LGBTQ+ in Africa

— How the US far-right whips up homophobia

Sexual minorities say they have faced a wave of abuse since Uganda’s harsh anti-LGBTQ+ law was enacted last year

Tough laws targeting homosexual acts or abortion in African nations are often preceded by lobbying from American hard-liners. Often well-financed, these networks campaign against equality and diversity.

By Martina Schwikowski

Fundamentalist Christian churches from the United States are increasingly gaining power and influence in societies and political spheres across Africa. Many of them have been whipping up negative sentiments against LGBTQ+ people and abortion rights.

Haley McEwen, a sociologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, has examined some of their influential networks.

“US Christian right-wing groups have been very active in the US foreign policy since the early 2000s,” McEwen told DW.

“There are several organizations that have been around since the 1970s — and in the early 2000s they started to increase their influence internationally.”

A protester joins supporters of the LGBTQ+ community as they stage a protest against a planned lecture by Kenyan academic Patrik Lumumba at the University of Cape Town
Conservative activists often portray LGBTQ+ people as alien imports who threaten African societies

The groups have expanded into African countries like Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa.

According to McEwen, the networks also focused on UN organizations “in response to the advances being made by the international feminist movement to gain recognition of sexual and reproductive health and rights within the UN frameworks.”

‘Hatred from outside our history’

These conservative activists — who describe themselves as “pro family” — seem only interested in safeguarding one special type of family: heterosexual, monogamous nuclear families ordained by marriage.

“We continue to advocate that this is hatred that is deliberately being stirred, that it is not organic and not within our history and it is actually producing the conditions for violence and assault of LGBTQ+ persons in Kenya,”Irungu Houghton, Kenya director at Amnesty International, told DW.

Homosexuality has always been being practiced discreetly in what is now Kenya, according to Houghton. British colonialists enacted the first laws that criminalized gay sex in the 1930s.

Influence comes with money

These days, it’s African leaders who introduce the new laws — which is why they’ve been targeted by far-right networks from the US.

According to McEwen, these groups want to win over African leaders in order to implement what is being described as “family friendly agendas” — both in their home countries and internationally at the United Nations.

McEwen said this influence was also being exerted by funding African organizations which domestically propagate “nuclear family” policies and oppose LGBTQ+ rights and comprehensive sexuality education.

There is a homegrown network of such groups in Africa, but according to McEwen, they heavily rely on funding from outside Africa.

Who’s funding the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment?

UK-based media platform openDemocracy published a 2020 report that examined more than 20 American Christian groups.

The paper revealed that the groups — which are known for their campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights, access to safe abortion, contraceptives and comprehensive sex education — have spent at least $54 million (€49.5 million) in Africa since 2007.

One of these groups is Christian conservative organization Family Watch International (FWI) which, according to openDemocracy “has has been coaching high-ranking African politicians … to oppose comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) across the continent.”

Uganda signs anti-LGBTQ bill into law

In May 2023, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s toughest anti-LGBTQ+ laws — including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” — drawing Western condemnation and risking sanctions from aid donors.

According to activist Frank Mugisha, director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, FWI was highly influential in the genesis of Uganda’s legislation.

However, FWI said in a statement on its website that it is “opposed to the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023” and it “opposes legislation that penalizes a person for having same-sex sexual attractions or for their gender identity.”

“Family Watch opposes the death penalty or harsh penalties in the context of Uganda’s pending law and other similar bills,” according to the statement.

Africa’s tough anti-LGBTQ+ laws ‘stirring up hatred and acrimony’

Shortly afterward, Uganda passed the law, and a Kenyan lawmaker proposed a bill that has often been described as “copy paste” of the Ugandan law. The Kenyan bill is still undergoing parliamentary procedures.

In Ghana, a similar bill was recently passed by parliament. But it’s still unclear when and whether president Nana Akufo-Addo will sign it into law.

“There is a direct link between the emergence of hate bills in Uganda and Ghana and now Kenya with these interests,” said Amnesty’s Houghton.

“We have been very concerned that this is not only focusing on stirring up hatred and acrimony between societies but is also focusing on reversing many gains with regards to comprehensive sex education and sexual productive health rights.”

Complete Article HERE!

What Is Sexual Repression?

— Do I Have It?

Human sexuality is a combination of cultural, psychological, and biological factors. It is a way of expressing emotions and feeling connected through physical affection and pleasure. Family, society, and culture influence our perceptions and attitudes toward sex and sexuality. Sexual repression happens when someone avoids expressing their sexual feelings, thoughts, and desires.

By

  • Everyone has different comfort levels and personal boundaries regarding sex and sexuality.
  • Sexual repression may stem from religious, cultural, or societal stereotypes and expectations.
  • Discussing sexual repression may be embarrassing, but without treatment, it can negatively impact your physical, emotional, and mental health.
  • Effective communication with an intimate partner can help you cope while strengthening the relationship.

In this article, you’ll learn about sexual repression if it’s something you might have, and how to work through it.

What is sexual repression?

Sexual repression is one way your mind copes with difficult or painful ideas about sex and sexuality. It is a defense mechanism that causes you to push undesirable feelings, thoughts or desires out of your conscious thinking.

You might be experiencing sexual repression for a variety of reasons, including:

  • Family dynamics. Growing up in a household where it was unacceptable to discuss the topic of sex might have instilled a sense of shame when talking about or participating in sexual activities.
  • Cultural norms and religious beliefs. Culture and religion often have significant roles in how you view sex and sexuality. Growing up with very restrictive attitudes toward sex, being told that sex outside of marriage or sex for pleasure was shameful or amoral, you might have negative associations with sex and sexuality.
  • Gender stereotypes. Traditional societal beliefs about masculinity and femininity may affect your outlook on sex and sexuality. The stereotypes that men must be dominant, aggressive, and sexual while women need to be submissive, emotional, and passive can adversely affect your views of sex and sexuality.
  • Sexual orientation. Individuals who struggle with their sexual identity or orientation may experience feelings of guilt, shame, and discomfort around their sexuality. Fear of judgment, stigma, and prejudice may negatively impact your feelings toward sex and sexuality.
  • Prior trauma or abuse. A history of sexual abuse or trauma can significantly impact your capacity for creating intimate relationships. Sexual intimacy may trigger anxiety, fear, or flashbacks of a previous assault.

Sexual repression symptoms

Symptoms of sexual repression are similar in men and women. You may experience the following:

  • Thoughts of shame and embarrassment around sex and sexuality.
  • Lack of desire or lack of ability to participate in sexual activities.
  • Fear and anxiety related to sex and sexuality.

Risks associated with sexual repression

If untreated, sexual repression may cause:

  • Low self-esteem
  • Negative self-image
  • Sexual frustration
  • Emotional withdrawal
  • Difficulty establishing or maintaining intimate relationships

How to cope with sexual repression

Sexuality is very individualized. You may feel pressure from your partner, friends, or the media about what “normal” sexuality is. Each individual has their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about what is pleasurable and acceptable.

  • Honesty. Be open and honest with your partner about your emotions. It is easier for your partner to support you when they know what you think and feel. Communication is vital to a healthy relationship.
  • Respect. Try not to pressure yourself to meet your partner’s expectations. Both partners should feel comfortable, respected, and safe in a healthy relationship.
  • Rule out physical issues. It is best to consult your healthcare provider to rule out any physical issues that might be mistaken for sexual repression affecting your libido or sexual desire.
  • Find a sex therapist. Some professionals specialize in treating individuals and couples with sex and sexuality. A sex therapist is a licensed mental health professional that uses psychotherapy to help work through mental and emotional issues related to sex and sexuality. Some therapists specialize in treating individuals with LBGTQ+ issues. With the increased prevalence of telemedicine, it is more convenient to connect with a qualified sex therapist who can help.

How to help your loved one

Sexual repression is a sensitive topic, and your partner may struggle with self-doubt, self-blame, and negativity. The needs and desires of both partners should be equally met. Working together, you can provide a safe space to support your loved one.

  • Be patient. It may take time to work through these issues. Each individual copes and works through things at their own pace.
  • Listen to your partner’s needs. Ask questions and let your partner know what you can do to help.
  • Support. Offer non-judgemental support and reassurance of your love. Your loved one may be experiencing feelings of isolation and self-blame.
  • Be aware of triggers. If your partner has a history of sexual trauma, respect your loved one’s boundaries and be aware of potential triggers.
  • Open communication. Talk to your partner about other ways of expressing intimacy that will be comfortable for both partners.

Confronting sexual repression can be challenging, but with the support of a loving and compassionate partner, it can be easier to overcome sexual repression. Trust, respect, honesty, and open communication are essential for working through challenges and building a solid and healthy relationship.

Complete Article HERE!

Why Are GOP Lawmakers Obsessed about Sex?

— By focusing on sex, Republicans can court both the evangelical right and the right-wing extreme QAnon vote.

By Robert Reich

The Republican Party, once a proud proponent of limited government, has become a font of government intrusion into the most intimate aspects of personal and family life.

