Questions you should ask before you get into a new relationship

By Simone Paget When I was younger, attraction, desire, love and sex were all tangled together in one big elastic band ball of feelings. I equated physical attraction with romantic love and found the two nearly indistinguishable. If I was attracted to someone, I’d immediately make it my goal to date them, often sacrificing my …

What even the most vanilla among us can learn from the BDSM community

by Natalie Benway “Sex is not what you do, it’s a place you go.” —Esther Perel Americans carry a lot of anxiety about having an exciting sex life. This anxiety inspires Cosmopolitan, Redbook and the like to publish a steady stream of articles flouting “100 ways to spice up your sex life!” and “The top …

3 Experts on What’s Missing From the Consent Discussion

By Kasandra Brabaw In 1990, a group of women gathered at Antioch College to talk about the growing problem of rape on their campus, drafting the very first version of the school’s Sexual Offense Prevention Policy (SOPP). In doing so, they created what we now know as affirmative consent, decades before anyone else began using …

I Am A Barista By Day & A BDSM Teacher By Night

By Kasandra Brabaw To the people who come through the coffee shop where she works every day, Afrika is simply a barista. But to the BDSM community members who frequent the dungeon where she works every night, she’s Envy Adams, a “dom/sub/switchy sado-masochist” and all-around “kinky girl.” In her dungeon life, Afrika is able to …

Art of Presence: Pleasure Mapping

by KinkKit Team Try the Yoni Pleasure Mapping Technique: (Yoni, pronounced (YO-NEE), or “Vagina”, is derived from Sanskrit.) The objective is not to achieve orgasm, though that may happen. The objective is to thoroughly learn and discover your partner’s pleasurable spots in a relaxed setting, with no expectations. As you massage your partner, focus all …

What Monogamous Couples Can Learn From Polyamorous Relationships

By Samantha Cooney Polyamory — having more than one consensual sexual or emotional relationship at once — has in recent years emerged on television, mainstream dating sites like OkCupid and even in research. And experts who have studied these kinds of consensual non-monogomous relationships, say they have unique strengths that anyone can learn from. Consensual …

Marriage and #MeToo

Behind the millions-loud movement, there’s a quiet fringe of women not comfortable posting the hashtag—because to out their perpetrator would be to out their husband. By Andrea Stanley After the half-hearted foreplay, but before the lousy sex—that’s when the argument happened. It was nearly midnight on a Tuesday and Jess T. was just getting home …

Meet the Swedish feminist bringing ethical porn to Spain and the world

By Ellie Day Erika Lust has spent the last 14 years creating feminist, ethical porn. In 2004, discouraged by the mainstream porn she found on offer, the Barcelona-based Swedish filmmaker set out to put forward an alternative to adult content. “The men who control the porn industry seemed to have the emotional intelligence of a …