Wait, What? A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies, and Growing Up.

Is the Body-Affirming, Gender-Expansive Sex Ed Preteens Need

“Don’t worry, buddy. You’re right on time!” So says the weird platypus mascot of Wait, What? A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies, and Growing Up.

It’s a message preteens need to hear as they navigate puberty, friendships, bodies, attraction, and the sticky mess of being a person. This short graphic novel, written by Scarleteen founder Heather Corinna and illustrated by friend of A-Camp Isabella Rotman, is out now through Limerence Press, the same publisher that gave us A Quick and Easy Guide To They/Them Pronouns. It covers the anatomical nuts and bolts of sexuality, sexual health and puberty and also dives into social aspects like consent, how to get support from adults you trust, sexuality and gender identity.

The story features five friends: Rico, Malia, Max, Sam and Alexis. This group of middle schoolers are having a range of experiences with and feelings about sex and their bodies. They talk to each other about some of the tricky topics they’re facing, challenge each other’s biases and shame, and help pump each other up as they face different challenges.

Rotman and Corinna hope the book will help fill gaps in sex-ed curricula and be a resource for parents and other trusted adults to help walk pre-teens through these essential conversations that neither adults or kids are always comfortable having. The book models language around how to have these conversations by, for example, letting the kids talk about gender and sexuality on their own terms.

“I do think the majority of the education around gender at this point is being done by sex educators and I want to give them credit for that!” Rotman said. “But when you go and try to look for a sex ed guide you’re going to find a lot of really binary language and it was really important for this to be an exception to that. We have trans and nonbinary characters that talk about that in language that is accessible to the age group.”

In fact, Corinna said they believe Wait, What? is the first sex ed guide that does not use any gendered language to talk about menstruation, especially targeted at the preadolescent age group.

The book deftly acknowledges that each of its five main characters is different in their experience of their bodies, sexualities, genders, romantic interests, and overall development. It allows each kid to define their experience on their own terms and shows a little of their process of becoming comfortable with their unique selves, while promoting kind and thoughtful behavior toward all peers.

“I came up a punk kid, a queer kid, [in] the 70s and 80s, so normal was never my god that I worshipped,” Corinna said. “It’s tricky because when people ask us if something is normal, you want to reassure them because you don’t want them to feel fearful or shameful or embarrassed. But as the platypus represents, a lot of stuff is weird! It’s weird by any standard! There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘of course it’s normal,’ to help reassure someone, but we should also make room for people to get more comfortable with things that aren’t normal! When you talk about people with… quite uncommon gender identities or orientations, there don’t have to be a billion people like that for someone to not have something wrong with them.”

Of course, this book is aimed at young people themselves, but it’s also a perfect conversation opener for any adult that works with, or frankly knows, any young people. It is non-judgmental and at times truly profound. As a 28-year-old queer, trans adult, I found phrasings and ideas that felt new and resonated, like when the kids talked about how genitals are kind of weird, but so are ears! and toes! As a person who cares deeply about the queer and trans kids coming after me, it feels valuable to have new, age-relevant language to help empower them with information and give them tools for exploration and discovery. Wait, What? is a quick read that packs a lot in, using dialogue, narration and images to share information for all types of learners.

Corinna and Rotman hope the book will make its way into homes and libraries as well as be a helpful supplement for classrooms and sex educators. It’s available online wherever books are sold and making its way into real live bookstores too. So far the reception has been very positive, although Corinna acknowledged some nervousness around putting out a sex-positive, gender-affirming book about sex for middle schoolers, because “this age group isn’t buying their own books. If the adults aren’t ok with it the kids aren’t going to see it!” So it’s up to all of us adults to get Wait, What? into the hands of kids who need it.

As Rotman put it, “this is very much the book a queer aunt buys you.” Hear that, queer aunts?

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

October 15, 2019October 14, 2019

Ways of Being

Three new books explore the variety of transgender experiences.

By Stephanie Burt

Assigned one gender at birth, we’d felt like the other since childhood. That feeling—which had nothing to do with sexual desire—grew until life in the wrong gender seemed not worth living. So we came out as trans women or trans men to loved ones and health-care providers, who gave us the courage, the hormones, and maybe the surgery to live as who we always were, and then we were fine.