Last Friday, a judge who previously worked for a conservative Republican legal organization and was then nominated to the bench by Trump and pushed through the Senate by Mitch McConnell, invalidated the FDA’s approval of a 23-year-old abortion pill (mifepristone) used in over half of pregnancy terminations in the United States.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Dobbs case (in which Republican appointees on the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade), Republican states are criminalizing abortion. Some are criminalizing the act of helping women obtain an abortion in another state. Texas gives private citizens the right to sue anyone who helps someone get an abortion. Idaho just passed an “abortion trafficking” law that would make helping a minor leave Idaho to get an abortion without parental consent punishable by five years in prison. Tennessee Republicans have made it illegal to mail medical abortion pills. In the last Congress, 167 House Republicans co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, conferring full personhood rights on fertilized eggs.

At the same time, Republican lawmakers want to make it more difficult for couples to buy contraceptives. Sixteen Republican-dominated state legislatures already bar abortion clinics from receiving public contraception funds.

So far, at least 11 Republican states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors, even if parents approve. Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has ordered state child welfare officials to launch child abuse investigations into reports of transgender kids receiving such care. Republican lawmakers are also pushing teachers to refer to students by their gender assigned at birth. Many are restricting which bathrooms trans students can use.

Republican states are also limiting discussions of gender and sexuality in classrooms. Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a bill banning public school teachers in kindergarten through third grade from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity, calling it an “anti-grooming bill” and accusing opponents of wanting to groom young children for sexual exploitation.

Republican lawmakers are also putting obstacles in the way of same-sex marriage and are considering appeals to the Supreme Court to reverse its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. Texas’s Republican attorney general says he’d “feel comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy” in the wake of Dobbs.

Oh, and Republicans now routinely accuse political opponents of favoring child pornography. In her confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was barraged with questions from Republican senators about her alleged lenient treatment of child pornographers. (In four days of hearings, the phrase “child porn” or “pornography” or “pornographer” was mentioned 165 times, along with 142 mentions of “sex” or related terms like “sexual abuse” or “sex crimes.”)

Three Reasons Why Republican Lawmakers Are Obsessing about Sex

First, by focusing on sex, Republicans can court both the evangelical right and the right-wing extreme QAnon vote (with its loony “Pizzagate” conspiracy claim that Democrats are pedophiles).

gop sex obsession

Second, by focusing on sex, Republican lawmakers don’t have to talk nonstop about Trump. They don’t have to discuss his indictment or other pending cases against him. They don’t have to say whether they agree with his vitriolic diatribes against other Republicans (DeSantis, McConnell, and any other Republican who criticizes him). They don’t have to defend his bonkers positions (on Ukraine, NATO, George Soros, immigrants, and all else).

Finally, creating a culture war over sex allows Republicans to sound faux populist without having to address the practical problems faced by most Americans — lack of paid sick leave, unaffordable child care and elder care, stagnant wages, and inadequate housing. And by focusing on sex, they believe they can ignore the sources of populist anger — corporate profiteering and price gouging, monopolization, union busting, soaring CEO pay, and billionaires who pay a lower tax rate than the average worker (courtesy, in part, of the 2017 Republican tax cut for the wealthy).

But the Republican obsession about sex is backfiring on them, as we saw in the 2022 midterms and again in last week’s elections in Wisconsin and Chicago. It’s drawing a contrast between the two parties that pits the GOP against the vast majority of voters.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent to Americans that while Democrats want to make life easier for average working people and end corporate abuses of economic power, Republicans want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of peoples’ lives.

Complete Article HERE!

Don’t say “period”

— How Florida Republicans are taking aim at basic sex education

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers questions from the media in the Florida Cabinet following his “State of the State” address during a joint session of the Florida Senate and House of Representatives at the state capitol in Tallahassee, Florida, on March 7, 2023.

A bill wants to restrict when students can discuss “human sexuality” at school.

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While many of the controversial education bills in Florida have limited how schools teach about history or gender, the latest, House Bill 1069, is turning back to a more traditional target for conservatives: sex education.

If passed, the law would require that teachers get approval for materials used in sexual health classes, which can only be taught in grades six through 12 under the law. It would also require that schools teach a specific definition of “sex” and “reproductive roles.”

The bill advanced last week at a Florida House Education Quality Subcommittee hearing — bolstered by a Republican supermajority — and is on its way to a vote on the state House floor. Ultimately, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will likely sign it into law.

The bill joins DeSantis’s two other education initiatives — the “Don’t Say Gay” law and the Stop WOKE Act — in seeking to restrict what teachers can talk about in the classroom. And while it’s nominally about sex education, it would also reinforce those laws’ restrictions on what students learn about gender and relationships, and increase the state’s ability to restrict what students read in the school library by giving parents and community members the power to object to some materials.

During the subcommittee hearing last week, Democrats were aghast that lawmakers didn’t consider whether a topic as innocuous as menstrual cycles would be barred from discussions at school under the legislation. Rep. Ashley Viola Gantt asked Rep. Stan McClain, who proposed the legislation, whether the bill would prohibit young girls from talking about their periods in schools.

“Does this bill prohibit conversations about menstrual cycles ― because we know that typically the age is between 10 and 15 ― so if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” Gantt asked McClain during the committee hearing. McClain responded that the bill would restrict such conversations, but later said the goal of the bill is not to punish little girls.

“Teachers are a safe place. Schools are a safe place. [But teachers] can’t even talk to their students about these very real and biological things that happen to their bodies, these little girls. It wasn’t even contemplated that little girls can have their periods in third grade or fourth grade,” Gantt said in her testimony. “If we are preparing children to be informed adults, we need to inform them about their bodies and that’s something very basic.”

The bill would regulate Florida’s already disjointed sex ed landscape

Florida schools are not required to teach sex education, but are required to teach comprehensive health education. There is no statewide curriculum for sex education, which makes instruction inconsistent across the state, according to an ABC report. Plus, Florida has long touted its opt-out policy, which allows parents to remove their children from instruction on reproductive health.

Critics of the bill fear that it will push the state away from embracing comprehensive sex education, which advocates say is necessary. A 2019 CDC youth risk behavior study found that more than half of Florida’s 12th graders had already had sexual intercourse; of those who were sexually active, half of them did not use a condom during their last sexual encounter.

The bill is also another avenue for DeSantis and his allies to enforce conservative beliefs about sex and gender. According to the bill, “sex” is either female or male “based on the organization of the body of such person for a specific reproductive role.” One’s reproductive role and sex are determined by their “sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, and internal and external genitalia present at birth.”

This law goes further than other proposed legislation that would require teachers to use pronouns that correspond with a student’s gender assigned at birth, which opponents of the proposal have argued is an attack on trans students and faculty members.

In building on earlier book restrictions already in effect in various parts of the state, the law would require that materials used to teach about reproductive health or sexually transmitted diseases be approved by the state education department. The bill does not detail what the approval process would entail. Teachers subject to book bans in certain districts, including the Duval County school district, have already described the process as time consuming and shrouded in mystery.

>Sex ed, health, and science classes that teach about HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases can only discuss human sexuality in grades six through 12. And the courses must abide by the idea that “biological males impregnate biological females by fertilizing the female egg with male sperm; that the female then gestates the offspring.” Under the law, these reproductive roles are “binary, stable, and unchangeable” — a statement that refuses to admit the existence of trans and nonbinary people.

Democrats also noted that limiting certain discussions to middle school and higher grade levels could be harmful to younger students.

“Imagine a little girl in fourth grade going to the bathroom and finding blood in her panties and thinking that she is dying. This is a reality for little girls in school. They can be in foster care. They could have parents who just work a lot because wages are stagnant and the price of living continues to grow,” Gantt said. “She doesn’t actually know what’s going on. And her teacher doesn’t have the ability to tell her that this is a part of life because she’s in the fourth grade.”

The law doubles down on abstinence education, which the state has long promoted, despite evidence that abstinence-only education does not lower adolescent birth rates. According to the law, teaching abstinence from sexual activity is a “certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy.” The law emphasizes that teachers must teach the benefits of monogamous heterosexual marriage. The bill says teachers must teach material that is grade and age appropriate for students but does not offer additional details.

Relatedly, as DeSantis prepares his expected presidential run, his administration is moving to expand its “Don’t Say Gay” law, which took effect in 2022. It bars grades K-3 teachers from teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation, and a proposed State Board of Education rule, which comes up for a vote in April and doesn’t require legislative approval, would expand the restriction to grades four to 12.

The bans keep coming

DeSantis has said his education legislation empowers parents, giving them greater latitude to monitor what happens in classrooms. This bill carries this effort forward, though advocates have said such laws allow parental overreach and take power away from teachers who are experts.

The proposed legislation tasks district school boards with choosing course content and instructional materials used in classrooms. This means that boards have the power to control what’s available in school and classroom libraries and classroom reading lists. They’re also tasked with developing guidelines for how parents can object to what’s being taught and make it easier for them to do so.

The same provision even empowers “a resident of the county” to submit objections. Content can be objected to for a variety of reasons under the law, including if it depicts sexual content, is “not suited to student needs,” or is inappropriate for a student’s grade level or age group.

As with other Florida legislation, if certain material is objected to it must be removed from a classroom within five school days from when the objection was filed and cannot return to the school until the objection is investigated and resolved. If a school district finds an objection to be valid under the law, teachers must discontinue its use.

The bill also opens up avenues for parents to contest a school board’s decision to adopt certain course materials via petition. School districts are to consider petitions during hearings and make a determination. If a parent disagrees with a district’s decision, the law gives them the power to request that the commissioner of education appoint a special magistrate to issue a recommendation for how to resolve the dispute.

