Tag: Consent

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The future of sex ed has arrived.

Is America ready?

Sinai Torrejon, program services coordinator at Girls Inc., leads a class discussion on gender and sexuality at Western High School in Anaheim, California, on September 20, 2019.

By Anna North

It’s the second meeting of the Informed and In Charge program at Western High School, and today’s activity is called the “sexuality wall.”

The gist is pretty straightforward: At one end of the classroom is a big sheet of paper with “Sexuality?” written in blue marker. “Write down as many different terms regarding sexuality, regarding identity, regarding gender, as you may have heard,” the instructor, Sinai Torrejon, asks the class.

A mix of around 20 students from different grade levels — wearing tank tops and wide-legged pants, ripped jeans and hoodies, false eyelashes and no makeup — grab markers and get to work. They chat among themselves. “I wrote pan — pansexual,” one says. “Asexual means you don’t like nothing, you don’t have those feelings,” explains another.

The students seem calm and comfortable. Though they take the activity seriously, they’re also having fun with it: One of them uses several different markers to write “bisexual” and “lesbian” in letters that look three-dimensional, like they’re popping off the paper.

In fact, the whole classroom has a relaxed feel. The students sit on plastic chairs, not traditional desks. A table at the front holds prizes the teens can win in icebreaker games, like makeup brushes and stickers. One girl casually eats from a container of instant ramen. This is Southern California after all, where open-mindedness and chill are branded exports.

When they’re finished, Torrejon helps the students — all part of a dropout prevention program at Western called the Independent Learning Center — define the terms on the wall. LGBTQ+, she explains, “is a term that is trying to be inclusive of all the other identities and sexualities that there are.” Queer, she says, “can be used as a slur or as a derogatory term,” but now some in the LGBTQ+ community are “taking ownership of that word.”

Next, they move into a discussion of the differences between gender identity, gender expression, and sex.

“Can someone else tell you what your gender identity is?” Torrejon asks.

“No,” several students say.

“Is it okay to not be 100 percent sure yet?”

“Yes!” is the enthusiastic response from the class.

A bit later, Torrejon tells the class, “You are your own person. You are unique. You are perfect the way you are.”

Welcome to the future of sex education in America. California wants to lead the way.

But even in one of the bluest of blue states, where just about 32 percent of voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump in 2016, programs like the one at Western are getting backlash. In 2016, the state passed a law requiring that schools offer LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed with lessons on gender identity and expression as well as materials on HIV prevention and healthy relationships. Last year, the state released draft guidelines aimed at helping schools put the law into practice, and since then, parents have been pushing back — with some even taking their kids out of public schools so they don’t receive the new sex ed.

The day before Torrejon gave her lesson about gender and sexuality, parents, advocates, and even students protested outside their legislators’ offices around the state, demanding a repeal of the law. One parent, Shanda Ellsworth-Lobatos, called it “a cognitive behavior modification program to sexualize and groom your children” at a protest not far from Western.

What’s happening in California is a version of a conflict that’s likely to ramp up around the country in coming years. What some parents and conservative groups call “indoctrination,” sex education advocates call changing the world: teaching students to respect each other’s identities and autonomy in ways they hope will lead to less sexual assault, harassment, and homophobia in society at large.

As Jennifer Driver, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at the nonprofit SIECUS (until recently known as the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States), told me: “We like to frame sex education as a vehicle for social change.”

The movement toward an education based on acceptance over abstinence

For many people in their 30s and older, the phrase “sex education” probably conjures up images of an awkward assembly in a high school gym, if it conjures up any images at all. Picture Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years, watching his gym teacher trying to draw a diagram of the female reproductive system, but instead scrawling something that looks like a cow.

In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic inspired states to get more serious about sex ed, and by the 1990s, most states required some form of HIV/AIDS education. But conservatives almost immediately pushed back, calling for sex education to focus on abstinence, and the messages students got about sex could be confusing — even in California.

A teacher at the High School of Fashion Industries teaches AIDS prevention in her hygiene class in New York City, on November 27, 1991.

As a high school student in Los Angeles in the 1990s, I remember getting a classroom visit from a man living with HIV who helped demystify the virus and talked about prevention. I also attended an assembly led by a woman who said that every time you have sex, it’s like putting a piece of tape on your arm and ripping it off, until the tape — which represents you — is covered in hair, disgusting and useless. This, I later learned, is a common abstinence-based lesson.

Today, 39 states and the District of Columbia require some form of sex or HIV education. But only 17 require it to be medically accurate — meaning educators can teach that condoms don’t work or that innate gender differences govern everything from how people look at their fingernails to how they carry their books. And abstinence-based education (now sometimes described as “sexual risk avoidance education”) has become more common, not less, since I was in high school, thanks to support from Republican administrations. By 2014, half of middle schools and a three-quarters of high schools focused on abstinence. The Trump administration has also been a strong backer of the abstinence-only approach — in 2018, it issued new funding rules favoring abstinence-based programs.

One big problem with abstinence-only, though, is there’s no evidence that it works. As Aaron E. Carroll reported at the New York Times in 2017, several studies have found no effect of such an approach on teen sexual activity. It also doesn’t teach students what they need to know about contraception and sexual health if they do decide to have sex.

That’s why sexual health advocates around the country have backed comprehensive sex education for years. Truly comprehensive sex ed should include information on abstinence, but also on sexually transmitted infections and contraception, Driver told me. Lessons should be inclusive of all sexual orientations and gender identities. And it’s not just about avoiding pregnancy and STIs — comprehensive sex ed, Driver said, should also include lessons on healthy relationships, consent, and decision-making, as well as analysis of cultural norms and values around sex and sexuality.

Sex education can be a “powerful vehicle to change societal norms,” Driver said (SIECUS recently made this concept part of its name, rebranding as SIECUS: Sex Ed For Social Change). For example, the rise of the Me Too movement has sparked “a lot of conversations about consent,” she said. But “very few people can articulate what consent looks like.”

By contrast, “what would a world look like if everyone had comprehensive sex education?” Driver asks. “How would the Me Too movement look very differently?”

California might be about to find out. The state has been on the forefront of the movement toward more comprehensive sex education for years. In 2003, the state passed a law requiring that HIV prevention be taught in public schools, and that all sex education materials “be appropriate for use with pupils of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and pupils with disabilities.”

But critics said the law was too vague, and in 2016, the state implemented the California Healthy Youth Act (CHYA), which requires that students get sex education that includes information on HIV and pregnancy prevention, healthy relationships, gender identity, and more — including abstinence — at least once in junior high and once in high school. All course materials must be medically accurate, and discussions of relationships must be inclusive of same-sex couples.

Since then, school districts around the state have been updating their curricula to comply with the law. For example, Anaheim Union High School District, which includes Western High School and about 16 other junior high and high schools, added lessons on human trafficking and gender identity expression to its high school health curriculum to comply with the law, said Patty Hatcher, a health curriculum specialist with the district.

In many districts, like Anaheim Union, California students get sex education from their health teachers. But some districts also bring in visiting teachers from groups like Planned Parenthood and Girls Inc., a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to fostering the health and education of girls. In many cases, the visitors supplement what the district is already doing. But when there’s no one trained on staff, the outside groups may provide all the sex education required by the state.

Over the course of about 12 class periods, the Girls Inc. program teaches students about menstruation, birth control, STI prevention, sexual harassment, consent, dating violence, and more. Classes are open to anyone who identifies as a girl, no questions asked, according to Jessica Hubbard, director of program services for the Orange County branch of Girls Inc. The organization doesn’t offer an equivalent program for boys, but at Western Independent Learning Center, where most classes are online, students of all genders may also take an online health class that includes sex education.

About 25 miles away in Irvine, also part of Orange County, the district adopted Teen Talk, a research-based curriculum for students of all genders that covers anatomy, STIs, pregnancy prevention, and body image, among other topics. It also includes one lesson specifically devoted to sexual orientation and gender identity, which “does a great job in dispelling myths and stereotypes” like the idea that being gay is a choice, Kelli Bourne, who is in her 14th year of teaching health science at Lakeside Middle School, told Vox. But it also uses language throughout that’s inclusive of all orientations and identities: “Teen Talk does not favor one type of relationship over another,” she said.

Overall, the goal of Teen Talk is to “drive home to kids that there is a range of values” when it comes to sex, Bourne said. And values — whether something is okay or not okay — are at the root of a lot of questions students ask in class, she said.

When it comes to sex and sexuality, Bourne explains to students, some people believe one thing, and others believe something else. Ultimately, “it’s up to you to decide what you believe,” she said, “with input from your parents and your family.”

Conservative pushback is mostly about LGBTQ inclusivity

About a month into the school year, around 20 people gather outside Assembly member Tom Daly’s office, about 10 miles from Western High School. These are the families in Orange County who feel that, despite what programs like Teen Talk say, they’re not getting enough input. They feel their kids are learning values at odds with their own.

At the latest of several “Sex Ed Sit Outs” to protest the law, parents hoist handmade signs with messages like “education not indoctrinate” and “no gender ID ideology.” Some have brought their kids, who play on the grassy median strip next to the sidewalk. A few older students take a more active role.

One first-year high schooler, for example, holds a cardboard sign reading, “AB 329 is a sexual grooming program.” He is here with his mom, but he tells me he also believes that the sex education law violates freedom of religion. “It’s either you’re a girl or you’re a boy,” he says. “That’s what I agree with.”

Meanwhile, many parents say CHYA violates their parental rights. “This law doesn’t respect our beliefs and rights as parents to teach our children how they should behave and live,” one mom, Ofelia Garcia, tells me.

“Even if I didn’t have any grandchildren or children, I would be doing this,” Garcia says. “As a daughter of God, this is to speak for my faith.”

Parents protest the California Healthy Youth Act (CHYA) outside Assemblymember Tom Daly’s office in Anaheim, California on September 20, 2019.

Garcia says she’s against “the gender ideology” put forth by CHYA, and that she hopes the law will be revoked because “because otherwise our children are going to be against us.”

The fear that sex education will pull kids away from their parents is a common theme. So is a concern about lessons involving gender identity.

Shanda Ellsworth-Lobatos, for example, tells me she started homeschooling her son, a third-grader, after she found out his Anaheim elementary school was planning a Diversity Week but had not notified parents of content involving LGBTQ or gender-nonconforming people.

Students were going to read Jacob’s New Dress, a children’s book about a boy who wants to wear a dress to school, she said. “They had a whole series of things that they were going to do with the children but they were not going to disclose to the parents.”

Ellsworth-Lobatos also said teachers had been told “if a child is struggling with gender identity, not to notify the parents.” On the whole, she said, the school was “lack of transparency” and “parent alienation.”

The Anaheim Elementary School District (separate from Anaheim Union, which includes only junior high and high schools), however, says alienating children from their parents is the opposite of what it intends. “Clear communication with our families is paramount,” Elsa Covarrubias, the district’s director of communications, told me. She said it was absolutely not district policy to keep parents in the dark about children’s gender identity. “We are in contact with parents regarding anything that impacts their children,” she said.

Girls Inc. says it encourages students to talk to their parents about what they learn, and the group hosts evening events where parents can be more informed about the program. Also, CHYA requires that sex education in California encourage each student “to communicate with his or her parents, guardians, and other trusted adults about human sexuality.” And the law allows parents to opt their children out of sex education if they choose.