That story describes many transgender lives; parts of it describe mine. It’s also a relatively easy narrative for cisgender (non-transgender) people to follow, and it’s the only one that popular culture supplied until recently. Many health-care providers required an even narrower story. Until 2011, widely accepted medical standards mandated that we prove we were really trans by living in our genuine gender for three months or more without hormones. They also stipulated that we try to look conventionally masculine or feminine, and that we not identify as gay.

Such stories exclude people whose experience of being trans has shifted over their lives. (Some regret or reverse their transitions; many more do not.) They exclude people with more complicated experiences of gender and sexuality. And they exclude nonbinary people, who live as both genders, or neither, often taking the pronouns they/them. We can hear more stories now—not only life stories, but fiction, poems, comics, films, essays, both about trans people and by us. Some of those stories may reassure trans readers, or help cis readers accept us. Other stories aim to disrupt and unsettle the narratives we already know.

Andrea Long Chu is one of the disrupters. A doctoral candidate in comparative literature at NYU, she’s a writer and critic whose work has appeared in n+1, Bookforum, and The New York Times. In early 2018, she published an essay called “On Liking Women” that lit up trans Twitter: The piece championed the 1960s playwright and provocateur Valerie Solanas, the author of the SCUM Manifesto (SCUM = Society for Cutting Up Men) and the would-be assassin of Andy Warhol (she shot him in 1968). Chu hit back hard against the unitary, easy-to-understand trans story I sketched at the start of this article. She also took aim at a subset of radical feminist activists who regard trans women as interloping men.

“I have never been able to differentiate liking women from wanting to be like them,” Chu confessed. She described her young self not as a child who was already a girl, but as “the scared, straight boy whose life I will never not have lived.” As for the SCUM Manifesto, it implies—according to Chu—that trans women transition “not to ‘confirm’ some kind of innate gender identity, but because being a man is stupid and boring.”

Coming out, announcing her womanhood, was—for her and for trans women like her (and, to be honest, like me)—an exhilarating, empowering choice, not an act of simple survival. That perspective wasn’t a breath of fresh air so much as a mountaintop’s worth. “Some of us … might opt to transition,” she concluded, to climb out of the cage that radical feminists take “heterosexuality to be.”

How did Chu come to such views? What is it like for her to live with them? You won’t find clear answers in her first book, Females, a short, exasperating volume that is nothing like a memoir and not much like a manifesto. It’s more like a provocation, thick with what Chu herself labels “indefensible claims.” “Everyone is female,” Chu writes, “and everyone hates it”: We are all female in this special, philosophical sense because we all “make room for the desires of another.” You, too, let “someone else do your desiring for you.”

Males, in Chu’s terms—that is, men who behave “like men”; men who fit archetypes of masculinity—know what they want and how to get it for themselves. But expanding on what she takes to be Solanas’s view, Chu argues that no one is totally independent, totally dominant, totally satisfied—which means that anyone trying to be “male” has signed up for continual failure. If femaleness means vulnerability and dependence, then we are all female, and “the patriarchal system of sexual oppression” works “to conceal” that universal truth. Men feel they have to be male, but they cannot be. They find relief from this double bind in porn, where passive, humiliated, masturbating viewers may find permission “not to have power, but to give it up.”

The logical question, if you see maleness this way, is not “What makes some people trans?” but “Why would anyone want, or try, to be male?” One answer is that guys have no choice. Another answer is that masculinity feels that painful and that limiting only if you don’t want it—if, like me, you’d rather be a girl. (“I hated being a man,” Chu remembers, “but I thought that was just how feminism felt.”) A third is to say that we might try to redefine maleness, to tell other stories about it. Trans guys might lead the way.

Cyrus Grace Dunham—the younger sibling of Lena—has written a coming-out memoir, and a celebrity memoir, and a well-off young writer’s memoir of a quarter-life crisis. It’s also an anti-memoir, set against the idea that Cyrus, or you, or I, must believe one consistent story about our life. After months of flailing and drinking and fighting depression, Dunham has come out as nonbinary and as transmasculine. They take they/them pronouns in professional contexts, and do not exactly feel like a man but take he/him pronouns among friends: “I am appalled by how much I love it.” They have also had top surgery (a double mastectomy).

A Year Without a Name can come off as recovery literature, addressing the tough row they feel they had to hoe—their sister’s fame (“a toxic substance”), as well as their adventures with “alcohol, ketamine, cocaine.” But we have other memoirs that work that terrain. This one’s much better read as an account of generational and intellectual good fortune. Dunham can build on terms they have inherited from earlier trans people, and can also talk and write about the vicissitudes of erotic desire, about how desire affects what gender means.

