Screw Science: The Futuristic Sex Tech Aiming to Penetrate Your Bedroom

From fully customizable vibrators to bioelectronic headsets, smart sex toys are on the way up. But does personal pleasure necessarily make for better health? by Alex M.F. Quicho [P]leasure is personal, mostly because it has to be, and not least because female scientists continue to face grinding discrimination regardless of their area of research. And …

BDSM for beginners – a former dominatrix guides you and your partner through S&M

By Miranda Kane Let’s start in a very clear, very concise manner. I’m going to assume you are two adults who want to try a bit of kink or BDSM, and you’re looking for a bit of helpful advice. I’m going to make that caveat because I’m tired of seeing advice columns labelled ‘How do …

Are We Wrong About Male Sexuality?

Is male sexuality inherently predatory and threatening? Are Donald Trump’s comments and Brock Turner’s behavior typical? by Andrew Smiler Is male sexuality inherently predatory and threatening? Do all guys just want to grab women’s private parts, as Donald Trump suggested? Was Brock Turner’s jail sentence of six months and registering as a sex offender too …

Sex and Food: The World’s Strangest Aphrodisiacs Through Time

Hot chocolate? The potato? Piranhas? Throughout history, humankind has persisted in the belief that some foods are linked to sex. By Felisa Rogers [F]rom the Garden of Eden to the oyster cellar bordellos of old New York, food and sex are entwined. Although every food under the sun has been touted as an aphrodisiac at …

How to successfully navigate friends with benefits

by Shannon Dengos [T]he idea of having a friends with benefits relationship—two friends who have sex without a romantic relationship or commitment—can be very temping and convenient while in college. Due to the fact that students live away from their parents and in close proximity to many other people their age, friends with benefits relationships …

We’re Not Quite ‘Born This Way’

By Jesse Singal Back in 2014, a bigoted African leader put J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern, in a strange position. Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, had been issuing a series of anti-gay tirades, and — partially fueled by anti-gay religious figures from the U.S. — was considering toughening Uganda’s anti-gay laws. The …

Good News: Porn Isn’t Bad For Your Sexual Health After All

Everyone can calm down now. By Zeynep Yenisey Recently, a British National Health Service therapist suggested that access to porn is “damaging” to men’s health, particularly their sexual health, so naturally the internet freaked out, because porn is awesome and it’d be tragic if it really was unhealthy somehow. The claim came from psychosexual therapist …

Large number of young people experience sex problems, study finds

By Denis Campbell More to be done to help with ‘sexual function’ as well as advice on STIs and pregnancy, say authors of survey Large numbers of young people experience sexual problems such as pain or anxiety during sex, the inability to climax and finding intercourse difficult, a study has found. A third (33.8%) 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 …