But parent protests have continued, heating up last year with the release of a state document called the Health Education Framework. The framework isn’t law or a required curriculum — instead, it is intended as guidance to help school districts develop curricula in line with CHYA. But parents soon began protesting My Princess Boy, a picture book about a boy who wears dresses and a tiara, and S.E.X: The All You Need to Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, a book by the founder of the popular sexual health information site Scarleteen. Parents said the material was too explicit, and objected to teaching younger children about gender identity.

In May, the state removed six books, including My Princess Boy and S.E.X., from the framework, a final version of which is slated to be released early next year. But some parents were unsatisfied, and with the start of a new school year, protests began again.

California’s Orange County, where Anaheim is the largest city, has been one of the biggest hubs of pushback against CHYA (other counties in the blue state where parents have protested include Santa Clara, just south of San Francisco). The county is historically Republican territory. Ronald Reagan launched his political career with a speech in Anaheim in 1965, and Richard Nixon’s presidential library is in the nearby city of Yorba Linda, where he was born. A majority of residents voted for John McCain for president in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

However, Orange County is changing — the county went for Hillary Clinton in 2016; in 2018, Democrats flipped four congressional seats there, turning the county entirely blue. But in some ways, Anaheim feels more like middle America than like Los Angeles, less than 30 miles to the northwest. Near Assembly member Daly’s office, a Hooter’s restaurant advertised “Military Mondays.” And as protesters against the sex ed program lined the sidewalk, more than a few passing drivers honked in approval.

Orange County has always a specific brand of conservatism, though: It’s not the type of place where overtly anti-LGBTQ messages are always spoken out loud. Residents are used to having to curb their language for surrounding progressives. And Republicans in California aren’t known for holding particularly socially conservative views — residents sometimes use the term “California conservative” to refer to someone who’s liberal on social issues but favors low taxes and small government.

All that is to say that some of the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric espoused by Republicans around the country — like former Virginia attorney general and recent Trump appointee Ken Cuccinelli, who has said that acts of homosexual sex are “against nature and are harmful to society” — are less common here. Aggressiveness is not the norm.

For example, most of the parents on the sidewalk on this September day say their opposition to CHYA is not about homophobia or transphobia, but about their desire to choose what their kids learn. “It’s not about hate or disliking or anything like that,” Ellsworth-Lobatos says. “It’s about my parental rights and what I want to teach my child.”

Then again, there is a minority that imparts a more direct message. At a forum on CHYA held by the Anaheim Republican Assembly the night before the protest, Arthur Schaper, an activist with the “pro-family” group MassResistance, referred to the law as the “California Unhealthy Perversion Act.”

“There has to be a culture shift in this state,” he told the crowd of a few dozen at a German restaurant not far from Daly’s office. “Being gay is not okay. Yes, I just said that. If I can’t say that in Anaheim, we’ve got a problem.”

The benefits of comprehensive sex education are well-documented

What proponents of laws like CHYA have on their side is research and numbers. In California, a large majority of parents have historically supported comprehensive sex education — 89 percent, according to one 2006 survey. Nationally, most parents also support comprehensive sex education.

According to one 2017 study, more than 93 percent of American parents think it’s important to teach sex education in middle school and high school. Meanwhile, 92 percent of Democratic parents and 75 percent of Republican parents said high school sex education should include discussion of sexual orientation.

Unlike the abstinence-only approach, education like the kind students at Western and Lakeside get is also supported by research. Comprehensive sex education programs have been shown to reduce sexually transmitted infections and increase use of contraception — as well as reducing sexual activity, the goal of abstinence-only programs, Carroll reports at the Times.

And the benefits go beyond those typical markers of sexual health. “We know that comprehensive sex ed can help people develop healthier relationships” as well as helping them have “honest conversations with their parents about values,” Driver said.

There’s also evidence that sex education can help reduce sexual assault. One 2018 study found that students who received sex ed that included discussion of how to say no to unwanted sex were significantly less likely to experience penetrative sexual assault once they got to college. Abstinence-only sex education did not have the same effect.

While anti-sexual harassment advocates often emphasize teaching people not to commit harassment and assault, rather than teaching people to avoid it, there’s evidence that education can help in this way too. A 2015 study found that a middle-school program that taught communication and emotion management reduced instances of sexual harassment and homophobic name-calling at school.

Sex ed can also help to dismantle gender stereotypes. “With comprehensive sex ed, young people are able to reject or unlearn the harmful stereotype that depicts boys as constantly working to ‘score’ by having sex with girls and, conversely, depicts girls as non-sexual beings who are responsible for managing the behaviors of boys,” SIECUS communications manager Zach Eisenstein told me in an email. Some abstinence-only programs, he said, reinforce these stereotypes by comparing girls to Crock Pots (because they supposedly take a long time to “heat up”) and boys to microwaves (which heat up quickly).

When students learn that there are a variety of gender identities and expressions, they “are better suited to identify, question, and reject feeding into harmful gender stereotypes from the start,” Eisenstein said.

After the students at Western wrote terms on the sexuality wall, the class moved on to a discussion of the idea that girls like dolls and boys like action figures, or that girls should be pretty and boys should be strong.

“That language really does have an effect on us,” Torrejon told the class. “We absorb that and we internalize that, and then as we get older we kind of put those stereotypes on other people.”

Inclusive sex education can be especially protective for LGBTQ young people, Driver said. Research shows that when a school has an LGBTQ-inclusive sex education program in place, LGBTQ students are less likely to experience depression, drug or alcohol abuse, and bullying, she added.

Such education has benefits for all students, Driver said, including those who don’t identify as LGBTQ. “Students learn to value other people’s perspectives,” she explained. “They learn to value and have empathy for people who are different from them.”

For proponents of inclusive sex ed, this is the goal: for students to learn not just to protect themselves from STIs and unintended pregnancy, but to treat each other — and themselves — with care and respect. And if they get education like this now, the thinking goes, maybe when these kids become parents, they will be more accepting of their children’s identities and help them make informed choices. Homophobic views like those expressed by Schaper will be less common in the future.
While most parents are in favor of comprehensive sex ed, change is slow.

Despite the research supporting it, and the parents who want it, comprehensive sex ed still isn’t the norm in many places around the country. In part, that’s because education in America isn’t federally controlled. Even with a more supportive president than Trump, the White House only has so much influence over what goes on at the state and local levels. And at those levels, there are enough parents opposed to sex education — and enough conservative groups to back them up — to block a lot of attempts at change.

In other words, implementing comprehensive sex ed remains an uphill battle, but one a growing number of states feel is worth fighting.

If history is any guide, California has often helped lead the way on progressive legislation, from a law loosening abortion restrictions in 1967 to one legalizing medical marijuana use in 1996. And with state legislatures turning increasingly Democratic in 2018, some see a coming “blue wave” that could bring with it more socially liberal reforms around the country.

Then again, if California has taken years to fully implement its 2016 law, change elsewhere in the nation is likely to move even more slowly. For example, when an Arizona school district considered implementing a comprehensive sex education curriculum called Rights, Respect, Responsibility in 2018, the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel sent the district a cease and desist letter. The group said the school district was in violation of an Arizona law banning HIV/AIDS education that “promotes a homosexual lifestyle.” The state repealed that law earlier this year, but such restrictions are still on the books in several states.

Because schools tend to be locally controlled, “there’s so much variation among what young people will receive” not just from state to state but from district to district, Driver said. In California, for example, while Anaheim has been on board with CHYA from the beginning, other nearby Orange County School districts delayed implementation, according to EdSource. And while Girls Inc. used to teach sex education across the county, districts started dropping the program when protests against CHYA started heating up. Now Anaheim is the only one left.

For opponents of CHYA and of LGBTQ-inclusive sex education more generally, these delays are a good thing. Education about sexual orientation and gender identity “should be done in the privacy of your home,” Ellsworth-Lobatos said.

But supporters of inclusive sex education say they’re not teaching kids ideology. They’re just respecting who their students are: nonbinary, male, female, gay, straight, asexual, or any of a variety of the above and beyond.

Sometimes sex education is a two-way street. During the class I visited at Western, students taught Torrejon the meanings of several terms, including “demi girl” and “demi boy,” which refer to people who are nonbinary but with some identification with the female or male gender. People who identify that way “use she/they pronouns or he/they pronouns,” a student explained to the class.

Torrejon says she sees the impact of the Girls Inc. program on the students she teaches: “They’re just so much more confident and comfortable within themselves” after the program, she said.

Like Bourne’s class, the program includes an anonymous question box, but students sometimes leave positive feedback instead. “Just hearing how appreciative they are for being able to learn all this, when they know the stigma on it otherwise, is the best feeling ever,” Torrejon said.

After the September class, I asked a few students what they’d learned. “I learned different types of sexualities and different pronouns,” one told me. “I didn’t really know that there [were] that many.”

Another student, a 17-year-old senior, told me he’d done a lot of online research about gender and sexuality in previous years because for a time, “I wanted to be male.” Today, he uses he/him pronouns but says, “I don’t label myself right now.”

Talking about sex and gender identity always makes him nervous, he told me. After class, he was still “a little bit” nervous, he said — “but a lot less.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to talk to children about sex

Talking to children about sex has multiple benefits

By Marie Claire Dorking

Just reading the title of this article is likely to bring many parents out in an uncomfortable sweat.

Having the sex chat with your smalls is totally filed under the awkward convos parents dread, but being able to talk openly and honestly about the subject has multiple benefits.

Recent research has revealed that children who feel able to talk to their parents about sex are more likely to delay having sex until they are older, as well as making healthy and sensible choices like using contraception.

Couple that with the fact that many parents could well be underestimating the extent of children’s exposure to sex and porn online, with recent stats revealing children as young as seven are viewing porn online because of the lack of age checks, and it becomes clear that having the sex chat could be more important than ever.

Knowing you should tackle the subject is one thing, knowing how to do it is quite another.

One couple were so concerned about how to tackle the topic they delegated by advertising for an expert to do it for them.

But there are ways to open up the discussion with minimal blushes and embarrassment on behalf of all parties.

When should I talk to my children about sex?

While there is no correct age to talk to children about sex, according to the NHS, it’s never too early to start talking about it. “If your child is asking questions about sex, they’re ready for truthful answers,” the site explains.

The site goes on to explain that “talking to children about sex won’t make them go out and do it. Evidence shows that children whose parents talk about sex openly start having sex at a later stage and are more likely to use contraception.”

Which has to be a good thing.

Plus, the earlier you do it the less chance they will already have picked up, often incorrect, information from their playground pals, which could warp or distort their views on the subject in the future.

How to talk to your children about sex

Check your reaction

Your reaction to children asking questions or being curious about sex or gender has a huge impact on the child and the messages they internalise about sex.

“Children pick up on verbal and non-verbal behaviour,” explains Sarah Calvert a Psychotherapist, Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist.

“If they feel a parent/carer is negative about sex, they can develop a negative attitude; conversely if the parent/carer is positive, they are more likely to develop a positive relationship to sex and their own sexuality.

“That’s why it’s so important for parents to think about where they are with this subject, and what they may be unconsciously communicating to their children.”

Try to be sex positive

Calvert says good sex education encourages positive attitudes towards sex and sexuality, enabling children to grow up to lead confident and happy sex lives.

“It’s important to be positive about sex and speak about the pleasures that a healthy and happy sex life (with one’s self or with another) brings,” she explains.

“We should feel confident to empower their sexual exploration and development rather than cloud it in a cloak of shame. It’s also important to ensure our children have information that empowers them and enables them to keep them safe, teaching them about boundaries and consent.”

Do some prep

Give yourself time to think and explore your own attitudes and beliefs about this subject before speaking to children.