For Dunham, exploring gender and sex means exploring embodiment and uncertainty. They live in—and have sexual feelings within—a body that won’t settle down, that does not seem to want to take clear form. It’s a body, Dunham discovers, that needs to be valued as a kind of chrysalis, ready “to turn into goo, and then re-form.” In bed, before transition, Dunham was “always more in tune with my partner’s desires than my own.” Crushing on a magnetic party girl, Dunham once “felt like a little girl, too self-conscious to get anything right.” Their current lover, by contrast, sees and accepts Dunham as a kind man, a real man, a hot man. Dunham found that experimenting with bondage and domination helped clarify how it felt to wield power, and to give it away—paving the way to seeing themselves as a man.

Maybe you, too, have had to embrace uncertainty before you could grow and change. I’m told many people, even cis people, do. Trans people like Dunham, or like me, have to work our way out of false certainties that insist we are now and forever the body our genes assigned us, the gender we were handed at birth. Some of us have to work our way out more than once. “My value,” Dunham concludes, “is not in my permanence, but in the resilience with which I recover, and re-recover, and re-form after the deluge.”

How do you know you’re trans and need to re-form? Can you be trans (the way you can be diabetic, or have perfect pitch) before you know it? Opponents of trans acceptance maintain that trans identities are new and trendy, that trans teens today are jumping on a bandwagon. The claim is in one sense obviously false—many cultures, from Samoa to South Asia, have gender-boundary-crossing identities—and in another sense irrelevant: Our right to acceptance shouldn’t depend on how long ago we showed up. We are here now.

Yet this question of origin has inspired useful history. Anne Lister (1791–1840) loved and had sex with women, and dressed and acted very much like a man. Her Yorkshire neighbors called her “Gentleman Jack,” though someone who behaved like her today could be an aristocratic butch lesbian, rather than a trans man. Dr. James Barry (1789–1865), by contrast, consistently presented himself as a man throughout his adult life, from his student days in Edinburgh to his decades as a military medical officer, improving sanitation in outposts of the British empire.

Closer to home, Lou Sullivan (1951–91) knew he was trans before he had words for it. But he didn’t simply prefigure modern identities. He helped make them visible and livable, publishing Information for the Female-to-Male Crossdresser and Transsexual in 1980; writing the biography of an earlier San Francisco trans man, Jack Bee Garland; and working with health-care providers to, in Sullivan’s words, make it “officially okay to be a female–to–gay male.”

Like Lister, Sullivan kept extensive diaries. To read through them now—in the abridged edition We Both Laughed in Pleasure, prepared by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma—is to find sentiments that trans readers might recognize. “I wanna look like what I am,” he muses early on, “but don’t know what someone like me looks like.” “I’ve spent my whole life dreaming I was someone else, but no one else would believe me.” Sullivan had the sense—as I did, for decades—that coming out as trans was both inevitable and impossible, right up until he decided to take the step. “It’s too good to be true,” he reflected. “It’s so nice to allow myself to say I am a man.” First he had to move to San Francisco, and leave his tender, difficult, long-term lover: “Had J not been around,” he mused, “I would definitely go towards being male.”

Once Sullivan chose the story he wanted to tell about himself, he could help others find their own. In California, he saw the well-known trans man Steve Dain “counseling an 18-yr-old female who says she feels like a gay man … so we do exist!” Not everybody agreed. “A reputable clinic” in the late 1970s “wouldn’t touch [Sullivan] with a 10-foot pole … Because I don’t have the typical transsexual story they want to hear.” Yet Sullivan was undeterred in his quest to “just ‘be there’ for new F➞M’s,” telling them they’re “NOT the only one.” As his death from HIV/AIDS approached, he wrote: “They told me … that I could not live as a gay man, but it looks like I will die as one.”

You could paint Sullivan’s life as a tragedy, but the diary feels full of joy, in part because it’s also full of sex—a manual of sorts from a time when trans people had to educate ourselves. “I made myself a good strap-on cock out of socks & wore it to sleep. Good masturbation.” “I want to have sex with a man as a man.” With the power of imagination, of socks stuffed in pants, of testosterone, and later of top surgery, he did. His most evocative writing conveys the desire at the core of his being. “In my search for the perfect male companion, I find myself. In my need for a man in my bed, I detach myself from my body and my body becomes his.”

