Sex and relationship therapists say infidelity is more complex than most of us are inclined to believe.
For example, couples can sometimes find renewed honesty and intimacy after the discovery of an affair.
Cheating = bad. Fidelity = good.
This is the logic to which most of us subscribe. And yet if you ask a relationship expert, they’ll likely offer a more nuanced perspective, both on people who stray and on the implications of affairs.
Over the past year, I’ve spoken to a series of therapists about infidelity among modern couples, and they’ve all surprised me with their insights. Below, see three of the most intriguing observations I heard about cheating:
Couples sometimes reconnect emotionally after the discovery of an affair
Couples therapist Esther Perel would never recommend that someone deliberately cheat on their partner in order to improve their relationship.
But she has observed the way some couples find renewed honesty and intimacy after it’s revealed that one partner has had an affair.
Perel told Business Insider, “It’s a reevaluation of what happened: How did we become so estranged from each other? How did we lose our connection? How did we become so numb to each other? And the galvanizing of the fear of losing everything that we have built sometimes brings us back face-to-face, with a level of intensity that we haven’t experienced in a long time.”
Most people who cheat don’t actually want to leave their relationship
Some people who cheat on their partners really do want out — and having an affair is the only way they know how to begin that process. But other people are simply looking to spice things up.
That’s according to Tammy Nelson, a sex and relationship therapist and the relationship expert at Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking affairs.
Nelson shared a hypothetical example: “Maybe their marriage gives them physical and emotional validation, but they’re not getting the sexual risk-taking that they would want. So they get that from the affair.”
In fact, Nelson said some people may only see their affair partner a couple times a year — “but when they do, it’s like a full blowout, and then they come back to their marriage and they’re perfectly happy.”
Don’t discount your gut feelings about your partner’s attraction to a ‘friend’
“Emotional affairs” are becoming increasingly common, and unlike with a physical affair, it can be hard to know if your partner is having one.
According to marriage and family therapist Sheri Meyers, it’s important to listen to your intuition. Maybe you’ve noticed your partner changing the way they act when the other person is around, or maybe they’ve been weirdly critical of that person.
If you feel like there might be something not exactly platonic going on between your partner and their friend, that’s worth exploring — even if ultimately you’re wrong.
Still confused about the birds and the bees? These people want to invite you to a party.
Attendees of Touchpoint, a monthly gathering in New York about sex and relationships that is part of a larger trend.
By Jennifer Miller
Dominick Quartuccio was concerned about his libido, which he’d noticed was slowing down as he reached 40. “The prevailing social narrative is that you’re getting old, so go get a pill,” Mr. Quartuccio said. An executive coach, he helps clients speak candidly about their anxieties — romantic and sexual, sometimes, as well as professional — and preferred to do the same.
Last March, Mr. Quartuccio posted on the Kaleidoscope, an invitation-only Facebook group where nearly 3,000 participants post questions and answers about sex and sexuality.
Within hours, he had more than 15 suggestions: “embracing, supporting, offering ideas — ‘hey go check out this person for reiki or tantra,’” Mr. Quartuccio said. “But most useful was the acknowledgment of my courage to talk about it. To take these shadowy conversations out into the open and demystify them.”
According to a recent fact sheet from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit devoted to reproductive health, in 2014 fewer than half of American high schools and only 20 percent of middle schools taught students all 16 topics that the CDC considers “essential” to sexual health education. Between 2011 and 2013, the vast majority of teenagers 15-19 reported discussing at least one sex education topic with a parent. But those conversations vary notoriously in quality.
The Kaleidoscope is one of several social communities and companies that have emerged to help adults talk openly about sex and sexuality, with the explicit goal of teaching them everything they didn’t learn in health class or from their parents.
“There’s been a general awakening with the election,” said Ashley Spivak, a founder of a sex and reproductive health education company for millennials called Cycles & Sex. “People are realizing that institutions cannot provide always everything we need.”
Last summer, Bryony Cole, who produces a podcast and event series called the Future of Sex, held a “sextech” hackathon, the first of a quarterly series. The winning idea was an app that uses an interactive “spin the bottle” feature to make the sex talk less embarrassing for families.
Let’s talk about sex…and record that conversation as a podcast!
For Goodness Sake, a video production company, is developing a series for teenagers. The content will be non-explicit but will feature teenagers sharing their personal experiences about sex and, yes, sexual pleasure.
“People relate to hearing others be honest and vulnerable,” said Rob Perkins, 40, a founder of the company, which has previously produced crowdsourced educational videos on female sexual pleasure. “It’s more credible than hearing an expert.”
Those videos, which appear in the 12-part series OMGYES, include graphic demonstrations of common masturbation techniques, a tech version of Betty Dodson, the sex educator popular in the 1970s. “Sometimes this can take people decades to figure out,” said Lydia Daniller, 40, another founder. “We’re hoping that we can speed up the journey for people.”
Cycles & Sex focuses on Instagram. Ms. Spivak, 30, and another founder, Lauren Bille, 35, frequently post questions to their nearly 32,000 followers, such as “What do you visualize to help you orgasm?” and “What are your tips for getting an IUD inserted or removed?”
Ms. Bille said she was raised by a nurse in a progressive environment. Even so, she felt that conversations about sex were implicitly taboo. And this persisted into adulthood. “Anytime I thought of going into a sex shop or to a sex class, it was a fringe experience,” she said.
In 2017, 900 attended the company’s New York City conference, where panels and workshops covered topics including the basics of childbirth, oral sex techniques and bondage 101. At a conference in Los Angeles last November, four cervical exam sessions (participants were given mirrors) were packed.
Touchpoint’s founder, Jared Matthew Weiss, in his preferred seating position.
Touchpoint, a monthly gathering founded by Jared Matthew Weiss, where strangers share deeply personal stories about relationships and sex, is intended for a similarly mainstream audience.
The event started out as a small group discussion in a friend’s New York apartment. At the time Mr. Weiss was getting over a breakup, and thought that hearing other people’s experiences in sex and love might help him.
Today, over 3,000 people have attended Touchpoint, which is now held at the Assemblage Nomad in Manhattan. Mr. Weiss calls the meetings “town halls”: a place for the community to ask questions, air grievances and solve problems. The difference, he said, is that instead of “discussing potholes in the street, it’s ‘should I take ghosting personally?’,” as well as more intimate questions.
The Touchpoint vibe is part Quaker meeting, part new-age retreat. At one meeting not long ago, 112 people lounged on floor cushions, around a table of flickering candles, sipping coconut water.
About 15 attendees spoke during the nearly three-hour session. The evening’s topic was ostensibly about “defining relationships,” and their stories included a middle-aged woman’s sexual awakening, dating with an S.T.I., and revealing your polyamorous lifestyle to family and friends.
Ingram Drye is an enthusiastic participant in Touchpoint.
Ingram Drye, 30, an art director at Ralph Lauren, said he was struck by the diversity and relatability of the stories. “L.G.B.T.Q. people go through the same relationship struggles as straight communities,” he said. “We’re all in this together, learning from each other.”
Another frequent Touchpoint attendee, Hana Ayoub, 37, was raised in a conservative Christian Arab-American home. Only through the organization, she said, has she begun to step out of her comfort zone.
“I’ve learned it’s O.K. to ask questions,” she said.
“Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die.”
Before today, this exclamation by the pedophiliac health teacher Coach Carr in the iconic film Mean Girls formed the bulk of my understanding of sex-ed class.
But on this afternoon in my high school library, as my classmates and I giggled, two sexual health educators taught us how to put on a condom on a banana — or as per the demonstration — a wooden dildo painted as the universally-loved Nintendo character Yoshi.
As the educator slid the condom down the shaft of the dildo (or in this case Yoshi’s pink tongue), my best friend and I held back laughter as we did the same to our bananas, unaware how normal this practice would become in our lives years later.
The educator followed the demonstration by briefly discussing a wide variety of topics, without going in-depth into the many aspects of sex education that concern LGBT people and the distinctive qualities that concern the queer community.
Instead, a majority of the conversation focused on contraceptives, bullying, pregnancy and heterosexual-centric information involving relationships between men and women.
Even then, these classes were short. I can say with absolute certainty that I spent more time in high school memorizing the periodic table of elements than the sum of classes that were focused on sexual health.
My school’s sexual education primarily equipped me with misapplied information on how to be a respectful cisgender heterosexual man — although topics concerning queer people were brought up in sex-ed class, the majority of the focus was allocated towards heteronormative material, which bolstered the feeling that my concerns came second to that of my heterosexual peers.
Even though information on LGBT relationships and sexual health was somewhat of an afterthought compared to my heterosexual counterparts, the brief acknowledgement that I could one day get married — and that my feelings were valid — was enough for me to seek out more information on my own.