“Everyone has their own views on sex that have been formed to a large extent by messages they have received, many of these from childhood,” explains Calvert.

“It’s crucial that parents are aware of their own filter, and question why it exists. For example, we’ve all received messages about gender and how girls or boys should behave. How have these messages impacted and informed who we have become?

“The same goes for sex and sexuality. We need to be aware of the lens that we view these subjects through before discussing them with children.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to ask for what you want (in bed)

Having great sex is not a privilege for the few. Everyone should feel able to have pleasurable and intimate sex in the way they want – whether that’s with someone you are in a long-term relationship with, or if it’s with someone you’ve just met or hooked up with.

But let’s be honest, talking about your sexual desires may feel like something that’s hard to do. For many gay men who’ve lived alongside the HIV epidemic for decades, the double challenge of negotiating safety and pleasure has left us feeling like we need to choose one or the other.

We want to tell you that this shouldn’t be the case. New ways to feel empowered about your health (HIV testing, being ‘undetectable’, PrEP) have radically altered relationships and the sexual dynamics between men. But even with these new strategies it can still be hard to prioritise sexual desires and ask for what you want in bed.

In our new video, we give you some practical tips on how to ask for what you want in bed. You can also listen to Alex Garner, Senior Health Innovation Strategist at Hornet, and Alex Liu filmmaker, writer and sex expert of @Asexplanation, chat about all thing sex, shame and communicating everything you want to do in bed, in our new video for Talking HIV

Find out more about the other videos in our gay sexual health series.

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On Sex and Relationships for Autistic Folks

By

“One of the greatest dangers that face an autistic adult is not having sufficient information to deal with adult issues,” writes autistic romance writer Dahlia Donovan on her blog. One of the big problems, according to Dahlia, is that the information that’s out there isn’t designed for autistic folks.

The Problem: Lack of Resources Specifically for Autistic Folks

“Sex education is almost entirely written by non-autistics,” Dahlia explained.  “In my experience, it does not take into account how our minds work. We tend to be literal thinkers. We don’t ‘read between the lines.’ We also aren’t good at reading body language, other people’s expression, and tone of voice. At least, I’m not good at it. That all, to me, plays into sex education.

“I think one of the dangers, in particular, are autistics need a more detailed view on gender, sexuality, consent, etc. We’re at a greater risk of being taken advantage of because the education isn’t there. Non-autistics take for granted a lot of things that we don’t necessarily understand.”

This article is just the tip of the iceberg about these subjects. I interviewed Dahlia, as well as Dr. Jenny Palmiotto, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of loveandautism.com, about specific issues related to sex, dating, and relationships for autistic folks.

“I think one of the dangers, in particular, are autistics need a more detailed view on gender, sexuality, consent, etc. We’re at a greater risk of being taken advantage of because the education isn’t there. Non-autistics take for granted a lot of things that we don’t necessarily understand.”
-Dahlia Donovan

In this discussion, it’s important to remember that everyone’s experience varies, as does what you need. For instance, Dahlia’s experiences may resonate for some and not others. Take what’s helpful and disregard the rest.

When the World Tells You to Hide Who You Are

It’s common for folks trying to “help” austistic folks to recommend being a little more neurotypical. This can include friends and family members and even well-intentioned experts. As a result, you might’ve learned to hide things that make you different, even with loved ones.

Jenny explained it becomes common in dating relationships for an autistic person to try and change or hide who they are. “Sometimes they’ll even people-please to keep a partner satisfied or appear as a formidable mate,” Jenny explained. “Those things can be damaging in a relationship. In my opinion, authenticity is core to a healthy partnership. If you’re not being your authentic self, there’s no way for you to get to vulnerability and trust in a relationship, and inevitably that’s not going to feel good for long.”

So how do you learn to be authentic when the world has told you to hide who you are?

Start With Self-Love

“If you hate yourself, then you’re not going to get to the point where you’re in a position to give your real self to somebody else,” Jenny said. “I think that having a healthy relationship with yourself is critical to showing up in a partnership and not creating a narrative related to rejection. In that, you have to have a decent relationship with your autistic self as well.”

According to Jenny, working on a deeper self-love includes figuring out what ideals or identities you’re holding onto that don’t serve you well. For instance, believing you need to be highly sexual, or more extroverted, or more feminine or masculine in order to find love and affection.

What ideals are you holding onto that are unhealthy? How can you work to let them go and love yourself as you are?

But this doesn’t mean you have to have everything figured out.

It’s Okay to Not Understand Everything About Yourself

Dahlia hasn’t completely figured out her own sexual or gender identity: “There’s this slight detachment I have towards sexuality and gender that always leaves me baffled by it. I was born a woman, and I identify as one, but mostly I’m just like — what even is gender … of everything I’ve learned over the last ten years, it’s taken until I hit 40 this year for me to say I’m on the asexual spectrum. And even then, I’m not sure I’ll ever be completely comfortable with the idea of a sexual identity in general for myself,” Dahlia explained. “I’ve spoken to many fellow autistics who experience the same confusion.”

If you feel like there are things about sex, sexuality, gender, or relationships that you just don’t get, you’re not alone. It might be helpful to remember that nobody has everything figured out regardless of whether they’re autistic. If someone makes you feel bad for that which you don’t know or understand, that’s their problem (and there’s probably a lot of things they won’t admit they don’t understand, either).

But, as we said earlier, autistic folks have the added disadvantage of sex education not being designed in a way that easily speaks to them. Therefore it becomes more difficult to figure things out.

So how can you educate yourself? Dahlia recommends asking questions in autistic communities. “There’s a lovely online community of adult autistics who are generally really open to helping other autistics. Autistic bloggers and organizations like Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN).

The Importance of Finding Your Tribe

“When we’re with our people, whoever people are, then we are the best versions of ourselves,” Jenny said. “We’re not doing the kind of pretending or faking or fitting in. We’re just being whoever we are. It can feel remarkable when it happens, and when it doesn’t happen, it can feel like physical pain.”

It can be much harder to find your tribe with speech and mobility issues, but there are online communities that can be helpful. For instance, Twitter and Tumblr can be a great ways to find community.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Pros and Cons of Being in a Polyamorous Relationship

by Dr. Jenn Mann

A polyamorous relationship is the practice of having intimate, emotional and sexual relationships with more than one person with the consent of all involved. Polyamorous people may have a commitment to more than one person they are in a relationship with. It can also mean a committed couple has invited a third partner into their relationship, who would be considered secondary to the primary lovers. It is not just about sex, it is also about emotional connection and developing romantic relationships.

Whether you need to worry about your friend entirely depends on the kind of relationship she’s in, and many poly relationships are built on honesty and trust that do make for a healthy expression of love and safe environments in which to explore. Plus, it’s not as rare as you think.

According to a 2016 study published in the journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, it has been estimated that 21 percent of people have had a non-monogamous relationship. In my observation in my own clinical practice, this is becoming more common. For exactly what it’s like to be in a polyamorous relationship, I’ve broken down some pros and cons that tend to come up.

The Pros of Polyamory

On the positive side, people who are in polyamorous relationships have some great tools for their relationship to work well: communication and honesty. Whether or not you choose to be in this type of relationship, we can all benefit from these skills.

Honesty: Most couples who are in non-monogamous relationships tend to be extremely honest and transparent about their feelings and desires, both emotionally and sexually.

Proactive problem-solving: Non-monogamous couples tend to do regular appraisals of their relationship and discuss their observations with one another. If one person feels the relationship is getting boring or stale, these couples tend to process such speed bumps with one another and make a plan of action, rather than allowing things to fester unresolved.

Rules and boundaries: Non-monogamous couples have rules about their relationships, lots of them! They work hard to establish clear guidelines and boundaries in order to make the experience of sharing their love with others emotionally safe for all involved. They know what flirting, conversations, sexual contact, and phone contact is out of bounds and what is acceptable. Too many monogamous couples make assumptions about what is OK and what is not without discussing with their partner.

The Cons

Non-monogamy can have its downsides. Bringing a third (or more) party into your relationship can create a distraction from the emotional connection between the two of you. In my clinical experience, it dilutes the intimacy in a relationship when partners spread themselves thinner. Here’s more on the less-than-optimal conditions polyamory can create.

Jealousy: Eventually, someone has feelings toward someone. I have seen way too many jealousy issues arise and emotional bonds form as a result of what was supposed to be meaningless sex, or a primary partner starts to feel secondary and gets hurt.

No new tricks: Sacrifice creates trust and bonds people to each other. Resisting the normal urge to have sex with other people shows a level of commitment and sacrifice that makes the relationship stronger. Bringing a new person into the mix can prevent you from putting energy and creativity into your sex life and relationship with your partner. You’re no longer working to up your game and figure out new fantasies to explore, techniques to try, and preferences your partner may have that you haven’t yet probed — or worse, you’re doing that with someone else.

The wrong fix: Some couples turn to polyamory for the wrong reasons, thinking bringing a third into their sex life will patch up some different issue entirely. While the addition of others in your relationship may be exciting, it does not solve the longer-term, bigger issue of how to keep things fresh in your relationship and how to become a better lover to your partner.

If you are going to have a polyamorous relationship, make sure that you and your partner clearly define the rules, limits, and boundaries of your arrangement. Communication is of the utmost importance. In situations like this, faithfulness is defined by honoring those commitments and boundaries. Keep your promises, but also leave room to renegotiate, in case either one of you has different reactions than you expected. Understand that both partners must agree to change the terms of a relationship, and consent under pressure does not count as a collaborative agreement. If you think your friend has entered into this unconsciously or without her full consent, then yes that’s cause for concern. If she’s all-in and working to love all members of her relationship fairly while getting a bounty of love (and great sex) in return? She’s probably doing just fine.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to talk to your children about sexual consent

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Parents and caregivers often wait until their children are older to talk about sexual consent. And many parents often leave “the sex talk” altogether – hoping that schools will do it instead. The most recent guidance for teaching consent under the relationship and sex education curriculum simply advises that lessons should be provided before the end of secondary school. This could leave many young people without information about sexual consent before becoming sexually active.

Reports from 13,000 adolescents in the UK age 11 to 13 suggest that intimate activities such as holding hands, kissing and sexual touching is normal for this age group. Many of the adolescents reported having kissed by age 12 and having been touched or touched a partner under clothing. But without receiving lessons about consent, young adolescents could be engaging in sexual activity without agreement.

Reports from 13,000 adolescents in the UK age 11 to 13 suggest that intimate activities such as holding hands, kissing and sexual touching is normal for this age group. Many of the adolescents reported having kissed by age 12 and having been touched or touched a partner under clothing. But without receiving lessons about consent, young adolescents could be engaging in sexual activity without agreement.

My ongoing PhD research looks at early adolescents’ beliefs about negotiating sexual consent for sexual activities. And I have found that, while young people in this age group understand sexual consent, it can be difficult for them to apply their understanding of consent to situations of sexual coercion. This is sexual activity that occurs as a result of pressure, trickery, threats or nonphysical force.

My research shows that, as early as age 11, both boys and girls buy into gender stereotypes of sexual behaviour – such as that the girl decides if sexual activity will happen. My research has also found that these young people endorse constructions of rape culture, specifically that of victim blaming.

It seems then that young people need guidance beyond just learning about consent when it comes to their romantic relationships. Here are four ways to teach children about consent, based on my research.

