Category: Philosophy of Sex

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You don’t have a male or female brain

– the more brains scientists study, the weaker the evidence for sex differences

Brain sex isn’t a thing.

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Everyone knows the difference between male and female brains. One is chatty and a little nervous, but never forgets and takes good care of others. The other is calmer, albeit more impulsive, but can tune out gossip to get the job done.

These are stereotypes, of course, but they hold surprising sway over the way actual brain science is designed and interpreted. Since the dawn of MRI, neuroscientists have worked ceaselessly to find differences between men’s and women’s brains. This research attracts lots of attention because it’s just so easy to try to link any particular brain finding to some gender difference in behavior.

But as a neuroscientist long experienced in the field, I recently completed a painstaking analysis of 30 years of research on human brain sex differences. And what I found, with the help of excellent collaborators, is that virtually none of these claims has proven reliable.

Except for the simple difference in size, there are no meaningful differences between men’s and women’s brain structure or activity that hold up across diverse populations. Nor do any of the alleged brain differences actually explain the familiar but modest differences in personality and abilities between men and women.

More alike than not

My colleagues and I titled our study “Dump the Dimorphism” to debunk the idea that human brains are “sexually dimorphic.” That’s a very science-y term biologists use to describe a structure that comes in two distinct forms in males and females, such as antlers on deer or the genitalia of men and women.

A pair of wild zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) perch in South Australia. The male is in the foreground, the female behind.

When it comes to the brain, some animals do indeed exhibit sexual dimorphism, such as certain birds whose brains contain a song-control nucleus that is six times larger in males and is responsible for male-only courtship singing. But as we demonstrate in our exhaustive survey, nothing in human brains comes remotely close to this.

Yes, men’s overall brain size is about 11% bigger than women’s, but unlike some songbirds, no specific brain areas are disproportionately larger in men or women. Brain size is proportional to body size, and the brain difference between sexes is actually smaller than other internal organs, such as the heart, lungs and kidneys, which range from 17% to 25% larger in men.

When overall size is properly controlled, no individual brain region varies by more than about 1% between men and women, and even these tiny differences are not found consistently across geographically or ethnically diverse populations.

Other highly touted brain sex differences are also a product of size, not sex. These include the ratio of gray matter to white matter and the ratio of connections between, versus within, the two hemispheres of the brain. Both of these ratios are larger in people with smaller brains, whether male or female.

What’s more, recent research has utterly rejected the idea that the tiny difference in connectivity between left and right hemispheres actually explains any behavioral difference between men and women.

A zombie concept

Still, “sexual dimorphism” won’t die. It’s a zombie concept, with the latest revival using artificial intelligence to predict whether a given brain scan comes from a man or woman.

Computers can do this with 80% to 90% accuracy except, once again, this accuracy falls to 60% (or not much better than a coin flip) when you properly control for head size. More troublesome is that these algorithms don’t translate across populations, such as European versus Chinese. Such inconsistency shows there are no universal features that discriminate male and female brains in humans – unlike those deer antlers.

Human brain structure is the same in males and females.

Neuroscientists have long held out hope that bigger studies and better methods would finally uncover the “real” or species-wide sex differences in the brain. But the truth is, as studies have gotten bigger, the sex effects have gotten smaller.

This collapse is a telltale sign of a problem known as publication bias. Small, early studies which found a significant sex difference were likelier to get published than research finding no male-female brain difference.

Software versus hardware

We must be doing something right, because our challenge to the dogma of brain sex has received pushback from both ends of the academic spectrum. Some have labeled us as science “deniers” and deride us for political correctness. On the other extreme, we are dismissed by women’s health advocates, who believe research has overlooked women’s brains – and that neuroscientists should intensify our search for sex differences to better treat female-dominant disorders, such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

But there’s no denying the decades of actual data, which show that brain sex differences are tiny and swamped by the much greater variance in individuals’ brain measures across the population. And the same is true for most behavioral measures.

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About a decade ago, teachers were urged to separate boys and girls for math and English classes based on the sexes’ alleged learning differences. Fortunately, many refused, arguing the range of ability is always much greater among boys or among girls than between each gender as a group.

In other words, sex is a very imprecise indicator of what kind of brain a person will have. Another way to think about it is every individual brain is a mosaic of circuits that control the many dimensions of masculinity and femininity, such as emotional expressiveness, interpersonal style, verbal and analytic reasoning, sexuality and gender identity itself.

Or, to use a computer analogy, gendered behavior comes from running different software on the same basic hardware.

The absence of binary brain sex features also resonates with the increasing numbers of people who identify as nonbinary, queer, nonconforming or transgender. Whatever influence biological sex exerts directly on human brain circuitry is clearly not sufficient to explain the multidimensional behaviors we lump under the complex phenomenon of gender.

Rather than “dimorphic,” the human brain is a sexually monomorphic organ – much more like the heart, kidneys and lungs. As you may have noticed, these can be transplanted between women and men with great success.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sex-Positivity Means Unlearning Shame

Love & Lust 2021: Developing a Sense of Self

By Jamila Reddy

When I was five years old, my parents gave my sister and me a book called “Where Did I Come From?”

Published in 1973, the book featured illustrations and explanations of how babies are made. On the front and back covers were a sea of cartoon sperm swimming across the page with smiles on their faces. The book featured a friendly-looking (straight white) couple in various forms of undress; kissing, holding hands and “making love.”

My next lessons on sex came in the fourth grade, in North Carolina public school health classes. On a special day that required advance parental consent in order for students to participate, “boys and girls” were separated and sent to two different rooms to view scientific diagrams of our reproductive systems.

I remember feeling awkward in a room full of pre-pubescent youth, all of us squirming nervously through informational videos on puberty — groaning and giggling through re-enactments of first periods and wet dreams.

Before I started having sex, however, most of what I learned about it came from mainstream media: TV, music, and movies.

I remember being shocked and delighted to see portrayals of sex as a young person — the iconic sweaty backseat-window-of-the-car moment from Titanic, music video countdowns featuring scantily clad women, suggestive choreography at my very first Spice Girls concert.

As a kid, my media consumption was regulated to the extent that it could be. My mother would likely be horrified to know that, in middle and high school, I spent many an unsupervised hour at sleepovers watching BET Uncut, a late-night program that streamed sexually explicit, raunchy music videos. Many of these videos were, essentially, DIY low-budget films bordering on actual porn, and the rest were more mainstream but deemed too “mature” to show during regular countdowns. Women were almost exclusively featured in these videos as sexual objects — sporting thongs and tight dresses, licking and poking out their glistening lips, winding and bouncing and bending.

Coming of Age: Sex and Sexist Messages

I grew up unknowingly queer in the Christian, conservative South, and heteronormativity (the assumption of heterosexuality and adherence to a gender binary) pervaded most, if not all, of the lessons I learned about sex. These lessons on what was “acceptable” or “standard” behavior when it came to sex distorted my understanding of what sex was and what it could be. I did not know I was queer until my twenties because, before my twenties, I did not even know what “queer” was. I did not know that sex could be something other than the penetrative sex between a cisgender, heterosexual woman and a cisgender, heterosexual man because I had never seen it.

Until adulthood, nobody in my life talked openly about sex outside of conversations about safety or abstinence.

I learned about sex as a practical endeavor (for the purpose of making babies) and as the standard rule of intimate engagement between cishet men and cishet women (for the purpose of male orgasm). I learned that sex was a thing to be done behind closed doors. I learned that sex was dangerous and risky. I learned that sex was complex and rife with double standards.

Much of my sex education came from social myths. It seemed widely understood that for people assigned male at birth (AMAB), pursuing sex was totally normal and natural, but for people assigned female at birth (AFAB), it was devious and shameful.

Teenage me looked on in horror as the girls who wore low-cut shirts or miniskirts were admonished for having no self-respect, and the ones who made out with boys in the back rows of movie theatres were villainized and shamed for being “sluts.”  I learned, through years of observing the social stigma attached to sexual girls, that sex was something to do quietly and privately — that if I was going to do it, no one should know.

For years, I believed that something was wrong with me for being curious about sex for pleasure. I felt wrong for fantasizing about being sexually intimate with someone. I saw sex as something strange and dangerous, not just for the physical risks it posed to the body, but for how quickly it could lower one’s social worth. So, I suppressed my sexual desires. I learned to be ashamed of them.

Sexual Initiation and Sexual Passivity

The first time I had sex was on the top bunk of a dorm room bed at 19.

My boyfriend at the time, like most of my cishet male sexual partners, had had more experiences with sex than I — not only through having it but through watching porn. Since it was my first time, I deemed him the expert and deferred to him to facilitate our first sexual encounter.

It was uninspiring, to say the least.

I lay on my back in the dark, quiet as a mouse and stiff as a board, as he huffed and puffed on top of me. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and after all was said and done, I turned over and wept into his pillow. Gut-wrenching, loud, ugly sobs. I left feeling dirty. Ruined. I felt like I had “lost” something — like my value as a person worthy of respect had just dropped tenfold.

Despite spending three (monogamous) years in a relationship together, this boyfriend and I never actually had a conversation about what positive, consensual sex looked like. Our sex was boring and routine, and almost always ended with his orgasm, not mine. After we broke up, my sexual experiences varied slightly but pretty much had the same script, different cast. Even when my sexual partners were not cishet men, I followed their lead. I was agreeable, I went along for the ride.

My fear of being labeled a social deviant, a slut, had yielded a lingering sexual apathy — I learned to be passive within sexual encounters. I learned not to consider my own desires and instead to be “okay with” and “down for” anything. I spent years prioritizing my partners’ sexual experience and pleasure over my own, following their lead, doing what I was told. It was not until well into adulthood — and several difficult, transparent conversations with a TGNC (Trans Gender-Nonconforming) sex-positive partner that I realized how desperately I needed to unlearn what I had been taught about sex.

Queer Conversations: Finding Sex-Positivity

Several months into our relationship, my ex-partner — who, for a bit of context, proudly described themself as “pro-ho” — asked, “What do I have to do to get you to ask me for sex?” The question stopped me in my tracks. Admittedly, I hadn’t even noticed that they were always the one who initiated our sexual rendezvous. They expressed frustration over this discrepancy and communicated their desire to feel wanted and to be pursued. After reflecting on why it rarely occurred to me to play a lead role in our sex life, I realized: I never did it because, in the past, I never had to. All of my previous partners came on to me. I had never protested, and none of them had ever complained.

Being in a partnership with someone whose sexual expression is a core part of their identity — someone deeply invested in the pursuit of pleasure and joy — made me glaringly aware of my own internalized sex-negativity.

I discovered how much shame around sex I had internalized, and how much that shame had stunted the growth of my own sexual identity and sexual expression.

I realized that I had allowed myself to become, as James Baldwin so brilliantly put it, a “co-conspirator” in my own oppression. Patriarchy, a social system in which cisgender heterosexual men dominate, is fundamentally rooted in women/AFAB people not feeling in control of their bodies.

Under patriarchy, women — and especially women of color — are systematically disconnected from our bodies. We are socialized not to consider what feels good to us, but as to how we can use our bodies in service of men.