I had grown up in an environment where I was assumed to be heterosexual, and I often internally questioned my sexuality. At an early age, I was rarely given information that reassured me I belonged or what I was feeling was valid.
Nathan Sing at a younger age.
Having no LGBT figures in my life, I formed an idea of what it meant to be gay through stereotyped characters in television and film. These stereotypes permeated my perception of what it was to be a gay man so deeply that in my early years as a teenager I equated an interest in fashion and speaking with an “unmasculine” way to being a gay man.
I could not go to my heterosexual parents although they raised me with progressive and inclusive views, because they had no knowledge of same-sex relationships or answers to my questions about being a gay minority man. Instead, I sought out this information from online forums, various blogs and informative videos on YouTube.
Being that I had no queer friends or family members and was not openly gay myself, consuming this information solitarily felt isolating at times. Still, watching these videos offered a sense of inclusivity and community through my screen, as I discovered resources that my school’s sex-ed class lacked.
Through these digital resources, I watched hundreds of videos where individuals shared their coming out stories, learned of the mistreatment of gay men during the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well as other cases of mistreatment of LGBT people throughout history, and became educated on the precautionary measures to take while on dating apps.
Even though I found answers to my questions independently, not all youth will go to these lengths for the information they need.
Young LGBT people, especially those in marginalized communities where talking about queer identity with family may be difficult, will undoubtedly benefit from being taught comprehensive and representative material in school instead of being taught a curriculum that largely benefits youth in heterosexual relationships. I am a young gay minority and part of a community that is often underrepresented, heavily stereotyped and misportrayed in the mainstream — it’s incontrovertible that I would have benefitted from that kind of sexual education.
For a time, it seemed that this ideal world could become a reality in Ontario high schools: in 2015, three years after I saw a condom being slid over Yoshi’s tongue, the Liberal BC and Ontario governments updated the sexual-education curriculum to cover areas including mental illness and stereotypes in media.
In Ontario, the changes were even more considerable being that this was the first update to the curriculum since 1998; the new 2015 curriculum added new topics including same-sex relationships and gender identity, the concept of consent, homophobia, sexting and cyberbullying, to name a few.
Yet on July 11, 2018, less than three years after the Ontario Liberals introduced the new sex-ed curriculum, Ontario’s education minister announced that in September, students would be going back in time: the revised curriculum will be replaced with the one from 1998. Students will be taught a sexual-education program that is as old as I am.
This is a curriculum that was designed well before the creation of Tinder and Grindr, let alone the devices they are powered by. In an age where youth are exposed to sex by virtue of social media, technology and dating apps, this curriculum will not equip young students with the information required to properly learn about and deal with revenge porn, cyberstalking and consent, issues that were not as prevalent or discussed two decades ago.
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives’ decision to return to a 20-year-old way of teaching a subject as ever-changing and complex as sexuality is not only absurd but irresponsible. What a young person learns in sex ed during their formative years sets the groundwork to cultivate their identity, build their confidence and have agency over their own sexual health.
Nathan Sing as a teenager.
The information that is taught in sex ed goes beyond courses such as chemistry and calculus; while those classes may get some in the door to college, topics related to sexual health are fundamental to everyone. We are sacrificing medical- and fact-based information for the next generation over intransigent moral opposition from parents and politicians.
Even if the 2015 curriculum is not taught in schools, young people will still seek out information about sex, but from potentially dangerous sources. In today’s world where knowledge is in the hands of every young person with a cell phone or laptop, offering students comprehensive information about sexual health in a place meant for learning can help keep youth from believing and acting on false and potentially damaging information they might discover on their own. This is especially true for LGBT students, who often don’t see themselves reflected in sex-ed programs.
The world has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, as has our knowledge of sexual health. The way Ontario’s educators — and all educators for that matter — teach sexual health and education must reflect that.
Come September, young people in Canada’s most populated province will be learning about sexual health from a curriculum that predates the impact of the internet, the cultural shift towards the mainstream acceptance of LGBT people, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada. If I am proof that this more recent curriculum still has a ways to go in meeting young people’s needs, the announcement that students will now be taught a more dated program should be hard to swallow for everyone.
Isn’t it self-evident that gender would always be uniquely expressed in each person?
Gender is not binary, but alters from culture to culture, from generation to generation
By Allyson Jule
I know we’ve all heard this stuff before: men and women and boys and girls are “different”: they think differently, they think about different things, and they interact with the world in different ways. But those are dangerous ideas. Why? Because they simplify both women and/or men as stereotypical, and we know that stereotypes flatten the complexity of the human person. Each of us is complicated, amazing, contradictory, mysterious, hopeful, sad – and in all other matters of being human. We have already left other stereotypes behind us. For instance, we know not all Canadians are polite or Irish people good singers and dancers. Furthermore, we as individuals appreciate being taken as we are, in our own lives as ourselves, and not as representations of all women and/or all men in all circumstances, all of the time.
So why is it that we have so much difficulty in accepting the variety of gender expressions and in being nice about it? Isn’t it self-evident that gender would always be uniquely expressed in each person? For a long time feminist and cultural studies scholars have made the convincing case that sex is primarily the biological reality of someone as male and/or female, while gender is what is socialised. Gender is not binary, but alters from culture to culture, from generation to generation, from family to family and community to community.
It is time to embrace the incredible variety of gender identities and gender expressions as part of societal change. In Canada, a bill was introduced by Justin Trudeau’s government in May of 2016, passed the legislative process and, upon receiving Royal Assent in June of 2017, became law. The purpose of Bill C-16 was to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code by adding “gender expression and gender identity” as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code.
Seems like a no-brainer but there was a backlash in regards to the use of pronouns (he, him, his or she, her, hers or they, them, theirs). The backlash rested on an argument about government infringing on freedom of speech and enacting something called “compelled speech”. The protesters wanted to be able to refuse to use different pronouns for those who do not subscribe to binary gender. If someone asked them to refer to them as “they” or “them”, they didn’t want to feel “compelled” to honour this because of freedom of expression.
But what’s so difficult about it? If Elizabeth Jones at the bookstore, say, asked me to call her Mrs Jones, why would I say “Nope. I am more comfortable with calling you Betty”? And if Pat asked you to call Pat “them”, wouldn’t you?
It’s not a big ask, and the world would be a better place if we were nice to each other. In any event, the Canadian Bar Association argued that the Bill C-16 provides necessary protections for transgender people in particular and posed no risk to freedom of expression. Thankfully, the debate seems to have settled down but, sad to say, often rages elsewhere.
Ours is a world of incredible social change. We will need to make necessary adjustments as we go forward as a society. We should all get to decide how we are to be addressed. This matters because our words reveal us and create us. Words reveal how we see the world, how we see and understand others and can create our views and attitudes.
A civilised society respects all people. We live our lives as free agents who love, work, rest and think in our own unique ways. If we can’t see the commonalities of all people and the uniqueness of each person, if we always see sex and gender as the biggest deal in who someone is, then we are doomed to this gender/sexuality conflict forever.
To be kind and gracious with some added Canadian politeness to all persons through thoughtful language, regardless of gender expressions, sexuality, sex, religion, ethnicity, race and socio-economic status, is the only way forward. Whether we be men and/or women, teachers and/or lawyers, straight and/or gay, conservative and/or liberal, we can respect all persons. Basic respect for others is necessary for all of us to live good, just and peaceful lives with those around us. Let’s play nice.
A decade-long debate seemed settled in June when the World Health Organization officially added “compulsive sexual behavior disorder” to the newest edition of the International Classification of Diseases. Unfortunately, in the aftermath, many publications declared “sex addiction” was officially a mental health disorder. Technically, that’s wrong, but the blunder sheds light on the controversy surrounding the diagnosis. Even now, scientists are still trying to figure out the best way to think about people with very strong sexual urges.
It was a calculated choice by the WHO to replace the existing ICD-10 category of “excessive sexual drive” with “compulsive sexual behavior disorder” — not “sex addiction” or “hypersexuality.” It’s also very purposefully classified as an “impulse control disorder” instead of a disorder related to addiction. Impulse disorders, wrote members of the WHO ICD-11 Working Group in a 2014 paper, are defined by the repeated failure to resist a craving despite knowing the action can cause long-term harm.
The reason for this linguistic and categorical change is to make clear there’s no “right amount of sexuality” and to acknowledge that “it is important that the classification does not pathologize normal behavior.” Ultimately, the goal is to help identify repetitive behavior that can shut down a person’s life, though the language we use about it continues to be controversial. Despite the vagaries, Marc Potenza, Ph.D., M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, says the WHO’s move is a good thing.