If it’s not yes then it’s no

Encourage the use of verbal, affirmative consent for every sexual activity, every time. The only way to be 100% sure that a partner consents is to receive a clear “yes”. Remind young people to check in with their partner. They can ask questions such as: “Is this okay?”, “Can I…?”, “Hey wanna…”

Another way to double-check how a partner feels is to check their body language and facial expression. Does their body language and facial expression match what they are saying? Are they moving in or pulling away from being kissed or touched?

Don’t fear rejection

You also need to talk to your child about rejection. Young people may be afraid to ask for consent because they fear rejection, instead opting to “just go for it”. Remind them that it is better to ask and be told “no” than to just go for it, seem aggressive and risk making their partner feel uncomfortable – possibly ruining the relationship.

Also, young people often report not wanting to say “no” to someone they like because they don’t want to hurt their feelings – potentially going along with unwanted sexual activity. Suggest ways they can respond to their partner. For example, “I like you, but I’m not ready” or “I don’t want to” or “no, not yet”. These suggestions, which came up in my research, come directly from young people about how they think best to handle rejection.

Tackle the power of pressure

It’s important to also talk to young people about pressure. This can include pressure from partners or peers. Remind them that it is never okay to make someone take part in a sexual activity. This includes making the person feel guilty for not doing it, blackmailing or tricking them. There cannot be consent if a person feels pressured to engage in a romantic or sexual activity – this includes pressure to send and receive sexual images (sexting).

Empower young people to tell someone if their actions or words are making them uncomfortable. Moreover, teach young people that pressuring someone to engage in a romantic or sexual activity won’t make a person popular or “cool” but instead makes the person seem “creepy and desperate”.

Deconstruct stereotypes

Finally, challenge myths about girls and sexual activity – specifically, that girls are solely responsible for sexual activity occurring (if it occurs, she “let it happen”). From a young age, girls in our society are simply taught to “keep safe” with messages like “just say no” and “don’t let him…”. Stopping at these messages suggests that if something does go wrong, it is the girl’s fault.

An additional myth to challenge is that clothing can indicate consent. Certainly, some clothing can be “sexy” but that does not mean the person wearing the clothing is consenting to sexual activity or deserves to be disrespected.

It’s clear then that not only should the topic of consent be included when having “the talk” with kids, but young people should also be taught about consent through an ongoing dialogue. This should include conversations on acknowledging and respecting boundaries and discussions on healthy relationships.

Talking to young adolescents about consent can be difficult for parents and caregivers, because no one has all of the answers and consent can be tricky to understand – even for adults. But there are many free resources available from reputable organisations such as TeachConsent, RAINN and the Child Mind Institute.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sexist attitudes towards sex are cheating women of orgasms – and worse

The myth that women just ‘go along’ with sex denies their right to pleasure and makes it harder to convict men who rape

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We may like to think we’re quite sexually free and equal these days, but an End Violence Against Women Coalition/YouGov survey of nearly 4,000 adults finds that two-fifths of people think men want sex more than women do. And between a third of and half of us think it is more likely that in heterosexual couples men will initiate and orgasm during sex, and decide when sex is finished, than women. In contrast, women are believed to be much more likely to refuse sex and to “go along with sex to keep their partner happy”.

This shows the persistence of the idea that sex is more “for” men than it is for women. The female climax is talked about in terms of being elusive, and yet the fact that this “orgasm gap” exists solely in heterosexual sex speaks to a lack of understanding, effort and mutuality, because lesbians are not having this problem. It’s a product of setting up the male orgasm, usually achieved through penile penetration, as the centrepiece of sex.

It is a sad state of affairs that there is a lower expectation that women will experience pleasure or climax during sex, and that this is accepted as to be expected, or “normal”. It’s self-perpetuating, because if women believe that “going along” with sex is a common female experience, they may be less likely to articulate and explore their needs and wants in early sexual relationships or when older. They may also feel pressure not to express discomfort or pain. And when sex is only one part of a long-term relationship, alongside persistent inequality around work, chores, caring and other people’s gendered expectations, plain talking and yet another plea for fairness might be just one battle too many.

Sexual inequality matters enormously, in and of itself, because women should be able to expect and enjoy sexual relationships that are based on mutual pleasure and equality. This shouldn’t need contesting or sound radical any more but apparently it does.

But there’s even more than this at stake. The sexist ideas about sex that we identified can also be a basis for some men developing a sense of greater entitlement to sex, as well as the excusing or minimising of men pestering or pushing women for sex. If you combine these ideas that men want and need sex more, and that women are just less motivated and more likely to refuse, you end up with a toxic status for women as the “gatekeepers” of sex, where it is a woman’s role to manage sexual interactions and access to her body.

If women are “gatekeepers” of whether sex takes place, then it is women who carry all the responsibility for every single sexual interaction they have. And this means that women are also seen as responsible if their boundaries are broken and they experience sexual violence. And it will be principally her who is investigated to ascertain whether a rape took place if she alleges it. The man’s behaviour apparently does not need close examination. It is assumed he will have been up for and will have pushed for sex – only 1% of people think men ever refuse sex, and 2% think men “go along with” sex. This can then lead to the rhetoric of sexual violence being set up as an unfortunate failure to properly gatekeep, a regret, just a big misunderstanding. These are powerful myths that have malign consequences. However, if we thought about sex differently, based on equality, these would be less likely.

This entrenched sexism about sex matters when we consider what is going wrong in a society that is utterly failing to deter, reduce and prevent rape. These ideas are part of why reported rape prosecutions fail, as police and prosecutors decide they can’t build a case if they think a jury will see a woman who “failed to gatekeep” before they see a man who knew he was crossing the line.

This is why we are calling for more, accelerated and frank conversations about actual sexual practice. We need men to recognise their responsibility and accept accountability both for sexism and for good sex. We need to put an end to the notion that sex is something done “to” women, and to reach a place where enthusiastic, mutual consent, equality and pleasure in sexual relationships is the norm.

Sex will be so much better when it’s more equal.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What College Students Should Know About Consent

By Erika W. Smith

In 2015, artist Emma Sulkowicz wore a pale blue graduation robe and cap as they carried a 50-pound mattress across the stage, helped by four of their friends. Sulkowicz had been carrying the mattress — identical to those used in dorm rooms — around the Columbia University campus for an entire school year, as a performance art piece that doubled as their senior thesis. When they began the piece, Sulkowicz said they would carry the mattress until the student they said raped them in their dorm room was either expelled or voluntarily left school. But Sulkowicz graduated before either of those things happened.

Sulkowicz’s performance brought a new spotlight to the ongoing national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses. Now, the #MeToo movement has brought a new lens through which to continue the conversation. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 16 men will be sexually assaulted while in college, and according to the advocacy organization End Rape On Campus, nearly one in four transgender and gender non-conforming undergraduate students will be sexually assaulted while in college.

And many of the people (mostly cis men) committing sexual assault don’t understand that what they’re doing is sexual assault. One study found that male undergraduates were more likely to admit to raping a partner when the assault was described in other language (for example, “Have you ever coerced somebody to intercourse by holding them down?”) rather than when the word “rape” was used.

Ted Bunch, co-founder of A Call To Men, previously told Refinery29 that in his workshops for high school boys, only 19% can accurately define consent. “Boys actually think ‘no’ means try harder. They think ‘no’ means get her drunk or that they’re not approaching it right and they have to change their approach,” he said.

Campus sexual assault is so prevalent that it has often been called an “epidemic,” and yet only eight states in the U.S. require public school sex education to even mention consent. It’s vital that students understand consent before entering college — the first six weeks of college are sometimes called “the Red Zone” because this is the time of year when the majority of on campus sexual assaults occur.

As Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape editor Jaclyn Friedman previously wrote for Refinery29, “When I talk to students about sex and consent, I’m often asked — mostly by young men — how often they have to check in with a partner to make sure they’re doing consent right… But rape is not a technicality, and consent is not a one-and-done box to be ticked; it’s an ongoing process between two people, which requires treating your partner like an equal. Trying to reduce ‘consent’ to something you need to get out of the way so you can go ahead and get some means you’re more concerned with gaming the rules than with treating your partner like a human person.”

We’ll break down some of the intricacies and common misconceptions about consent here, but Friedman gets right to the main point of it: treat your partner like a human person.

What Is Consent?

At its most basic definition, consent means agreeing to do something. When talking about sexual activity, activists are pushing for laws that establish affirmative consent, or “Yes Means Yes.” This approach establishes consent as something you actively say “yes” to, rather than simply the absence of a “no.”

According to End Rape On Campus, affirmative consent laws “establish that consent is a voluntary, affirmative, conscious, agreement to engage in sexual activity, that it can be revoked at any time, that a previous relationship does not constitute consent, and that coercion or threat of force can also not be used to establish consent. Affirmative consent can be given either verbally or nonverbally.” Additionally, these laws make it clear that someone is “incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or is either not awake or fully awake, is also incapable of giving consent.” California and New York have such laws in place, as do a number of individual schools in other states, including the University of Minnesota, Texas A&M, and Yale University. Even if your state or school currently has a laxer legal view of consent, morally, this is the way to go.

How Do I Know If My Partner Is Giving Consent?

Sexuality educator Jamie J. LeClaire highlights five different factors to examine when talking about consent. They tell Refinery29 that consent must be:

 1. Voluntary: “Consent must be freely given without any threat, force, intimidation, or coercion.”

2. Informed and coherent: “Someone who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs and not entirely coherent, or asleep or not completely awake, is unable to give consent.”

3. Enthusiastic and unambiguous: “You shouldn’t be unsure of whether or not someone is into what’s happening. There should be no confusion as to whether your partner is a willing and eager participant.”

4. Reversible: “Consent can be withdrawn at any time. That first green light can become a ‘Time to slow down’ or ‘Actually, I want to stop,’ at any moment for any reason, and that’s totally 100% valid, and their bodily autonomy must be respected.”

5. Ongoing and specific: “Sex is an active, continuous interaction — consenting to some heavy petting isn’t necessarily agreeing to be flogged.”

Remember that, as LeClaire says, “Consent must be given no matter what your relationship status is with your sexual partner.” Whether this is a long-term partner or someone you just met, if they’re not into it, stop.

Consent & Alcohol Or Drugs

Some consent guidelines say that a person cannot give consent if they are “incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.” However, other activists push for stronger standards.

“When it comes to mixing alcohol and other drugs with sex, my advice is: don’t,” Sam Wall, Assistant to the Director at sex education site Scarleteen.com, previously told Refinery29. “Any alcohol consumption makes consent anything from automatically questionable to outright impossible.” However, she added, “Realistically speaking, we know people can and do have mutually consensual, non-sober sex.” So if you and your partner do decide to have sex after drinking or doing drugs, “clear verbal consent is a MUST, not a maybe, and ANY indication someone is simply wasted, or isn’t aware or alert or all-there should be a stop sign, no argument.

Research shows that around half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol, and that men who drink heavily are more likely than other men to report having committed sexual assault. If you think there’s any chance drinking may impact your ability to tell whether your partner is consenting, do not drink and have sex.

Consent & Condoms

In the past few years, there’s been a lot of media coverage of the rise of “stealthing” — the practice of removing a condom during sex without a partner’s consent. In one 2018 study, 32% of women who have sex with men and 19% of men who have sex with men reported having experienced this. Unfortunately, there are no laws in the United States that explicitly name stealthing as a form of sexual assault, however, activists and lawmakers are pushing to change that.

