Parents should start teaching sex ed while their children are in diapers, experts say

by Jennifer Gerson One day, your toddler will point to a pregnant woman, cock their head, and ask, “How did that baby get into that lady’s tummy?” You might think it’s too soon to start teaching your innocent preschooler about sex at that point, but it’s not. In fact, some experts say, it might even …

This Pioneering Sex Researcher Experimented on Herself

Marie Bonaparte’s interest in the clitoris went an inch too far. By Mark Hay In the mid-2000s, Kim Wallen, an Emory University psychobiologist with an interest in the roots of sexual experiences, told his colleague Elisabeth Lloyd, of the University of Indiana, Bloomington, about “a far-fetched idea” that he’d been mulling over for a couple …

Using Pornography to Rewrite the Script for Consent

Anti-pornography feminists see porn as inherently degrading and exploitative, but for some viewers it can be hugely empowering and even a challenge to rape culture. By: Milena Popova There is a strong and long-lived strand of feminist thought that regards pornography as deeply implicated in the prevalence of sexual and other violence against women. Pornography …

Seven factors that influence sexual consent

By Valeria Escobar Through over 150 interviews spanning five years, two Columbia researchers have tried to “pull back the curtain” on the sex lives of Columbia undergraduates. As concerns around sexual assault have become a central part of the undergraduate student experience, during which as many as one in three women and almost one in …

The Nuanced Push for American Sex Education

By Rachel Janfaza According to the Sexuality and Information Council of the United States, only 38 percent of high schools and 14 percent of middle schools across the country teach all 19 topics identified as critical for sex education by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite research demonstrating the health benefits of comprehensive …

Real Orgasms And Transcendent Pleasure:

How Women Are Reigniting Desire By Malaka Gharib How can more women allow themselves to experience sexual pleasure? That’s one of the central questions in The Pleasure Gap: American Women and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution, a book published this month by public health researcher and journalist Katherine Rowland. Rowland explores why American women aren’t happy …

Number Of Teens Coming Out Doubles, But Suicide Attempts Still Troublingly High

by John Anderer As recently as 10 years ago, the idea of coming out and being accepted as homosexual or bisexual felt unthinkable for countless LGBQ teens. Society has seen significant progression in recent years, though, and a new study finds that the number of U.S. teens openly identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or …

To stop sexual and domestic violence, start in the classroom

By Ben Santos and David Martin As two prosecutors with decades of experience helping survivors of domestic and sexual violence in King County, we spend all day, every day responding to cases involving abuse. Over the last year, almost 5,000 survivors of sexual violence and their families sought help from the King County Sexual Assault …