I am working to unlearn these lessons and to exercise full agency over my body. I am working on moving away from shame, stigma, and silence towards a personal sex-positivity. Sex-positivity is a complex notion, and lots of folks have lots of things to say about what it actually means. For me, sex-positivity is the belief that sex, as long as it is healthy and consensual, is a positive thing. The Center for Positive Sexuality provides this definition:

“A sex-positive perspective acknowledges the wide range of human and sexual diversity among individuals; a multitude of sexual identities, orientations, and practices; gender presentations; and the need for accessible healthcare and education. Sex positivity also encourages open and safe communication, ethics, consent, empowerment of sexual minorities, and the resolution of various social problems that are associated with sexuality.”

Moving away from shame and towards sex-positivity means, first and foremost, that I must affirm myself as a sexual being. I have to stop pretending sex isn’t a part of my life. I have to let go of thoughts and beliefs that prevent me from taking control over what happens to my body.

Ultimately, what I want out of sex are the same things I want out of my life as a whole: curiosity, a spirit of play, openness, vulnerability, connectivity, pleasure, freedom.

Unlearning shame is not a journey that will happen overnight, but it’s a worthy endeavor nonetheless. Being sex-positive is about so much more than just having great sex. It’s, in the words of Toni Morrison, about “letting go of the shit that weighs me down.” It’s about prioritizing my own opinions, my own desires, and ultimately, my own happiness. It’s about taking full responsibility for my life and the experiences I have within it.

And what could be more radical than that?

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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“Kink” Confronts the Challenge of Turning Sex Into Literature

A perhaps irreconcilable tension exists between a good story about kink and a good story about what kink means.

By Katy Waldman

“I’ve been kneeling here about ten minutes in the sheer black blouse, the crotchless panties. I don’t dare get up long enough to check my makeup. My back is straight, and my palms and cunt are trembly. The motion-sensor light outside the house blinks on, and then the door swings open.” So begins a scene from “Emotional Technologies,” by Chris Kraus, one of the fifteen stories rounded up in “Kink,” a new anthology of literary fiction. The book mostly interprets kink—nontraditional sexual preference—to mean B.D.S.M., with a smattering of polyamory (and, puzzlingly, liaisons between trans or fluidly gendered people). “Literary fiction,” meanwhile, is a publicist’s phrase. Here, it nods to the reputation of the volume’s editors, R. O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, and to the prestige of its contributors, who include Alexander Chee, Carmen Maria Machado, and Brandon Taylor. (Skimming the table of contents conjured, for me, the entrance to some publishing gala where place cards inscribed with gold calligraphy rest on white tablecloths.) In an introduction, the editors write of their hope to address kink as “a complex, psychologically rich act of communication” that raises “questions of power, agency, identity.” The stories, in other words, should do more than titillate. They should edify, challenge; they should buy you dinner.

That’s the goal. In reality, the tales sit at various intersections of smolder and technical accomplishment. Many do exert an indirectness or subtlety that bends the straight line from longing to gratification. Of these entries, some are arresting—the characters precise, the language invitingly lush—and some are inert. Several contributions evoke erotica, and a few manage to be both sexy and illuminating, although too much thoughtful interrogation can diminish the sex, like explaining a joke. What becomes clear is that a perhaps irreconcilable tension exists between a good story about kink and a good story about what kink means.

Consider Kraus’s entry, which I loved for the way it presses the hard edge of theory against the body’s soft surface. Dom-sub performance is “a bit like what Ezra Pound imagined the Noh drama of Japan to be,” she writes, “a paradox in which originality is attained only through compliance with tradition.” Kraus argues that sadomasochism takes the rituals of courtship literally: “How many times have I, has every heterosexual female in this culture, spent evenings mooning around our houses and apartments, psychically stripped bare and on our knees while waiting for ‘his’ call?” But if rote or prescribed gestures can paradoxically confer freedom, they also brighten the challenge of crafting “literature” out of kink. For Kraus, the sadomasochistic encounter represents a “mythic text,” in which psychological dynamics become externalized: “everything’s direct and on the surface . . . the master and the slave, the monster and the slut.” Stories that cut, as many of “Kink” ’s do, in the other direction—toward metaphor, subtext, an interior world—conform to our idea of good fiction, but they also seem to waste an opportunity to explore kink as an aesthetic.

Of course, there are myriad sensibilities that might read as kinky, just as there are myriad ways to define kink. But the book doesn’t offer precise definitions of its subject, and so its aesthetics are also imprecise, defaulting often to a diligent seriousness. Mainly, the book bestows visibility: on unconventional desires, on the authors who depict them. Here is a married couple—an ex-Catholic woman and her vanilla husband—who arrange a session with a dominatrix; here is a sex worker, with her “long, black, dark, and lovely wig,” and the boyish client who calls her “Ma’am” before he sucks her cock; here is a divorced gallery curator who, wooing his girlfriend at a KinkFest convention, conceals a history of experimentation with his cousin. You might secretly wait and hope for the acknowledgment of your own proclivity—who wouldn’t—but it’s also pretty clear that part of the book’s allure flows from what could (charitably) be called curiosity, or (uncharitably) voyeurism. This isn’t unique to “Kink,” of course. On some level, to read anything is to press your face to the keyhole of other people’s fantasies.

What you see, in this case, is how kink can be used to connect, invent, play, or hide, to deflect real vulnerability with a staged submission. The collection’s strongest stories, remembering that sex also takes place in the brain, twist the mental and the physical into a Möbius strip. In “The Cure,” by Melissa Febos, a depressive character releases herself from worrying about her lover’s comfort, unceremoniously sending him away whenever he uses poor kissing technique or expects too much tenderness. The scenes of intercourse are spare and efficient. It is not until afterward, when the woman is alone, that a warmth and lyricism enter the prose: “the orgasm was deep and silent, the kind that opens a room in the body and then fills it with light.” Taylor’s story, “Oh, Youth,” seems almost to glisten with physical craving. It’s set in a place of manicured beauty, with pools and lawns and terraces, and the narrator is alert to both his and his friends’ bodies, noticing their nostrils, nails, sacra, the fine hair on their forearms. But, as with Roxane Gay’s similarly sensual contribution, the story’s real drama is psychological. Both authors explore the humiliation of loving others, and what patience and privacy those others are owed.

The obligations that intimacy creates form a surprising through line in “Kink.” For all its raunch, the book is very much a study of trust. Greenwell’s story, “Gospodar”—which also appears in his novel-in-stories “Cleanness,” from 2020—speaks from the wreckage of that trust. After the narrator meets up with another man, the interaction careens, at first imperceptibly but then unstoppably, from stimulating to predatory. The story’s work is to show how blurry the edge between appropriate and inappropriate behavior—an edge defined entirely by consent—can seem from without, and yet how undeniable its violation feels to the lover, who is now, also, a survivor. But Greenwell’s narrator—his survivor—does not settle for long in this new identity. Having escaped, bleeding and weeping, into the street, he uneasily imagines the moment in which his boundaries will again disappear: “I felt with a new fear how little sense of myself I have, how there was no end to what I could want or to the punishment I would seek.”< Greenwell demonstrates how the extremity—the perceived borderlessness—of sadomasochistic practice can be used to justify harm. But, reading “Kink,” I started to think not just about the perimeters of acceptable actions but about the perimeters of authorized feeling. For centuries, literature has been considered a realm of exquisite and epic emotions: love, hate, joy, grief. In her 2005 book, “Ugly Feelings,” however, the critic Sianne Ngai argues that contemporary fiction deserves recognition for evoking such “unprestigious feelings” as irritation and anxiety. “Kink” almost reads as a continuation of this project, a bid to add lust or arousal to the suite of celebrated “literary” responses. (In this, the editors honor a long lineage of writers, from the Marquis de Sade to Mary Gaitskill.) The point is not to perfectly elucidate kink as a concept but to lower the drawbridge of literary value—to the unapologetically porny “Best Friendster Date Ever,” by Chee (which previously appeared in “The Best American Erotica 2007”); to the prickly, seductive “Safeword,” by Kwon (which was published, in 2017, in Playboy); to “The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror,” by Machado, a tale as indebted to bodice rippers as it is to the velvet butcheries of Angela Carter.

In some cases, the recognition is overdue. And yet I would be remiss if I did not mention that several of the stories in “Kink” are abysmally bad. You can pursue the causes, consequences, and metaphors of B.D.S.M. so studiously that the acts themselves become domesticated. (Also, several entries are rife with cliché—and not the liberating kind.) It’s curious that the collection declares its subject to be kink, not sex; doing so embeds the gathered work in a firmament of norms and identities rather than one of hungers, sensations. But maybe this is by design; as the reader’s mind tracks back and forth between bodies and definitions, she begins to see those definitions’ flimsiness, and to wonder about the unexpressed depths that live in each of us. Cultural judgments are never fixed, and the imprecision of the word “kink” in some ways echoes the imprecision of the word “literature,” which depends on a superfluity of truth or beauty that is impossible to pin down. In that way, at least, art is exactly like smut: you know it when you see it.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Best Sex Advice We Heard From Experts In 2020

by Kelly Gonsalves

Amid everything that’s happened this year, it’s possible sex wasn’t your top priority. But here at mbg, we believe intimacy can be a reprieve from the chaos—a source of much-needed relaxation, self-care, and pleasure. Below, here are some of the best tidbits of advice we received from our sexuality experts this year that you may have missed but will always be relevant when you’re ready for them.

Couples need more nonsexual touch.

“I often talk with the couples I work with about the importance of nonsexual touch in a relationship. It is okay to tickle each other, rub your partner’s back or simple sit close side-by-side. Those things are intimate but does not have to lead to sex. It is important for your partner to understand that every time you touch them, it is not always an invitation to jump your bones.”

—Kiaundra Jackson, LMFT, licensed marriage and family therapist

Remember that you’re in charge of your own arousal.

“Girls continue to be raised with the expectation that their experience of sexual arousal and desire lies in the hands of another. With very little reality-based, concrete sex education to be had in schools or homes, girls, and later, women, don’t always know the intricacies of their own bodies and how they work, what sensations mean or don’t mean, how their sensory and physical responses (or lack of responses) connect to lust, arousal, and love, and even simply what feels good and what doesn’t. If women don’t know these things about themselves and their bodies, how likely is it that a partner will?

Saddling your partner with a disproportionate amount of responsibility for your arousal can limit them and disempower you. It leaves you in a position where you’re dependent on another person for your own sexual engagement. I’m not saying people shouldn’t strive to get to know their partner’s sexuality and sexual preferences or that there’s no such thing as skilled lovemaking. I am saying that expecting your partner to arouse you can set up an all-or-nothing dynamic that blocks your own sexual desire. This expectation has as its subtext, ‘Either you know how to arouse me, or you don’t. If you don’t, we’re not a good match.’ This can lead you down the path of unrealistic hopes and erotic rescue fantasies.”

—Alicia Muñoz, LPC, couples therapist

If you masturbate frequently, mix up your masturbation method every now and then.

“If a person enjoys masturbating in a specific routinized way (e.g. always sitting in a chair, or to pornography, or with a tight fist) and only masturbates in that way, they may notice difficulty maintaining their erectile or reaching orgasm in partnered sex if it doesn’t mirror what they do when they’re alone. To avoid this potential risk, men can try switching things up every so often in their masturbation practice, and they also could add in some of their solo play activities to partnered sex! This could look like watching porn together, trying mutual masturbation, showing their partner how they like to be touched or guiding their hands, having sex in the places you masturbate, or starting with partnered play and then bringing themselves to orgasm in the way they usually do.”