“If someone consented to sex using condoms or other prevention methods, that’s the conditions of sex in which they consented. Removing the barrier method without your partner’s knowledge is an absolute violation of consent and sexual assault,” LeClaire says.>

Consent & Nude Photos

Keep consent in mind when sending nude photos, too. Earlier this year, Texas introduced a bill that would make sending unsolicited nude photos a misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 fine. Many couples enjoy sending sexy photos to each other — but make sure that the person you’re sending the photo to actually wants to receive it.

“Unsolicited nude pics via text, SnapChat, dating apps, or whatever it may be, are a breach of consent. It’s really not that hard to ask for consent for sending naughty pics,” LeClaire says. “[Text something like], ‘I took some XXX photos of myself earlier, would love to send,’ and wait for permission. If they aren’t into it, respect that!”

If your partner sends you nude photos that you asked for, keep those photos private and do not share them with your friends or post them online. This is a violation of consent commonly called “revenge porn.”

How Do I Ask For Consent?

Some people think that asking for consent is “un-sexy,” but that’s not the case at all. As LeClaire points out, there are many different ways to ask for consent, up to and including dirty talk. Saying something like, “Do you like this?” or “I really want to [describe what you want to do]” are both ways of asking for consent. Your partner’s response “should sound nothing short of excitement, and it should NOT sound like hesitance, silence, or unease,” LeClaire says.

What Is Title IX?

In 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments banned discrimination on the basis of sex in “any educational program or activity receiving federal funding,” which includes both public and private colleges. Along with protecting students from discrimination in areas such as sports, Title IX applies to sexual assault and harassment. Title IX “provides protections for students who are survivors of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape,” LeClaire explains.

In 2011, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights introduced new guidelines for how colleges should handle sexual harassment and assault. However, President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, has worked to roll back these Obama-era guidelines. Still, Title IX currently applies to sexual assault on campus.

“Every college will have a Title IX coordinator. If you know someone has sexually assaulted someone, inform your school’s Title IX coordinator. If you or someone you know what sexually assaulted, tell your school’s Title IX coordinator (with consent),” LeClaire says.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Be an Ethical Hookup Partner

Because hooking up doesn’t have to be devoid of feelings.

By Yana Tallon-Hicks

“Hookup culture,” especially as it plays out on college campuses, is a much-discussed topic. Often, hooking up is studied and speculated about like it’s some kind of sexual epidemic, or at the very least, the outcast of sexual intimacy: Is it increasing or decreasing? Perpetuated by dating apps? Gendered? Dangerous? Sure, hookup culture and the many ways we have and experience sex is worth studying and having opinions about, but it can’t be that all hookups are bad or blah.

Despite the often-negative press, hookups, or, short term sexual/intimate encounters, like one-night stands, summer flings, and semester-long friends-with-benefits relationships, can come with a lot of descriptors: “casual,” “fun,” “random,” and “spontaneous” can be some, but can they also be ethical, considerate, and satisfying? We think yes!

Determining whether or not something is officially ethical can be confusing work, as ethics tend to rely both on our individual values and also what society deems ethical — which might not always align. Get your conservative, married-for-50-years grandfather and your liberal, nonmonogamous LGBTQ+ friends at the same dinner table and ask what makes for an “ethical sexual encounter” and you’ll likely get very different responses from each of them (and if anyone ever does do this, please let me know how it goes).

Regardless of what your hookup entails (making out, oral sex, penetrative sex_ or whether you met via a dating app, a party, or a chance meeting with a beautiful stranger — hookups tend to be understood as uniquely separate from a relationship in that they are typically described as being casual or short term and require minimal official commitment between the people involved. For some, the very short-term nature of a hookup can feel unethical (and that’s a totally fine opinion to have as long as we’re not judging others’ choices!), but for others, short-term intimate encounters are exactly what they want. The reality is, we’re certainly not creating more happy hookup experiences by immediately throwing out the possibility of hookups being conscientious, respectful, and downright ethical just because they’re only happening once, sporadically, or when the mood strikes.

So how do you make sure your hookup is ethical?

As a resident sex educator for a youth collective of 16- to 19-year-olds, I had the great opportunity to sit down with a group of the collective’s youth leaders to talk about what they wanted to communicate to their peers about the components of an ethical hookup. Here’s the advice we came up with to help you make your hookup as ethical as possible.

Know and share your STI status.

Being aware of the state of your personal sexual health and sharing it openly and without shame is a key part of making sure our partners and ourselves are informed participants in our hookup. The general rule of thumb is to get a new STI test at least every six months if you’re sexually active with more than one person, or anytime you have a new sexual partner. Empower yourself by knowing that you can set the tone for this “status talk,” so practice speaking confidently and nonjudgmentally about your status and your partner will likely follow suit.

In addition to sharing your status, you should also know and share how to prevent the transmission of STIs via various safer-sex practices. And when it comes to hooking up, it’s always a good idea to have those safer-sex supplies on hand! This HRC Safer Sex Guide (available in both English and Spanish) can help connect the dots between levels of risk, certain sex acts, and which safer-sex practices to put in place.

Consider others’ feelings.

Despite common portrayals, a hookup doesn’t need to be completely devoid of feelings to be considered successful, and not all people experience short-term sexual encounters as emotionless. You can absolutely enthusiastically agree to a hot roll in the one-day hay and be kind, check in about your hookup partner’s feelings the next day, and still maintain casualness. A simple text of appreciation or a “How are you?” can go a long way; as long as you’re clear about intentions, feelings don’t need to get hurt or ignored.

Know and be clear about your intentions.

Intentions are just that — what we set out to do, on purpose, with the knowledge that what we intend might not pan out. If you know that you’re only available for a summer fling but lead your partner on into thinking you want to continue your short-term relationship indefinitely, that’s not ethical because you’re creating a connection based on false pretenses.

Despite our intentions, things can change, feelings can get caught, and our best-laid plans can shift, and that’s okay. But if we have specific intentions from the get-go and aren’t communicating them, then our partners can’t make their own choices about how they would like to interact with us, their own feelings, and their own boundaries. Knowledge is power — don’t strip your partner of theirs by withholding intent.

Respect your own boundaries.

Intentions and ethics start with you. Just like communicating your intentions to your partner gives them power, checking in with your moral compass, your sexual desires and limits, and your hopes for your own intimate interactions gives it to you. Hookups can really get us caught up in a moment, so be prepared for a casual connection by thinking about some of these elements ahead of time. How do I want and like to be touched? What do I want out of a hookup? What do I not want? Scarleteen.com’s sexual inventory checklist, Yes, No, Maybe So, can be a helpful piece of hookup homework to do on your own, in advance.

Respect your partner and their boundaries.

Yes, a fling can be casual and maybe even happen quickly, but always make sure to make time to ask your partner directly about their own yeses, nos, and maybe-sos. Not only does this ensure that we’re respecting our partners and practicing consent, but this also drastically increases our chances of having a mutually pleasurable experience.

If a hookup is indeed temporary, why waste your time guessing at what your partner might want rather than simply asking them directly? And when they give you an answer, you should listen to it. Asking our partner about their desires is consensual, ethical, and just plain economical.

No shame in your own game and no slut-shaming.

Create more emotional, relational, and sexual safety in your hookups by maintaining mutual respect for your and your partner’s particular desires, wants, yucks, and yums — including wherever you and your partner might fall on the spectrum of sexual experience.

Being fearful to express what it is that turns you on or shaming your partner for what tickles their intimate fancy is a terrible way to explore a mutually satisfying hookup. Sexuality is a very wide world, so it’s impossible that you’ll both be totally into every single thing the other person is into, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as everything is consensual. Instead, focus on where your desires overlap and remember that you can enthusiastically consent to trying something new because consent means you can change your mind at any time if the new thing just isn’t for you.

Honor consent and seek it actively and in an ongoing manner.

Consent starts with asking for explicit permission before your intimate interaction begins, making sure that each party involved is fully informed about and understands what they’re saying yes, no, or maybe to. Make sure your consent practice doesn’t end there, though!

Active, ongoing consent continues through your intimate interaction and for the duration of your hookup relationship, no matter how long it lasts. During your hookup, ask questions like “Is this still okay?” “Do you like what we’re doing or should we switch it up?” and never assume that just because you hooked up once that your partner (or you!) wants to hook up again, or do the same things you did last time. Keep asking questions and don’t be worried about asking too many. It’s better to spend more time asking questions and less time feeling regret or remorse.

Practice makes perfect.

Feeling awkward is one of the main reasons high school and college students tell me they don’t utilize consent skills and safer-sex supplies. Though putting a condom on a banana is one of the most tired classroom sex-ed tricks in the book, getting your hands on things like condoms, dental dams, gloves, lube, and knowing how to use them properly before you find yourself in a hookup situation will make using these tools more seamless (and less awkward-seeming) in the moment.

Masturbating using condoms, gloves, and/or lube to get familiar with the sensation can be a fun way to practice. You can visit your local Planned Parenthood to get accurate information about birth control and risk-management options (even if you don’t plan on needing them anytime soon), which can help bust myths and let you know the resources available to you. Better yet — make it an educational outing with a few friends, complete with going out for ice cream afterward — because why not?

Check in regularly.

Though the general lack of commitment can be part of what makes hooking up appealing to folks, it’s always a good idea to check in every now and then about whether or not keeping it casual is still what you want to do. Checking in with ourselves about our own wants and needs and communicating them clearly also makes sure that we’re keeping tabs on our own priorities, too, and makes sure that we’re remembering to stay clear about our intentions.

Ask for info on pronouns, body parts, no-zones, and triggers.

Even if our sexual interactions are short-term, hooking up is still a vulnerable place to be. All of our partners deserve respect and to feel safe and valued. Nothing will ruin a hookup faster than crossing a boundary (even if accidentally), so make sure to ask where and how your partner likes to be touched, the words they use to talk about them and their bodies, and where they absolutely do not want to go with you whether that’s right now or ever.

Pro tip: Remember that someone saying “no” or “not there” to you isn’t something that you should take personally. Rather, a no can be valuable information your partner is sharing with you about themselves so that you can get to know them better. This perspective can make the “nos” easier to hear while keeping our egos in check.

Respect the gender and sexuality identities of your partners and support their ongoing journey.

Gender, sexuality, and identity is fluid and, especially between teenagehood and adulthood, can change and shift a lot. If a partner tells you about how they identify, believe them, respect them, use the language they ask you to use, and adapt if what’s true for them changes.

Your sureness about your own gender and sexuality doesn’t need to get rattled just because your partners’ identities shift — we promise.

Don’t stir drama.

A truly ethical hookup doesn’t kiss and Snap. While getting support from or excitedly dishing to your friends about hookups can be a totally healthy part of the experience, spreading rumors, sharing information, or even dropping hints that violate your partner’s privacy, consent, or are intended to hurt them or someone else is not. Know the difference, ask your partner before sharing their personal information, and absolutely keep their sexts to yourself.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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When and why is pain pleasurable?

Many people think of pain and sex as deeply incompatible. After all, sex is all about pleasure, and pain has nothing to do with that, right? Well, for some individuals, pain and pleasure can sometimes overlap in a sexual context, but how come? Continue reading this Spotlight feature to find out.

By

The relationship between pain and sexual pleasure has lit up the imaginations of many writers and artists, with its undertones of forbidden, mischievous enjoyment.

In 1954, the erotic novel Story of O by Anne Desclos (pen name Pauline Réage) caused a stir in France with its explicit references to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism — an array of sexual practices referred to as BDSM, for short.

Recently, the series Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James has sold millions of copies worldwide, fuelling the erotic fantasies of its readers.

Still, practices that involve an overlap of pain and pleasure are often shrouded in mystery and mythologized, and people who admit to engaging in rough play in the bedroom often face stigma and unwanted attention.

