Erotic novelist Linda Jaivin chats with Agendered about China, sexuality and opera.

Many women are feminists. Most people have several feminist friends. Yet, I don’t know a single one who doesn’t, at least sometimes, wear make-up.

Genia Kostka & Lisa Lucius explore Chinese lesbian communities—how similar are they to others around the world? Do Western-style “butch/femme” cultures exist in China as well? What kinds of fun can lesbians and bisexual women visiting China look forward to? Genia and Lisa interviewed some 20 women for this article and focused primarily on the Beijing area.

Do genuinely bisexual women really exist or are we, as mainstream culture suggests, the erotic fantasy of straight men? At best, invisible, at worst, resented and distrusted, bisexual women continue to struggle for acceptance within both straight and lesbian communities.

Being a bisexual girl is the height of fashion with I kissed a girl and I liked it topping the singles charts. But how does the reality of female bisexuality compare to the fantasy?

Women’s bodies have been feverishly commodified for centuries. Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, men’s bodies are being aggressively commodified. Their sexualities and processes of aging are being medicalized and pharmaceutical companies are reaping major profits. This phenomenon will be investigated in this article via the advent of the sexuopharmaceutical, Viagra.

“You masturbate, don’t you?” asked my schoolmate as a group of us walked to class. I felt my cheeks flush. How does she know?! I thought Oh God it must leave some kind of sign!
Growing up, masturbation was considered dirty, shameful and embarrassing. Wanking was a whispered accusation against the outsider, a source of shrieks [...]

Welcome to the first issue of Agendered, the only Oxford-wide online feminist magazine