These allowances build on legislation that Florida passed last year that limits the kinds of materials that schools can carry in their libraries.

Republicans have argued that these bills do not constitute book bans, but activists say that’s exactly what they are.

“This is a ban because the language in the bill says this information will be removed completely. What if a parent says I don’t want my child to ever be exposed to slavery and that part of our history?” Gantt asked during her testimony. “There are so many ways we can keep children safe and informed and have these conversations.”

If signed by DeSantis, the law would take effect July 1, 2023.

Complete Article HERE!

Our culture isn’t sex positive just because kink is trending

Even “vanilla” people feel sex shamed.

By Tracey Anne Duncan

As a person who writes about sex and pleasure, I meet a lot of pleasure activists — people working to reclaim pleasure and sexuality as radical domains. Many are kinksters, queers, or both; all on a mission to return some dignity back to folks who have been marginalized. Recently, though, I came across a pleasure activist who’s advocating for the validity of “vanilla” sex. Frankly, I was a bit taken aback. Do people who like simple sex really need activism? Isn’t “normal” sex just, well, normal?

Sure, in the past decade, kinky sex has become much more socially acceptable. I’m not saying you should try to bond with granny about your favorite shibari harnesses, but you can probably post about them on social media without much to-do. But while the #trending of kink seems like some form of progress in our generally prudish society, if folks who love “vanilla” sex feel shamed by their preferences, our culture is still far from being a sex-positive Eden of earthly delights.

“As soon as you say something like, ‘Umm, you know, I love vanilla sex,’ you might as well grow a Victorian-style bonnet on your head,” Alice Queen, a sex writer in Detroit who runs a sex toy blog dubbed “Vanilla is the New Kink,” tells me. “I’m under the impression that society as a whole will never stop trying to whip us (back) into shape, one way or another, by framing any and [all] of our sexual behaviors into social mores.” Basically, Queen believes vanilla sex oftentimes gets the same negative treatment from others as sex that’s widely considered “deviant.”

“As soon as you say something like ‘Umm, you know, I love vanilla sex,’ you might as well grow a Victorian-style bonnet on your head.” – Alice Queen

But does Alice think there needs to be an actual, formal movement to advocate for those who like to keep sex simpler? “On the one hand, I’d love for people to be able to freely admit their vanilla preferences without being scoffed at,” she says. “On the other hand, I’m more than aware of potential pitfalls: Before long, someone would try to hijack my genuine vanilla [sex] pride and use it as a wrapper for exclusion because it’s just so easy to do from a traditional point of view.”

In other words, no, even vanilla sex “activists” view something like an earnest “vanilla sex pride” movement as something that would harm already marginalized communities who actually need or benefit from Pride movements.

The experts I spoke with agree that there’s a big difference between taking pride in your sexuality and trying to make a social justice movement out of it. “Benefiting from, or even being an activist in, a social justice movement or a project to make the word ‘sex’ non-judgmentally inclusive of more sexual options (especially your own) doesn’t necessarily open you up to true comfort with and belief in sexual diversity,” Carol Queen (no relation to Alice), co-founder of the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, tells me.

“My starting point is that the only thing that should be excluded is exclusion itself — as well as, of course, any practice that lacks consent or can never have it by definition.” – Alice Queen

The truth is that while Alice may be a self-described vanilla sex “activist,” she’s not vying for the primacy of any one kind of sex. Yes, the name of her blog could be read as creating a divide between vanilla and kink, but it’s really just catchy phrasing meant to wink at sex negativity. “I wouldn’t want to end up unwittingly promoting exclusion,” Alice says. “On the contrary, my starting point is that the only thing that should be excluded is exclusion itself — as well as, of course, any practice that lacks consent or can never have it by definition.”

The point Alice is trying to make is that, while the preponderance of BDSM-themed merch may make it seem like America has gotten really freaky, our culture is actually still so sex negative that even people who prefer “normal” sex feel like they can’t state their desires without being judged. The fashionability of the aesthetics of kink in many ways masks the reality that the U.S. is still a sex-negative culture, as evidenced by, among other things, our egregious sex education policies.

In fact, the whole idea of kink versus vanilla is essentially just a tool used to create divisions between anyone who might attempt to reclaim pleasure. After all, there’s not even an agreed-upon definition of vanilla sex. We invent these categories in order to express our desires, which should be fun, but our overly prudish culture has turned even the most normative desires against us.

“We should not be put in a position of feeling shame about our sexuality unless we are hurting someone else via our actions.” – Carol Queen

Alice describes vanilla sex as simple and mindful, which honestly, is a great way to approach any kind of sex, kinky or otherwise. “We do not have to have sex a certain way — except, y’know, consensually — no matter what right-wing politicians and preachers [or] hipper-than-thou ‘sex-positive’ folks might say,” Carol says. Basically, in a genuinely sex-positive culture, all sex — vanilla, kink, clown, whatever — would be welcome.

In working toward such a culture, it’s crucial that we don’t get the idea of sex positivity twisted. “Since humans tend to one-up each other, that ‘Yippee, sex!’ POV has morphed into ‘Sex-positive means I like all the sex — [and] if you don’t, you are not sex-positive,” she says. “This is not what sex-positive means.”

The truth is, as Carol notes, that what’s considered sexually “normal” or “fashionable” is always in flux, and it doesn’t always correspond to how we actually think about — or do — sex. As Carol says, “We should not be put in a position of feeling shame about our sexuality unless we are hurting someone else via our actions.”

Complete Article HERE!

The pendulum is swinging back

— reversing hard-won sexual freedoms and civil rights

Handing out pamphlets about birth control in 1916 on Union Square in New York City.

By Rebecca L. Davis

The leaked Supreme Court opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., which would overturn Roe vs. Wade, marks a devastating setback for reproductive justice in the United States. It also highlights how bound up the right to abortion is with other fundamental sexual freedoms and civil rights. Whatever happens in the wake of this likely decision, we are already witnessing the undoing of more than a century of successful efforts to expand and protect individual rights to sexual and gender self-expression.

A decision nullifying Roe could threaten protections for other sexual rights. The majority opinion in Roe in 1973 relied on a right to privacy first established in Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965), which lifted a state ban on contraceptive access for married people. Recognition of a right to privacy also underpinned the court’s decision in Lawrence vs. Texas (2003) to overturn state anti-sodomy statutes. The majority opinion in Obergefell vs. Hodges (2015) likewise cited a right to privacy among its reasons for requiring all states to legalize marriages for same-sex couples. All those cases marked wins for individual liberty, human rights and civil rights.

Whether or not federal protection for abortion rights disappears this year, the erosion of sexual freedoms is already well underway. Although a majority of Americans support abortion rights, several states have passed extraordinarily restrictive abortion laws. School boards have banned books with LGBTQ content. And state legislatures have authorized retaliation against transgender people and their allies — even investigating the parents of children who receive trans-affirming healthcare.

It is not a historical accident that a likely Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe has coincided with these other assaults on sexual freedom and gender identity. The legal right to abortion is but one issue — if a critical one — at the heart of a much larger struggle for sexual autonomy.

That struggle took shape in the wake of another devastating attack: the passage of the Comstock Act in 1873, championed by Anthony Comstock of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Officially the Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use, the law prohibited sending “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” items through the U.S. mail or across state lines. The act defined reproductive technologies and all printed material about contraception as obscene.

Many states had started to outlaw abortion procedures in the 1850s, often due to pressure from (male) physicians determined to undermine a measure typically provided by (female) midwives. The Comstock Act made even the possession of abortifacients a federal crime.

Prudish, sanctimonious and often cruel, Comstock was a “fire and brimstone” Protestant who considered any sex outside of marital reproduction to be sinful. He succeeded in convincing the federal government to impose his religious values on all Americans.

But Comstock’s law did not affirm the status quo. It sought to thwart increasingly permissive sexual values.

Contrary to caricatures of the era, the 19th-century United States was not prudish about sex. A prolific pornography industry enjoyed unprecedented success. Bigamy and divorce had become more common, and Indiana served as the “divorce mill” that Nevada would become decades later. Same-sex couples and queer people lived openly in communities where what mattered was not whether someone conformed to a strict sexual morality but whether they caused any trouble for their neighbors. Most people placed a high premium on privacy.

When Comstock and Congress determined that they had the authority to decide which kinds of sex were moral, and which were not, they upended that equilibrium by authorizing agents of the state to police Americans’ erotic and reproductive lives.

A century of activism defending the individual’s right to sexual self-expression followed. Across multiple movements and battlegrounds, activists have made clear that an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted to make their own decisions about their sexual desires and relationships.

Birth control activists distributed informational pamphlets and opened clinics in defiance of Comstock’s bans on contraception. Lawyers and advocates gradually won carve-outs for physician-directed birth control and the sale of condoms. Bar owners and LGBT activists fought back in court and in the streets against liquor boards and vice squads, eventually refuting the idea that a gathering of LGBT people was by definition obscene. Filmmakers, publishers and others challenged the government’s censorship powers. And by the 1960s, activists took direct aim at laws that criminalized abortion, insisting that sexual freedoms were meaningless if women could not make decisions about whether to carry a pregnancy to term.