“I believe that the inclusion of compulsive sexual behavior disorder within the ICD-11 is a positive step,” Potenza tells Inverse. “My experience as a clinician indicates that there are many people who experience difficulties controlling their sexual urges and then engage in sex compulsively and problematically. Having a defined set of diagnostic criteria should help significantly with respect to advancing prevention, treatment, research, education, and other efforts.”
Why Some Think It’s an “Addiction”
Potenza co-authored a 2016 paper questioning whether compulsive sexual behavior should be considered an addiction, concluding that significant gaps in the understanding of the disorder mean that it can’t technically be called an addiction yet. Today, however, the disorder continues to be described as “sex addiction” by universities, medical centers, and researchers. It’s unclear whether the word addiction here is colloquial or clinical.
For his part, Potenza suspects compulsive sexual behavior disorder may eventually be reclassified as an addictive disorder in future editions of the ICD. It’s not currently in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but he predicts it might likewise be introduced and classified as an addictive order there once more data is gathered.
The central elements of addictions, he explains, include continued engagement in a behavior despite adverse consequences, appetitive urges or cravings that often immediately precede engagement, compulsive or habitual engagement, and difficulties controlling the extent of engagement in the behavior.
“From this perspective,” Potenza says, “compulsive sexual behavior disorder demonstrates the core features of addictions.”
Why Some Think It’s Not an Addiction
But Nicole Prause, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and sexual psychophysiologist who founded the sexual biotechnology company Liberos LLC, argues that sex is not addictive and that “compulsive sexual behavior” shouldn’t have been included in the ICD-11. In 2017, Prause and her colleagues published a paper in The Lancet in response to Potenza’s study, arguing that while “sex has components of liking and wanting that share neural systems with many other motivated behaviors,” experimental studies don’t actually demonstrate that excessive sexual behavior can be classified as addiction.
“Scientists generally were glad to see ‘sex addiction’ was kept out of the ICD-11,” Prause tells Inverse. “Therapists created ‘sex addiction’ training 40 years ago and were pushing to get it in with no good evidence.”
Prause generally doesn’t believe “compulsive sexual behavior” needs a name at all. Creating a means for diagnosis, she says, can increase “shame on sexual behaviors,” and people conditioned to think that sex is bad are more likely to think they have a problem. She argues that the population most likely to be classified as sexually compulsive are gay men, noting that there are even “examples of ‘sex addiction’ therapists offering to help gay men stop being gay,” which is “reparative, anti-gay therapy all over again.”
“The diagnosis has never been tested,” Prause says. “We have no idea if these patients even exist. The committee invented a new diagnosis and added it without ever seeing if anyone would meet the criteria.”
She argues that the grounds for such a diagnosis haven’t been backed up by research on actual sex in a lab. So far, estimates of how many people who identify as having a compulsive sexual behavior disorder vary and are predominantly based on self-reports. Epidemiological estimates have the number at three to six percent of adults, writes the WHO ICD-11 Working Group in a paper released this year, but more recent studies have suggested that range is closer to one to three percent of adults. Researchers at the University of Cambridge, meanwhile, reported in 2014 that compulsive sexual behavior can affect as many as one in 25 adults.
Now that it’s in the ICD-11, researchers are waiting to see how that will affect the official rates of identification.
“Growing evidence suggests that compulsive sexual behavior disorder is an important clinical problem with potentially serious consequences if left untreated,” writes the ICD-11 Working Group. “We believe that including the disorder in the ICD-11 will improve the consistency with which health professionals approach the diagnosis, and treatment of persons with this condition, including consistency regarding when a disorder should be diagnosed.”
Potenza says that it can be hard for a specialist to diagnose a person with compulsive sexual behavior disorder because, like alcoholism or a gambling addiction, it probably doesn’t have visible signs. But Potenza says the disorder can seep into and negatively impact other parts of a person’s life.
There are so many questions when you first start out. What kind of rope do you get? What body parts are okay to tie up? Is it possible to seriously hurt your partner (or get hurt yourself)? How do you tell your partner what you do and don’t want to try? And what happens if you do it wrong?
Ahead, we talked with Yin Q, a dominatrix and writer/producer of BDSM webseries Mercy Mistress, to answer some of those questions. Read on for tips about consent, safety, rope types, and safe words.
1) Negotiation and consent.
Before anyone gets tied up, you and your partner(s) need to have a negotiation about what’s going to happen. And in that negotiation, you have to talk about consent, Yin says. “You have to know how you’re going to actually explore,” they say. You could start exploring bondage in an experiential way, where no still means no. But you could also try a theme where struggle is part of what makes bondage erotic. So, you’ll need to talk to your partner up front about what you want.
“It’s not that you just say yes to bondage and then that means that you’re saying yes to everything that happens after you’re in bondage,” Yin says. There are multiple things you and your partner have to consent to, whether you’re the top or the bottom in the bondage situation. But especially if you’re the bottom (the one being tied up). Once someone is in bondage, Yin says, they might enter something called “subspace” and might no longer feel comfortable negotiating what they do and don’t want to try. So it’s essential to have negotiation and consent up front.
2) Safe words.
Part of the negotiation process is establishing a safe word (or multiple safe words) with your partner. In BDSM, a safe word is something other than “no,” “don’t,” “stop” or any other word you’d usually use to tell someone to slow down. Because those words tend to be part of the play. “If you want to play with those roles and power dynamics, language can start changing meaning,” Yin says. Instead, use a word that usually wouldn’t come up in the context of sex. For beginners, Yin suggests “yellow” and “red.”
“‘Yellow’ meaning that you’re getting to your edge where you know something doesn’t feel right or that this is basically as much as you can take,” they say. “Red” meaning that you’re totally done with the scene and you want to be untied.
3) Knowing your bodies (and minds).
Does your partner have bad knees? Are you prone to back aches? Does anyone have diabetes or epilepsy? These are all things you and your partner should discuss before anyone gets tied up, because where you place the rope might exacerbate any of those problems.
And mental health is just as important as physical health. “If somebody has gone through trauma, language can become a trigger when you’re playing,” Yin says. Some people enjoy what’s called “slut play,” which is essentially dirty talk that uses words generally considered humiliating or degrading. But, for some, certain words can bring up insecurities. Yin, for example, feels totally fine using words like “slut,” “submissive,” and “dirty dog” in their play. But can’t stand saying or hearing the word “stupid.”
“For some reason, that triggers something in childhood for me,” they say. “It’s just not sexy to me. I’m very cerebral, so that’s going to call up a lot of insecurity for me.” So, like everything else, you’ll need to talk with your partner about which words are a no-go for them, and keep the communication open so they can tell you if something feels wrong in the moment.
4) Triggers
Just like words can be triggering, so can actions. And it’s important not to assume that something won’t be triggering, Yin says. As a switch (someone who both tops and bottoms), Yin says they can take a lot of masochism, like flogging and canning. “But, the one thing I cannot take is tickling,” they say. “I get angry, first of all, and then I also get nauseous.”
Their partners might not even consider that tickling could be a trigger — after all, tickling is something we do to tiny children, and it doesn’t hurt — but it’s important that they listen to them when they say they can’t handle it. As a beginner, you and your partner(s) might not yet know what your physical triggers are, so communication becomes important again.
5) Nerve damage.
Once you’re done with the negotiations and consent and other talking, there are some things you should know before tying someone up. Mainly, that certain areas are more prone to nerve damage than others. “Usually it’s around the elbows or the knees and especially the neck,” Yin says.
So, if you’re idea of bondage comes from beautiful photos of Shibari-style knots, then you’ll have to adjust your expectations. “Going into it as a beginner, one must learn the basics and also understand that each person’s body has it’s own capabilities,” Yin says. Anyone who’s just starting out should never put rope near the neck, because doing it wrong has the potential to cause serious damage.
6) Tingling.
If you’re the person being tied up, it’s important to tell your partner when you’re experiencing tingling in your fingers, toes, or anywhere else. That could be a sign that the rope is too tight or that you’re not in a comfortable position, Yin says. Tingling is fine for about 20 minutes, as long as it’s just a light tingle. But you should be able to move, to struggle against the rope (that’s part of the fun), and to move the rope around your skin.
When you’re tying someone up, Yin says to make sure their hands are below the heart and to get them into a position that’s going to be comfortable for them.
7) Safety.
When tying someone up, tighter might seem better. But that’s not true, Yin says. “If you’re the top, you want to be able to slip about two fingers underneath the rope, so that the rope can be moved around on the skin,” they say. That’s going to make bondage safer for the partner who’s on the bottom.
But, even if you’ve made the ropes loose enough, it’s important to have a pair of safety scissors like these close by, in case your partner needs to be cut out of the ropes quickly.
8) Types of rope.