Trans acceptance should not depend on our having to hide or lie about our sex lives. (Chu describes a trans woman whose therapist rejected her on the basis of her sexual tastes: “Real MTFs don’t do that.”) Nor should acceptance depend on whether we pass, whether we feel the same way every day, whether we match strict binary definitions of male or female. Our stories can change, and they interact with the stories that others tell us about ourselves.

In that sense Chu is right: Almost all of us in various ways try “to become what someone else wants.” We seek both the other people who can accept us (as Sullivan did in San Francisco, as Dunham does now) and the imagined future self that we want to, and try to, become. If that search feels like a problem, it’s also a solution, the one that Dunham’s quarter-life memoir, and Sullivan’s voluminous journals, record. “Is wanting enough?” Dunham asks. Can they be “a real man,” or will they always and only be “a girl obsessed with men”?

Am I a real woman? Was Sullivan a real man? Why do I care how other people answer that question? But I do care. So does Dunham, and so—I think—does Chu, and so did Sullivan, who made himself, even while dying, into the Bay Area’s proud transmasculine historian. “I can never be a man,” he wrote, “until my body is whole and I can use it freely and without shame.” Such a goal might be the kind you never quite reach. Still, so many of us try to get there, whether the effort looks like one great change or a string of smaller moments. We share our stories, and we make new ones if those we find don’t fit; and then we send the new stories out into the world to see whether what resonates for us, what might save us, could help others too.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

October 4, 2019October 4, 2019

How To Raise Boys Without All The Stereotypes About Gender & Masculinity

By Kelly Gonsalves

These days in countries like the U.S., it’s a lot easier than it has been in the past for girls to pursue hobbies, careers, and preferences once thought exclusive to boys. There’s, of course, still much work to do in creating truly equal opportunities and access, but the good news is that there’s much less of a push to shove all girls into traditional caretaking and homemaking roles. Some parents may even be eager to support and celebrate their daughters’ interest in sports, science, adventure, and the like.

How about our sons?

Ask yourself this: How would you feel about your son wearing skirts and makeup, joining the cheerleading squad or ballet, and spending a lot of time giggling on the phone talking with his friends about schoolyard crushes?

Why many parents struggle to let their boys be “feminine.”

A 2018 study in the Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity found parents tend to be more uncomfortable with their child having gender-nonconforming behaviors when their child is a boy than when their child is a girl. Parents were also more likely to try to change boys’ gender-nonconforming behaviors than to try to change girls. In other words, parents are way more OK with girls doing “boy stuff” than with boys doing “girl stuff.” (Those words don’t actually mean much, of course, but we’ll get to that.)

That discomfort from seeing boys display traits we associate with femininity stems from a combination of sexism and homophobia, explains Jesse Kahn, LCSW, CST, director and sex therapist at the Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York.

“Sexism is rooted in the belief that men are superior to women and masculinity is superior to femininity,” they tell mbg. “As such, ‘male qualities,’ or masculinity, is inherently more acceptable and desirable. Boys deviating from masculinity are then viewed as offensive and inferior.”

The above study also found that parents who showed more “warmth” toward their son were more likely to try to change his gender-nonconforming behaviors. The researchers posited that this finding suggests parents who intervene to guide their sons back toward traditional “boy” behaviors might be doing it because they think it’s good for him. For example, perhaps these parents feel like their son will get bullied or shamed for their “girly” behaviors, and so they believe steering him away from those behaviors is the right thing to do for his well-being.

But in truth, denying a child’s authentic self can create major physical and mental health problems for them down the line: everything from social alienation to lack of proper health care access to increased suicide risk.

“Protective instincts are rote and innate, and they tell us that when something feels dangerous, we should take the easiest and quickest route to restore safety,” sex educator and crisis counselor Cavanaugh Quick, LMSW, tells mbg. “The problem is that restoring safety isn’t inherently the same as eliminating the threat. Confronting the negative behaviors from others, reinforcing positive reception and love with our young people who experience them, and encouraging an expanded possibility for this kind of expression in our boys both restores safety and targets the threat directly.”

Kahn adds, “A lot of research has shown us the power of acceptance from one’s parents. The strongest protection a parent can offer is supporting their child, which begins with examining their own judgments.”

How to raise sons without pigeonholing them into gender stereotypes.