Many of us who have benefited from those movements have grown to adulthood expecting to be able to express our gender identities, our sexual desires and our reproductive decisions according to our own consciences. The revelation of the draft opinion to overturn abortion rights should animate anyone in the U.S. who values sexual freedoms. The decision would impose a minority’s interpretation of Christian morality on the nation and render all non-marital non-reproductive sexual expressions vulnerable to policing and prosecution.

The activism that undid the Comstock Act transformed American culture. It ingrained values of sexual autonomy across our social institutions, laws and popular culture. Americans today overwhelmingly support marriage equality, access to contraception, comprehensive sex education and abortion, and they consume sexually explicit material in staggering quantities. In a country where we have grown so accustomed to seeing our sexuality as a core part of our humanity — and as an arena of freedom and expressiveness — we can only hope that it will require far less than a century to undo the damage of an end to Roe.

Complete Article HERE!

These Christian leaders embraced sex positivity

— and now preach it

In recent years, social media has allowed these views to become more widespread

By Suzannah Weiss

Jo Neufeld, a 40-year-old living in Manitoba, Canada, used to feel that she was sex positive despite being Christian. Then, about 10 years ago, she started following Twitter accounts like those of Kevin Garcia, a gay pastor based in Atlanta, and other Christians who talked openly about sex.

Neufeld said the accounts introduced her to “ideas around God wanting pleasure for us” and helped her to reconcile her Christianity with her sex positivity: “I’ve found examples of people living out holy sexuality. And for me, that has been about slowly embracing that I was created for sexual flourishing.”

Traditionally, most Christian leaders have accepted the teaching that sex should occur only in marriage. That has come with a great deal of stigma about sex outside of marriage, leaving Christians — women and LGBTQ people especially — often feeling forced to choose between following their religion and embracing their sexuality.

In recent years, that has borne out in mainstream politics, with conservative Christian groups backing abortion restrictions and the prohibition of discussion of gender and sexuality in schools.

But in some corners of the Internet, church leaders and other public figures are merging Christianity and sex positivity — that is, the belief that all forms of sexual expression between consenting adults are permissible and should be destigmatized.

That follows a general cultural trend: Over the past two decades, Americans have become increasingly accepting of sex outside marriage, LGBTQ relationships and more, according to Gallup.

Thanks in part to the ubiquity of these views on social media, some Christians say they are coming to view a healthy relationship with one’s sexuality as spiritually beneficial and even in line with the Bible.

In 2020, the Pew Research Center found that half of U.S. Christians consider casual sex — defined in the survey as sex between consenting adults who are not in a committed romantic relationship — acceptable at least some of the time.

And in a survey that year of 133 Christian college students across the United States, Aditi Paul, an assistant professor of communication studies at Pace University, found that 80 percent of Christian students masturbate, 68 percent watch pornography and 60 percent have had between one and six casual hookup partners.

The majority of students agreed that casual sex is acceptable; one-night standards are enjoyable; and an individual does not need to be committed to someone to have sex with the person, Paul’s survey found.

Xaya Lovelle, 28, a sex worker in New Orleans, said she had always felt at odds with the sexual mores she had learned in the Roman Catholic Church. But she didn’t feel validated in that perspective, she said, until as a 17-year-old she read “The Purity Myth” by the feminist writer Jessica Valenti. The book argues that American society’s obsession with virginity hurts young women.

Two years later, she started web-camming (which involved live broadcasts and private shows), because she found that “sex wasn’t incompatible with Jesus’ teachings,” she said. Since then, Lovelle added, other Christians, including the nonbinary Catholic mystic sex worker William October, have affirmed her belief that “sex positivity is largely about acceptance of other people and withholding judgment, which reflects Jesus’ actions.”

Alexa Davis, 23, a blogger in Illinois, was raised in a nondenominational church that taught that sex was only for marriage. But she started questioning this dogma in her teens as she came across sex-positive ideas online, from secular figures including video-blogger Laci Green and from religious leaders including the Philadelphia-based Rev. Beverly Dale.

“It felt reassuring to see that confirmation from a practicing minister that sex is meant to be positive,” she recalls of reading an article about Dale, who created the YouTube series “Sex Is Good.”

Dale grew up on a farm in Illinois in the 1950s and attended the Christian Church. Her family didn’t discuss sex at all, making it seem forbidden and shameful, she said. The role of women in her community, she remembers, was “to take care of and teach children and work in potluck oversight in the church.”

“It was the women’s movement that taught me it was okay to be a female and it was perfectly fine to be a sexual female at that,” Dale added. “Once I realized this, I turned to my Christian teachings and the church with a lot of anger.”

Christianity in the United States stems largely from a Puritan tradition that sees the desires of the flesh as contrary to those of the spirit. It wasn’t until the 1970s that women began entering seminaries in larger numbers and publishing writing that critiqued mainstream Christian views of sex, influenced by second-wave feminism. In the 1980s, Dale attended the Chicago Theological Seminary, where she got to read these works, she said, which helped her contextualize her “sex-phobic” upbringing.

“The reason I began to heal was because of feminist theologians,” she added. “If I had stayed with such negative thinking about myself as a woman and denied my own sexuality, I’m convinced I would have died — if not physically, then certainly spiritually.”

New Orleans-based minister Lyvonne Briggs, who shares her sex-positive beliefs on Instagram and hosts the spiritual online learning community Sensual Faith Academy, was raised similarly; she attended a Caribbean Episcopal church, which didn’t talk about sex, and was indoctrinated into purity culture in college, she said. She began to shift her perspective while getting a master of divinity degree at Yale Divinity School. There, Briggs said, she came to understand Jesus as a radical figure, one different from the version of Jesus she had learned about in church growing up.

>On examining the Bible, Briggs said, she found that Jesus had little to say about sex. “What we were told Jesus said are actually gross misinterpretations of the Bible,” she said. “We have to be honest about who wrote the Bible, who’s been translating the Bible, and who it serves us to believe Jesus condemned.”

Dale believes that Jesus uplifted and associated with women in ways that were progressive in his time. “U.S. Christians … have been teaching ideas about sex from sexually conflicted, misogynistic church fathers instead of Jesus,” she said. “If Jesus were their guide, Christians would discount the pleasure police in the church as party poopers.”

Rather than coming from the Bible, Dale said, many sex-negative Christian ideas came from writers born after Jesus’ time, such as Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome. It was Augustine, for instance, she said, who developed the concept of “original sin” — sin passed to a child by sex itself.

Dale and Briggs advocate for interpretations of the Bible that celebrate sexual pleasure. In the biblical book the Song of Solomon, for instance, a female narrator speaks of a lover in erotic terms.

“These lovers are not mentioned as being married; they’re not in the same household,” said Joy Bostic, an associate professor of religious and Africana studies at Case Western Reserve University. “This text, which is an official part of the Bible, echoes medieval mystics, who talk a great deal about spiritual ecstasy as akin to sexual ecstasy.”

As more Christians are being exposed to alternative readings and less-talked-about parts of the Bible, some are denouncing the directives to wait until marriage to have sex or to condemn forms of sexual expression such as LGBTQ relationships and sex work.

Others take pieces of Christian thinking without subscribing to them fully: In her study, Pace University’s Paul found that many students had adopted modified versions of traditional Christian rules, such as not having sex with someone unless intending to marry that person, avoiding in-person sex but still sexting partners, or engaging in hookups but refraining from intercourse. She also found that increasing numbers of students are identifying as both Christian and LGBTQ.

Roya King, a retired Unitarian Universalist bishop in Ohio, was already working in ministry when she started identifying as queer in 2009. When other leaders in her church spoke against same-sex marriage, she recalls, “the idea that I could perform a wedding ceremony but could never participate in one kind of shook me at the core.”

She made a point thereafter to speak to her congregation about LGBTQ rights, she said: “I talked about all people being in the image of God.” And she preached that everything God creates, including sexuality, is holy and should be celebrated, she said.

Other Christians say their sex positivity stems simply from what Jesus deemed the most important commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“If what I am doing leaves me aligned with these three commands [love God, love yourself and love others], I can rest easy knowing I’m living in the fullness of this life God has given me,” said Chris Chism, a pastor at the House Dallas church who identifies as gay.

To this end, he added, “it’s the job of our spiritual leaders to facilitate safe conversation — free of condemnation and shame.” Those negative reactions, he added, “are the conduits to unhealthy relationships, unsafe sex practices and even hardcore drug use that has ravaged our communities.”

For King, the most important thing is spreading the word that Jesus provides salvation for the entire world, not just for certain people who live a certain way.

“We have ostracized so many people because of who they are, who they really are,” she said. “We need to preach a gospel of inclusion and love. We can’t get where we need to be without it.”

Complete Article HERE!

My Culture Taught Me Sex is for Putas

— Here’s How I’m Unlearning Shame

By Jacqueline Delgadillo

“If she’s slept with more than one man, she’s a puta,” my tía told my mom during her visit to our home in Riverside, California. I was 22 years old, and I felt heat rising to my face. I prayed no one could read the guilt in my sweat. According to my aunt’s definition, I was a puta—and her daughter was one, too. I was ashamed.

In traditional Latinx culture, sex is reserved for cis, straight men and women after they’ve wed. Virginity—albeit a social construct—is something sacred; it belongs to your future spouse, your parents, or a higher power, but certainly not to you. Those who own their sexuality, indulge in sexual pleasure, enjoy multiple partners, or dare to speak about their sensual desires are shamed and outcasted with words like “puta” and “sucia.” By claiming their sexuality, these women are a threat to the status quo and are condemned by the same culture that celebrates male sexual prowess.