—Shadeen Francis, LMFT, sex and relationship therapist

Have some type of sexual intimacy every 48 hours.

“Usually after doing some initial work with a couple, if both partners are open and willing, I will prescribe some form of sexual intimacy to be shared between the couple at least every 48 hours to speed up their reconnection.

That’s right: some kind of sexual intimacy, every 48 hours.

First of all, when I say ‘have sexual intimacy every 48 hours,’ I’m not talking about penis-in-vagina intercourse exclusively. It’s important for couples to expand their definition of sex to include other forms of sexual intimacy such as sensate touch, sensual massage, manual stimulation, and naked cuddling, just to name a few. There are many types of sexual touch that can be physically pleasurable, and all of it helps couples foster more intimacy and connection.”

—Sara Sloan, Ph.D. LMFT-A, sex therapist

Recognize the link between emotional and sexual intimacy in relationships.

“Emotional intimacy is being able to share your feelings. Being emotionally intimate with another person means being vulnerable and knowing that you’re not going to be hurt by them. This ability to share your emotions, outlook, and feelings grows your connection as a couple.

Sexual intimacy is being able to connect sexually with your partner in an emotionally and physically safe way. Sexual intimacy improves when two people can openly discuss needs, wants, or desires, creating a safe space where both individuals can communicate their physical and sexual needs without being judged.

When you get your emotional needs met and feel emotionally connected to your partner (that is, you have emotional intimacy), then you’re often more able and willing to connect sexually. In other words, emotional intimacy often bolsters sexual intimacy.”

—Kristie Overstreet, Ph.D., LPCC, LMHC, CST, clinical sexologist and psychotherapist

Having a sexual health provider you really trust matters—especially for Black women.

“Sexual communication is not only vital to sexual relationships; it is essential for doctor-patient relationships. Meeting with health care professionals for preventive care and to discuss sexual health concerns leads to a better sex life. Unfortunately, much of Black history in America stems from elements of slavery that has affected several generations. Medical experimentation on Black bodies is not just a thing of the past, and that history comes with understandable mistrust of information and treatment from medical providers. Throughout history, Black women have endured medical mistreatment and tend to feel as if they are unseen and unheard.

More than ever, Black women need access to quality sexual health care and, more importantly, a trusted medical provider. They deserve to feel like their sexual health care experiences are provided in a confidential, respectful, and nonjudgmental manner.”

—Ashley Townes, Ph.D., MPH, epidemiologist

If you open yourself to it, you can access orgasmic energy even without physical touch.

“The basic idea behind the energy orgasm is that we all have this potent stream of Eros within us, this sexual, creative, life force energy flowing and animating our being at all times. This flow is literally available to us continuously, but unfortunately, it’s currently not socially acceptable to fall into an orgasmic swoon in public at any time of the day or night, so we generally hold our energy systems kind of tightly and keep our minds firmly in control of the situation.

Due to a variety of factors, the vast majority of people only know how to access orgasmic energy when their genitals are being stimulated, with some requiring greater levels of stimulation than others to get to that place of energetic expansion and flow. (For some it is still frustratingly difficult to access orgasmic energy even with physical stimulation, possibly because the mind is stubbornly clinging on too tightly. This could be due to past traumas, feeling unsafe in one’s body, the presence of physical pain, negative social conditioning or shame around sexual pleasure, unhelpful belief systems or patterns regarding one’s sexuality, or any number of challenges.)

An energy orgasm can also be called a ‘mind-gasm’ because you only have to ‘let go’ of your mind in a particular way to allow the power of this orgasmic flow to come through. You could say that most people may only ‘let’ themselves access it during genital stimulation, but once you know it’s possible to connect with this energy without direct physical contact, it becomes vastly more available to you.”

—Leslie Grace, R.N., registered nurse and certified tantra educator

“For couples who might be struggling with sexual intimacy but feel connected in other areas of the relationship, I recommend scheduling sex. Yes, I said schedule sex.

This doesn’t mean what you might be thinking it means. And it doesn’t make sex less spontaneous. Scheduling sex is a way to show your partner that you want to prioritize sex just as you do other areas of importance in your life. Scheduling sex doesn’t mean that your sex life will run on a schedule like, every Tuesday, at 8 p.m., in the missionary position, for 6 minutes. No, not like that.

Sometimes scheduling sex is telling your partner to be naked when you get home.”

—Shamyra Howard, LCSW, sex therapist

Reject the narratives about what you “should” be doing with life after 40.

“When you feel trapped in a box, you don’t want to have sex. Truly making love is generative, free, expressive, and creative. It’s a dance that takes place in an open field, not a dark tunnel. Love cannot be confined within walls. Trying to do so makes it die.

This observation points to one of the key findings of my research and perhaps the most important ‘secret.’ It’s not aging that causes our sex lives to decline. It’s the feeling, conscious or subconscious, that we are trapped.

This is why women of all ages invariably have a spike in libido when they start a new relationship and why having a deep spiritual understanding (of something bigger than ourselves) is associated with a better sex life. The truth is we are not and never were trapped. We put ourselves in a prison but forget we hold the key. Outside those walls is a world of infinite possibility.

As I talked with the sexually woke, this theme came up over and over again. These women did not complain about aging; rather, they appreciated their newfound wisdom and freedom and universally described this as the best time of their lives.”

—Susan Hardwick-Smith, MD, OB-GYN

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Meet the Couple Fighting Porn’s Race Problem

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Whether we’re talking about its reliance on fetishization, the overt pay discrepancies or the fact that it’s always been a predominantly white space, it’s no secret that porn has a race problem. But after 20 years of shared experience as performers, educators and master fetish trainers, Jet-Setting Jasmine and King Noire are trying to instigate change with their award-winning adult production company, Royal Fetish Films — and it’s a masterclass in leading by example.

Since its inception, Royal Fetish has challenged industry norms by demonstrating what a more inclusive, ethical and safe space for BIPOC performers actually looks like. And it all began about 10 years ago, after the real-life couple — who you may also recognize from their @sexpositiveparenting Instagram — started hosting their Fantasy Flight fetish parties. Primarily attended by Black women, it didn’t take long for Jasmine and King to start hearing about how their attendees didn’t “feel good watching” the Black porn that was currently available. So as a result, the pair began making work that was more about being “able to show people of color in a way that most porn does not.”

“[In other porn productions], they’re making us work… They’re not showing a romantic scene where it’s not only about the hardest fucking you’ve ever seen,” King said, before Jasmine went on to say that Royal Fetish tries to give people a more holistic, realistic view of BIPOC sex.

Royal Fetish’s productions tend to focus more on passion and foreplay, all while showcasing sex that isn’t hinged on harmful stereotypes or pigeonholing. And sometimes achieving this is as simple as just letting people be themselves — whether that means allowing models to speak normally or encouraging Black performers to incorporate things that “highlight our culture, like waist beads or headwraps or ankhs.”

“We would never tell [a performer] like, ‘Hey, the jewelry you’re wearing is too cultural. Please leave that out,'” King added. “We also don’t ask people to speak in a way that they wouldn’t naturally speak. For example, we were talking to a performer that’s Asian and they were telling her to not speak clear English. We’re not here to try and sell a caricature. We’re here to actually show people having the sex that they enjoy, but showing how beautiful it is at the same time.”

After all, these kinds of issues were things that King had to experience firsthand as a former performer. And so, by the time the couple had started the Fantasy Flight series, he had already left the industry because his “overall experience from porn wasn’t great,” especially as someone with a background in activism.

“Fetishized porn has made the porn industry be able to fix itself after losing all the money they lost.”

“Since I had been in the porn industry, people were asking me all the time, ‘What was that experience like?,’ especially since I know the history of our people,” King said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t really fuck with it.’ There was so much racism going on.”

These racialized fetishes have roots in colonization and are predicated upon “the oppressor always romanticizing and fetishizing the oppressed” — something that’s evident through the continued hypersexualization of Black women or the “big Black cock” fetish in porn. Because as King explained, these particular ideas have roots in the slave auction when white people “would try and choose men with the largest penis, because they felt they would breed the best, or Black women with their hips.” However, the only difference now is that “white people can’t just say that anymore out in the open.”

“They can’t be like, ‘I think Black people are more sexual because of X, Y and Z. So instead, they find it in their porn,” King said. “Or, they think it would be hot to have sex with a woman in a burqa, because they’re told, ‘These people are bad and wrong, and they don’t have sex.’ So as an American conqueror, I want to have sex with a woman in a burqa.”

He continued, “A lot of these really extreme racialized fetishes are a white person conquering these other people sexually. They’re never like, ‘I love Black people because of their ability to overcome obstacles.’ It’s always like, ‘No, I want to fuck Black people, because they have this body part. Or, I want to fuck Asian people, because I think they’re subservient to white people. It’s always that conquering involved in it.”

But in terms of porn’s continued perpetuation of these fetishes, King went on to say that a lot of it can be chalked up to the industry itself cashing in on this content as a way to recoup the losses they incurred from the shift to online.

“You look at porn over the last 10 years, what has been the biggest shit? Interracial, BBC. Right? Latino, Asian,” he said. “Fetishized porn has made the porn industry be able to fix itself after losing all the money they lost from still trying to have craft services and make VHS tapes. But how did porn catch up? Through the fetishization of people of color and Black bodies.”

“You do need to take the time and talk and ask and reassure and check in. Because we have been an abused people, and continue to be.”

Granted, the duo said that the issue likely won’t go away until there is a wider cultural shift toward addressing sex workers and porn. After all, as Jasmine went on to explain, despite porn and sex workers being “everybody’s guilty pleasure,” the puritanical mores that prevent us from admitting to these dirty little secrets mean that we are never forced to face the idea that we may have “this nasty fetish or this dehumanizing idea in this little pocket of my life.”

“No one wants to talk, fix or improve the guilty pleasure. It’s a guilty pleasure for a reason, right? And in order for me to fit in and improve, it would mean that I have to fix and improve the issue that I have within myself,” she said. “But that’s exactly where it stops. With like, ‘Oh, god, this is horrible. But who do I tell about it, because if I tell someone about it, then they know I watch it.’ Or, they’re talking about fetishization, and ‘I wouldn’t like that and I don’t want them to take that away from me. So I’m just gonna silence that. I’m not gonna talk about that.'”

In the meantime though, they said that diversifying porn companies and urging them to have deeper conversations about racial issues are essential steps toward fixing this problem — especially amidst the long-overdue conversations spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement. As King said, “Do you know how much racist shit would be avoided if you had a Black person that worked in your office that could tell you, ‘Nah dude, that’s a bad fucking idea?'”

“A lot of these companies are like, ‘Oh, shit, we’re not racist. We posted Black Lives Matter and now we’re good.’ Meanwhile, the name of their company is Blacked and it’s saying that fucking Black people makes you somehow ‘tainted.’ Or you’re Dog Fart and you’ve been making the most racist shit ever for the last 10 years. Or you’re BangBros who owns Black Patrol,” he added.