1. Remember that “boy” doesn’t really tell us anything specific about someone’s interests or habits.

Don’t assume you know what your son will like or how he’ll act just because he’s a boy. “Boy” doesn’t really mean anything in particular, after all—we have associations about what being a “boy” and a “man” mean, associations that we’re taught growing up and that get reinforced by our culture and by the media. Then we start teaching them to our children. Research has shown us time and time again that parents treat girls and boys differently, affecting everything from their color preferences to their emotional intelligence to their STEM skills and much more.

“Listen to and stay curious about your child’s interests; if they deviate from your gendered expectations, challenge yourself to both allow your child to engage in that activity as well as be supportive (as supportive as you would be of something you deem more acceptable),” Kahn says. “If a parent is nonresponsive, appears uncomfortable, less interested, or less excited about something their child is doing that is considered nonconforming, the parent is reinforcing their beliefs regarding gendered expectations. Kids pick up on that information.”

Do your best to avoid making assumptions—or being outwardly surprised if your son does something outside of your assumptions. Just remember this: There’s nothing innate about boys liking blue, trucks, sports, girls, or action movies, nor is there anything innate about boys being unemotional or bad at cooking and cleaning. If most boys are like that, it’s because we’ve collectively taught them to be like that. There’s nothing wrong with them developing those traits, of course, but there’s no reason to actively push your child into any of them just because he’s a “boy.”

2. Actively offer your son the “feminine” options.

Just like with the word “boy,” the word “girl” doesn’t really mean anything unless you make it mean something. Whatever it is you typically associate with girlhood, make sure your son has a real opportunity to choose that if it appeals to him.

“That means not just saying ‘I’m OK with it if you want to do this’ but actually making stuff available and actively participating in offering expanded options to your young people,” Quick explains. “Take them down every aisle in the clothing/toy/school supply/etc. store when you’re shopping and just ask them what they like. Make space for them to make decisions when possible, instead of being directive. Support and encourage them when and if they pick stuff that you think isn’t masculine.”

3. Watch your gendered language.

Watch out for things like “man up,” “be a man,” “tough guy,” and “boys will be boys.” And when boys and men around your son do something that conforms to your familiar definition of masculinity, try to avoid making comments about that behavior that imply it’s inherently masculine. (Some examples: “Boys always play so rough!” or “Of course all the dads stayed home to watch the game tonight!”)

“When speaking to children, parents unconsciously use feminine adjectives to describe their daughters and masculine adjectives with their sons,” Kahn adds. “Don’t use language that boosts gendered expectations about how people of specific binary genders are ‘supposed’ to act.”

4. Introduce your sons to people who are gender-nonconforming.

Kahn also recommends introducing your kids to gender-nonconforming and trans people, whether in their lives, in history, or in the media or TV shows. That exposure can help kids start to understand gender for what it really is—not something set in stone based on body parts but rather something that’s just about what behaviors and traits feel comfortable and authentic to any individual.

“Teach [your] children that gendered constructs are not facts, and successfully communicate that their interests, identities, [and] presentations don’t have to be confined to an assigned gender or role,” Kahn explains.

5. Keep educating yourself.

“You can’t teach what you don’t know,” Quick points out. “Talk with yourself about what your gender (nonconforming or not) means to you and why it’s important. Why do you make the choices you make? How do you feel when someone forces you into something different? … Asking and exploring these things for yourself gives you more insight and helps you model that exploration for your young ones.”

If you have no idea where to start, pick up a book about gender to read in your downtime. Kahn adds that seeing a gender-affirmative therapist can also be a really helpful way for parents to educate themselves and figure out how to best support their child, especially if their child is queer or trans.

6. Be an advocate in your community.

Your son might have the most traditionally “boyish” gender expression ever (whatever that means); that’s totally cool. Just remember it still doesn’t give you a pass to go back to passively or actively supporting stereotypes. No matter your kids’ gender identities, raise them so they know how to actively question the gender norms they’ll inevitably encounter outside the home, so they can choose for themselves who they want to be. Support their growth into open-minded and accepting young people who’ll be able to support the gender identities of their peers, whatever they may be. That also means correcting your kids when they’re making gendered comments about their classmates or about TV shows.

You should also stay engaged in conversations around gender, especially around your children’s schools and your family’s larger community. Does your kids’ school have a weird, gendered policy about girls being allowed to wear nail polish but boys aren’t? Or about which uniforms or bathrooms trans kids are allowed to use? Use your voice to advocate for freedom, expression, and inclusivity.