Stretchy rope is best for beginners right? Wrong. Rope that has any elastic in it is dangerous, especially for beginners, because you can’t tell how much give it will have, Yin says. Instead, you’ll want to use a sturdy rope that moves nicely against skin. “I tend to start my classes with nylon rope, because it slides nicely against the skin, is laid very flat, and is smooth,” Yin says. “And then we graduate on to either cotton or hemp rope, which are the natural fiber ropes that are going to be a little bit more sturdy for any knots.” Cotton and hemp are more likely to give rope burn, though, so they’re not essential for beginners.
9) Aftercare.
People who do bondage often practice something called aftercare, which involves sitting down with your partner afterward and talking about what you did and didn’t like. This is especially important for beginners, since you don’t yet know what about bondage turns you on.
But don’t think that you can’t continue talking about it once that first sit-down is done. Aftercare can last days, Yin says. “If something comes up three days later and you think, ‘Oh my God, that was triggering something else for me,’ to share that with your partner or at least to be able to honestly pinpoint it for yourself is really important.”
So, once your first-time bondage is done, replay the experience again and again. Even if it doesn’t make you realize something that could have gone better, it’ll likely make you even more excited for the next time.
Oliver Morton-Evans visits sex workers as he says potential partners cannot see past his wheelchair.
By Sarah Matthews
Oliver Morton-Evans has sought the services of sex workers over the years, because dating can be especially tough for anyone with a disability.
Despite having tried “every dating app out there”, Oliver, 39, has never been in a long-term relationship.
The Sydneysider, now a successful tech entrepreneur, said despite looking for a partner ever since finishing high school, he has had no luck.
In the modern dating world, in which apps such as Tinder rely on appearance and snap judgements, Mr Morton-Evans said most people could not see past his wheelchair.
“It’s been really hard because I’m kind of always in a quandary of, ‘do I disclose my disability straight up or do I not?’,” he said.
“I kind of don’t want to, because although it’s a part of me it’s not all of who I am.
“The moment they see a wheelchair, people tend to create a story in their head of what that might mean.”
But he said visiting sex workers was not just about the physical pleasure.
“I have no shame or anything like that, but that’s just not what I most deeply desire,” he said.
“There’s so much more to sex than just the physical activity.”
Mr Morton-Evans said everybody needed the feel of human touch to feel connected.
Mr Morton-Evans said seeing sex workers provided him with the intimacy he craved in his everyday life, and motivated him to keep looking for a partner.
“I think for an able-bodied person they forget about how much, particularly touch for example … humans need touch to feel connected with others,” he said.
“So when I would see a sex worker, it tends to make me feel a lot more able to then go out and find the kind of relationship I want.”
People with disabilities seek intimacy from sex workers
Although often viewed as taboo, many people with disabilities seek the services of sex workers as an outlet for their sexual and intimate desires.
Brisbane escort Lisa said she regularly saw clients with disabilities and was proud to provide a service for people struggling to find intimacy in their everyday lives.
“I see this job as just an extension of the caring person that I am,” she said.
Brisbane escort Lisa says clients with disabilities may want affection or a chat, not always sex.
“Not everyone wants to have sex. They just want a bit of affection, or to chat to someone, all that sort of thing.
“It’s just me giving to the person what they need, and I feel that I’m doing a worthwhile job by helping other people.”
She said access to sexual services, especially for marginalised people, was vital for their health and wellbeing.
“It’s a genuine health issue,” she said.
“Like a baby needs affection, needs cuddles, needs touch, needs food, needs all these things [so too] an adult does.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are … it’s so basic of a human need.”
Noriel works as an escort and is the Cairns representative for Respect Inc, the Queensland sex worker support group.
She said she believed access to sex workers for people with disabilities should be covered under the NDIS.
Cairns escort Noriel believes access to sex workers for people with disabilities should be covered under the NDIS.
“Whether you are a wage-earner or you’re on any type of benefit from the government, you have a right to spend your money however you want,” she said.
“And if you would like to spend your money hiring the services of a sex worker, I think you should be able to do that.”
Social attitudes have harmful impacts
Counsellor and registered NDIS provider Casey Payne said it was a common misconception that people with disabilities were non-sexual.
“Just because you live with something that’s different to everybody else doesn’t mean that your life can’t still be the same in every aspect, especially in sexual health.
“Everybody deserves the right to have a pleasurable, sexual, healthy life.”
Deakin University Associate Professor in disability and inclusion Dr Patsie Frawley said research had found people with disabilities were disproportionately affected by breast and cervical cancer — but also by sexually transmitted infection (STI).
“If you’re not seen as sexual and as a sexual person, the range of sexual health screenings, sexual health prevention and response services won’t be offered to you,” she said.
“It’s been identified in research that men with an intellectual disability have eight times greater rates of STIs than their non-disabled peers.”
Sex worker with a disability challenges perceptions
Raivynn DarqueAngel has met the stereotypes of both sex workers and people with disabilities head on.Raivynn has cerebral palsy and has worked in Melbourne’s sex industry for more than 20 years.
Raivyn, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair, has worked in Melbourne’s sex industry for more than 20 years, mostly as a dominant escort.
“I chose to be a dominant to … change perceptions,” she said.”
The submissive people that I see make me feel strong and in charge and I like that. I’ve taken it back home and I’m much more confident saying what I need with my support workers.
“It’s given me the confidence to trust that I’m worth my needs.”
Despite his disappointing dating experiences, Mr Morton-Evans insisted he had not given up on finding love.
He had one thing to say to potential partners: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Global health body not yet ready to acknowledge ‘sex addiction’, saying more research is needed
The World Health Organisation logo at the headquarters in Geneva.
The World Health Organisation has recognised “compulsive sexual behaviour” as a mental disorder, but said on Saturday it was unclear whether it was an addiction on a par with gambling or drug abuse.
Dr. Geoffrey M. Reed
The contentious term “sex addiction” has been around for decades but experts disagree about whether the condition exists.
In the latest update of its catalogue of diseases and injuries around the world, the WHO takes a step towards legitimising the concept, by acknowledging “compulsive sexual behaviour disorder”, or CSBD, as a mental illness.
But the UN health body insisted more research is needed before describing the disorder as an addiction.
“Conservatively speaking, we don’t feel that the evidence is there yet … that the process is equivalent to the process with alcohol or heroin,” said WHO expert Geoffrey Reed.
In the update of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD), published last month, WHO said CSBD was “characterised by persistent failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges … that cause marked distress or impairment”
But it said the scientific debate was still going on as to “whether or not the compulsive sexual behaviour disorder constitutes the manifestation of a behavioural addiction”.
Maybe eventually we will say, yeah, it is an addiction, but that is just not where we are at this point
Geoffrey Reed, World Health Organisation
Reed said it was important that the ICD register, which is widely used as a benchmark for diagnosis and health insurers, includes a concise definition of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder to ensure those affected can get help.
“There is a population of people who feel out of control with regards to their own sexual behaviour and who suffer because of that,” he said pointing out that their sexual behaviour sometimes had “very severe consequences”.
“This is a genuine clinical population of people who have a legitimate health condition and who can be provided services in a legitimate way,” he said.
It is unclear how many people suffer from the disorder, but Reed said the ICD listing would probably prompt more research into the condition and its prevalence, as well as into determining the most effective treatments.
“Maybe eventually we will say, yeah, it is an addiction, but that is just not where we are at this point,” Reed said.
But even without the addiction label, he said he believed the new categorisation would be “reassuring”, since it lets people know they have “a genuine condition” and can seek treatment.
Claims of “sex addiction” have increasingly been in the headlines in step with the so-called #MeToo movement, which has seen people around the world coming forward and claiming they have been sexually abused.
The uprising has led to the downfall of powerful men across industries, including disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who has reportedly spent months in treatment for sex addiction.
[Film producer Harvey Weinstein arriving at Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday, July 9, 2018. Photo: TNS]
Reed said he did not believe there was reason to worry that the new CSBD listing could be used by people like Weinstein to excuse alleged criminal behaviours.
“It doesn’t excuse sexual abuse or raping someone … any more than being an alcoholic excuses you from driving a car when you are drunk. You have still made a decision to act,” he said.
While it did not recognise sex addiction in the first update of its ICD catalogue since the 1990s, the WHO did for the first time recognise video gaming as an addiction, listing it alongside addictions to gambling and drugs like cocaine – but only among a tiny fraction of gamers.
The document, which member states will be asked to approve during the World Health Assembly in Geneva next May, will take effect from January 1, 2022 if it is adopted.
Ignorance abounds because of narrow depictions of living with a disability. Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to sex.