Those who own their sexuality, indulge in sexual pleasure, enjoy multiple partners, or dare to speak about their sensual desires are shamed and outcasted.

Growing up hearing these ideologies, I’ve often been left with more questions than answers. Thankfully, social media has introduced me to women and femmes who own their sexuality and provide sex education. Connecting with other sexually liberated folks has reminded me that I’m the CEO of my body and I’m also not alone in my journey to reclaim my sexuality and desire for myself. As I scroll through Instagram, I see Latinas and Latinx femmes talking openly about sex and finding their sexy, whatever that looks like for them. For the first time, this level of sexual and bodily autonomy seems within reach for us—except so many of us still feel icky during self-intimacy, are scared about increasing our so-called body count, and would rather give up sex altogether than have abuelita know what we do in our bedrooms late at night.

Even when the world around us seems to make progress, there remains a tumultuous internal battle around sexual shame—and memes alone won’t heal us. Unlearning the harmful messages and feelings we’ve been taught to associate with sex and pleasure takes time and mind-body work. We spoke with four sex experts who share their advice on healing sex shame, no matter where you are on your journey.

Irma Garcia, CSE, Sex Educator and Creator of Dirty South Sex Ed, Texas

I lead abortion access work at Jane’s Due Process, a nonprofit organization in Texas that helps minors obtain a judicial bypass for abortions. I’m also a sex educator; in 2020, I created Dirty South Sex Ed to help my community of Black and brown folks release their sexual shame. I wanted to present sexual health information in a very relatable and palpable way.

I was raised in a culturally conservative and religious town where young women, especially in Black and brown communities, are told that they have to present a certain way in order to be seen and valued as respectable, and that always bugged me. Since I was a young person, I’ve always been in touch with my sexuality. When I took Women’s and Gender Studies classes at the University of Texas at Austin, I was able to gain the language that I needed to talk about my experiences and found a community that helped me be my most authentic self. Stepping out of that shame and voicing my opinions on sexuality, respectability politics, and purity culture have all been freeing for me.

As a certified sex educator, I recommend anyone who is experiencing sexual shame to try engaging in self-pleasure. For some, this could mean masturbation, but this level of self-intimacy isn’t for everyone. If you feel uneasy touching yourself, engage in other forms of pleasure like eating a cupcake (there’s a lot of stigma around food as well), resting, or doing anything that brings you joy, period. Practice giving yourself that “yes” and honoring it; this will help make it easier for you to say “yes” to sexual pleasure when you’re ready.

Still, overcoming sex shame isn’t a goal you can achieve quickly. It’s about healing, and healing can be a lifelong journey. You can be sexually liberated and still carry some shame. Wherever you are in your journey is valid, and it’s important to see sexuality as just another component of your overall well-being.

Dr. Janet Brito, Certified Sex Therapist and Sexual Health Educator, Hawaii

I’m the CEO of the Hawaii Center for Sexual Relationship Health, a therapeutic sex-positive practice devoted to helping people manage difficult aspects of their sexuality, gender, and reproductive health. While in this role I now mostly focus on program development, supervision, and management, I still wear a clinical hat, providing sex therapy for individuals and couples. I also run the Sexual Health School, which is an online training program for individuals who want to be trained in sex therapy.

As a queer woman, it took my family many years to accept my sexual identity and my partners. It was the most painful thing in my life. I dealt with it by studying human sexuality in school. It was so liberating to learn about sexual health and the diversity of human sexuality. I felt like I was home. I understood that nothing was wrong with me but that there was a lot wrong with society and its scripts around gender, sexual orientation, and sexuality. I wanted to give this feeling of home and freedom to others.

For some people, the struggle isn’t around their sexual orientation but rather their preferences. They might feel a lot of shame around being aroused by something atypical, wanting a threesome, or exploring a polyamorous relationship. There’s so much shame around doing things that are nontraditional, and there’s a lot of unnecessary pain caused by the scripts imposed on us

As a sex therapist, it’s important for me to validate where this shame comes from. For Latinxs, some of these scripts are defined by marianismo, which values harmony, inner strength, self-sacrifice, and morality in women, and famialismo, which promotes dedication, commitment, and loyalty to family. These are beautiful traditions and they’re part of our culture, but if we hang on to something too rigidly, then it can be harmful. However, sometimes there’s some grief and loss that comes with retiring cultural values and traditions. Some can wonder, Am I betraying my culture? It’s scary. But it’s not about letting go of culture and the values that make up the richness of our community; it’s about being open to other possibilities that are not as limiting.

Rebecca Alvarez Story, Sexologist and Co-Founder & CEO of Bloomi, California

I’ve been a sexologist for more than 10 years. As part of my work, I provide coaching for a variety of intimacy topics for singles and couples. I’m also a consultant for multiple projects, like company education and product development. About three years ago, my two worlds came together when I started a sexual wellness and intimacy company called Bloomi.

While there was a lot of sex positivity in the world, I realized it was hard to find in the real world. My parents did their best; we had that big awkward sex talk. But in high school, I had abstinence-only sex education. It left me curious, and I felt shame in wanting to know more. I didn’t have any conversations about sexual pleasure until I got to college. Understanding how healing and empowering these discussions were for me, I helped UC Berkeley create the first sexual wellness major. I later went into a master’s program in sexology, thinking, I’m going to make my own career out of this. I think the world needs this.

Growing up in a Latinx household, these conversations were uncomfortable. It reminds me so much of the cultural phenomenon going on right now with Encanto’s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.” I think so many Latinxs resonated with that song because we don’t talk about uncomfortable topics. We don’t talk about our bodies. We don’t talk about pleasure. But to heal shame and stigma we must be open about it, even if it’s to ourselves or our communities

When it comes to healing sexual shame, it’s important to surround yourself with people who are sex-positive. This can be friends, a tía, a cousin, or anyone else. What’s important is to build a community you can lean on with these types of topics and conversations. This way, you can exist very confidently around people who hold shameful ideologies without absorbing it in the same way.

One of the beautiful things about sexuality and our sex lives is that our desires will change throughout our life. Give yourself permission to unlearn what doesn’t serve you. One way to do this is by exploring your body and interests so you learn what does work for you. Create a life that’s full of intentional pleasure; that’s what helped make a difference for me.

Stephanie Orozco, Podcast Host of Tales from the Clit, Boston

Trigger Warning: Sexual Violence

I’m the host of Tales from the Clit, a storytelling sex education podcast, and also a graduate student studying sex, sexuality, and gender as part of my Public Health master’s degree at Boston University. In many ways, my interest in sexuality and passion to destigmatize consensual sex is rooted in being sexually assaulted as a child.

I grew up in a Mexican immigrant community, and I felt like I couldn’t turn to anyone to talk about what had happened to me. I also went to a public school in Southern California that didn’t have comprehensive sex education or instruction on consent. Alone and confused, I thought I was pregnant for eight years after I was assaulted.

For years, I carried a lot of pain, doubt, and shame. I have post-traumatic stress disorder and have been in therapy on and off for 15 years. There wasn’t one particular thing that made me realize what I had experienced was sexual assault, but there was so much shame and pain attached to the experience that I started going to therapy because I knew it wasn’t something I could process on my own. At the time, I was so uncomfortable just being naked. To heal my relationship with my body, I first tried getting comfortable with being naked. I would hang out in my underwear while watching TV in my room alone. No one else needed to be a part of that. Once I started making peace with my body, including the parts that I didn’t like very much, it made it easier for me to think about consensual sex and be nude in front of other people.

In 2014, when I was 21 years old and had started learning about sex, consent, and pleasure through sex educators like Sex Nerd Sandra, I started to organize sexual health events in my community. As a member of my college’s Social Observation Club, I put together a sexual health fair, panels, and interactive activities where people felt safe enough to ask questions. I set out to be the kind of sex educator that my younger self needed when I was lost and afraid. I wanted to teach comprehensive sex education that is culturally relevant to my community.

Healing sex shame is a long-term project. This is not going to be fixed by learning how to orgasm or where the clit is. There’s more to sex education than just talking about managing STIs and pregnancy; there is anatomy, consent, and pleasure. But this isn’t going to be normalized in our communities overnight. It has to be intergenerational, and it has to start with our generation.

Complete Article HERE!

The persistent myth of sex addiction

Either we’re all sex addicts or nobody is

By Hallie Lieberman

According to every online test I’ve taken, I’m a sex addict. And if you took the quizzes, you probably would be too, at least if you answered honestly to questions like “Do you often find yourself preoccupied with sexual thoughts?” “Do you ever feel bad about your sexual behavior?” and “Have you used the internet to make romantic or erotic connections with people online?

Even if you answered “no” to all these questions, you’re still not off the hook. If you watch porn, you might be a sex addict; If you “often require the use of a vibrator… to enhance the sexual experience” you might be a sex addict; if you spend some of your time “ruminating about past sexual encounters,” you might be a sex addict.

By these standards, nearly all human beings are sex addicts, as a recent study found that 73 percent of women and 85 percent of men had looked at internet porn in the past six months; other studies found that about half of American men and women have used vibrators. Perhaps that is right: sex is one of our strongest drives, and according to one study, the median number of times people think about sex is 10-19 times a day. But pathologizing all of humanity for expressing normal human sexuality is ridiculous in the least and dangerous at the worst. The fact that most people would be considered sex addicts is positive for only one group of people: those employed by the multimillion-dollar sex addiction industry.