“You’re not understanding the ramifications of what you’re putting out there,” he said. “You’re trying to capitalize on it, so a lot of these companies are not trying to get any better. They’re hoping that this will blow over. Or they’ll just want to pick up the group of people that are still racist, that are still looking to buy racist ass porn. And they know that because of the lack of opportunity for Black people in our industry, there’s always going to be somebody who needs to pay the rent or needs to eat, so they’re willing to take a fucked up scene.”

Like other forms of media, Jasmine — who also has a background in psychotherapy with an emphasis on intimacy and post-intimacy trauma — said that ensuring there’s also representation behind the camera will go a long way in terms of creating a safe space with a level of cultural sensitivity toward BIPOC talent, particularly Black performers.

“I do think that there is some value in understanding generational trauma when it comes to people of color, and sex and sexuality. I think sometimes a lot is not understood about the nuances of our sex with pacing, for example,” she said, adding that while some other porn production companies may have good intentions, “understanding the needs of the population that they want to shoot with” is equally as important.

“There is a high turnover rate for people in industry, especially for Black and brown performers because of that pigeon hole that we get placed in.”

“[Especially when productions are rushed], things are not taken into consideration. Like, the type of care our people need. Or why something may take a little longer for somebody who comes from a history of being objectified. That they might need to get into a safe space,” Jasmine continued.

“And I’m not saying you have to take a long history lesson, or do a long Black history lesson to shoot Black people, but you do need to take the time and talk and ask and reassure and check in. Because we have been an abused people, and continue to be. That level of cultural sensitivity I think is missing,” she said.

At the end of the day though, these are all things that Royal Fetish are trying to address — and they’re doing so by leading through example. And the next step? A documentary porn film about a recent all-women production helmed by Jasmine, which will give insight into how exactly they construct a scene with the tenets of consent, passion and kink in mind. And in line with this ethos of visibility, Jasmine and King are also in the process of making an animated video called “Poly Sutra,” in which you’re able to see “Black and Brown bodies enjoying kink in its fullest expression.”

According to Jasmine, they’re also currently developing a new mentorship program dedicated to helping “create longevity in the porn industry for Black and brown performers,” in an effort to help keep BIPOC creatives within adult.

“There is a high turnover rate for people in industry, especially for Black and brown performers because of that pigeon hole that we get placed in. And you can only deal with that for so long, especially at the expense of your body and emotional labor. The expense of the sacrifice you make from your friends, your family and all of the things that come with this stigmatization [of sex work],” she explained, as she detailed the wide set of skills many people don’t necessarily know that they have.

After all, while performers do everything from marketing to accounting themselves, it’s also about knowing that your career in porn “doesn’t have to stop when you are ready to stop shooting.”

“But because it’s a highly stigmatized industry, you really can’t take that information and cross transfer it,” Jasmine said. “So our work will be really helping [BIPOC] people explore other other ways of creating a sustainable career in porn.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Woman Who Taught Us Pleasure

Remembering Betty Dodson, the pioneering sex educator.

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Betty Dodson, the pioneering sexologist, educator, and author, died in New York City on Saturday. She was 91 years old.

Dodson built her career around educating women in the art self-pleasure. In the 1970s, she began hosting masturbation workshops in her Manhattan apartment, in which women got naked, examined one another’s vulvas and then practiced pleasuring themselves with a vibrator. (Or, as Dodson put it last year when asked what happens in her workshops: “Everyone gets off.”)

She was inspired to start the workshops, she said, after attending several orgies and realizing that even the most freewheeling, sex-positive women often struggled to orgasm. Effective masturbation, she believed, was a form of liberation for women, a way for them to learn to prioritize their own sexual experience and reduce their dependence on men. As she wrote in her 2010 memoir, Sex by Design: The Betty Dodson Story, “Instinct told me that sexual mobility was the same as social mobility. Men had it and women didn’t.”

Born in Wichita, Kansas, on August 24, 1929, Dodson moved to New York when she was 20 to pursue a career as an artist. She was briefly married to an advertising executive, but the two were sexually incompatible; she was “not orgasmic” with him, she once told Salon. Dodson said her sexual shame and dissatisfaction led her to start drinking heavily. After her divorce in 1965, she got sober, and, according to the New York Times, it was in Alcoholics Anonymous that she met a man who, she said, taught her about self-pleasure and would remain one of her sexual partners until his death in 2008.

Dodson’s own sexuality was fluid. She described herself as “heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian.” Her attitude toward men, the Times noted in a profile of her earlier this year, was occasionally dismissive. “Men are so two-dimensional,” she said. “If there is anything interesting about them, it’s because of the women they’ve been with.” There were exceptions, though. She recalled with fondness, for example, Eric Wilkinson, the man she lived with for over a decade when she was in her 70s and he was in his 20s. “He was so beautiful. He had the perfect body, broad shoulders, good-size genitals, and tight bones.”

Gruff, blunt, and wickedly funny, Dodson’s teachings have been hugely influential in how women’s sexual health and pleasure are discussed today. Her book Sex for One has been translated into over 25 languages; her self-pleasure workshops are taught by “bodysex leaders,” as they are known, around the world; and she even worked as an adviser for New York’s popular Museum of Sex. “Betty had it all,” Annie Sprinkle, the 1970s porn star turned sex educator, who was a student of Dodson’s, told the Times. “She popularized the clitoris and clitoral orgasms, and gave the clitoris celebrity status.”

But even if the conversation around female pleasure has come a long way from where it was when Dodson was first attending orgies, there’s still a long way to go. Consider her appearance last year on The Goop Lab, Netflix’s docuseries about Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle company. In an episode called “The Pleasure Is Ours,” Dodson preaches how important it is that women “run the fuck,” and she makes Paltrow’s cheeks blush the same shade of millennial pink as the couch she’s sitting on. She also corrects Paltrow’s terminology. When the Goop founder boasts that “vaginas” are her favorite subject, Dodson cuts her off. “The vagina’s the birth canal only,” she says firmly. “You wanna talk about the vulva, which is the clitoris and the inner lips and all that good shit around it.”

It’s a telling moment. Paltrow is a woman who advances and profits from the notion of female pleasure by peddling expensive jade yoni eggs and a candle that supposedly smells like her vagina. (Did she mean vagina or vulva? I guess we don’t know.) But she’s iffy on the specifics of female anatomy, and a comment about women “running the fuck” makes her blush. Clearly, Dodson’s message of open and honest communication around female sexual pleasure is as relevant today as it was when she hosted her first masturbation workshop in the 1970s.

As for her own pleasure, Dodson never stopped enjoying it. As she told the Cut back in 2011, when she was 83: “Last month, I had a knockout [orgasm]. I went, ‘Whoa, girl. You still got it.’”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Your Roadmap to Finding Your Authentic Sexual Self

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Who is your authentic sexual self?

It’s a question rarely posed, and difficult to answer. As a therapist who specializes in holistic sex education and pleasure-focused care, I often find that this is the question many of my clients are desperate to answer. The impact of being in the dark about our sexuality is painfully clear, and also painfully common. Folks who struggle with confusion around sex and sexuality are often also struggling with anxiety, depression, feelings of guilt and shame, feeling isolated or “like a freak,” and, sadly, sometimes also bring histories of trauma into the room. They show up overwhelmed, sad or frustrated, and full of self-blame and self-criticism. Most often, they describe feeling “stuck,” both within their important intimate relationships, and within their relationships with themselves.

As a sex educator and therapist, I truly believe that our embodied experience of sexuality, our connection with our sexual selves, is perhaps one of the central most important ways of being in the world. Now, with so much fear and overwhelm being generated in response to the global pandemic COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus, as well as the biological stress that accompanies very necessary harm reduction methods like social distancing and quarantine, discovering and cultivating our own unique experiences of pleasure is more important than ever. Pleasure, eroticism, and the balm of being authentically who we are is healing; it soothes our nervous systems, decreases our stress levels, and ultimate keeps us healthier.

This is all true regardless of orientation (and, I want to note here, also includes experiences on the asexual spectrum, since asexuality is as valid an experience of sexuality as any other). When we don’t understand this aspect of ourselves, we feel blocked. It becomes difficult to come into contact with our source of erotic and creative energy, life force energy which sex and relationship expert Esther Perel calls the “antidote to death.” An authentic and embodied connection to our sexual selves is crucial to our well-being, particularly in this moment in time within disaster capitalism, where all the power structures that organize our society force us to relate to ourselves as workers whose job it is to produce, rather than as human beings whose calling it is to play, to love, to care, to feel, and to create.

It’s not surprising to me that many of my clients come to therapy seeking help understanding their sexual identities and relationship styles. This goes double for my queer clients, the demographic that makes up the majority of my practice. One of the first things I learned when I started my study of sex education, after all, was just how abysmal the state of sex education is in the United States, with only 39 of all 50 states and the District of Columbia requiring sex ed and HIV education to be taught in schools, and only 17 states requiring that the information, if provided, be “medically, technically, and factually accurate.” Only 3 states prohibit sex ed programming from promoting religion, whereas 19 states “require instruction on the importance of engaging in sexual activity only within marriage” (emphasis mine). For queer folks, the state of sex education is often even grimmer, as evident in the fact that even in the year 2020, seven states still require that “only negative information to be provided on homosexuality,” and that heterosexuality be “positively emphasized.”

These requirements have to do with sexuality education’s place within public schools, yet most of the clients I see are at least in their early twenties if not well on their way into adulthood. This, too, is unsurprising, as mainstream sex education seems to consider sexuality as something that just springs upon us during puberty, rather than considering the fact that an erotic engagement with the world is something that all of us experience since birth. The reason for this is multifaceted: sex and sexuality are, of course, still highly taboo, nowhere more so than when considering the topic of sex alongside the topic of childhood. Parents are often uncomfortable discussing sex with their children, and are very rarely given the tools and education required to do so in a way that not only prepares them to impart accurate and age appropriate information to their kids, but also guides them through the discomfort of unlearning the harmful messages they’ve internalized from their own childhoods.

The fact that most sex education occurs in public schools present another facet to the taboo: In order for teachers to feel safe enough to discuss such a highly stigmatized topic and keep their jobs, they of course have to operate within the requirements set forth by their individual districts and states. Curricula is often limited to abstinence and pregnancy prevention and information about STIs; if students are very, very lucky, they’ll have lessons that include the topic of consent outside of the overly simplistic standard of “No means no.” But too rarely is any space given to some of the most important aspects of sex education outside of the umbrella of mere safety: the nuances of consent, embodiments of gender and sexuality that diverge from compulsive cisheteronormativity, non-normative relationship styles, and pleasure.

All of which are, of course, aspects that feed into a person’s understanding of their authentic sexual self.

Sex educators online have heroically filled the gaps where mainstream sex education has fallen short. And, of course, guides to uncovering your own authentic sexuality abound in articles, books, podcasts, and coaching courses. These resources often suggest creating an intentional masturbation practice, or spending time getting to know your own unique fantasies, or even challenging yourself to watch porn for inspiration. (Pay for your porn if this is the route you take! You’ll be doing the ethical thing by sex workers, and will be getting better quality porn for your trouble in the meantime!)

But the road to authentic sexuality is as unique as the person seeking it, and there is no one size fits all method. Similarly, even the most well meaning suggestions and advice folks find online is often several steps ahead of where they’re at in terms of what they’re willing to try. If that sounds familiar, here are some things to keep in mind.