So what happens when an individual finds pleasure in pain during foreplay or sexual intercourse? Why is pain pleasurable for them, and are there any risks when it comes to engaging in rough play?

In this Spotlight feature, we explain why physical pain can sometimes be a source of pleasure, looking at both physiological and psychological explanations.

Also, we look at possible side effects of rough play and how to cope with them and investigate when the overlap of pain and pleasure is not healthful.

Physical pain as a source of pleasure

First of all, a word of warning: Unless a person is specifically interested in experiencing painful sensations as part of their sexual gratification, sex should not be painful for the people engaging in it.

People may experience pain during intercourse for various health-related reasons, including conditions such as vaginismus, injuries or infections of the vulva or vagina, and injuries or infections of the penis or testicles.

If you experience unwanted pain or any other discomfort in your genitals during sex, it is best to speak to a healthcare professional about it.

Healthy, mutually consenting adults sometimes seek to experience painful sensations as an “enhancer” of sexual pleasure and arousal. This can be as part of BDSM practices or simply an occasional kink to spice up one’s sex life.

But how can pain ever be pleasurable? According to evolutionary theory, for humans and other mammals, pain functions largely as a warning system, denoting the danger of a physical threat. For instance, getting burned or scalded hurts, and this discourages us from stepping into a fire and getting burned to a crisp or drinking boiling water and damaging our bodies irreversibly.

Yet, physiologically speaking, pain and pleasure have more in common than one might think. Research has shown that sensations of pain and pleasure activate the same neural mechanisms in the brain.

Pleasure and pain are both tied to the interacting dopamine and opioid systems in the brain, which regulate neurotransmitters that are involved in reward- or motivation-driven behaviors, which include eating, drinking, and sex.

In terms of brain regions, both pleasure and pain seem to activate the nucleus accumbens, the pallidum, and the amygdala, which are involved in the brain’s reward system, regulating motivation-driven behaviors.

Thus, the “high” experienced by people who find painful sensations sexually arousing is similar to that experienced by athletes as they push their bodies to the limit.

Possible psychological benefits

There is also a complex psychological side to finding pleasure in sensations of pain. First of all, a person’s experience of pain can be highly dependent on the context in which the painful stimuli occur.

Experiencing pain from a knife cut in the kitchen or pain related to surgery, for instance, is bound to be unpleasant in most, if not all, cases.

However, when a person is experiencing physical pain in a context in which they are also experiencing positive emotions, their sense of pain actually decreases.

So when having sex with a trusted partner, the positive emotions associated with the act could blunt sensations of pain resulting from rough play.

At the same time, voluntarily experienced pain during sex or erotic play can, surprisingly, have positive psychological effects, and the main one is interpersonal bonding.

Two studies — with results collectively published in Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2009 — found that participants who engaged in consensual sadomasochistic acts as part of erotic play experienced a heightened sense of bonding with their partners and an increase in emotional trust. In their study paper, the researchers concluded that:

“Although the physiological reactions of bottoms [submissive partners] and tops [dominant partners] tended to differ, the psychological reactions converged, with bottoms and tops reporting increases in relationship closeness after their scenes [BDSM erotic play].”

Another reason for engaging in rough play during sex is that of escapism. “Pain,” explain authors of a review published in The Journal of Sex Research, “can focus attention on the present moment and away from abstract, high-level thought.”

“In this way,” the authors continue, “pain may facilitate a temporary reprieve or escape from the burdensome responsibilities of adulthood.”

In fact, a study from 2015 found that many people who practiced BDSM reported that their erotic practices helped them de-stress and escape their daily routine and worries.

The study’s authors, Ali Hébert and Prof. Angela Weaver, write that “Many of the participants stated that one of the motivating factors for engaging in BDSM was that it allowed them to take a break from their everyday life.” To illustrate this point, the two quote one participant who chose to play submissive roles:

”It’s a break free from your real world, you know. It’s like giving yourself a freaking break.”

Potential side effects of play

People can also experience negative psychological effects after engaging in rough play — no matter how experienced they are and how much care they take in setting healthful boundaries for an erotic scene.

Among BDSM practitioners, this negative side effect is known as “sub drop,” or simply “drop,” and it refers to experiences of sadness and depression that can set in, either immediately after engaging in rough sexual play or days after the event.

Researchers Richard Sprott, Ph.D., and Anna Randall argue that, while the emotional “crash” that some people experience immediately after rough play could be due to hormonal changes in the moment, drops that occur days later most likely have other explanations.

They argue that feelings of depression days after erotic play correspond to a feeling of loss of the “peak experience” of rough sexual play that grants a person psychological respite in the moment.

Like the high offered by the mix of pleasure and pain in the moment, which may be akin to the highs experienced by performance athletes, the researchers liken the afterplay “low” with that experienced by Olympic sportspeople in the aftermath of the competition, which is also referred to as “post-Olympic depression.”

In order to prevent or cope with feeling down after an intense high during erotic play, it is important for a person and their partner or partners to carefully plan aftercare, both at the physical and psychological level, discussing individual needs and worries in detail.

Whatever a person decides to engage in to spice up their sex life, the key is always consent. All the people participating in a sexual encounter must offer explicit and enthusiastic consent for all parts of that encounter, and they must be able to stop participating if they are no longer interested and willing.

Research suggests that fantasies about unusual or rough sexual play are very common, and some people decide to take the fantasy out of the realm of imagination and make it a reality.

If you decide to stray from “vanilla” sex and try other flavors too, that’s fine, and there’s nothing wrong with you. Just make sure that you stay safe and you only engage in what you enjoy and feel comfortable doing.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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If I Don’t Talk to My Patients About Consent, Who Will?

Here’s why I bring it up with all my patients.

By Natasha Bhuyan, M.D.

As a primary care physician, a significant part of my job is helping patients better understand and deal with the public health issues that affect our society—whether it’s the dangers of smoking tobacco or the importance of getting a flu shot or the need to get tested for STIs.

But there is one health issue in particular that is impacting so many and yet talked about by so few: consent. Talking about the nuances of consent can be complicated and uncomfortable. The subject has long been dismissed as a “mood ruiner” among sexual partners—and as a result, many choose to ignore these conversations altogether, creating a silence around something that desperately needs to be discussed and unpacked.

Since I know that many of my patients are not having these conversations with their friends, family, or even partners, I make it part of my regular practice to bring up the subject of consent with my patients. I talk to my patients about other necessities when practicing safe sex, such as birth control and STI-prevention, so I’m in a unique position to be able to also discuss consent with them. Even a simple question like, “How do you give and receive consent with your partner?”, can make a huge difference when it comes to starting a conversation and, ultimately, creating a safer, more comfortable environment for sex

When it comes down to it, consent is all about respect for another person’s bodily autonomy: when you want to touch another person or have sex with them, you should ask first (verbally) and continue to give and receive consent in this way throughout a sexual encounter. That doesn’t necessarily mean running through a monotone checklist of “can I…,” but it does mean paying attention to the physical and verbal cues of the person you’re with, while maintaining clear and open communication. Consent also doesn’t have to be sexual. Getting and receiving consent extends to situations such as borrowing your friend’s shirt or using your coworker’s phone. We wouldn’t do either of those things without asking, so of course an act as intimate as sex deserves the same consideration.

It also means being sure that the person is able to give consent. A few important factors to consider: is your sexual partner above the age of consent in your particular state? Are you certain that they are not under the influence of mind-altering substances, and they are in no way being coerced or pressured into saying yes?

The unfortunate reality is that a lack of consent can often be difficult to prove, which is one reason an estimated 80 percent of sexual assault and rape cases go unpreported and around 995 of 1000 perpetrators of rape will avoid prison. This lack of action through the justice system is one reason why it is critical to address the underlying cultural and societal issues as swifty and resoundingly as possible

This is why I talk to all of my patients (and anyone else who will listen, really) about the importance of both giving and receiving enthusiastic consent with all partners. In my work as a primary care physician, I have spoken to many patients about their experiences with sexual assault and consent. It’s a subject I believe all PCPs should broach with their patients if they have the training and resources to do so, since it directly impacts the physical, emotional, and psychological health of the people in our society

The taboo and shame surrounding non-consensual experiences coupled with the physical and mental trauma many survivors experience can cause severe health problems for years to come. Health issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and long-term physical challenges are far from uncommon in survivors and can cause irreparable damage, both mentally and physically</a

But, as it currently stands, only eight states require consent or sexual assault to be mentioned as part of public school sex education curriculum. These are typically as pieces of a larger discussion on healthy relationships, which doesn’t always help young people make the necessary associations between safe sexual activity and consent.

So, why should I—a family medicine physician—be the one bringing this up? The number one reason for me is that it ensures that someone does. Too often, other leadership figures for young people, like their parents or their schools, either don’t know how to bring up consent or simply don’t feel comfortable. Unless someone else—like a primary care provider—takes on the subject, sometimes it never gets broached at all.

When talking to patients, I do my best to normalize discussions about sexual activity by asking about things like the body parts they use for sex (vagina, anus, penis, mouth, etc.). In these discussions, I ask patients open-ended questions about how they would describe their communication with their partners, or any tension they feel in those relationships. I also ask them how they typically give and receive consent. Patients are often surprised by these questions. They may expect to be screened for STIs or asked about pregnancy, but they don’t usually associate consent with their overall health.

But the reality is that consent is a hugely important component of a patient’s sexual and overall health. Talking about consent can help me identify other conversations that I should be having with that patient and may lead to a bigger discussion about past experiences, mental and physical health, and sexual practices.

The reality of consent is that it’s not always as cut and dry as “yes” or “no,” which can make it difficult for people to speak up when a non-consensual encounter has occurred. In the past, I’ve had patients open to me about situations such as partners taking off the condom during sex without asking, leading to thoughtful discussions about bodily autonomy that they may not be having otherwise.

In my professional opinion, consent is a public health issue. I believe that viewing the prevention of sexual assault and rape through the lens of public health will help protect the overall mental and physical well-being of our society. But what exactly does treating consent as a public health issue look like—and why does that matter?

First, this would mean funding studies about attitudes toward consent and the long-term impact of non-consensual encounters by qualified researchers, helping advance policy that would advocate for explicit consent in sexual encounters as well as creating and promoting educational materials to introduce the subject to children in school.

Recognizing consent as a public health issue would also shape evidence-based guidelines for clinicians, allowing us to treat it as we would any other widespread health problem—by making it common practice to talk about consent with our patients in the context of their overall health, and by giving our patients a safe place to discuss non-consensual experiences. Smoking tobacco is a good example of a public health issue that both the medical world and general society have made strides towards improving. Many of us can remember watching anti-smoking ads on TV, or being shown an image of a blackened lung in a health class. When we go to the doctor, we’re always asked whether or not we smoke tobacco. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it shows the positive impact a multifaceted approach can have on public health issues.

As with any public health crisis, laws won’t be passed overnight and changes to education requirements can take years to go into effect—though we have and will continue to see strides made in these areas. Importantly, individuals also have the opportunity to take action now in small, deliberate ways. Perhaps the most critical thing that an individual can do to address consent is to discuss it in whichever ways we can with those around us—our sexual partners, our friends, and even our children.

