EMandLO.com contributor Jewely Hoxie, who is studying Human Sexuality at the University of California Santa Cruz — you can read her blog here — has this to say:

Emma Goldman: 1800’s anarchist, philosopher, and rebel women. She believed in free-thinking, free-love, and birth control. The woman wasn’t so much of a suffragist, seeing as she once said, “If voting changed anything, it would be illegal,” but she is known for starting anarcha-feminism. As a radical thinker of her time, she fought for the rights of all genders and sexual orientations. Even in all her extremity (yes, there are stories that she plotted an assassination, politically driven, of course), this rebel woman has had a striking influence on me. She died 72 years ago this week. Get inspired:

1. “It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.”

This taught me that sex is real and normal and human. It is okay to be interested in and ask questions about it. The only judgments that can be made about your sexual fetishes are the ones you make yourself (consent is always a good one though).

2. “Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.”

Our sex scripts tell us that women should be silenced and submissive. Thanks to Goldman, I hope we’ve learned that our pleasure is our own and we have the right to tell others what we want (and don’t want).

3. “Real wealth consists in things of utility and beauty in things that help create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in.”

I keep this quotation above my desk as a reminder of what gives my life meaning and fulfillment. I would also say this is an understanding we have here at EMandLO.com: we encourage loving our bodies and our surroundings.

4. “I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood.

Pretty much speaks for itself, in the most beautiful and real of ways.