This Friday, August 31, Sex Out Loud welcomes author and scholar Hanne Blank. We’ll discuss her work on the history of both heterosexuality and virginity. Blank will talk about the 20th century invention of the concept of “straight” and why everything you think you know about virginity is wrong. Blank is also the author of Big Big Love: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them), updated, illustrated, and re-released in 2011, so we’ll discuss radical acceptance of bodies and how it relates to bettering all of our sex and relationships. This show will be LIVE, so be ready to call in with your questions and join the discussion at 866-472-5788.
Hanne Blank spends her time thinking, learning, writing, and speaking at the crossroads of bodies, self, and culture. Joyfully spanning the town/gown divide as well as the mind/body split, her books include the histories Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality (Beacon Press, 2012) and Virgin: The Untouched History (Bloomsbury, 2007), the cult classic sex and body-acceptance book Big Big Love: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them) (Celestial Arts, 2011), and numerous others.
Hanne’s work has been featured in periodicals ranging from Penthouse to Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, and in anthologies ranging from Embodied Resistance: Challenging the Norms, Breaking The Rules to Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions to Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.
A former Scholar of the Institute for Teaching and Research on Women at Towson University, Hanne has taught in various capacities on campuses including Brandeis and Tufts. She is also a popular speaker and guest lecturer, with appearances ranging from Harvard University to the inaugural Femme Conference and on topics from the history of the hymen to the politics of getting on top.
Hanne divides her time between north-central Massachusetts and Atlanta. She is a passionate defender of the Oxford comma, is a tea and cider drinker who lives in a coffee and beer country, and owns a preposterous number of red lipsticks. Her current projects include books on MFK Fisher, the rights of human bodies, and the thoroughly gory history of gynecology, as well as teaching and lecturing on campuses all over.