To counter this, people such as disability awareness consultant Andrew Gurza are driving candid conversations about sex and sexuality. Andrew’s Disability After Dark podcast addresses all kinds of stories around disability and sex. Andrew, who has cerebral palsy, told the Huffington Post last year: “Whenever we talk about sex and disability ― if we dare ― it is in this painfully sanitised way that tends to tell you nothing about the person with a disability, their sex or what they actually want ― it doesn’t shed any light on how it really feels.”
Here, four men and women debunk some of the myths and misconceptions they encounter about sex and disability.
1: ‘Sex with a disabled person must be pretty boring’
Actress Shannon Murray, 41, who experienced a spinal cord injury when she was 14, tells i misconceptions about sex and disability still come at her from all corners. “Just like any other human being, disabled people have desire. We want to be touched, to touch, to feel pleasure – why is that still such a ridiculous taboo? Why are intelligent people genuinely shocked when they learn that I have sex?
“If anything, I’d say some of my disabled friends are some of the more sexually adventurous and confident people I know. We have to be creative and find different techniques that work for us and spend every waking hour being adaptable to the environment around us.
“Sex is no different, though it’s much more fun.”
2: ‘I’m not a sexual being’
“There has been a real disservice done to disabled people by the mainstream media who have only told very one-dimensional stories,” Shannon adds. “You see disabled men who use sex workers, or people who are frustrated and angry at their bodies.
“It can feel very marginalising; it’s all very woe is me. I think that suits the idea that non-disabled people have about our lives: that we’re asexual, incapable or it’s too complicated. However if you venture on to websites or publications aimed at a disabled audience you’ll see a much more rounded and interesting experience.”
3: ‘Being paralysed means I can only have sex missionary style’
Shannon says: “Some of the misconceptions I’ve faced is that I can’t have sex; that I am incapable of having sex; that I must be numb from the waist down; that because I’m paraplegic I can only have sex in the missionary position; that I can only have sex in my chair; that I can’t feel pleasure; that I can’t give pleasure; that orgasms are impossible and that I can’t have children. All of which are untrue.
“It’s also interesting how frequently strangers think it’s perfectly acceptable to ask me about my sex life within an hour of meeting me.”
4: ‘I must be shy in bed because I have a disability’
Far from it, says Joanne*, 51, a housewife who is profoundly deaf. “When I first started having sex, because I could not hear anything, the sounds I was making were extremely loud. I only found out because the man I was having sex with put his finger on his lips in a ‘sssh’ motion. I got really self-conscious – I mean, how loud was I?
“So I decided to record myself masturbating, and asked my best friend to listen to it. To my embarrassment she said I was very, very loud! I soon met my now-husband and our first sexual encounters were strained as I always stopped before things got to a point where I thought I would start getting ‘excited’.
“Finally, I decided to tell him and he laughed because he thought it was his fault and was relieved. In a sensitive way, he said he would always let me know if I was getting too loud and I’ve sort of trained myself to be less noisy.”
5: ‘My hearing aid must be a turn-off’
“I love sex and hearing aids don’t stop me from loving it,” says comedian Samantha Baines, 31, who acquired her disability at the age of 30. “I mean, I do need to take my hearing aid out before sex as they aren’t good with fluids – I don’t want to see my audiologist and explain how I got spunk in my hearing aid.
“Taking your hearing aid out isn’t a very sexy procedure when you are in the moment. It’s a bit like taking your socks off or peeing after sex – it just has to be done.”
6: ‘It’s ok for disability to be treated as a sexual fetish’
Joanne says: “Growing up as a child I was made to wear hearing aids which really were of no benefit to me at all. When I used to go out I always was conscious of it and deliberately made sure that I wore my hair to cover them.
“When I got older, I looked just like any other woman, I just couldn’t hear. Except one guy I dated for a few months always wanted me to wear my hearing aids during sex. I think he found my deafness a turn-on which was strange.”
Shannon adds: “When the odd TV drama includes a story about disability and sex it is always negative or traumatic, or conversely our bodies are fetishised for the non-disabled gaze.
“People with disabilties are not curiosities, we are humans with wants, needs and desires. Treat us with the same respect you would any other person that you’re interested in. It’s really not rocket science.”
7: ‘You don’t look disabled so you don’t have to tell sexual partners about it’
“I’ve been guilty as anyone else of not seeing disabled people as sexual beings,” says Matt, “but I’ve realised keeping it hidden is so much harder than being honest about it. Around the time I was correctly diagnosed, I met someone in a club.
“After a couple of conversations over the next few days she started to realise that I had short term memory loss. For the first time I could be open with a woman about my memory difficulties, rather than pretending I’d just forgotten something as a one-off. Two weeks later, I’d lost my virginity to her.”
Cuckolding is form of consensual non-monogamy, and these guys find it hot AF.
By Richard Greenhill
Having sex with other people while in a committed relationship isn’t necessarily cheating—especially for those who are into consensual non-monogamy (CNM). In fact, the prospect of watching or hearing about their partner’s sexual escapades is such a turn on for some people, they actively encourage their lover to share as many unfamiliar beds as they want.
CNM is practised in all sorts of forms, such as polyamory (having multiple romantic partners) and swinging (swapping sexual partners with other couples). Cuckolding is a form of CNM where one partner (the cuckold) agrees their lover can have sex with other people—often known as ‘bulls’. There are variations in how cuckolding plays out for different couples—some cuckolds enjoy being verbally and sexually humiliated—but cuckolds are generally involved with watching their partner have sex. Or getting message/photo updates throughout, and being told in detail about it afterwards.
“It makes me pursue and compete for my own wife”
All varieties of cuckolding can be practised by anyone, regardless of their gender identity or sexuality. Nonetheless, there seems to be a high proportion of straight men who are interested in it—and yes, if you sleep with men, you might be familiar with a version of dirty talk that involves you recounting past hookups.
Here, three straight men discuss how they got into cuckolding, what they like about it and how it’s actually benefited their relationships.
“It allows me to watch the best possible porn ever”, says Ben*, a computer systems administrator
“For most of our marriage, my wife has been free to sleep with other men. When she does, she’s always told me about the experiences. We got into polyamory because my wife was having problems staying monogamous. She didn’t understand why it was wrong to love more than one person. We have been doing what is usually called cuckolding for 15 years.
How did you bring up cuckolding with your wife?
“We sort of grew into this place in our lives. We learned to be completely honest with one another, and trust each other. It was incredibly scary to tell my wife some of the things I would be interested in, involving cuckolding. I was terrified she would see me as less than a man, or that I didn’t want her the way I used to, but she’s been very supportive of me.”
What do you like about cuckolding?
“I love the way my wife comes alive. Her body is almost constantly primed, partly from the excitement of the relationship, and partly from the feeling of being wanted by someone new. When she feels sexy and wanted, she becomes a more sexual being, leading to a much more fulfilling sex life for the two of us
“I also believe that wanting something is more powerful than having it. So, feeling like I’m being denied things that my wife is freely sharing with others is a powerful aphrodisiac—it makes me pursue and compete for my own wife in ways I haven’t in a long time.
“I’ve always considered myself a feminist. As such, I want my wife to be true to her own desires so that we can meet as equals—she’s not putting aside what she wants for me; we’re moving forward together, accepting one another as we truly are. Autonomy is important to me, and I don’t want my wife to ever feel trapped with me. With cuckolding, I know she could choose anyone she wants, but she always chooses to continue to spend her life with me.”
What are the downsides and benefits?
“There have been plenty of times where I had to fight hard against jealousy, especially in the beginning. I think most of the times that jealousy has taken over, it boiled down to me feeling unimportant, or left out of the loop. Now, when something bothers me, we talk about it quickly and agree on a path forward that works for everyone involved.
“One benefit to me is that my wife is the sexiest person I know. When we make love, I’m entirely responsible for her pleasure, so I tend to focus so much on whether she’s enjoying what I’m doing that I can’t really appreciate her reactions. Being able to watch someone else have sex with my wife allows me to watch the best possible porn ever—I get to fully enjoy the sights and sounds of her pleasure, while also learning entirely new techniques or discovering activities that I never knew she enjoyed.
“For both of us, one of the biggest advantages is how much our bond to one another has strengthened. We talk openly, honestly, and often. We regularly share our feelings, hopes, desires and fears. We have grown so remarkably close, and have gotten to know each other more deeply than we ever could have otherwise.”
“It’s fun to have a secret about our sex lives”, says Oscar*, a marketing manager
“I started dating my fiancée seven years ago. We had spurts of long distance in our early years, so we starting exploring cuckolding. We found that typical sexting was repetitive and a little boring, and one day she offered to tell me about a past sexual encounter in detail. It was a rush to hear, and over time she would tell me more stories. Then I’d occasionally encourage her to flirt with guys when she would go out, and that flirting eventually translated to hookups. I’d say we’ve been active for the last five years.