Sexual Subjectivity

Where did you first learn to be “good,” or what behaviors or desire made you “bad” (and how are these delineations related to pleasure)? Where, or how frequently, do the “should” statements pop up in your life, and what happens when they do?

What does it mean to ask someone “Who is your authentic sexual self?” When working with clients, one of the places I start involves listening for the stories people tell – and listening to the unspoken stories they’ve internalized. They’re simple, but quite subtle, and often have to do with being good (and thus socially accepted and safe) or bad (and thus socially ostracized and in danger).

When, with some gentle prompting, clients begin to bring their attention to some of these things, it’s often transformative. In sex education terms, part of what we’re talking about is the idea of sexual subjectivity, or who you are as a sexual subject. For folks of marginalized gender identities, often we’re taught to relate to ourselves as objects rather than subjects; things to be acted on rather than protagonists with agency at the center of our own narratives; performers for others’ pleasure rather than people capable of experiencing and pursuing immense pleasure of our own. Sexual subjectivity is your own unique sense of sexual selfhood, and it is a key component of uncovering your authentic sexuality.

Because we’re social creatures, our idea of self is created in the context of relationships; relationships with other people, certainly, but also with the structures and social forces that inform our identities and the relationships we have. This is why, as sex educator and sex ed business coach Cameron Glover notes, “It’s not comprehensive sex ed without racial justice education.” Racism, misogyny, ableism, fatphobia… all of these are hurdles to navigate in the journey towards a more authentic sexual self. The specific ways these hurdles inform the stories we tell about our lives, of course, depends on who we are and how we experience the world.

For example, sex educator, writer, and bisexual superhero Gabrielle Alexa described one impact of biphobia on bisexual sexual subjectivity thus: “We have to go so much harder to prove that we belong and that we’re authentic, so we often minimize the different-sex aspect of our attractions and behaviors. It definitely means that we’re influenced to perform queerness a little bit louder than we might otherwise, which requires code-switching because it also puts us at risk [of violence]. And of course, a large part of bi+ identity when you’re perceived as a woman is viewed as performing for the male gaze.”

When asked how this has influenced her life personally, she said, “I feel like I have to perform PDA twice as much or my bisexuality will be doubted – but if I’m too enthusiastic or I’ve chosen the wrong space, it can lead to rejection or violence. Bi+ folks therefore have to sacrifice safety for visibility, or vice versa, or find a middle-ground between the two, when considering how we want to express ourselves.”

HOMEWORK

We keep ourselves hemmed in for so much of the time, in an effort to be “good” and avoid shame. But avoidance of shame is not pleasure or authentic joy; it’s stagnation, anxiety, and spinning your wheels – often in the service of the oppressive structures that got you there in the first place. For one week, practice paying attention to moments in your life when you notice your “shoulds” popping up. You can scribble them down in a journal, just a sentence or two, or make note of them on your phone. What decisions do you make around how you “should” be and things you “should” do? How do you feel?

Just notice – you don’t necessarily have to change anything yet, if it feels safer to listen to the “should” voice. And in working with clients around sexuality and authenticity, since those topics are so charged, I’m also quick to remind them that we start out small, so you don’t even need to be focusing purely on sexual “shoulds.” But in those moments, allow yourself to imagine other alternatives, the things you want (and the feelings associated with them), rather than the things you “should” do.

Creativity, Curiosity, and Play

What messages did we receive about sex and pleasure from the time before we were consciously sexual beings capable of experiencing what we now recognize as desire? And are we still allowing these messages to influence how we show up in our sexuality today?

In an ideal world, all of us would have been encouraged to develop our sense of autonomous erotic selfhood from the time we were children. To be clear, this does not mean that children should be encouraged to have sex, or that it’s not of utmost importance to educate children about their bodies, sex, and sexuality in a safe and age appropriate way. But our fear of even having conversations about sex and childhood, and the continued taboo around sexuality, along with entrenched systems of oppression under capitalism, is part of what creates such a sexually dangerous environment for children and young people in the first place.

And yet – children are more naturally in touch with the erotic world than adults are by a mile. (This is perhaps one reason why our culture encourages parenting that deprives them of their autonomy in the name of supposed safety.) In her famous essay “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” Audre Lorde describes the erotic as “a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.” Systems of oppression, she writes, must, in order to continue and maintain themselves, “must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change.”

To Lorde, the erotic was not only about sex, and in fact, the conflation and relegation of eroticism solely to the realm of sexuality was part of what retracted from its true power: the power of creativity, curiosity, and play. This was, of course, a direct result of capitalism: “The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need—the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment.”

Clients often come to me looking to “solve” the problem of their sexuality, a limiting and judgmental mindset in and of itself, though an understandable one. We live in a world where we’re supposed to have it all – a great, fun, well-paying job, a loving intimate relationship (but with ONE person, usually someone of the so-called “opposite” gender), a wild gaggle of friends who you spend every weekend with (while somehow still having time for your partner), several degrees and babies (somehow simultaneously), and multiple simultaneous orgasms every single day – within circumstances that leave most of us almost nothing to work with in any sustainable way. And we’re supposed to do all of that in front of our legions of followers on social media, because pics or it didn’t happen, right?

But our sexualities are not something to solve, and our lives are not just a series of images we’re creating for validation from friends and strangers. Authentic sexuality is about experiencing and embodiment, and being attuned to what that means for you, specifically, is powerful. It’s a powerful unlearning of what we’re all taught we’re supposed to be, and how we should behave if we want to be deemed “good.”

HOMEWORK

Think of the way a baby eats: food smeared all over their face and hands, flecks of raspberry and mango everywhere, unworried about stains on clothing or making a facial expression that might offend. Think of the way a toddler interacts with the world when they are somewhere they feel safe: no toy box left unturned, loudly and with abandon, fearless, shameless. What would it be like to imagine these attitudes for yourself as you begin your excavation of your authentic sexual self? In what small ways could you practice childlike wonder and newness?

Remembering Adolescent Desire

Who were you when you were a teenager? What did you interact with that set your whole spirit on fire? What stirred your curiosity and left you lying awake at three in the morning with your whole body humming? What made you cry into your pillow or rage at your parents or sneak out of the window at night?

As mentioned above, typically we think of sexuality as starting somewhere around puberty. Most discussions of sexuality before that point have to do with determining what is “normal” and what is “problematic.” A quick Google search of “childhood sexuality” will show you article after article listing how to assess your child’s behavior for signs of sexual abuse, or instruct you in how to “shape and manage” your child’s behavior. While it’s certainly important to know how to keep children safe from abuse, the tenor of information reads dishearteningly more like scare tactics than education – much like mainstream sex ed itself.

The tension between normal and not only continues once puberty hits, though by then, we’re also doing it to ourselves. When I think back to what puberty was like for me in terms of sex and sexuality, the word that comes immediately to mind is stressful. I was very afraid, a lot of the time, that something was deeply wrong with me. More than anything else, I just wanted to belong, to fit in, and to be like everybody else (while also, of course, being known for being exactly who I was).

But my private desires, my fantasies, were my own, and not anyone else’s, and returning to that time and time again is what has helped me uncover my own sexual authenticity.

Teens, like children, are often wild with creativity, a key feature of the erotic. Teens write zines, poetry, fan fiction. They make art. They make music. They sing, they perform, they choreograph dances that take the nation by storm. Does anything in your life move you in quite the same way now, even the smallest hint of it? Find those corners, those edges, those threads, and pull.

HOMEWORK

Reflect on your first experiences of fantasy. One of the brilliant things about being an adolescent is we interact with sexuality for the first time in almost a more pure and physically charged way. Part of that is just puberty (hormones on parade!) and where we’re at developmentally, struggling to carve our own sense of who we are while still navigating the tension of our desperate need for the approval and solidarity of our peers. We interact with sexuality before we learn more explicitly some of the “shoulds” of sex – what’s “problematic,” what’s “normal,” what might make us “freaks” for wanting it, thinking of it, getting turned on by it. But the beauty of fantasy is that there’s no wrong way to do it, and you can’t harm anyone by indulging privately in your imagination. Take some time to think back to your first experiences of being turned on. What were your drawn to? What would it be like to playfully indulge in those fantasies once again? What feelings come up? How does your body respond?

Holding Space for Trauma

It is impossible to write about sex at all without writing about trauma. Uncovering your authentic sexuality is a healing process, and if we’re healing, by necessity, of course there is harm from which we must heal. All of my clients are healing from trauma in some way, shape, or form, some to greater degrees, others, lesser. The sex negative and purity-obsessed culture we all grew up in is traumatizing. As always, I recommend support from a caring and informed professional through this process, if it’s available for you, especially around trauma.

The world we live in – organized by white supremacist, cisheternormative, ableist, fatphobic, whorephobic, sex negative capitalism – is also inherently traumatic. Many of us have experienced interpersonal acts of violation and betrayal on top of that. In the words of Dr. Jennifer Mullan of @decolonizingtherapy, “I heal in parts – because systematic dis-ease took me apart.”

It’s okay to go slow. It’s go to commit to this process in fits and starts. It’s okay to doubt yourself, to be afraid, to phone it in, to disconnect if you have to. It’s okay if the idea of childlike wonder is a foreign concept to you, or that even thinking about thinking about your adolescence is too uncomfortable, or painful, bear. There is no timeframe to adhere to. There is no race, no goal, no comparison to make. Your authentic sexual self is waiting for you, whenever you’re ready. Your authentic sexual self may show up unexpectedly, too, shining into your life here and there when you least expect it. Your authentic sexual self has been there all along, buried deep beneath the bullshit, but still there. You are here to be curious and creative, no matter what you have experienced. You are here for pleasure and joy.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Shere Hite, pioneering sex researcher

PARIS, FRANCE: US feminist and sexologist, now a naturalized German citizen, Shere Hite poses for the photographer, 12 February 1990, in Paris. Hite made waves in the 1970s and 1980s with her radical feminism, asserting for example that women could easily find sexual fulfillment and raise children properly without men.

“All too many men still seem to believe, in a rather naive and egocentric way, that what feels good to them is automatically what feels good to women.”

Such terse pronouncements made Shere Hite – a sex researcher who died this week at the age of 77 – both a feminist hero and a controversial figure in 1970s America.

Her pioneering work The Hite Report upended prevailing notions about female sexuality.

The book, which came out in 1976, laid out the views of 3,500 women on sexuality and the female orgasm. It challenged many male assumptions, and was derided by some, including Playboy, which dubbed it the “Hate Report

She endured intense and lasting criticism in the US, and eventually renounced her American citizenship in 1995.

Born Shirley Gregory in the conservative heartland US state of Missouri, she once worked as a model in New York.

To pay for her degree at Columbia University she appeared in a typewriter advert that capitalised on her blonde hair and attractive looks with the caption: “The typewriter that’s so smart that she doesn’t have to be.”

Her anger over its sexism inspired her to join protests against it.

At one meeting of the National Organization for Women, Hite said the topic of whether all women had orgasms came up. There was silence until someone suggested she look into the topic.

The Hite Report: A National Study of Female Sexuality became a huge international bestseller, totalling 50 million copies worldwide.

Thousands of contributors set out the pleasures and frustrations of their sexual lives in the work. More than 70% of the women interviewed said they could not reach orgasm through penetrative sex with men alone, and needed clitoral stimulus to reach climax.