Sex addiction treatment forces people into a kind of re-education program, which tries to convince them that perfectly normal consensual sexual behavior is the sign of a serious problem. Some of them are run by Christian pastors, others by licensed professional counselors. In-patient facilities are often located in picturesque areas, like palatial Arizona desert retreats, complete with poolside ping-pong and equine therapy (how nuzzling a horse cures sex addiction is never explained). These programs tell supposed sex addicts that they can reprogram themselves through behavioral modifications to become ideal sexual citizens: monogamous, non-porn-using people who rarely masturbate or fantasize about anyone other than their main partners. Some even take it further and force people to abandon healthy activities like masturbation for 30 days.

If this sounds familiar in a bad way, it might be because some of the same centers that treat sex addiction also offer gay conversion therapy, although they no longer call it that because conversion therapy has been banned for minors in 19 states (instead they say they treat “unwanted same-sex attraction” and “homosexuality/lesbianism“). This sad fact further illuminates the ugly truth behind the sex addiction industry: it’s based on a moralistic judgment on what sexual behaviors are socially acceptable, yet it’s cloaked in a scientific sheen that gives it legitimacy. Although gay conversion therapy is much more harmful, sex addiction treatment is similar in that both are about modifying behavior even though biology and psychology are compelling a person in a different direction.

One key question that appears on nearly all sex addiction quizzes is: “Do you feel that your sexual behavior is not normal?” The problem is, most people don’t know what a “normal” sex life is, and consensual sexual behaviors that are statistically abnormal are not the sign of a disease. As psychologist David Ley has argued in his book, The Myth of Sex Addiction, the criteria for sex addiction “reflect heterosexual and monogamous social values and judgments rather than medical or scientific data.”

Sex addiction isn’t a new concept, it’s a new name for an old one; it falls into a continuum of pathologizing sexual behavior going back to the 19th century when women were labeled nymphomaniacs for behavior we would consider normal today, such as having orgasms through clitoral stimulation. In fact, 21st-century sex addiction therapists sound nearly identical to 19th-century vice reformers.

“Pornography coupled with masturbation and fantasy is often the cornerstone for sexual addiction. This is a dangerous combination …A fantasy world is created, sometimes as early as adolescence, that is visited throughout developmental stages,” says the website of a current therapy center called L.I.F.E. Recovery International. “The sexual addict may use his or her addiction in place of true spirituality — sex becomes the addict’s God,” the website declares.

Similarly, 19th-century vice reformer Anthony Comstock wrote that “Obscene publications” and “immoral articles” [sex toys] are “like a cancer” which “fastens itself upon the imagination…defiling the mind, corrupting the thoughts, leading to secret practices of most foul and revolting character.” He suggested that young adults read the Bible instead of giving into their sexual urges.

Why do we continue to further such an outdated view of sex? Sex addiction is a way to police sexual behavior and impose conventional morality through a seemingly scientific, trendy addiction model. It attempts to slot people into some mythical standard of normal sexuality, one defined by monogamy and devoid of fantasy.

The sex addiction industry persists in spite of the fact that again and again sex addiction has been debunked by experts. Sex addiction isn’t considered legitimate by psychologists; the scientific literature doesn’t back it up; and it isn’t in the DSM-5, the authoritative catalog of mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. Yet therapists benefit financially from sex addiction diagnoses, moralists benefit spiritually from them, and supposed sex addicts benefit practically from them. Sex addiction provides a great excuse for people who engage in socially objectionable sexual behavior (It’s not my fault! I couldn’t help banging the sexy neighbor! I’m an addict! I’ll go to treatment!).

This coincides with the fact that most sex addicts are heterosexual men, so the diagnosis frequently becomes a way to legitimize male sexual behavior, while also sometimes labeling their female partners as enablers. Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein reportedly checked himself in to an in-patient treatment program after allegations against him were first published in late 2017, a path that many other high-profile men have taken in the wake of scandal.

The concept of sex addiction makes sex seem way more logical than it actually is. It fits into our culture’s view of controlling and constraining sex through rules, like the criminalization of sex work. Hiring a sex worker or engaging in any illegal sexual activities is a sign you’re a sex addict, according to most sex addiction screening tests. Yet, a wide range of more widely accepted sexual behavior is also illegal in the U.S., including having sex with an unmarried person of the opposite sex (a crime in Idaho, Illinois, and South Carolina) and adultery, which is a crime in over a dozen states.

But sex is messy and complicated, and hardwired and controlled by hormones, and no amount of counseling is going to stop you from having sexual urges. The sex addiction model provides a 12-step solution to the messiness of sex and the challenge of monogamy: if you follow these simple steps, the thinking goes, you too can be in control of the strongest biological urge and be free of daily horniness. If only it were that simple.

Complete Article HERE!

What Does Sex Positive Mean?

Here’s How Experts Explain It

Being sex positive can actually be really good for your health.

By Colleen Murphy

If you’ve been watching The Bachelorette at all this season, there’s a term you’ve likely heard over and over again: sex positive. Several of the men competing on the show have used “sex positive” to describe the current bachelorette, 30-year-old Katie Thurston, who is known for being super comfortable talking about sex.

Even if you don’t watch The Bachelorette, you might be hearing the phrase “sex positive” pop up elsewhere. That includes Twitter, as people are making jokes about turning this season into a drinking game: Whenever anybody says “sex positive,” take a drink.

But what exactly does it mean to be sex positive? Here’s how experts explain it.

What does ‘sex positive’ mean?

Someone who is sex positive is open to learning more about their own body, other people’s bodies, as well as consent, intimacy, and how to communicate about sex topics, Rachel Needle, PsyD, a psychologist in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the co-director of Modern Sex Therapy Institutes, a company that trains couples and sex therapists around the world, tells Health.

It also means they’re open to embracing and exploring their own sexuality and that of others-including sexual behavior, gender, sexual identity, and anatomy-in a respectful, non-judgmental way without shame.

But sex positivity doesn’t only have to do with sex-positive experiences and ideas. Theo Burnes, PhD, a psychologist practicing in Los Angeles and the director of clinical training at Antioch University in California, tells Health that sex positivity can also be about fighting for people who work in the sex industry, making sure they have equal rights and that their work is decriminalized. It can include advocating for accurate sex education that is not abstinence-only or fear-based. Sex positivity can also focus on understanding sex in the media-and that sexualized pornography, movies, or ads tend to portray some types of people yet leaves other out.

Being sex positive can also mean being the person a friend can come out to or go to with “their own fears, their own internalized stigma, sometimes their own shame,” Burnes says. Someone might call you, as a sex positive person, and say, “I’m really nervous about trying this new experience with my partner and I want to talk to somebody about it,” he explains.

What sex positivity isn’t

“Being sex positive doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re having an increased frequency of sexual behavior, or sexual encounters, or sexual arousal, but it does mean that you have an openness and a non-judgmental attitude toward engaging in sex, talking about sex, being open to other people talking about sex,” says Burnes.

Being sex positive also doesn’t mean you disregard the need for consent, Rosara Torrisi, PhD, certified sex therapist and director of The Long Island Institute of Sex Therapy, tells Health. “It’s not about encouraging folks to have a certain sexual orientation, minimum or maximum number of partners, or engage in certain behaviors during sex,” she says. “Expectations and pressure for anything about sexuality is inherently anti-sex positivity.” Consent is always a must.

Why is sex positivity talked about more these days?

Sex positivity isn’t just a concept that people identify with-it’s also a political and social movement.

“One of the things that really started that movement is this idea that sexuality has been often talked about as secretive, shameful, unhealthy, and that being overtly sexual in any kind of way-whether that’s talking about it, whether that’s having conversations about it-is problematic,” Burnes says. “And so the [sex positive] movement basically tries to say, ‘Hey, wait a second, this is a part of our normative development. And it’s not necessarily unhealthy or shameful, but having these conversations, doing exploration with sex when consent and trust and communication are part of the sexual process, is not wrong or unhealthy.'”

It’s a movement that’s been around for a long time. Recently, however, celebrities like Lady Gaga, Amber Rose, Jessica Biel, and Lizzo have spurred more conversations about sex positivity after speaking publicly about their experiences with slut shaming, sexuality, sexual assault, body acceptance, and sexual health and responsibility, Burnes explains. And yes, even The Bachelorette has expanded this trend.

“It wasn’t some agenda that I had coming on to the show. It’s just who I am and who I’ve been this whole time,” Thurston said on the podcast Bachelor Happy Hour earlier this year, after viewers were first introduced to her sex positive attitude when she was a contestant on The Bachelor. “It wasn’t until after the fact that I realized how big of a deal it was-which excites me, because I do believe it’s 2021, and women should be comfortable talking about their sexuality.”

“I appreciate being comfortable being able to talk about it,” Thurston continued. “Hopefully that means other women will soon start to open up a little bit, because being sex positive is important in a relationship, [the relationship you have with] yourself, in your self-care, and so many different things, especially in this [ongoing COVID-19] pandemic.”

Sex positivity has real health benefits

Being sex positive is “actually quite healthy and has been endorsed by a variety of organizations, like the World Health Organization (WHO),” according to Burnes. In fact, the WHO says that “a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships” is paramount to sexual health.

