My absolute favorite moment of V to the 10th wasn’t the performance, although I loved it, nor the fantastic giant plastic vulva, although I also loved that. My favorite moment was meeting the two authors of The Word Warrior.

The Word Warrior blogs about gender issues of all kinds from the perspective of two students at a Catholic University, Marquette, that has a generally negative perspective on the expression of female sexuality and on gender rights issues generally. Reading them always makes me happy – they tell it like it they see it and they are not afraid to call out their administration for its blindnesses and repressions. I also love that they move fluidly back and forth between campus issues and national issues, and cover everything from economics to gay rights to language politics to, yes, sexual violence.

Peg first linked to them because they did an awesome post on their school’s sexual assault policy. I was so excited to meet them because they recognized us from our blog, and it gave me a real sense of the possibilities of a cross-country community forming around fighting sexual assault on campus. So all of y’all working on your campus, go check out The Word Warrior, say hi, enjoy their blog, support them in their fight to bring discussions of female sexuality and sexual assault to their campus, and share the information about your organization with them and with us. Let’s keep building a network so that we can share information, advice, good arguments, our success stories, our struggles, and lots of moral support.

What to say about New Orleans and V to the 10th? It was a crazy, sleepless, awe-inspiring, deeply moving two days—I am so, so glad we went. I spent Friday and Saturday mostly in the Activist Lounge at the Superdome, talking to students about what they are doing on their campus and what challenges they face. I heard good news and bad news—the administrations at Wichita State, University of Puget Sound, and Bowdoin College got high praise from their students, but I also heard several horror stories from students at other schools. I was blown away by the activist campaigns a lot of students have already started, and hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be posting interviews with and links to the student groups at schools like Shippensburg University, Grand Valley State University, Connecticut College, Valdosta State University, Marquette University and others.

For me, talking to students was the best part of the weekend, and that’s really high praise, considering all the other fantastic things I did and saw. I spent some time on the floor of the Superdome listening to some of the Superlove performances and speakers. One that really stood out for me was the interview with Dr. Denis Mukwege, a doctor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who does reconstructive surgery on women whose vaginas were damaged by rape. To date he has helped thousands of women, and his commitment and compassion is one of the biggest assets the DRC currently has. V-Day will be supporting his work this year. My other favorite thing from the floor was the huge plastic purple and pink illuminated vulva. You can see the pictures on our flickr page, although I’m not sure they quite do it justice. I have a long-standing fascination with cunt art from the early feminist movement, and it was really exciting to see a 2000s addition to that canon.
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