“I was the only sex researcher at the time who was feminist,” she told the Guardian in 2011. “I tried to extend the idea of sexual activity to female orgasm and masturbation.”

Feminist writer Julie Bindel said that Shere Hite’s “groundbreaking” work “put women’s sexual pleasure first and foremost for the first time ever”.

“In many ways she began the real sexual revolution for women,” she told the Guardian.

But the work generated a huge backlash. Some accused her of hating men, while others said she was helping break apart families at a time of rising divorce rates

The controversy around the Hite Report and her later works – for which she received death threats – caused her to leave the US and move to Europe, spending time in Germany and the UK. She renounced her US citizenship in 1995.

“After a decade of sustained attacks on myself and my work, particularly my ‘reports’ into female sexuality, I no longer felt free to carry out my research to the best of my ability in the country of my birth,” she wrote in the New Statesman in 2003.

Her husband, Paul Sullivan, told the Washington Post that she had the rare neurological disorder corticobasal degeneration. She died at her home in north London on Wednesday.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Negotiating Safe Socializing Has a Lot in Common With Negotiating Safe Sex

By April Dembosky

Ina Park has been in a monogamous marriage for more than 15 years, but she feels like she’s been having one safe sex conversation after another these days.

Like, after she and some close friends spent time together without masks on, forcing her to later ask: “Are you seeing other people?”

Then, the mother of her son’s friend suggested letting the boys play basketball together, leading to detailed negotiations about risk tolerance, boundaries and protection.

“Those are conversations that some of us were used to having in the past and have not had for a long time,” said Park. “Now, suddenly, we’re having to have these awkward, safe sex-type conversations with all types of people that you wouldn’t ordinarily have to have these conversations with.”

Park is a doctor who treats people with sexually transmitted infections at the San Francisco City Clinic and author of a book about STIs, “Strange Bedfellows“, so she’s used to explaining to people, when you have sex with someone, you’re essentially having sex with whoever else they’re having sex with.

Now, it’s whoever you’re breathing next to.

As Bay Area residents emerge from strict shelter-in-place rules and consider getting a haircut or hosting a family BBQ, we have a lot to negotiate with each other about what we’re willing to do, with whom and how.

All this requires some nuanced communication skills. Doctors and sex education teachers, as well as polyamory and BDSM practitioners, have years of best practices and guidance to offer, drawing various parallels between negotiating safe sex and negotiating safe socializing.

“If you really want to make sure your partner uses a condom, you have to express why it’s important to you and why it’s aligned with your values and why that’s something that you need from them,” said Julia Feldman, who runs the sex education consultancy, Giving the Talk. “If you want your mom to wear a mask when you see her, you need to explain why it’s important to you and why it’s aligned with your values.”

Feldman helped develop sex education curriculum for the Oakland Unified School District. She says Bay Area schools have shifted away from knowledge-based teaching — sperm fertilizing the egg, etc — to focusing more on communication skills like these; skills many adults have never received formal training on.

“The more people communicate what they want and what they desire and what they’re comfortable with, the more we actually get what we want,” Feldman said. “This is a really good time to practice that.”

Feldman has been practicing her skills over and over during the pandemic, like when she invited a friend over for a socially-distanced cocktail in her backyard. They had an extensive conversation about how they would sit (six feet apart); what they would drink (her friend would accept a can she could wipe down); whether they would wear masks (no); if Feldman would serve snacks (no).

Sex educator Julia Feldman says the same communication skills she teaches teens about sex are helpful for everyone during the pandemic.

“Because if you show up at someone’s house and they have a beautiful spread and they’re expecting that you’re just going to dig into a platter of food with them, and that’s not what you’re comfortable with, there might be disappointment on their part,” Feldman said. “There’s a lot of emotions involved.”

Her friend also asked in advance if she could use Feldman’s bathroom while she was there.

“So I disinfected this one bathroom and created a pathway through my house. But it really was only because she was cognizant of articulating that need and I was able to take time to accommodate it,” she said. “If she had showed up and said, ‘Oh, I really have to pee. Can I use your bathroom?’ I don’t know what I would have done.”

Lessons from Kink

This very detailed thinking and advanced negotiating shares similarities with the world of BDSM; sexual role-play, involving bondage, dominance and submission.

“You start tying people up without consent and it just goes south right away — you just can’t do that,” said Carol Queen, staff sexologist at Good Vibrations, the sex toy and sexual health company with locations throughout the Bay Area.

Good Vibrations sexologist Carol Queen says we have a lot of lessons we can borrow from the BDSM and polyamory communities in negotiating consent during the pandemic.

She suggests considering a common tool from the BDSM world: a detailed spreadsheet of every possible kinky activity — from leather restraints to nipple clamps — with columns to be filled in for yes, no or maybe. It’s a conversation starter for beginners and helps facilitate conversations ahead of kink parties. Queen says we need an equivalent checklist for the coronavirus.

“That helps people do that very first step of understanding what their own situation and needs and desires are,” she said. “Somebody, make this list for us!”

Queen has always emphasized that communication doesn’t stop once you get to the party. In her starring role in the 1998 instructional video/feminist porn film, Bend Over Boyfriend, she stressed the point repeatedly: “It’s deeply important that you are verbal with each other and say, ‘Yes, no, faster, I’m ready, I’m not ready.’ It’s very important because if you’re going on your partner’s wavelength, you’re going to have a greater experience.”

Two decades later, through a pandemic, she said it still holds true.

“The idea that it’s okay to be that talkative in the service of safety and comfort really is what we learned from that,” Queen said. “It’s a very important lesson in sex and, these days, under most other circumstances.”

Negotiating commitment

As some counties start to encourage people to form social pods or “quaranteams” as a way to limit socializing among two or three households, we now essentially have to decide which of our friends or family we ask to go steady with us.

“I wish I had more polyamorous friends to help me navigate that situation,” said Park, the STI doctor. As in, folks with experience brokering different levels of intimacy with multiple partners and establishing ground rules for the group.

As a physician who often talks with patients about infidelity when an infection enters the picture, Park wonders how pods will deal with social infidelities.

“There’s inevitably going to be betrayals, ‘Oh, I cheated on our pod with somebody else,’ and then having to disclose that to the pod,” she said. “Does the relationship recover? Or do you kick that person out of your pod forever?”

In Park’s experience, it’s always better to admit to an affair before an infection enters the picture, whether it’s chlamydia or the coronavirus, so everyone can take precautions. With the coronavirus, the offending pod member can self-quarantine for two weeks away from the rest of the group, so no one gets sick.

But whether you’re being kicked out of a pod or no one’s invited you to be part of a pod in the first place, the experts agree we all need to get better at handling rejection. The pandemic is temporary, but we’re in it with our loved ones for the long term, so we need to respect each other’s anxieties and boundaries.

“Don’t take it personally,” said Queen. “We’re all new here at this party.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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‘Sex Can Be Anything’

By

Last month, the writer, activist, and sex worker Rachel Rabbit White published her debut book of poetry and threw a costume party in New York to celebrate. (Earlier this month, she threw another in Los Angeles.) While Porn Carnival is White’s first full-length poetry publication, she’s been writing — for Playboy and Vice, among other outlets — about sex, desire, consumption, capitalism, and the uncomfortable meeting place of all these themes for years. On the occasion of her book’s publication, we spoke about the innate pressures of heterosexuality, the similarities between writing and desire, and whether she thinks today’s young people have a new relationship to gratification.

I want to know what your thoughts are on the words associated with sex — how their meanings are so determined by context.
I was recently having a conversation where someone said they hate the word pleasure, and I was like, oh, I love the word pleasure. It’s almost the opposite of the word desire, and yet the two are so close.

In many ways Porn Carnival is a book about romance. It’s about the hope for joy outside the work life but it’s also about the agony of love and the simultaneous hope of love. In between laboring, there is a constant search for community, for orgy, for romance while still knowing that in romance is always a lack, a trap. A lot of people have focused on the despair about work in the book but there’s a maybe more pleasurable despair about pleasure itself.

I am a pessimist about romance and yet, like maybe all of us, romance still has a grip on me. I do think that romance, like all things is tainted by capitalism. And that second wave feminists were right to criticize romance as the site of women’s subordination. But it’s not necessary to defend romance in order to understand its pleasures, the euphoria of falling in love.

Where is the line between experiencing eroticism and performing it? Does that line disintegrate at times?
It can be pleasurable to perform pleasure. Everyone has a different persona tactic when it comes to sex work (the girlfriend, the therapist, the good girl who shouldn’t be here, the party girl, the guys’ girl), but I’ve always done best playing the femme fatale. It’s a role that requires a glamorized distance — tease and denial — and because of that a dominant physicality (I use strip-club moves mixed with with light femme domme energy in order to keep the session in my control). I get pleasure from the routine of femme fatale, from successfully building a fantasy that works for someone, which also allows me to keep my boundaries. But the lines between performing pleasure and experiencing pleasure get blurred in any sex. Because sex and romance are always mediated by capitalism, we are all actors, and it often takes acting to summon up a belief in romance, even if we don’t realize it.

As a side note, though: Plenty of women do the work of sex work without trading sex for money or capital. The work of sexual entertaining, as well as the many emotional labors of sex work. Every woman is expected or pressured in heterosexuality to do the labor that sex workers do, but not every woman is a sex worker. I think sex workers are strangely more equipped, though, to ponder the problem of romance, because we sell sex and love as our job, and have this strange distance and closeness with the theater of gender relations.

Your poetry, too, has a seductive relationship with the reader. As a writer, do you employ fictional identities?
Some art, in order for it to be truly full, requires a persona. My favorite artists are the ones who recognize this and play with persona, making their life blur with their art. I am guilty of this! And sometimes, being self-deprecating, I say that it’s because I lack imagination, the imagination to create completely fictional narratives and not write about my own life — but if I am being honest, not living my life as though I were its protagonist, and then not writing about my experiences, just strikes me as boring.

You seem to be sort of a pleasure mentor for some. What kind of advice could you give someone who might have a fraught relationship with sex or self-discovery?
Sex can be a vehicle for self-expression and it can be a theater; sex doesn’t have to be serious, and sex can be anything. The most important thing I’ve learned is how to make boundaries a part of your seduction, your flirtation, an inherent part of your sex. I think that the first thing to realize to have a good relationship with pleasure is that enjoyment (the consumption of pleasure as a commodity) is not everything, that pleasure is not everything, that our sexuality and sexiness is not all that there is. It’s one of the reasons why I have worked very hard to have a place for writing in my life, this very cruel practice that requires loneliness, concentration, and deferment of pleasures and gratification. And poetry especially comes with very little perks: it doesn’t bring money, it rarely brings fame, and it is even less read than most genres. But to me that doesn’t matter; that’s my space where I gratuitously spend myself and my love for the word and other poets, expecting nothing in return.

What is better, enacting someone else’s fantasy, or having someone enact one of your own?
The best is to find where your fantasy crosses with someone else’s. You make sex from where you overlap.