How did you bring up cuckolding with your fiancée?
“It was a natural progression for us. It arose from boredom in a long distance relationship and a realization that she enjoys being sexually active, while my kink is releasing my partner from the confines of monogamy.”
What do you like about cuckolding?
“For me, it’s a chance for her to explore her sexuality and bring that fun back to the bedroom. She was significantly more sexually experienced than I was when we started dating, and I’ve always found her love of sex and attention to be a major turn on. It’s a little bit like being an introvert who gets to see life through an extrovert’s eyes.”
What are the downsides and benefits?
“Downsides could be bad communication and jealousy. I suppose emotion could get in the way, and she could start falling for someone. But that hasn’t happened to us
“Cuckolding is great because there is no fear of cheating—she gets to do whatever she wants, as long as I get to be part of it too (even if that just means hearing about it). It has brought us closer together sexually. It’s fun to have a secret about our sex lives, and it’s fun to be my fiancée’s cheerleader when she is attracted to a guy.”
“Sexual jealousy, for me, is like a roller coaster ride,” says Liam*, an energy consultant manager
“My wife and I have been together for a little over five years, and it’s always been a small or big part of our relationship. She’s quite a bit younger than myself, and has a very high sex drive. Back when I first became interested in seeing my partner with another man I was in my 20s, though I guess I had been a voyeur all my life. My girlfriend (at the time) and I had an upstairs neighbour, and the idea [of a threesome] just kind of caught hold. It was me who brought it up, but [my girlfriend] was all for it. Since that time, and with every serious relationship since, there have been elements of cuckolding or swinging.”
How have you brought up cuckolding with your partner(s)?
“I talk about it early if I’m feeling really attracted to someone. More about open relationships and swinging, and if they are biting, then great; if not, I know I should move on.”
What do you like about cuckolding?
“I’m easily bored. Some people like fishing, some like motor sports and some like stamp collecting. I like crazy sexual excitement, and I’ve always been drawn to women that are up for the same. I found along the road that I enjoy a bit of jealousy. Sexual jealousy, for me, is like a roller coaster ride—fun, brief, perhaps a little scary, but in the end an experience I’m happy to have.”
We both love sex, so it adds to our sex life
What are the downsides and benefits?
“I guess a downside would be not everyone understanding. [My wife and I] stay discreet. We have separate groups of friends—those that might know and those we would never tell.
“We both love sex, so it adds to our sex life. We are very open with each other and can talk about anything. She loves the attention and the men (or women) she gets to have, and I love having [a wife who is like] a very hot porn star in my home. I’m her biggest fan.”
Debunking some myths regarding people who identify on the asexualility spectrum
by: Simran Randhawa
Sex usually is directly associated with romance and intimate relationships, but what if you love someone and you still don’t feel sexual attraction towards them? Experiencing this without understanding it can often lead a person to feel inadequate, rejected, and isolated. To make it worse, there are many myths about asexuality and not enough information to go around.
Well, today is your lucky day. Here’s some of the most essential information regarding asexuality.
Asexuality, just like other sexualities — and almost everything — is on a spectrum. One end is a complete lack of sexual attraction and the other end is total sexual attraction. There are multiple sexual and romantic identities that are in-between, such as:
Demisexual: sexual attraction contingent on romantic attraction and a connection to the other person.
Grey-A: the grey area between sexuality and asexuality.
Aromantic: people who experience little to no romantic attraction to others, and can be content with non-romantic partners or friends.
Being a person who identifies as asexual doesn’t mean that you hate sexual intimacy; it only means that this particular form of intimacy is not necessary for you to have a fulfilling relationship. Just like how people who identify as heterosexual don’t feel sexual attraction towards people of same gender. Your romantic attraction is different than sexual attraction, and is treated as such. You could be asexual and still only feel romantic attraction towards people of the same gender, or of different genders.
Although many who identify as asexual do not experience sexual attraction, you can be asexual and still experience other forms of attraction. Some commonly mentioned categories include romantic attraction, aesthetic attraction, and sensual attraction. Aesthetic attraction is when you are attracted only to a person’s looks and how they present themselves. You appreciate their beauty. That doesn’t mean you either want to fall in love with them or have sex with them. Sensual attraction is when you have a desire to engage physically with another person while remaining nonsexual. You might want to platonically sniff, hug, kiss, or cuddle them.
Asexuality is not made up. It is not an excuse to not have sex with you. This cannot be said enough.
Asexuality is not the same thing as celibacy. Being celibate is a choice, regardless of whether it’s for religious or personal reasons. Asexuality isn’t a choice; it’s just who you are. If a person on the asexual spectrum feels sexual arousal, it is very specific to that person and where they are on the spectrum.
Asexuality is also not the same as impotence. Impotency implies that one is unable to perform sexually, and has nothing to do with willingness to do so. Asexual people can perform sexual acts, but would not necessarily want to do so. It does not mean there is something wrong with them or with their significant other, but just that sexual attraction isn’t the defining trait for them. Just because asexual people may not want to have sex with others, doesn’t mean that they don’t masturbate or have sexual fantasies. They can think about others in sexual connotations, but would not want those fantasies to become reality.
Asexuality is not a medical or mental health condition. It’s a sexual orientation, just like heterosexuality and homosexuality — it is just not widely known. The “A” in LGBTQIA doesn’t stand for ally; A is for the people who identify as asexual. But asexuality needs to be just as visible as the other parts of the acronym LGBTQIA, as the lack of information and visibility means that people of this orientation are left to feel like there is something wrong with them.
In summary, sexuality is different from person to person, and everyone falls on the spectrum between a lack of sexual attraction and complete sexual attraction. Some still feel romantic attraction, and they are capable of sexual intimacy. They just don’t feel the need for it, and their relations aren’t contingent on them. The best way to interact with asexuals is exactly the same as with members of other sexual orientations: just be respectful and kind.
Just remember, if you are asexual, there is nothing wrong with you — regardless of what others might say.
Occasional jealousy is natural and can even be motivating. But if you find yourself getting upset when seeing Instagram photos of clothes, jobs, or cars that you envy, you might need to work through this issue. Or maybe your jealousy is making you paranoid and causing problems with you and your significant other. Curbing these emotions can be difficult, but it’s often necessary to move forward and feel secure and confident. Work through your jealousy by addressing it, finding a new focus, and improving yourself. You got this!
Method 1 Handling Jealousy in the Short Term
1 Take a few deep breaths when you start feeling jealous. Perhaps you see your boyfriend talking to another girl or find out your friend got the exact truck you want. Instead of freaking out, calm yourself instead. Take a deep breath in through your nose for five seconds, and then exhale slowly through your mouth. Do this until you feel calm.[1]
If you want to address the issue, do so only when you’ve calmed down. For instance, if you see your boyfriend talking to a girl, calm down first, then approach him and say ‘hello’ to both of them. She may just be a friend or classmate.
2 Stay off social media. Social media floods you with images of people sharing fragments of their lives that might spark your jealousy. But, what you may not know is the girl who constantly posts pics of the flowers her boyfriend gets her may be unhappy in her relationship. People tend to only post things that show them in a positive light, so stay off social media while you’re overcoming your jealousy.[2]
If you can’t stay off of social media, unfollow or unfriend the people you’re jealous of.
3 Avoid criticizing or using sarcasm. When you’re feeling jealous, you might resort to name-calling or trying to diminish the accomplishments of others. However, this only shows your insecurity and makes others feel bad. Instead of being negative, keep your comments to yourself or compliment them.[3]
For instance, if your girlfriend comes home telling you about her new coworker, don’t say something like, “Oh, so since he’s so smart, you wanna go out with him now?” Allow your significant other to tell you things without fear of rudeness.
4 Confess your feelings if the person is close to you. If you’re very jealous of a sibling, best friend, or significant other, and have been for years, tell them. Getting it off your chest can help you move on from this negative feeling and clear the air.[4]
For instance, you might say, “Sis, I know that I’ve been a bit rude to you for a while. But when you got into Stanford and I didn’t, it hurt me. I’ve been so jealous of you because I feel like you’re living my dream. I know it’s not your fault, and I wish I didn’t feel this way.”
5 Focus on what you have in common with the person you’re jealous of. Unravel your jealousy by looking at the similarities you and the person you envy share. The more you two are alike, the less you have to feel jealous over![5]
For example, maybe you’re jealous of your neighbor because they have a nice car. But remember that the two of you live in the same neighborhood and probably have similar houses. Maybe you went to the same school, too, and have friends in common.
Method 2 Refocusing Your Attention
1 Identify the source of your jealousy. Understanding why you are jealous can help you overcome it. Is it because of low self-esteem and insecurity? Do you have a past history with infidelity? Or are you placing unreasonable standards on your relationship? Once you have identified the source, reflect on ways that you can improve upon or fix the issue.
