What is sexuality?

By Kim Cavill [W]hat is sexuality? When we talk about sexuality, what do we really mean? Are we talking about how many times a person has sex, or with how many different partners? Are we talking about who a person wants to have sex with? Sexuality is all of those things…and none of those things. …

How Straight Men Who Have Sex With Men Explain Their Encounters

By Jesse Singal [T]he subject of straight-identifying men who have sex with other men is a fascinating one, in that it shines a light on some extremely potent, personal concepts pertaining to identity and sexuality and one’s place in society. That’s why some sociologists and other researchers have been very eager to seek out such …

How do women really know if they are having an orgasm?

Dr Nicole Prause is challenging bias against sexual research to unravel apparent discrepancies between physical signs and what women said they experienced By Olivia Solon In the nascent field of orgasm research, much of the data relies on subjects self-reporting, and in men, there’s some pretty clear physiological feedback in the form of ejaculation. But …

Where Do You Stand On The Human Sexuality Spectrum?

By Prachi Gangwani We are accustomed to thinking of human sexuality as definitive. For a long time, heterosexuality was the only acceptable form of sexual preference. Even up until the 1970s, homosexuality was considered abnormal. In the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Health, ascribed by the American Psychiatry Association, it was listed as a …

Why Can’t I Orgasm During Sex? Chronic Pain And 5 Other Factors That Affect Ability To Climax

By Lizette Borreli Imagine this: You and your partner are getting hot and heavy in between the sheets. You’re feeling sexually aroused — but you’re unable to climax. In frustration you ask yourself: “Why can’t I orgasm during sex?” The Kinsey Institute indicates 20 to 30 percent of women don’t have orgasms during intercourse, compared to only …

This Long-Lost Study On Victorian Sex Teaches A Very Modern Lesson

By Sara Coughlin What comes to mind when you picture Victorian-era sex? Corsets? Marriages of convenience and social bartering? Repression? Maybe, like, a lot of repression? Turns out, how we view that time in sexual history might be more than a little warped. We can start to get a better idea of what women of …

A handy history

Condemned, celebrated, shunned: masturbation has long been an uncomfortable fact of life. Why? by Barry Reay The anonymous author of the pamphlet Onania (1716) was very worried about masturbation. The ‘shameful vice’, the ‘solitary act of pleasure’, was something too terrible to even be described. The writer agreed with those ‘who are of the opinion, …

The evolutionary puzzle of homosexuality

By William Kremer In the last two decades, dozens of scientific papers have been published on the biological origins of homosexuality – another announcement was made last week. It’s becoming scientific orthodoxy. But how does it fit with Darwin’s theory of evolution? Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s hit song Same Love, which has become an unofficial …

What’s Your True Sexual Orientation? The Purple-Red Scale Is Here to Help You Find Out

By Nicolas DiDomizio When reality TV dumpling Honey Boo Boo Child declared that “everybody’s a little bit gay” three years ago, she was unknowingly taking a page out of sexologist Alfred Kinsey’s book. His famous Kinsey scale, which identifies people’s levels of same- or opposite-sex attraction with a number from zero to six (zero being exclusively …

Penis politics: Sex, size and stereotypes in the gay community

When it comes to penis size, gay men face a host of preconceptions about masculinity and race By Nico Lang Recent studies have shown that actual penis size is smaller than men are claiming. According to the Journal of Sexual Medicine, the average male penis measures 5.6 inches when erect; the Journal of Urology puts it at …