“When we are sex positive we are more sexually healthy,” Needle points out. “To many, being sexually healthy includes being comfortable with your own sexuality and making decisions related to and communicating about it.” Being sexually healthy can also mean enjoying sexual pleasure, having access to health care (including reproductive health care), having better communication skills with our partner(s) so that we are more likely to get what we want and need, and knowing how to avoid unintended pregnancy and minimize the risk of sexually transmitted infections (and accessing treatment if needed).

Having sex positive views can enhance your mental well-being too, according to Burnes. “That can mean decreased amounts of feelings of isolation, which can lead to things like depression and anxiety, [as well as a] decrease in shame and stigma, which can also lead to building resilience,” he says. When we eradicate ourselves from stigma and shame, he adds, we often demonstrate better health-related behaviors.

How can you become more sex positive?

First, know that anyone can be sex positive. “Sex positivity has little to do with what your sexual behaviors, identities, etc. are and much more about your perspective about sexuality,” Torrisi says. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve had sex with only yourself, a million people, or no one. Sex positivity is a set of values that is inclusive and nurturing of your own and others’ sexuality. It’s not just for polyamorous and kinky folks.”

As a whole, the US “has improved its understanding of sexual consent, pleasure, functioning, identity, orientation, behaviors, and expression,” according to Torrisi. But there’s still work to be done. “We’re still grappling with dual realities about sex in this country,” she says. “We are on one hand obsessed with sexuality, and on the other hand we are terrified of sexuality. Either end of this spectrum isn’t sex positivity. Recognizing the nuances, the lived realities of billions of individuals, each with their own valid truths, now that’s sex positivity.” 

It also helps to recognize the culture many Americans were raised in, “where we’re constantly bombarded with images that sex is something we should think about, but never talk about,” as Burnes puts it. Next, he suggests thinking about whether you want to see a therapist, read some books, or visit different websites to help you navigate what being sex positive will look like for you.

“Being sex positive doesn’t necessarily mean that [you’re] going to go and have certain sexual encounters-although if that’s something that someone wants to do, that’s great and awesome, as long as they’re safe, consensual and communicative,” Burnes says. Instead, he says, it can simply mean being more open to other people’s and your own sexual curiosity and experiences.

Complete Article HERE!

How to Overcome Religious Shame in Your Sex Life

By Lindsey Ellefson

If you were raised to see sex and sexuality as a source of shame and embarrassment, you might notice that such feelings tend to linger, no matter how educated, open-minded, and open-legged you consider yourself today. If you come from a religious background, it’s probably even worse.

Fortunately, many religious leaders and secular counselors in the year of our Lord 2021 know that hardline teachings on sexual expression and orientation don’t do much to draw in the spiritually wayward, and can even ostracize believers. So whether you’re trying to balance your religious leanings with your carnal desires or overcome shame you internalized as a child and dragged into bed in your agnostic adulthood, we called on experts who can help.

Don’t be afraid to talk about sex

In a lot of religious households and communities, talking about sexuality is off limits, but refusing to talk about something doesn’t make it go away. A 28-year-old erotic artist in Philadelphia who goes by Claire Voyant tells Lifehacker that her religious upbringing is still causing problems in her sex life, but she’s slowly working through them by talking to friends and counselors.

Leo Morton, an associate pastor and drag queen in North Carolina, suggests the same, adding, “Everybody needs two really good things in this world: One is a good hairdresser and the other is a good counselor.” Morton is openly gay, but found that when he first spoke to a clergy member about his same-sex attraction in his youth, he was shut down and told not to bring it up. Obviously, that approach didn’t make him less gay—and not talking about sexuality isn’t going to make you less randy, either, only more needlessly ashamed of being so. Not acknowledging your sexuality only leads to repression, and that’s how archaic ideas about sex lead to such a pervasive shame. Talking about sex helps you to break the cycle before the cycle breaks you.

Fortunately, there are specialized counselors who can help—people like Kevin Salazar, a psychotherapist at the Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York City, who tells Lifehacker they see lingering shame in their work often.

“I find it is common for clients who grew up in a conservative religious environment to feel shame around how they experience (or don’t experience) sexual and romantic attraction. Folks may feel shame about acting on their attraction even in a supportive and consensual environment,” they say.

Sex-positive friends can help, too

Counseling isn’t the only option, as friends make great listeners, too. Claire, who is also a retired sex worker, explains that because her Catholic education taught her that sexual pleasure was a woman’s duty to provide a man, she has struggled well into her late 20s to masturbate or focus on her own enjoyment during the partnered encounters she began having once she decided not to wait for marriage—in itself is a big step for people with a similar upbringing. Talking to friends, she says, helps, though she does admit she feels “jealousy” toward those who grew up in more liberal households and don’t really get where she’s coming from.

“I totally feel like the odd person out sometimes, like I’m hiding in plain sight,” she says.

Salazar explains, “Folks who grew up in a conservative religious environment and now have a liberal, sex-positive community have also expressed feeling isolated and not understood by their peers who did not experience the same kinds of shame and stigma.”

In some cases, a “hair of the dog” approach might work, especially if you’re still spiritual. Consider talking to insiders who can relate. Not all religious leaders are like the one Morton encountered when he was first questioning his sexuality, especially in this day and age. If you’re trying to square the sexual part of yourself with the religious or spiritual part, you don’t need to pick one.

“The shame and stigma the church has propagated around sexuality—regardless of orientation or gender—is longstanding,” says Rev. Mandy McDow, senior minister at Los Angeles First United Methodist Church, who strives to make sure her congregation is welcoming to members of the LGBTQ+ community and sex workers. “It has been a way in which the church has exercised power and dominion over the vulnerable, which is an actual sin.”

Find community online

Welcoming spaces also exist outside of traditional churches, the most obvious and vast option being right here, on the Internet.

“There are various religious and spiritual communities that will be welcoming and expansive in their understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality,” says Jesse Kahn, LCSW-R, CST, director and sex therapist at the Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center. “And if it’s important for you to be a part of a specific church that tends to have more repressive teachings, there are often variations in how the teachings are discussed based on geography and in progressive online spaces.”

Learn how to talk to yourself about sex

Don’t be afraid to work on yourself, by yourself, and for yourself. As Claire can attest, sex isn’t all about your relationship to someone else; it’s just as much about you. Salazar recommends journaling and listening to related podcasts or reading books; Claire suggests reading columns like this one, then taking time to explore your own beliefs and desires in a comfortable space. Go at your own pace, she says, and practice some gentle self-talk: “The more positive messaging you can incorporate into your life about sex, the better. Like, if you can, just max out until you’re sick of hearing people speak positively about sex, because you really need to rewire your brain completely.”

Echoing advice from Salazar, who mentioned replacing stigmatizing language with affirmations in their practice with clients, Claire advises, “Think about all of the time that was scheduled into your life for people to talk negatively about sex, and now you have to do that, like, twice as much positively.”

If you can believe an all-knowing god was angry at you for being sexual, why not try believing that same god would be proud of you for it? Morton sums up his thoughts accordingly: “God created us, and we are beautiful and our bodies are part of the extension of God himself.” Praise be.

Complete Article HERE!

The Trouble With NSFW

The authors of “NSFW” argue that safety has, in myriad ways, become a euphemism for the policy of filtering out or limiting access to sexual content online.

The hashtag #NSFW acts as both a warning and an invitation.

By: The Editors
The hashtag #NSFW (not safe for work) acts as both a warning and an invitation. NSFW tells users, “We dare you to click on this link! And by the way, don’t do it until after work!” Unlike the specificity of movie and television advisories (“suggestive dialogue,” “sexual content”), NSFW signals, nonspecifically, sexually explicit content that ranges from nude selfies to pornography. But Susanna Paasonen, Kylie Jarrett, and Ben Light, the authors of “NSFW: Sex, Humor, and Risk in Social Media,” argue that when applied across the board to all kinds of sexual images and formations, “the tag NSFW flattens crucial differences between them under the opaque blanket of offensiveness, riskiness, and unsafety that it connotes.” They maintain that if we are to envision social media ecologies capable of accommodating sexuality as a field of pleasure, communication, occupation, and world-making, it is crucial to resist categorical effacement of sexually suggestive and explicit content.

We asked Paasonen, Jarrett, and Light about how subjectivity and politics contribute to the nuances of what is designated “not safe for work,” how the hashtag reinforces our culture of heterosexism, and about its effects on the careers of sex workers across social media platforms.

The MIT Press Reader: Invariably, the topic of “dick pics” comes up when discussing content marked #NSFW. But all bodies — and body parts — are not treated equally, as you demonstrate in the book. For example, male bodies are commonly used for humorous, gross-out content while female bodies are objectified for pornographic consumption. How else does the NSFW tag reflect heterosexism, and how does this relate to other interactions online?