Do you think that younger generations have very different understandings of gratification (meaning your generation compared to older ones, and also the generation younger than you)?
I don’t think it’s really that different. The habits and the knowledge with which we approach pleasure might have changed, but the underlying attitudes towards it I believe are largely unchanged. Sex fascinates and scares the younger generations in the same way it did the older generations. In the same ways, we want to protect ourselves and those we love from the dangers that come with it. We see our openness to gratification and the practices that requires shrink the more we age into complex life situations with responsibilities, duties, and long term plans. To deal with satisfaction is not an easy task, and it requires freedom, time, and especially money. It is an expenditure, and as such it is not something — unfortunately — that is available for everyone, or at least not to everyone all of the time, or even often.

So, it is understandable that with this inequality of access also comes a whole lot of different approaches and opinions about desire. Varying attitudes are there in every generation, and honestly, I think when people say  that today’s younger generations are excessively prudish, or excessively libertine, they’re just projecting their own politics. Young people are young people: eager to grow up and scared of what it means, naive and yet savvy, open and idealistic and reticent and sarcastic. They are moving their first steps into the unknown waters of an autonomous life with all the uncertainties and ambiguities that come with this newly found independence.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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When BDSM and sobriety go hand-in-hand

By Tracey Anne Duncan</a

My first foray into BDSM left me covered in bruises and smiling like a moron. I had been in recovery for opioid addiction for 18 months. It was okay. I felt stable. I also felt unbelievably bored. Dealing with my problems in healthy ways was a major joykill. Partying had been a pretty big time killer for me, and without it, life felt a little too smooth jazz. Kink quickly transformed those instrumentals, spinning them into a welcome chaos of pain and pleasure.

There was hair-pulling and roughhousing and ropes tugging and restricting me in all the best ways. My brain lit up, sending danger signals to my body. Adrenaline pulsed. For me, it was exactly the right amount of scary. For the first time in ages, I felt alive.

I was glad to not be strung out on pills, but I was also scared that I had burned out my joy receptors in some irreparable way. Life was a vast grey expanse of whatever. I was a freshly single sober adult living in New Orleans, the drunkest city on earth. It felt like not getting fucked up was really fucking up my life. Life felt serious and hard and I needed a jolt of excitement to remind me why my life was worth getting sober for. I found it in kink.

I purposefully dated others who’d gone through recovery and were sober, but that was unbearably awkward. Sober folks can be really neurotic. I know, because I’m one of them. When you stop blunting all your emotions with substances, you really start noticing how often you’re anxious. And there’s no pink wine to take the edge off of dating and having sex with a new person. I was fine with kisses and make-outs, but when things got hot, I would start to shut down.

Once my clothes came off, I would get locked in to a self-conscious mind loop. Honestly, I had had sober sex so rarely in my life at that point that it seemed like it might be impossible. How was I supposed to get naked with strangers without liquid- or pill-fueled courage? I was pretty sure that my sober life was going to be a sexless and joyless purgatory.

When I first started seeing a sober person who was into kink, I was kind of scared. Like actually frightened of injury. I’d never had particularly kinky sex before. My neurosis looped, full-force, in relentless questions. Was he violent? What if I let him tie me up and he really hurt me? Do people really use whips and chains? What if I didn’t like it? What if I didn’t know how to do BDSM right? But, like I said, I was bored, curious and I liked him, so I went for it.

You have to learn both to speak your needs verbally and also to read your partner’s body language. Its subtlety demands sobriety.

Most of the things that I did with that partner wouldn’t seem that kinky to someone into fetish, but it was all new to me. My partner loved rope and showed me enough to whet my thirst for knowledge. I fell in love with Shibari, Japanese rope bondage. It’s methodical and beautiful. Ropes are tied, checked, re-tied. You must be careful not to compress nerve bundles. Because there is some risk of injury, rope play requires deep communication skills. You have to learn both to speak your needs verbally and also to read your partner’s body language. Its subtlety demands sobriety.

But Shibari is only one modality among many styles of rope play. And rope play is only one practice in the giant world of BDSM. And BDSM is only a subset of kink. What I’m saying, is that there’s a whole sexual world out there that I didn’t know about.

It’s not just me; this is a bona fide trope. Folks in the recovery community are forever extolling the virtues of kink. “BDSM is a way that I can get all the chemicals in my brain revving. It’s somewhat risky but it’s surrounded on all sides by boundaries and negotiations,” Keener, a kinky sober person in NYC told The Fix.

BDSM gave me a way to channel my sexual anxiety into a power negotiation with another person that, in turn, reshapes some of my anxiety into excitement. Sex went from being stressful to being a dopamine rush, which is how it’s supposed to be. Addiction acclimated my brain to higher levels of risk and relief than the average non-addicted person. I didn’t want the actual risk that goes along with using, but I didn’t want to hate my life either. Finding kink showed me a world that was shiny black leather instead of existential grey.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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10 Incredible Books About Sex & Sexuality

By Erika W. Smith

I went to a public high school, but my school took an abstinence-only approach to sex ed. In fact, it was pretty similar to the sex ed scene in Mean Girls — it was taught by the football coach, we were warned that having sex would pretty much ruin our lives, and we all learned absolutely nothing. In fact, the Mean Girls sex ed class was better than the one I took, because at least the Mean Girls coach gave out condoms — mine never mentioned any form of birth control.

Instead, I learned about sex from friends, the internet, and books — and books were by far the most accurate source of knowledge on that list. I’m one of the legions of fans who credit the American Girl book The Care and Keeping Of You for teaching us all about puberty — not just periods, but also pubic hair, pimples, and B.O.

Now that I’m an adult woman and a professional sex & relationships writer, I still read books to learn more about sex. So I put together this list, including some of my favorites, some of my colleagues’ recommendations, and some suggestions from my Twitter followers that I’ve already added to my to-read list.

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski, PhD

This bestselling book explores the whys and hows of women’s sexuality — asserting that there’s no one “normal,” and it’s useless to compare your own experience to others.

Faking It: The Lies Women Tell about Sex — And the Truths They Reveal by Lux Alptraum

In Faking It, Lux Alptraum challenges the idea that faking an orgasm is a bad thing. Instead, she explores how often, when, and why women lie about sex.  Read an excerpt on Refinery29. 

Queer Sex: A Trans and Non-Binary Guide to Intimacy, Pleasure, & Relationships by Juno Roche

In Queer Sex, trans activist and writer Juno Roche combines her own story with interviews with other trans and non-binary individuals, creating a narrative that offers both insight and practical advice. Read an excerpt on Refinery29 UK.

Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence by Esther Perel

In Mating In Captivity, renowned relationship therapist Esther Perel explores erotic desire, explaining why it’s so hard to maintain it in a long-term, monogamous relationship — and what to do to keep it alive.

The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

This guide to ethical non-monogamy remains a go-to for people interested in polyamory, two decades after it was first published.

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown

Writer and activist adrienne maree brown introduces the concept of “pleasure activism,” arguing that, as she puts it, “pleasure is a measure of freedom.”

The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Jen Gunter, MD

Dr. Jen Gunter, who’s become known as “Internet’s OB/GYN” thanks to her viral Goop criticisms, gives us a guide to vaginal health, including yeast infections, painful sex, and “the myth of the G-spot.”

Girl Sex 101 by Allison Moon

This sex ed book features illustrations, instructions, and sex tips from over a dozen sex experts. Moon and Diamond take a trans- and genderqueer-inclusive approach to their suggestions, showing that there are many ways to have incredible sex.

Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free by Wednesday Martin, PhD

Dr. Wednesday Martin challenges myths about women’s supposedly relationship-focused nature, arguing that in fact, women may struggle more than men with sexual exclusivity. Read an excerpt on Refinery29.

Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All by Jaclyn Friedman

In Unscrewed, Jaclyn Friedman examines the state of sexual power in the United States,  looking at how politics, religion, education, and other factors play into our sex lives.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Practice Aftercare After Having ANY Kind Of Sex

by Gigi Engle

Aftercare refers to the time we devote, post-sex or play, to cuddle, talk, and care for each other. You may think this is simply “what you do after sex,” but it actually has important implications. In the kink community, aftercare is essential in order for both partners to feel at ease and ready to rejoin the real world.

In my practice as a clinical sexologist, I’m a big proponent of all couples devoting time to post-euphoric aftercare so as to rekindle closeness, regardless of the play they engage in.

Aftercare makes for stronger emotional bonds.

Couples who practice aftercare will naturally develop closer, more intimate bonds with their partners than those who don’t. After sex, we’re particularly vulnerable. We’re naked, we’ve (hopefully) just had an orgasm, and our bodies are awash in oxytocin and dopamine. We need to ensure that positive state of mind continues. “Everyone feels good when they know their partner cares for them, and what better way to show it than tending to them when they are in a vulnerable post-sex state of mind?” says licensed psychotherapist and couples therapist Pam Saffer, LMFT.

“Prioritizing time [for] aftercare provides space to improve emotional intimacy, sharing and validating positive emotions. It really encourages couples to share open communication and express love [and] kindness toward each other either verbally or through affectionate touch,” adds Kristine D’Angelo, a certified sex coach and clinical sexologist.

It doesn’t matter if you’re friends with benefits, in a long-term relationship, a one-night-stand, or married; aftercare is still important. While it may seem odd to engage in aftercare with someone you’re not seriously dating, it’s still important. It’s not about making someone fall in love with you or trying to make a more serious relationship out of something casual. It’s about making sure everyone is cared for with respect and tenderness so that they can leave a sexual experience feeling good about themselves.

Take some time to connect with your partner and reflect on everything that happened in a positive, kind way. The kind of relationship you’re in doesn’t diminish the need for making sure everyone feels good about the sex that took place.

It helps relieve underlying sexual shame.

While sex is not shameful and should be enjoyed (safely) by one and all, it can sometimes bring up feelings of shame due to the sex-negative messages many of us faced growing up. While the logical mind tells us that sex is normal and healthy, our subconscious can store these shameful messages. After sex, after that delicious post-orgasmic high, your body can suddenly unearth the subconscious shame. This might be especially relevant if one or more parties was raised within a conservative or religious background

“Part of the point of aftercare is to diminish any post-sexual shame, which can be heightened by sex followed by goodbye, leaving a partner to feel you [didn’t care] for them but only [wanted] sexual gratification,” says Gail Saltz, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at the New York–Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine. “Women, in particular, have been socialized to feel that [sex for] sexual gratification only is a shameful act. It is, of course, not, but nonetheless, being cared for in some way afterward often mitigates those feelings of shame.”

Aftercare helps to stave off the post-coital blues.

Have you ever felt like crying after sex? You know, when you have a truly amazing orgasm and then feel sad for no reason? This is called “post-coital dysphoria,” or the post-sex blues. It’s believed to come from the euphoric rush and sudden comedown that follows intense sexual pleasure. It is the brain’s way of recalibrating. Research has shown that nearly half of men and women have experienced PCD at some point in their lives.

Aftercare is the salve that soothes these sad feelings. “Sometimes people can feel alienated from their partners after the euphoric feelings from sex wear off,” Shaffer explains. “Aftercare routines can help them to feel close in a purposeful way.”

Have an open and honest discussion about PCD and develop an aftercare routine that makes you feel safe and secure. You might want to cuddle, perhaps you want your partner to stroke your arm, or you might want to have a nice chat or a deeper conversation. “If you know there is something after sex that would make you feel better, then you need to speak up and ask for what you want. Your partner wants you to feel good, and anything they can do in aftercare needs to be communicated and shared with them,” D’Angelo says.