While starting with the youngest members of society may sound difficult, parents and schools should introduce the concept of consent in elementary school, in the right way. While some might argue that doing so would expose children to sexual content too young, the truth is that consent can easily be introduced and reinforced in non-sexual contexts from a very early age. Familiarizing children with the idea of bodily autonomy—that no one has the right to touch them without their approval—can go a long way toward applying the concept of consent to their own bodies and those of their peers as they mature. For example, the District of Columbia’s requirements space out this subject over the course of an entire public school education. In the third grade, schools teach the importance of respect for other bodies. In fourth grade, students learn why talking about sexuality can be helpful. And in sixth grade, the curriculum includes a discussion on the repercussions of unhealthy or violent relationships.

When I look at how society has evolved in the last few years, it is clear that progress has been made. We are far more aware of what consent is and why it is important, but this education very often comes too infrequently and too late. Too many of us have long been uncomfortable discussing healthy and consensual sexual activity, but it is critical that we do so in order to set an example for future generations. One way to do this is to start talking about consent with people you trust. And in the meantime, I’m going to continue talking to my patients about the subject to ensure that they have at least one safe space—and a trusted confidant—to share.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Have Sex if You’re Queer

What to Know About Protection, Consent, and What Queer Sex Means

By Yana Tallon-Hicks

Happy Pride!

Rarely does traditional sex education tackle pleasure for pleasure’s sake, how to have sex for non-reproductive purposes, or the wide spectrums of sexualities, bodies, and genders that exist. Instead it tends to cover penis-in-vagina penetration only, pregnancy risks, and STI/STD transmission, leaning heavily on scare tactics that may not even work.

Traditional sex ed is failing us all, but when it comes to standardized sex education in the U.S., the LGBTQ community is especially left out of the conversation. A GLSEN National School Climate Survey found that fewer than 5% of LGBTQ students had health classes that included positive representations of LGBTQ-related topics. Among self-identified “millennials” surveyed in 2015, only 12% said their sex education classes covered same-sex relationships at all.

The good, and even possibly great news is that not being boxed in by the narrow definitions of sex provided to us via traditional sex ed means that we are free (and perhaps even empowered!) to build our own sex lives that work uniquely for us, our partners, and our relationships. But we still need some info in order to do so.

Let’s talk about what classic sex education might’ve missed about how to have sex if you’re queer, from what sex between queer people means to how to keep it safe and consensual between the rainbow sheets.

What Queer Sex Means and How to Have it

Redefine and self-define sex. Sexual desire exists on a spectrum just like gender, sexuality, and other fluid and fluctuating parts of our identities. From Ace to Gray-Ace to Allosexual and everywhere in between and beyond, check in with yourself and your partners about how they experience sexual desire (if at all).

Similarly, “having sex” can mean a million different things to a million different people from making out, to certain kinds of penetration, orgasmic experiences, etc. You get to decide “what counts as sex” to you which is especially true when it comes to sexual debuts — a necessary and inclusive term for self-determined first times that looks beyond the traditional, heterosexist version of “losing your virginity.”

Honoring the identities and bodies of ourselves and our partners with respect, kindness, compassion, and tenderness is crucial and can feel even more precious and rewarding when you’re queer. Truly pleasurable sex — regardless of your identity — starts with a sense of safety, clear communication, confident boundaries, active listening skills, and self-awareness.

Check in with yourself first. Active consent starts with knowing yourself and what your boundaries are. Though an important piece of practicing consent is asking your partner for permission and for their preferences, it can be easy to forget to ask yourself similar questions. What do you want out of a sexual experience? Where are you confident you don’t want to venture now, yet, or maybe ever? What are you super excited to explore?

This check-in can help you determine what you want from sex and what queer sex means to you. This is when you can think about experimenting with sex toys, whether you’re interested in penetration, and what kind of touch feels good to you.

Sometimes we don’t even know where to start if we’re not sure about what our options even are. Scarleteen.com or Girl Sex 101 (much more gender-spectrum-inclusive than the title suggests) are both great resources that can get some of your questions answered. You can also find more information here.

Name your own bits. Body parts, especially private body parts, can be complicated territory for LGBTQ folks, and understandably so. One of the main goals of sex for many of us is to feel good in our bodies. The first step to this can be feeling good about the terms we use for our body parts. Try on one or a few that might work for you, communicate them to your partners (especially new ones), and ask them how they like their bodies to be talked about or touched.

Gender roles are bendable roles. You don’t have to adopt traditional gender roles in sex unless you want to. Media mediums from PG-13 sex scenes to X-rated porn can create clear splits between what’s considered being “sexually masculine” (being the do-er, taking control, knowing the ropes) and being “sexually feminine” (being the receiver, being passive or reactive, being led rather than initiating the sexual interaction).

Just because you identify with being masculine, feminine, or somewhere in between doesn’t mean you need to act a certain way or do anything in particular in your sex life. You can be a Ferociously Fierce Femme, a Passive Prince of Pillows, a Non-Binary Take-Charge Babe, or any version of your sexual self that follows what feels good, affirming, and right to you and your partners.

Talk about sex outside of a sexual context. Talking about sex with your potential or current partners before the clothes come off can be a great way to keep clear-headed communication and consent thriving. Sexual interactions are vulnerable, exciting, and can get your body and brain functioning in all new ways. So, sometimes it can be easier to talk about your feelings about sex, your enthusiastic Yes-es, your definite No’s, and your curious Maybes over coffee or text first, in addition to in-the-moment communication about consent.

Make an aftercare plan. We know that consent, permission, and pre-sex talks are all important parts of a healthy sex life, but we can forget to think about what happens after we have sex (besides water, a pee break, and snacks, of course). This is aftercare — or, how we like to be interacted with after sex has ended.

Aftercare preferences can include what we want to do immediately after sex (cuddle? watch Netflix? have some alone time?) and can also include what happens in the upcoming days or weeks (check-ins over text? gossip parameters? is there anyone you and your partner definitely do or don’t want to dish to?).

No matter your aftercare preferences, a post-sex check-in conversation about how things went, what you’d love an encore of, and what you might want to avoid next time (if you’d like there to be a next time) is always a good idea.

Always keep it consensual. Consent starts with asking permission before any sexual touch or interaction begins, continues with checking in about how things are going, and ends with talking with each other about how the sexual interaction went overall so that feedback can be exchanged and any mistakes can be repaired.

True, enthusiastic consent thrives in a space where each person feels free, clear-headed, and safe to speak up about what their No’s, Yes-es, and Maybes are.

Safer Sex for Queer Sex

Hormones matter. Even though testosterone hormones can decrease your risk of unwanted pregnancy, folks on T can still become pregnant, so make sure to use condoms if sperm is likely to be in the mix. Estrogen hormones can slow sperm production, but if your body is still producing sperm, an egg-creating partner could still get pregnant, so put your favorite birth control method to work.

Starting or ending hormone therapy, whether it’s testosterone or estrogen, can impact your sexual response, your desire levels, your emotions, and even your sexual orientation — so don’t be surprised if these changes crop up. Find safe people to talk to about any complicated feelings this may trigger rather than keeping them bottled up.

Condoms aren’t a one-trick pony. Though the gym teacher might think that putting a condom on a banana tells students all they need to know about wrapping it up, they’re usually doing little more than wasting a high-potassium snack. Condoms can help reduce pregnancy and STI/STD transmission risk for all kinds of penis-penetrative sex (vaginal, anal, and oral) so they’re important to learn to use correctly. But, they can also be used in other ways. Condoms can be put on sex toys to help with easy clean-up, or if you want to share the toy with a partner without getting up to wash it (just put on a fresh condom instead!), and can even be made into dental dams.

Gloves are another important piece of latex (or non-latex if you’re allergic) to keep…on hand…in your safer-sex kit, as they can prevent transmission of fluids into unnoticed cuts on your hands and can protect delicate orifice tissues from rough nails or your latest catclaw manicure (Pssst: if your nails are extra long and pointy, you can put cotton balls down in the tips of your glove for extra padding).

Lube is your friend. Lube is a great addition to all kinds of sex, but comes highly recommended for certain kinds of sex. A good water-based lube (avoid the ingredient glycerin if you’re prone to yeast infections!) can add pleasurable slip to all kinds of penetration, is latex-compatible, and reduces friction from sex toys or other body parts.

Lube can also be put on the receiver’s end of a dental dam or a small drop can be added to the inside of a condom before you put it on to create more pleasure for the condom-wearer.

Anal sex especially benefits from lube as your booty doesn’t self-lubricate like the vagina does, so it can be prone to painful tearing or friction during penetration. Using a thicker water-based lube like Sliquid Sassy for anal sex reduces friction, increases pleasure, and decreases chances of tearing which, also lowers risk of STI/STD transmission.

Sadly, no one is immune to STIs. Though it’s true that certain sex acts come with greater or lesser risk of STI/STD transmission, it doesn’t mean that certain partner pairings are totally risk-free. The Human Rights Campaign’s Safer Sex Guide (available in both Spanish and English) contains a helpful chart that breaks down the health risks associated with specific sex acts, complete with barrier and birth control methods that’ll help lower your risk.

Remember, some STIs/STDs are easily curable with medication, some are permanent-yet-manageable, and some can be lethal (especially if left untreated). So, knowing the difference and knowing and communicating your status are all important pieces of your sexual health. You can continue to lower STI stigma while reducing rates of STI transmission by keeping conversations about sexual health with your partners open and non-judgmental.

Sex toys need baths, too. When choosing sex toys, it’s wise to pay attention to the kind of material your toy is made out of. Medical grade silicone, stainless steel, glass, and treated wooden sex toys are all, for the most part, non-porous, meaning that they can (and should) easily be washed with soap and water between uses, between orifices, and between partners.

Sex toys made out of cyberskin, jelly rubber, elastomer, or other porous materials have small pores in them that can trap dirt and bacteria (kind of like a sponge), even after you wash them! This means that you could reintroduce dirt and bacteria to your own body causing bacterial or yeast infections for yourself, or you could pass bacteria or STIs to a partner via the toy. You could avoid these porous materials entirely (check the packaging to see what your toy is made out of) or you could use a condom on them every time like you would a body part.

For more tips on building a culture of consent in your communities and relationships, head to yanatallonhicks.com/consenthandout.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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14 Sex Questions To Ask Your Partner

To Ensure Sexual Consent

By Stacie Ysidro

Get comfortable talking about sex.

Before getting intimate with your partner, there are a few consensual sex questions that are worth asking.

Over  the last 10 years of coaching and connecting, I have worked with mostly men and couples. I started out with tantra and sacred sexuality focusing on premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction.

I have helped men connect to get out of their heads(quiet thoughts) and into their bodies(feel sensations), harness and control their sexual energy and orgasm. I have helped them get to know women’s bodies and women’s sexual response.

They have gained confidence and knowledge that helped them have more sex and importantly more satisfying sex.

Along the way many men have opened up to me about their concerns and fear around dealing with masculinity and understanding women in and out of the bedroom. Men either feel like aggressive entitled jerks or passive pushovers stuck in the friend zone.

Men need an assertive safe zone.

In the wake of this ‘Me too’ movement there has been a rise in fear around masculine energy. It has been framed as toxic and detrimental.

Not every touch, compliment or glance is an assault. Not every woman feels like a victim. The toxic masculinity frame has harmed men as well as women! The time has come to bring the conscious divine masculine to clarity and shatter the toxic masculine image!

Instead of taking sides let’s come together and communicate in a healthy, loving way.

Fact is, we have a lack of sex education in our country and most of the world. We are not taught communication skills in general. It is clear why we have so much miscommunication or lack of communication about sexuality.

Women and men have been taught opposite messages around sexuality. It is time to unlearn these harmful ideas, attitudes and beliefs.