Writing in a journal every day can help you discover where your jealousy might be coming from.
Professional therapy can help with this process. A therapist may be able to help you find the source of your jealousy while working through the issue.
2 Praise those who are doing well. Hating on someone’s accomplishments won’t put you closer to your own goals. When you see others doing the things you want to do, give them kudos. This shows respect and humility.[6]
For instance, if your friend has an awesome career, say, “Molly, your job seems so cool. It seems like you’re always getting awards and promotions, too. You’re really killing it! Got any tips?”
Perhaps your boyfriend has been doing a great job lately of being more affectionate; tell him you appreciate his effort.
3 Reflect on your own strengths. Instead of harping on what others are doing, focus on yourself! Take a moment to either list or think about at least three things that you are good at. These can range from organizing or cooking to being a good listener or hard worker.[7]
Do one thing related to your strengths list today to build your confidence, like cook an awesome meal.
4 Compile a list of what you’re grateful for. Every day that you wake up is truly a blessing. Remember that and think about one thing that you’re thankful for each day. This will help reduce your feelings of jealousy because you’ll become more appreciative of what you do have.[8]
Maybe you have an awesome mom who supports and loves you. Or perhaps you got into a really good school and you’re starting soon. Be thankful for these blessings!
5 Meditate daily. Meditation can clear your mind and help you focus on what’s important. Your thoughts of jealousy might cloud your headspace daily, but get some relief by sitting quietly in an uninterrupted space in the mornings for at least ten minutes. During this time, focus only on your breathing and how your body feels.
If you’re unfamiliar with meditation, you can also download an app like Simple Habit or Calm.
6 Call the shots. You might have a rich friend who’s always asking you to go to expensive restaurants or on extravagant trips. This might make you feel jealous of their money. Instead of letting that control you, take the reins! Pick the restaurants you go to and choose not to go on vacations if you can’t afford it. Plan something locally, instead.[9]
You can say, “Hey Josh, I enjoy eating at five-star restaurants with you, but to be honest, it’s a little out of my price range. If you still wanna get dinner once a week, that’s cool, but you’ll have to let me pick the place most of the time. I hope you understand.”
7 Have fun daily to distract you from your jealousy. You won’t be able to think about your jealousy as much if you’re out having fun! Schedule something to look forward to every day, like watching your favorite show, getting ice cream, or going shopping. Life is short, so make the most of it every day!
Method 3 Improving Your Own Life
1 Set short- and long-term goals. Use your jealousy to motivate you to become the best version of yourself. Based on the things you want in life, create action steps to help you achieve it. Set goals that you can achieve within the next five days and things to focus on for the next five years.[10]
For instance, maybe you want to get a high paying job. As a short-term goal, try to get A’s in all your classes for the semester. A long-term goal could be finding a mentor or getting an internship in your field.
2 Plan a fun getaway. Maybe you’re jealous because it seems like everyone else is having all the fun. Create some fun for you! Plan a fun weekend away for you and your bae, go to a theme park, or go hang out on the beach. Do whatever makes you happy![11]
3 Take care of your health. You’ll be a lot less worried about others if you’re focused on your own health. Build your confidence up by exercising at least three times a week. Eat a healthy meal by having veggies, fruits and lean meat. Be sure to get at least eight hours of sleep per night.[12]
Drink a lot of water, too!
4 Surround yourself with positive people. Maybe your jealousy comes from hanging around friends who try to make you jealous on purpose. That’s definitely not cool. Instead of being around that negativity, spend more time with your kind-hearted, honest, and down-to-earth friends!
A positive person will be supportive, honest, kind and helpful. A negative person will insult, criticize, and drain you.
5 Consider seeing a counselor to work through your jealousy. If your jealousy is making it hard for you to enjoy life anymore, it might be time to seek outside help. There are many therapists who are trained to help their clients work through feelings of envy or inadequacy. Remember, there’s nothing wrong with getting help! It’s much worse to suffer in silence.[13]
Search online for therapists or counselors in your area. You can also get a referral from your doctor’s office or insurance provider.
This year at Pride, we had the proudest bus in the parade, not because it had the most glitter or flags, because it had the proudest people, Proud Dads. Gwan ahead and warm the cockles of your heart.
No matter how comfortable you are with a new partner, talking about kinks/fetishes can feel like a big step. But the truth is, they’re way more common than you might think — and if you feel sure that you have a totally weird kink or quirk, you’re almost certainly not alone. Most fetishes are way more common than you would imagine, so there’s really nothing to be embarrassed about.
There are so many popular fetishes out there. That’s because not only are fetishes totally normal, but many of us actually have more than one. According to one survey by Ann Summers, the sex toy retailer, it’s not uncommon to have more than one kink or fetish. In fact, while more than a quarter of people said they had more than one, 17 percent of people said that they had three or four. So just because somebody’s into BDSM or has a hair fetish, doesn’t mean that’s their only one. That means if you’re feeling self-conscious about your own proclivities, it’s time to relax — we’ve all been there. The more you start talking about and exploring your kinks and fetishes, whether with a partner or a community or even at a sex shop, the more normal you’ll realize they are.
And if you don’t think of yourself as a fetish person, it may be that you just have found yours yet. If you’re interested in playing around, knowing the most common fetishes is a good place to start. Though there’s no international fetish database, you can glean a pretty good idea of the most popular options by seeing what comes up in surveys the most frequently. Once you get a sense of those, you can decide what appeals the most and start experimenting.
Here are the kinks/fetishes that tend to come up the most — because you never know until you try.
1. BDSM
Call it that 50 Shades of Grey effect, call it human nature, but again and again, BDSM tops the list of fetishes. In fact, in that same survey from Ann Summers a whopping 74 percent of people said they were into it. Try subbing, try domming — who knows? You may love both.
2. Foot fetishes
Foot fetishes are another quirk that repeatedly comes at the top of fetish lists. Seriously — having a thing for feet is way more common than you think. This isn’t to be confused with a shoe fetish, which is also very popular, though they two can certainly overlap. Apparently, foot fetishes are so popular because of the way our brains are sometimes wired, although Freud thought it was all to do with the fact that feet look like penises. Which makes me wonder — what the hell did Freud’s penis look like?
3. Costumes and role play
A classic and popular fetish is dressing up and role-playing. In fact, one survey found that this was a fetish that ranked high on the desirability scale and low on the taboo scale, which means it’s an ideal way to ease yourself into trying fetishes. A lot of people are open to it and it’s nothing to feel weird about bringing up. From the classic maid’s uniform to something more daring, there are plenty of costumes to try.
4. Voyeurism and exhibitionism
There’s a reason that “dogging” is so popular in Britain. Some people like to watch others have sex — and some people like to be watched. And of course, some people like both. This fetish can manifest in more vanilla or kinkier ways. It might be that you just watch your partner masturbate or vice versa, maybe you experiment with sex in public places, or maybe group sex helps scratch that itch. You can start with more vanilla versions and work your way up to find where your boundary is.
5. Rubber, latex, and leather
For some people, it’s all about the texture. According to the sex toy retailer Lovehoney, “rubberists” and other texture fetishisms are very popular. It has a BDSM twist, with some people finding that the material itself has a bondage-like quality, although apparently for some it’s the smell that turns them on.
6. Crossdressing
Gender play is another exciting option — and one that you can experiment with to find different limits. Cross-dressing continues to be a popular fetish and can be a great way to experiment with slightly kinkier sex because it can be as simple as switching clothes.
7. Spanking
Though some might put spanking in the BDSM realm, it actually seems to be so popular in its own right that it deserves its own category. That may be because, for a lot of people, spanking provides a slightly more vanilla option — or an intro to BDSM. It can also be combined with many other fetishes, while for some just a good spanking is enough.
There is no limit to what can be fetishized, but some fetishes are definitely more popular than others. Start experimenting with the more common ones and see what excites you — you never know where it might lead.
Mae and I thought we were well informed when it comes to vaginas (between us, we have 58 years’ experience of them), but the more we researched the subject for our new video series, Vagina Dispatches, the more we discovered that, like most people, we don’t know our asses from our elbows – let alone our vulvas from our vaginas.
Does it matter that we don’t know what a perineum is, never mind where to find one? It turns out it does. Even though there are lots of parts of our bodies we don’t know well (neither of us can explain the full process from sandwich to stool), there is something particularly damaging about vagina ignorance.
Despite the fact that we spend more time peeing or menstruating out of them than anything else, sex remains the primary association when people think of female genitalia. And that emphasis distracts from the stuff that really matters: health. Women (or, to be more specific, anyone with a vagina) can struggle to understand how much menstrual blood is too much, what healthy labia look like, or what to expect during childbirth. Those blind spots make it hard to understand when or whether we need treatment. So, in a spirit of generosity, we wanted to share some of the things we learned.