The Authors: There is a very binary, heterosexist division concerning what bodies, and which parts of them, are seen as “sexy” and hence what is considered “NSFW” and needing policing. For example, image recognition software is developed to recognize bits of female bodies (and, in particular, those of white and young women) as NSFW; Tumblr banned “female-presenting nipples;” and Facebook of course has been battling displays of female breasts throughout its history, but topless images of men have never been subject to governance. These different designations as gross or titillating reflect and reproduce traditional gender and sexual norms and their troubling politics. The book also digs into sexism and online misogyny at some length when talking about forms of online labor (of the non-sexual kind) and how it turns unsafe. One of our central aims is to shift discussions concerning safety from sexual content to issues of consent and agency more broadly. A dick pic, for example, may come across as gross and offensive to some but it can equally amuse, bemuse, or sexually arouse. It can appear from virtually thin air or be connected to playful flirtation with someone very specific. Considering all this in a default framework of normative conceptions of heterosexual desire doesn’t quite cut it.

The Reader: Hunter Moore, creator of the revenge-porn website “Is Anyone Up?,” came under heavy criticism for the distribution of non-consensual content. Yet, despite its problematic format, the website generated enough monthly ad revenue for Moore to quit his job. How can we govern safe, consensual NSFW content without employing the tricky boundaries of surveillance that defines sex as the inherent problem?

The Authors: We are very much concerned with consent: who consents to what content being available to whom, and so forth. This is where ethical discussions concerning sexual representations and exchanges need to start rather than in rigid taxonomies based on a puritanical idea of what is “normal.” The DIY generation of NSFW content is mundane, widespread, and we’d be hard-pressed indeed to label it as a problem as such. The concern lies in the shaming attached to nude selfies — or, in the case of revenge porn, to their use as weapons of humiliation and blackmail. The questions as to why “NSFW” is so concerned with sex over violence or hate, for example, and how risk becomes inextricably tied in with sex by default may seem simple but are actually rather complex. One very practical way forward is for us all to continue to educate ourselves and others about sex, gender, and sexuality, how it operates in society, and the diversity and complexity of this for different groups of people at various stages in their lives.

The Reader: You mention the controversy over Illma Gore’s painting of a nude Donald Trump — that, despite concealing his genitalia, the image was removed from Facebook and the artist was accused of violating eBay’s service policy on nudity. In what ways do subjectivity and politics also contribute to the nuances of what is designated “not safe for work”?

The Authors: It is likely that Gore’s portrait was flagged by offended users, and that this happened multiple times on more than one platform. Whether these users were offended by the image per se or its implicit politics is not clear. The boundaries of offensive content are porous at best and Facebook, for example, tends to filter more rather than less in the name of a very particular definition of safety and community standards. The content policies and standards articulated, by necessity, are ephemeral and allow plenty of room for interpretation. But from our analysis (and personal experiences being banned for trying to share material for this book), on Facebook these standards tend to be particularly conservative about sexual content. The politics and impacts of having political content banned are more complex. Technically, public status should make people easier targets for critique and satire and there certainly isn’t anything in community standards to suggest otherwise. The Trump “micropenis” portrait was a provocation, but it was also a very successful one, not least because of its NSFW status. Recurrent news of Gore being banned and the image removed circulated broadly an added to the project’s overall visibility. Having your content flagged as NSFW can also attach an extra frisson to the image and thus, ironically, ensure its greater circulation. This is a well-known maneuver associated with media historically. For example, in 1983, the U.K. band Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s release of the sexually provocative single “Relax” was accompanied with advertising in the U.K. press which led to it being banned on BBC Radio and on the BBC TV show, “Top of the Pops,” for some time, while simultaneously reaching number one in the U.K. Charts. These ongoing examples of strategies and tactics viz NSFW content illustrate the importance of considering how agency is wielded by ‘all sides,’ with significance for how we might understand the circulation of contemporary online political content such as online petitions, hate speech, and fake news.

The Reader: Another interesting issue you bring up with this tag is how it affects the careers of sex workers across social media platforms. Such obstacles include locked or deleted Google Drive files, Patreon’s refusal to support pornographic channels, and Microsoft’s prohibition of nudity on Skype. How are sex workers and companies addressing this problem that labels sex as “not safe for work” when it is, in fact, their work?

The Authors: Sex workers, in general, have little say in any of this. Data giants articulate their own policies (where sex and porn are mostly framed as problematic, offensive, and best removed) while the U.S. FOSTA/SESTA bills in particular have given rise to serious legal limitations for platforms in connection with commercial sex. Patreon used to be central in the economy of amateur and micro porn, yet the bills forced a change to this policy, just as it has forced platforms to close down sex worker ads and discussion forums on sex work safety. Sex workers, though, do continue to work politically against such laws and to organize and provide support online. Working outside U.S. law, Uglymugs is one such example, which allows U.K. and Irish sex workers to share information and support resources, including the generation of bad dates lists. Sex workers are very active in challenging and circumventing policies that impact their work.

The Reader: Tumblr recently did a massive purge of anything they deemed “explicit content.” A lot of users are unhappy with their profiles being policed in this manner, especially when arguably tame content — like a bare shoulder — can be flagged as NSFW. Given how quickly information can spread across the Internet, do you think it’s necessary to be cautious and implement these algorithms despite their flaws, or is there a more pragmatic approach?

The Authors: The main rationale behind Tumblr’s content ban was to have it available through the Google Play and App Store that do not allow for sexually explicit content. Tumblr had been having degrees of trouble with child porn, though, and not enough had been done to weed it out (which is ironic, in a way, since effective image recognition tools are available for this and broadly used). In response, they abruptly went the other way, filtering anything from images of sea life to ones with Donald Duck reading bedtime stories to his nephews, or black women posing fully dressed. Most importantly, the diverse sexual and gender-nonconforming communities that had thrived on Tumblr suddenly found themselves ousted and their archives inaccessible. The decision has made no sense financially as Tumblr’s value has since plummeted parallel to the drop in its user base. Ironically, NSFW content was making the site more economically secure. The recent history of Tumblr exemplifies the arguments of our book really well as the ban centered on a view of sexuality as lacking in value but, at the same time, revealed just how important it is to the flows of attention that comprise the digital economy.

Complete Article HERE!

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

By

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!

Sex bans are manipulative and destructive to your relationship

By Rebecca Reid

There’s a Greek myth called Lysistrata.

It’s a story about how the wives of the Greeks, sick of their husbands pissing off to war and coming back with a limb missing or not coming back at all, took matters into their own hands.

To create peace between various Greek factions, they went on a sex strike. No nookie for anyone until the war was over. And basically, it worked.

Lysistrata was first performed in 411BC. 2,430 years ago. And yet women are still doing the exact same thing – going on sex strike to get what they want.

Earlier this year Alyssa Milano suggested that we women go on strike from sex until the Georgia six-week abortion limit is overruled.

If you Google ‘sex strike’ you find hundreds of stories from women who got ‘their own way’ by going on strike. One woman got a new kitchen. Another convinced her husband to have another baby. Other women simply use it as a disciplinary measure to correct their husband’s behaviour.

Doesn’t anyone else find this unutterably depressing?

It’s 2019 and apparently the axis of our power as humans is still whether or not we will open our legs for our partners.

Sex shouldn’t be a reward. It should be an expression of lust, or love, or anything else that you want it to be. It should be fun, gratifying, enjoyable.

Sex shouldn’t be the adult equivalent of giving a child a chocolate button for hanging their coat up after school.

By taking sex away from your partner as a punishment you send the message that it’s an activity that you partake in for them in the first place – it suggests that sex is a favour you’ve been doing them and will no longer be doing until they toe the party line.

In every single example I could find online, the person doing the banning is the woman and the person on the receiving end is a man, which further perpetuates an untrue stereotype that men like sex and women put up with it.

Another problematic aspect of the sex ban is that often it’s women putting one in place because she wants to make a financial choice – like a new car or a holiday – that her partner isn’t comfortable with.

Instead of compromising – the money belongs to both of you – or just paying it for themselves, these women perpetuate the idea that their husbands are Chancellors of the Exchequer in their marriage.

They might as well be applying for more housekeeping money.

If your sex life is so lukewarm that the idea of giving it up to punish your partner is appealing, then you’ve got a wider problem which needs addressing.

If however you enjoy sex and withdraw it at your own deprivation then you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. Even if it works, do you really want to have won an argument with your other half by taking away sex, just like you would get a child to do their homework by offering screen time?

Back in 411BC Greece, women really didn’t have much power. Sex was one of the few things you had the ability to grant. But the world has moved on, and we are equal partners within our relationships and therefore we do not need to withdraw sexual favours to claw back power.

We’re intelligent, mature, sensible women with critical reasoning skills. Why would we resort to such reduced tactics to alleviate conflict?

Of course there is an element of sexual politics in any relationship – when you feel happier and closer to your partner you’ll probably have more sex. When you’re fighting or struggling through issues it might well be less. That’s normal.

No one is suggesting for a second that you should have sex with your partner if you don’t want to or you’re not in the mood. You should only ever have sex when you want to have sex. The issue is when you use ‘I’m not in the mood’ as a bargaining chip, which is patronising and controlling.

If your partner doesn’t take you seriously when you say you’re annoyed about the division of labour within the household, or that you think you need to redecorate your kitchen, then they’re not a good partner.

If you ignore their responses to your marital problems and decide to ‘punish’ your partner rather than compromising, then you’re not a good partner.

Relationships that work don’t involve point scoring. They’re not based around depriving someone else of privileges to train their behaviour. That’s how you treat a naughty child, not a spouse whom you respect.

You might get what you originally wanted – your partner might do more housework or ‘let’ you buy a new car, but what cost is this ‘victory’ to the long term health of your relationship?

Complete Article HERE!