Always talk about sex before diving in. If you are not comfortable talking about it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Here are some helpful questions everyone can use, for having sexual consent conversations with your partner/partners or a potential partner.

Say out loud and agree up front: there are no judgments or expectations and nothing will be taken personally, this is all just information.

What to say, what to ask:

1. Do you want to be in a monogamous relationship?

2. What does monogamous mean to you? 

3. I’m really into XYZ are you comfortable with that?’

4. I recently saw this type of play and I am interested in experimenting.

5. How do you feel/what do you think about that?

6. Would you like to try XYZ with me?

7. Tell me if I am using too much or too little pressure.

8. Does XYZ feel good to you?

9. Would you like more pressure than this or less?

10. What are your boundaries in the bedroom? What is completely off the table?

11. What do you find pleasurable?

12. What is not pleasurable to you?

13. What are some things you would like to experiment with?

14. What is you definition of kink? what is taboo to you but is a turn on?

Always keep in mind that in the heat of the moment a yes can become a no but a no can not become a yes. The last thing you want to do is break trust.

You can always have another conversation and create new boundaries for next time. Better to take it slower and be conscious than to have remorse later for crossing a line in the heat of the moment.

A little bit of communication even if it feels awkward, can guarantee a more satisfying experience for you both. Keep in mind the more you have these conversations the more comfortable they will become.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How To Talk About Sex (And Consent)…

4 Lessons From The Kink Community

Talking about sex and consent can be awkward, but it’s important — learning to do it better can help make sure that everyone is on the same page and also that you have the kind of sex that you want to have, whether that involves handcuffs or not.

By Mallory Yu

I don’t remember when the concept of consent as it relates to sex became part of my vocabulary, but it shapes how I approach my personal relationships and affects the way I move through the world. I was shaken when the #MeToo Movement exploded, not only by the stories of sexual assault and harassment, but also by the stories of women who had felt pressured or coerced into having sex they didn’t want.

I flashed back to my own similarly uncomfortable experiences, when I was single and new to D.C. I remembered times on dates when I’d expressed my discomfort by simply pulling away or turning my head when a guy tried to kiss or touch me when I didn’t want to be kissed or touched. I was familiar with the sickening feeling of being distressed by something that was happening, while also feeling unable or hesitant to speak up for myself.

It’s been on my mind a lot recently, how I, like so many people, have been socialized not to talk about sex — because it’s uncomfortable or awkward or it might kill the mood. I thought about how that hesitancy to speak can muddy the waters of consent, and I wanted to explore that idea with people who talk about sex a lot: the kink community, or kinksters, as they’re known.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of kink is “unconventional sexual taste or behavior,” and includes a wide variety of behaviors and preferences. That includes BDSM — a subset of kink — which stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism. Being tied up or handcuffed (bondage), spanked (discipline), and role playing all fall under BDSM.

To make sure each partner is on the same page, kinksters have to talk about sex in a way that vanilla people — those who don’t participate in kinky activities — often don’t. Julie, a kinkster and sociologist in the Washington DC area, believes that the communication kinksters have with each other distinguishes them from “vanillas.”

“Ultimately, what it seems to come down to more than anything is not how many whips and chains are involved, but rather how openly are you willing to talk about the sex that you’re having in the most blatant of terms,” she says.

Of course, the kink community isn’t perfect, as several kinksters told me. They’ve had some high-profile cases of bad behavior — non consensual or even abusive — and as a community they’re dealing with their own need to root out abuse. The kinksters I talked to stressed the importance of evolving the conversation to be even more thoughtful in navigating sex and consent.

Since this is a community that’s made an art out of talking openly about sex, I sat down with six kinksters in Washington D.C to learn some better ways to think and talk about consent. We aren’t using their full names to protect their current and future employment opportunities. Here’s what I found out.

Consent isn’t a simple Yes/No question … it’s a dialogue.

A core principle of kink is negotiating with a prospective partner before anything happens — if that negotiation is done right, it’s more like a collaboration toward a common goal: each party’s pleasure. That includes discussing what’s about to happen before it happens, hashing out boundaries, and ensuring that everyone involved is on the same page.

For Ren, the kind of consent she’s getting is especially important. She organizes cigar socials — events where kinksters can explore the ritual of smoking cigars in a more sexual context. That could include one partner preparing the cigar for their dominant partner, presenting it, and lighting it in a show of submission. Ren says she’s started only working with what she calls “enthusiastic consent.”

“It’s opt-in consent, as opposed to what the vanilla world works with which is opt-out consent. ‘If you don’t say no, it’s fine’ versus what I go for is, ‘If you say yes, it’s good.’ ” For Ren, that opt-in consent means only doing to a partner what’s already been discussed.

But consent isn’t just something given or received at the beginning — it needs to be ongoing. Julie says: “I’m most sexually compatible with the kinds of people who say, ‘Of course I’ll tell you if something’s wrong.’ I don’t want to be in a situation where I don’t trust you to tell me if there’s a problem.”

Ren adds that there have been multiple times when she’s stopped having sex with a person when they’ve done something to her that she’s specifically told them not to do: “I’ve kindly given them their pants back, and I’ve been like, ‘Well, it’s time for you to go.’ ”

Consent is ongoing, and partners should be talking; if something goes wrong and someone wants to stop, everything should stop.

“Talk about sex before you have sex. Talk about sex during sex. Talk about sex after sex,” says Heather, who works with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, an advocacy group for kinksters.

“It’s okay to have a discussion the next day or the week after and say, ‘I liked this but I didn’t like that or can we try this next time,’ etcetera,” she says.

When you talk about sex acts, talk about what they mean to you.

The kinksters I spoke with said there was not a perfect checklist or script for how to talk about sex. Remy, a lawyer in the NYC area, says that’s because everybody is different.

“People have different minds, and that sounds very simple but what it can mean in practice is that somebody could do everything right and have taken every precaution, and the other person with whom they are doing something can still experience that as a violation of consent,” Remy says.

Which is why it’s so important to kinksters to talk frankly with each other about what they want and about how they want to feel. What does each person want to experience? What do you want to feel emotionally?

“There are so many things that when we get too hung up on specifics of activity, we lose track of some of the meaning — and a lot of times, the meaning is what affects people more,” says Evan.

Heather says she prints out a short checklist on negotiation. “I always tell people ‘this is not a comprehensive list but is a great conversation starter for both sides,” she says.

At the very top of the list is the question “Mood: how do we want to feel.”

Ren says that requires a little bit of self-reflection. “I don’t want to have bad sex anymore, so it’s like how do I want to feel during sex? Well, I want to feel powerless, and then having conversations based on that in order to find compatible people to have that type of sex with.”

“One of the most useful pieces of advice, is not just negotiating what’s going on but negotiating what things mean,” says Evan . “You can say to someone, like, ‘I want to be spanked. I want you to spank me’ but what does that look like? What does it mean, where does it involve touching?”

Make the consent conversation fun and seductive.

Yes, having frank and open discussions about sex can be awkward, but kinksters say they’re able to have fun with it too.

“I think there’s a real failure in the imagination of a lot of the broad public to think that you can’t ask for and even, you know, specifically in a detailed manner negotiate activities, without it also being sexy,” Evan says.

The kinksters’ “negotiation cheat sheet” encourages talking about things like each party’s hard limits and triggers, level of experience, and who is doing what in the scenario (for example: who is being spanked and who is doing the spanking). It also suggests talking about each person’s tolerance of the risk of minor harm, like rope or wax burns, or the potential emotional impacts from play.

And all of it can be sexy to talk about, says Ren.

“There are so many ways you can get consent without going ‘I’d like to kiss you right now’ or ‘I’d like to touch your leg,’ ” Ren adds. “Like begging can be really hot. And if you make somebody beg for the thing they want, you would assume that they want that thing.”

Talking about fantasies is another way to figure out what a partner might want to do in bed.

“A lot of time, when you start from fantasies, you can get a much better picture of how someone wants to feel,” Julie says. “Then at some point, it becomes a question of ‘you fantasize about this thing, are you actually okay with doing it in reality?’ So then it’s a matter of trying to make that feeling happen.”

Get good at describing what gives you pleasure.

Many of us have been socialized to find it shameful to ask for what we want sexually, and Julie thinks that needs to change to make communicating about sex easier.

“When we’re too ashamed to do it when we’re sober, and [think] that anyone who’s had sex with too many people isn’t worthy of marrying, you make it impossible for people to have a context for open and honest sexual communication,” she says.

For kinksters, it’s not just about ensuring that all parties involved are comfortable, and consent to what’s happening. It’s about having good sex. It’s about feeling empowered to ask for what you want out of sex — without being shamed for it — so you can have the sex that you want to have with the people you want to have it with.

“I think the vanilla society are missing out on a lot of feelings and emotions and satisfaction that they could get if they would be more open and honest with each other and more willing to communicate about these things,” Heather says.

And for Ren, that’s one of the biggest changes she’s found since joining the kink community.

Getting better negotiation skills led to better sex,” Ren says. “A lot of my experiences with my partners are a lot better now because I’m a lot better at communicating the things I want out of our interactions, and I’m also able to give them more of the things they want.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Taking back control…

You don’t owe anyone sex or a relationship

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Movie after movie, scene after scene, we see men and boys refuse to give up on the girl. Had a big fight? Give her a big speech about how she’s the only one! She told you to leave her alone? Go to her house with a bunch of flowers! She broke up with you? Never take no for an answer!

Once you put some music behind it and get Richard Curtis in to direct, of course it all seems unassuming – romantic, even. But real human emotions are much more complex, and coupled with a fundamental misunderstanding of what people want out of relationships, it can all lead to some seriously unwanted advances, or worse.

The fact remains that a man’s behaviour towards women doesn’t have to be violent to be aggressive. If you’ve ever met a boy who thinks he’s the star in a rom-com, you’ll understand the fear and dread that comes with having to confront him when he shows up at your door with a heartfelt poem yet again, after you’ve said ‘no’ more times than you can count on your fingers.

“God, I’m just being nice,” he’ll say – the words that boil my blood. I’ll say it loud for the people in the back: if you do something nice for someone, they don’t owe you anything, and they certainly don’t owe you sex or a relationship.

But well-meaning young men who just won’t get the message aren’t the whole story.

There are real women – and let’s be frank, there are also men as well – out there who face real, physical violence for rejecting unwanted advances. Actress Jameela Jamil has opened up about her personal, harrowing experiences with this, but those of us who don’t have an adoring fanbase and a huge online platform go through it too.

Furthermore, in a society where women still get asked to hide our skin at school and work, for those of us who aren’t in the public eye it’s easy to just shrink away and accept that there’s nothing we can do but cover ourselves up and hope for the best.

But there’s so much we can do! We don’t just have to wait for the world to change around us. You can shout that boys and men need to learn “not to rape” but let’s be honest – most of them bloody well know that already, and the ones who don’t are the ones who never will. So protect each other, stand up for your fellow woman, believe that you deserve better than someone who doesn’t respect you. And most importantly, don’t let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn’t have been wearing.

So, to the woman who puts up with leery co-workers; to the teenage girl who doesn’t know she’s allowed to tell her boyfriend “no!”; to any and all of us who’ve had a #MeToo moment – know that you are in control of your destiny.

Regardless of what gender and sexuality you identify as, it is never too much to ask to not face violence for not being interested in someone romantically.

Learn to say no, and learn to protect yourself. Because with a US President who brags about “grabbing women by the pussy,” it doesn’t look like the world is going to change in the forseeable future. It’s time to take control.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!