1 That thing you’re calling a vagina? It probably isn’t a vagina
You’re likely thinking of a woman’s external genitalia. But that’s actually the vulva; the vagina is on the inside.
A survey released earlier this month by the Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, found that two-thirds of women were unable to identify the vulva. More shocking is that women know men’s bodies better than they do their own: 60% of women could correctly label a diagram of male anatomy, but only 35% could do the same for female anatomy.
According to a recent survey by Eve Appeal, half of women aged 26- 35 were able to label the vagina in a diagram like this one.
These days, there are endless articles claiming every woman should have body confidence. Body knowledge, on the other hand, seems like a nice bonus. That emphasis is misplaced: if women don’t know what their vulva is, how can they check it for changes in colour – a potential symptom of gynaecological cancer?
2 No one really knows what a female orgasm is
The male orgasm isn’t exactly ambiguous. But there’s no standard way to measure a female orgasm, which means that research has begun to question whether some women are experiencing them at all.
Dr Nicole Prause is a neuroscientist who founded Liberos, a research firm that studies sexual desire and function. In men, as well as ejaculation, there are regular, measurable muscle contractions. In a 1980 study in the journal Archives Of Sexual Behaviour, 11 male participants all behaved in a similar way during orgasm: the muscles in their anus contracted in spasms that were 0.6 seconds apart and continued for 10-15 contractions. But in the women Prause has studied, while some had these same contractions, others reported an orgasm without any being measured. (How do they measure these? Using a butt plug that monitors sound waves.) We said we were interested in measuring our own orgasms, so Prause is sending us some. Stay tuned.
3 Orgasms can make you need a wee
From a biological perspective, there has long been curiosity about what function the female orgasm serves (from our own personal perspectives, the case is closed). According to Prause, one reason might be that women who orgasm are more likely to urinate after sex. And urinating after sex is a great idea because it helps prevent bacteria from getting into the urethra, reducing the chances of a urinary tract infection. Win, win.
4 You can build a vagina from a penis and scrotum
At first glance, vulvas and penises look pretty different, but they are actually quite similar. That’s because we all started out as foetuses with the same genitalia; our sex organs don’t start to differentiate until the end of the first trimester (around about nine to 12 weeks). That skin fold line between the testicles? It’s because the male scrotum is the homologue of the female labia majora. Learning that was a real “aha” moment.
We met Callie, an American trans woman who was waiting for bottom surgery, a procedure where a vulva and vagina are created from the penis and scrotum. Aside from price (the surgery costs around $20,000 and isn’t always covered by health insurance), we were interested in knowing what concerned Callie when she booked her procedure. We’d mostly been discussing aesthetics, so Callie’s response caught us off guard: functionality. She is considering whether she wants a vagina that would self-lubricate (this can be possible using tissue from the anus) and whether it would be painful to pee (the surgery is complex and recovery can take weeks). In other words, really important health issues that most women take for granted. Prettiness? Not so much.
5 You can buy weed tampons
Menstrual cramps affect up to 91% of women, and can have a huge impact on quality of life. Given that so many women experience this pain, and that painkillers don’t always work, some women have tried alternative treatments including cannabis.
There’s very little scientific research into the effectiveness of cannabis in treating menstrual cramps, partly because that research would be illegal in many countries. But some entrepreneurial companies that are part of a growing US cannabis market are investigating. Once you’ve confirmed that you’re over 21 and a resident of either Colorado or California, the website foriapleasure.com offers a four-pack of “weed tampons”, priced at $44 (£33). It’s not actually a tampon; it’s a pessary containing cannabis oil.
Actor Whoopi Goldberg has teamed up with businesswoman Maya Elisabeth (who used to sell award-winning edible cannabis) to market products they claim are designed to provide relief from period pain. Their company, Whoopi & Maya, produces a bath soak, an edible spread (which “may be enjoyed plain with a spoon, on fruit or toast”), a rub and a tincture.
6 The clitoris looks like a spaceship
If you’ve been looking at medical diagrams lately (just us?), the clitoris is often depicted as a little button. A more realistic image would be something similar to the Starship Enterprise. Underneath the labia, there are two long structures that fall on either side of the clitoris (the protruding bit). If you’re interested in female sexual arousal, you should know about those – they’re called the clitoral crura. They can become engorged with blood when a woman is aroused, which causes the vulva to expand outwards, creating a tighter vaginal opening (bonus fact: women have nearly as much erectile tissue as men).
On the subject of sex tips: stop searching for the G-spot. Not only because it’s weird to use terms for women’s bodies that are named after men (the Gräfenberg spot, after the German gynaecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, who also developed the IUD). It probably doesn’t exist, at least not in the push-button way it’s often imagined.
An article published in Nature Reviews Urology in 2014, titled Beyond The G-spot, found that women can experience sensitivity in lots of different places, including but not always the area where the G-spot was thought to be (the upper side of the vaginal wall). In other words, it’s complicated.
7 Your vagina might benefit from a personal trainer
Sex doesn’t always feel good – especially if you have vaginismus (a painful condition that results in involuntary vaginal muscle spasm) or vulvodynia (chronic pain around the opening of the vagina).
One possible treatment is pelvic physical therapy, which can involve external and internal massages of the pelvic floor area, and the use of dilators (they look like oversized plastic crayons) and lubricants. The treatment is frequently misunderstood, says Jessica Powley, a pelvic physical therapist. For one thing, it’s not just women, or postpartum women, who get this therapy; men can get it, too, to treat pelvic floor pain. You can also buy vaginal weights and create your own home gym to tighten your pelvic floor muscles.
8 Things change with age, but it’s not all bad
Ageing, and menopause in particular, causes a woman’s oestrogen levels to decline. According to the North American Menopause Society, the vagina can become shorter and narrower in menopausal women who aren’t sexually stimulated. Then, when those women do have sex, it can be painful. Their advice? Menopausal women should have vaginal sex on a regular basis. So if you’re an older woman who enjoys sex, you should continue to have it regularly (hooray), and if you don’t enjoy sex, don’t bother (hooray, too).
What’s more, in 1998, the US National Council on the Aging found that 70% of sexually active women over the age of 60 said they were as satisfied, or even more satisfied, with their sex lives as they were in their 40s (74% of men in the same age group said the same). So, if you’re under 60, the best sex of your life may well be to come.
9 Breastfeeding can make you horny
We spoke to Christen, a performance artist and writer, who wrote about maternal sexuality in a one-woman show called BabyLove. She told us that she got aroused when breastfeeding; one time, she tried to use a vibrator while feeding, but got interrupted by a delivery man. She claimed lots of other women felt the same way. Of course we wanted to investigate.
Many forums for mothers confirm Christen is not alone. In a 1999 study in The Journal Of Perinatal Education, the author, Dr Viola Polomeno, explained that sexual arousal during breastfeeding “is a normal phenomenon”, although women often feel guilty when it happens to them. Arousal can happen because there are some parallels between breastfeeding and having an orgasm: both situations involve contractions of the uterus, nipple erection and skin-to-skin contact, and both can involve strong, uninhibited emotions. Neither of us has ever breastfed, but if and when the time comes, boy is this information handy.
10 You can make art with menstrual blood
From Judy Chicago’s 1972 installation Menstruation Bathroom to Ingrid Berthon-Moine’s 2009 work Red Is The Colour (photographs of 12 women wearing their menstrual blood as lipstick), lots of artists have explored the use of menstrual blood.
We met Jennifer Lewis, who was one day removing her menstrual cup and wondered why the blood on her fingertips disgusted her. With the help of her partner Rob, she began taking photographs of her menstrual blood in water. We watched Jennifer and Rob using refrigerated bottles of the stuff to make Beauty In Blood. The images look beautiful, but if we’re honest, the smell wasn’t so pretty. We went there to challenge our attitudes because, like so many, we think of periods as a gross inconvenience. We both use a hormonal IUD that stops us menstruating, which has always just seemed like a bonus.
Jennifer challenged these attitudes, not just because her art is beautiful, but also because she made us reconsider the health consequences of stopping our periods. Like us, Jennifer also used a contraceptive that stopped her period – until she found out it had caused her early-onset osteoporosis.
When Jennifer told us this, we looked at each other wide-eyed. Even though we had been researching this subject for months, there was still so much we didn’t know. The point is, we, like so many others, had put convenience ahead of being informed about our health. And that’s our final tip: get smart, get a mirror out and find out what’s up down there.
Reed said it was important that the ICD register, which is widely used as a benchmark for diagnosis and health insurers, includes a concise definition of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder to ensure those affected can get help.
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