of prize money when you won a soccer World Cup game, you won the country you played against. If, instead of using nuclear weapons, expensive artillery and valuable human lives to wage war, each state had to fight their territorial or ideological battles through soccer. If, after […]
Posted inGeneral
Culture schmulture — some things are just wrong
The Zulu practice of Ukweshwama is violent and inhumane. For those who haven’t been keeping up with the comments around this practice this is what happens: Witnesses to the ritual describe the scene where a bull is released into a group of men, whose duty it then is to slay the animal. However, this is […]
Posted inLifestyle
Karma and scissor muggings
My boyfriend and I were mugged on Monday, by two young men (probably only 19) wielding a pair of kitchen scissors as their weapon. The evening was a beautiful haze of soft light, and as we walked along the slow-moving river, we were marvelling at the beauty of nature and feeling completely at peace. It […]
Posted inGeneral
South Africa, the fatherless country
Have you noticed that South Africa is father-free? Every time you hear a devastating news story about children who have died in a car accident/shack fire/hit and run/scary child stabbing incident the news reader feels that it is imperative to note that “the child(ren)’s mother was not there at the time of the (insert horror […]
Posted inGeneral
Merciful justice
To build the society that we want to live in, which principle do we think is more important — mercy or justice? This was the topic of the latest of the discussion groups that I attended. At first most of us had our knee-jerk opinion — we had decided on our principles and decided which […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Finally impressed…
So it is a pleasure to say that I feel like our president is doing some really good work (or is at least saying he is going to). With the address to the National Council of Provinces on October 29 he has finally ended a nearly decade-long state denial of the HIV and Aids problem, […]