Sex is very fun, but it can be an emotionally fraught thing in addition to all the pleasures, so we need to take precautions to ensure that everyone walks away from the experience feeling positive and good about themselves. Whatever form of aftercare works for you is perfectly fine. Just be sure you have a discussion about it before any sexy time takes place. When it comes to sex, we all deserve to walk out the door afterward feeling emotionally whole and great about ourselves.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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There are infinite ways to have sex & there’s nothing unnatural about any of them

The famous sex researcher Alfred Kinsey once said the only unnatural sex act is one that can’t be performed.

By and

Humans have discovered an almost infinite amount of ways to have sex — and things to have sex with. The famous sex researcher Alfred Kinsey said: “The only unnatural sex act is that which can’t be performed.”

From foot fetishes to the kinkiest outfit or habits, fetishes are an endless rainbow of preferences and practices. Although human studies on fetishes and atypical sexual interest are few, case studies and research on non-human animal behaviour have revealed some insights about them and how they may develop.

In fetishism, the subject of the desire is not necessarily related to sexual intercourse, yet the fetish drives a person’s sexual arousal, fantasies and preferences. Fetishes can be part of a healthy and playful sexual life for individuals and couples, and also forms the basis of some sexual subcultures.

Unfortunately, fetishes have often wrongly been associated with sexual deviancy, making it easy to feel weird or shame about them. Many of us are quick to judge things we do not understand or experience. When it comes to sex, we can believe that things we don’t do are weird, wrong or even disgusting.

Let’s not judge each other’s sex lives. Instead, embrace your curiosity.

The Pride marches taking place this summer began as a social movement against repressive and discriminatory practices against LGBTQ people following the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969. Fifty years later, Pride month has become a commemoration and celebration of sexual minorities and diversity.

Let’s take a look under the covers together to paint a more positive view of these so-called “perversions.” We all may have a kink or two. So why not feel more accepting of our more obscure sexual desires?

What are fetishes?

Fetishes are not just about whips and leather, but part of a natural curiosity to explore the unknown territories of our sexuality.

A lot of the early science claimed fetishes were sexual abnormalities or perversions. However, most researchers and clinical practitioners now only consider fetishes to be harmful if they cause distress, physical harm or transgress consent.

Scientists have recently begun to understand how some fetishes develop. Several animal studies and case reports on humans suggest that early imprinting and Pavlovian or classical conditioning can shape the formation of fetishes. We believe learning from experiences plays a large role in forming fetishes.

From a Pavlovian conditioning perspective, fetishes are seen as the product of associating early and rewarding sexual experiences with objects, actions or body parts that are not necessarily sexual. This is perhaps why different people have different fetishes.

As for early imprinting, the best example comes from a study in which newborn goats and sheep were cross-fostered by a mother of another species. Goats were mothered by sheep, and the sheep mothered by goats. The results showed male goats and sheep had sexual preferences for females of the opposite species, meaning the same species as their adopting mothers, while females on the other hand were more fluid in their choices and were willing to have sex with males of both species.

Studies with rats have shown that other non-human animals also develop fetishes.

This study shines some light on sex differences in human fetishes, as men with fetishes tend to vastly outnumber women with fetishes.

These sex differences appear to be explained solely by differences in sexual urges, where men tend to show higher arousal or less repulsion towards various “deviant” sexual acts than women do. This, nevertheless, does not imply men have more psychological disorders.

Fetish-related disorders

Fetishes, just like any other thing in life, can be taken to where it may be a little “too much.” They may not only be preferred, but also needed in the expression of sexual arousal, which can impair the preferred pattern of arousal or performance.

Fetish-related disorders are characterized by the expression of two main criteria: recurrent and intense sexual arousal from either the use of objects or highly specific body part(s) that are not genitalia manifested by fantasies, urges or behaviours; those which can cause great distress or impairment of their intimacy, social or occupational life.

Some are particularly troubling, like exhibitionism or frotteurism. These paraphilias are believed to be distortions of normal sexual interactions with others. Sadly, both of them still remain poorly understood.

As previously mentioned, if by some reason we can establish associations that can drive our arousal through learning experiences, research has also shown that these associations can be “erased.” However, this process can be quite slow, difficult to change and susceptible of being spontaneously triggered by familiar cues.

No definition of normal

Fetishes have the potential of enhancing or expanding the repertoire of sensations we experience during sex. In fact, experimental data shows that animals become more sexually aroused when they learn to associate sex with fetish-like cues.

Instead of focusing on what you should like or what should get you off or not, you’re better off wondering how that thing suits you or your partner. Normality falls within blurry lines, and it is up to you to expand its limits or not.

There is no exact definition of what constitutes normal or healthy. These definitions are highly dependent of the context (historical time and culture).

We get caught up with what appears to be more frequent, healthy, natural or normal: but what about what feels right?

So how do you know if you have a fetish? If there is consent and respect, it really doesn’t matter what you do between the bed sheets, on the kitchen table or on that secret hidden spot.

Perhaps you don’t have a fetish. But it’s never too late to try.

As North Americans celebrate Pride this summer, we should take it as a reminder of our colourful sexual diversity —and also the infinite ways to have sex, with nothing unnatural about any of them.

We believe all people should be allowed to express their sexuality and embrace it without the weight of stereotypes or “normal” standards to live by. Life is too short to not make the best out of it, especially when it comes to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.

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What’s the sexual taboo that will define the next generation?

By Almara Abgarian

Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z.

As human beings, we like to attribute societal trends and cultural shifts to a specific generation.

Sexual trends are no exception.

Generation X, people born in the early to mid-60s to early 80s, were influenced by the sexual revolution and ruled by the blowjob, while Millennials embraced anal sex.

Back in 1992, 16% of 18 to 24-year-old women reported they’d tried anal sex. Now, it’s 40% of people by age 24.

Data suggests 94% of women who had anal sex in their last encounter achieved orgasm. That compares 81% for oral sex and 64% for vaginal orgasm.

It’s not as simple as anal sex equals orgasm but having anal sex as part of people’s sexual experience seems to show more sexual satisfaction.

Generation Z has seen conventional sexual roles removed and have taken anal play one step further with pegging – a woman wearing a strap-on and inserting this into the man’s anus.

LoveHoney reported a 200% increase in sales of strap-ons in 2017 and it has continued to grow since then.

So what’s the next taboo to be broken?

‘Society is moving away from the idea that vaginal penetrative sex is the only accepted form of sexual intercourse,’ said Sienna Halliburton, sex expert at Je Joue.

‘Blowjobs, anal sex and pegging have moved, or are still moving, away from being seen as taboo subjects into the realm of “normal” conversation.

‘Greater interest in sex education and liberalising attitudes towards gender and sexuality are largely responsible for these shifts.

‘So what is still a taboo subject that can be broken? Mutual masturbation.’

Masturbation ‘will overtake penetration’

People now developing their sexual identity have been born into an era concentrated on social media and technology, where interaction can be confined to a computer or smartphone.

Research shows that they’re given less opportunities to interact with others at school, with young people half as likely to meet up with peers in person, compared to 2006.

Some experts conclude that this will lead to a lack of social skills, which in turn will cause the next generation to become less interested in penetrative sex with a partner and more focused on masturbation.

‘Sexual content is at their fingertips 24/7 as they navigate the world via smartphones, tablets, and laptops,’ Chelsea Reynolds, assistant professor at the Department of Communications at California State University, tells Metro.co.uk.

‘Because they are exposed to porn, sexting, and online dating at a young age, they feel online-mediated sexuality is natural.

‘What they aren’t comfortable with is face-to-face communication.

‘If Gen X’s thing was the blowjob, millennials’ thing was anal, and Gen Z is into pegging, the next generation will likely be the masturbation generation.

‘For 20 years now there has been a downward trend in teen sexual activity.

‘Teenagers have been consistently losing their virginities at an older age and having fewer sexual partners overall. Although teen sexuality may [be] less taboo than it used to be, teens have a million sexual outlets today that don’t involve genital contact.’

Virtual Reality sex

Another sexual trend influenced by technology is the rise of virtual reality (VR).

Through VR tools, people will be able to act out their wildest fantasies without judgement, as well as find (or create) sexual partners without having to step outside their door.

The opportunity already exists to some degree; the US-based company, Naughty America, allows its users to ‘star’ in porn films, while on adult sites, there are entire sections dedicated to virtual reality-inspired porn.

‘Naturally, the next step from here to take sex to the next level is virtual reality sex,’ Paul Jacques, technical manager at Lovehoney, tells Metro.co.uk.

The best of The Future Of Everything

‘Virtual reality as an industry is booming, and the adult industry is right there taking part in it, with haptic feedback devices (the application of forces, vibrations and motions to help recreate the sense of touch for the user) and full-rendered environments fulfilling consumer fantasies.

‘Companies like Kiiroo and Fleshlight have created toys like the Launch, that combine a really great sex toy with an automatic device that can be linked to online content. CyberSkin’s twerking realistic butt comes with a VR headset that provides a link between the motions you see onscreen and the movements of the toy itself.

‘Particularly of interest is the rise of app-controlled toys, which are shaking up the industry in every way, and ultra-realistic, highly sophisticated sex-cessories, which are starting to make even the most unusual sci-fi fantasies seem like reality.’

Sex will be less important in relationships and introduced later in life

If masturbation becomes the sexual trend that defines the next generation, could people stop having sex altogether?

Sally Baker, a senior therapist, explains that not only will young people have sex later in life – starting in their 30s – but sex will also lose its importance in society as a whole.

This may have already come into motion, with research revealing British people are having less sex than before.

Additional statistics from dating website OKCupid show similar trends, with both millennials and Generation Z prioritising love over sex, or opting out completely because they are ‘risk-averse’.

‘Abstinence or non-penetrative sex could be the next thing,’ Baker tells Metro.co.uk.

‘Friends of any gender mix and sexual orientation will commit to having a primary sexless relationship with each other. Couples or small cores of people will no longer be defined by a shared sexual orientation but by shared values, drives and their mutual emotional need to be together.

‘Young people will commonly delay sexual experience with anyone well into their 30s even if they are already living in a committed relationship.

‘Sex if and when it does take place might well happen externally of the central relationship. A couple may choose to have sex with other people while maintaining their core sexless relationship as their primary commitment.

‘Sex with other people will not be a cause of jealousy or a disruptor of their primary relationship.

‘Sex with others will not overshadow the primacy of their key relationship because they consider the supremacy of their key relationship transcends all base instincts.’

Couples will focus on ‘non-hierarchical’ sexual experiences

That all sounds like a really progressive way to experience relationships but, for those in the older generations, it could look from the outside to be very confusing.

‘If sex happens within a young couple, it will often be solitary and perfunctory,’ Sally Baker says.

‘If they do have sex together, the emphasis would be on mutual extended foreplay and de-emphasising or excluding penetrative sex. This ensures the sex they experience is non-hierarchical and non-binary.

‘Couples will not value sexual imperatives and sexuality takes second place to their desire to experience deep commitment and loyalty for and with each other.

‘Gen A will be highly motivated to form long-term committed relationships as a survival strategy to cope with the disconnect they experience in their lives and careers.

‘Feeling overwhelmed and anxious while living in increasingly inhospitable economic conditions will make it impossible to be single and to thrive.’

If that’s the case, then the sexual taboo of the next generation could be no sex at all.

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