Shani Raviv
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/ 14 November 2006

Defending the laywoman

On a balmy Saturday afternoon in the suburbs, I am strangling a much older woman with a diamond ring in her nose. When I loosen my grip she shows me her arms. “I’ll have to sue my daughter for bruises from you,” she says. “You’re a violent woman.” My sparring partner blames her daughter for sending her to a self-defence workshop facilitated by 7th Dan Black Belt Karate Sensei Sanette Smit, aka Smitti.

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/ 21 June 2006

Testing … testing … HIV

Getting tested for HIV is about as enticing as sleeping with a new partner for the first time with a condom that the government distributed. It’s a rough ride. Even if you were faithful to your ex-partners and celibate in between. Even if you only had sex using condoms or went to reliable clinics for blood tests or don’t think you ever shot up, although you can’t really remember.

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/ 1 February 2006

Every dog has his day

It’s not every day that men get down on their knees to eat dog biscuits out of a woman’s hand. On the surface, such a scene, from the show Train Your Man, may look like a revolt against the bastard male gene that collectively turned women into hateful tyrants.

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/ 25 January 2006

Keeping abreast

I’ve never been big on breasts. At first I shunned them. Then I strapped them down in puberty’s equivalent of a straightjacket. And as a teenager, I often left them hanging. Only now as an adult am I paying them the respect they deserve by cupping them in imported cotton from lingerie boutiques with names like French confectionaries.

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/ 11 May 2005

Losing my libido

I lost my libido and didn’t know where to find it. I know when I lost it and why. But the sad thing was that I didn’t miss it. If my partner hadn’t warned me that it was gone I wouldn’t even have known. It’s not that I made any conscious decision to be celibate or chaste nor did I choose an asexual existence.

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/ 6 April 2005

Inn love

My boyfriend and I checked into a love hotel for the hour. It was Friday night and we were on an errant mission in an erogenous zone. ”Love hotels are big in Japan,” said Jaco, the hotel owner to whom we introduced our legit selves. ”Your name is hot on the porn sites now — there’s a country and western chick called Shani,” he said with adulation.

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/ 2 March 2005

Frozen on the birth channel

Almost every woman I know is pregnant or planning. Either high on post-conception, heavy with foetus in utero, panicked for the Caesarean section booked for Monday or relentlessly copulating every time there is suspected ovulation. It is as if somebody has rewired the big picture and it has frozen on the birth channel.

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/ 15 September 2004

Speaking in tongues

I was told that my body language gives men the wrong impression. But I cannot remain impervious to such insinuations. Every woman has the right to stride with pride. Just because our bodies speak with self-awareness and confidence does not mean that we are sending out subliminal mating messages to mankind. I have never known a friendly chat with a guy to mean that I wanted him to take me home for a night of pillow talk.

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/ 1 October 2003

‘My vagina wears real fur’

”On the bar menu tonight ladies, you can order a boner. I’ve always wanted to ask for a purple hard-on in a big glass,” announced Noble. What happens when 156 women get together at a strip club for a ‘Goddess Party’? Shani Raviv reveals more than just the details.