Gateway To S&M

— 6 Kinks You Should Begin the Experience With! By Mehak Walia Sigmund Freud’s theorised that “certain aspects of your personality are more primal and this pushes you to act on your basic urges. Meanwhile, other parts of your personality work to counteract these urges and strive to make you conform to the demands of …

A Beginner’s Guide To Watching Feminist Porn

Everything you need to know to access foreplay fodder that is female-led, queer-inclusive, and beyond simply glorifying the male orgasm. By Shamani Joshi As an industry, porn – or at least the male-gaze kind most of us are familiar with – is pretty fucked up. Whether it’s X-rated platforms suggesting sexually violent videos to first-time …

Mutual masturbation can bring you closer to your partner, even over FaceTime

May is National Masturbation Month, and we’re celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure. By Anna Iovine While hot vaxxed summer is rapidly approaching, that doesn’t mean everyone will suddenly drop their virtual connections for IRL experiences. More than half of Hinge users, for example, said they are still likely …

How the pandemic has changed our sex lives

The pandemic has taken a major toll on our sex lives. Why are our intimate relationships flagging – and could the damage be long lasting? By Jessica Klein Before the pandemic, many couples lived like “two ships passing in the night”, says Houston, Texas-based sex therapist Emily Jamea. Previously overscheduled with out-of-home commitments, some partners …

The BDSM Test Is the Get-To-Know-Your-Kink Diagnostic

By Kells McPhillips BDSM is a tidy acronym for a broad range of sexual preferences that relate to physical control, usually broken into six components, “bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism,” according to Ali Hebert and Angela Weaver, professors in the department of psychology at St. Francis Xavier University, writing in …

The BDSM Test Is the Get-To-Know-Your-Kink Diagnostic So Many Sexologists Recommend

By Kells McPhillips BDSM is a tidy acronym for a broad range of sexual preferences that relate to physical control, usually broken into six components, “bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism,” according to Ali Hebert and Angela Weaver, professors in the department of psychology at St. Francis Xavier University, writing in …

Women don’t need to ‘switch off’ to climax, orgasm study shows

By Helen Thomson [T]he most detailed study yet of orgasm brain activity has discovered why climaxing makes women feel less pain and shown that ‘switching off’ isn’t necessary. It’s not easy to study the brain during orgasm. “A brain scanner like fMRI is the least sexy place in the world,” says Nan Wise at Rutgers …

How to Rethink Intimacy When ‘Regular’ Sex Hurts

There’s no rule that says sex has to be penetrative. By Breena Kerr [W]hen sex hurts, women often feel alone—but they’re not. About 30 percent of women report pain during vaginal intercourse, according to a 2015 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine which surveyed a subsample of 1,738 women and men ages 18 and older …