“I believe in focusing on changing the environments we live in so that a gender-nonconforming child doesn’t have to fear being teased, bullied, or have to change as a means of protection from judgment,” Kahn says. “That change starts at home.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 29, 2019

Talking About Where Babies Come From is Not the Same as Talking About Sex

Here’s how to answer kid’s reproduction questions to raise children who are allies and respect diversity.

By Amber Leventry

My oldest child is 8 and my twins are 6; my two daughters have golden, blonde hair almost the same shade as mine. When they were 5 and 3 we were picking up a pizza when a customer behind us commented that my girls were so lucky to have inherited the same gorgeous hair color as me. This was not the first time someone had said this, and I respond the same way each time:

“Thank you for the compliment, but they didn’t get their hair color from me. I am their non-biological mom. Their sperm donor is blonde. He’s got great genes, huh?”

The reactions of people who learn this information for the first time range from embarrassment to gleeful curiosity. My kids have two moms, an anonymous sperm donor, and donor siblings who live in another state. I am always happy and comfortable talking about this and so are my kids. Yet, many parents are quick to tell stories of what they consider to be uncomfortable conversations with their kids when the focus turns to sexual health and reproduction.

Parents stumble when their toddler asks where babies come from; they describe how they had “the talk” with their kids and survived to tell about it. Panic sets in when adults find out their kid is dating or has become sexually active. First of all, talking about where babies come from is not the same as talking about sex. Let’s all take a deep breath.

Why Are These Conversations So Hard?

“There are many personal reasons that parents feel unprepared for conversations about sex and reproduction,” says Molly Fechter-Leggett, Psy.D. “In my experience, it occurs largely in families where the adults never had healthy conversations about sex and reproduction with their parents. With no model, it can feel really scary wading into unknown waters.”

It’s not like we had much help from teachers in school either. Sexual education in this country was subpar then and there are not many signs of progress as schools continue to dangerously perpetuate the notion that the only kind of sex is heterosexual, penis-in-vagina intercourse. Currently, there are still 31 states that advocate for abstinence before straight, cisgender marriage and only 24 states actually require sex education in the first place. A mere eight states include consent as part of the conversation. And if you are hoping for LGBTQIA+ inclusive sex ed, you will only be able to find it in four states and Washington, D.C.

The ‘birds and bees’ conversation doesn’t need to be tougher, it just needs to be bigger.

While sexual health education in America stays in the dark ages, America gets queerer. Nearly 16 million Americans identify as LGBTQ according to a 2018 Gallup poll. The landscape of what makes a family has shifted as more queer people build or add to their family—specifically Millennials ages 18-35. The LGBTQ Family Building Survey done by The Family Equality Council reports that 63 percent of these queer Millennials will grow families using one of many options now available to LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples. You and your child will likely meet a family like mine.

Learning the Language

When my oldest started preschool, my then partner and I explained to the teachers that it would not surprise us if our daughter mentioned that she was made using a sperm and an egg. How she was made is as much a part of her narrative as is the color of her eyes, which is blue and also genetically from the sperm donor.

When talking about my children’s bodies and body parts I use the actual names—vagina, penis, scrotum, clitoris—because body parts are nothing to be ashamed of and there is nothing wrong or inappropriate about discussing the biological workings of our bodies.

In addition to wanting my children to be proud and informed about their conception, I started these conversations from a very early age to empower them.

Dr. Fechter-Leggett says a kid who has the appropriate language for their body parts is an empowered kid. It teaches them to respect their body and others’. “If they understand that sexual contact only occurs in consensual relationships and they know to trust their body’s signals of danger, a kid is much less likely to be a victim and much better situated for the foundation of healthy adolescent/adult sexual relationships.”

The Right Time to Talk

Melissa Pintor Carnagey, LBSW, a sex educator, social worker and founder of Sex Positive Families, agrees, “Start laying the foundation well before puberty. Sexual health isn’t just about sex. It’s integral to the human experience from birth to beyond.”

I used the book What Makes A Baby by Corey Silverberg as an aid to explain to my kids that they were created with sperm from a sperm donor who we picked through a cryobank and their other mama’s eggs. The book provides inclusive language to cover all genders and sexual orientations. This not only provides the representation my queer family needs, but it gives space to talk about modern family building. It also leaves the door open to define sex in inclusive—more than just penis-in-vagina—ways.

Pintor Carnagey adds, “When they ask questions at an early age, such as ‘where do babies come from?’ or they’re curious about naked bodies, how parents respond can pave the way for a child’s confidence in asking deeper questions as years move on. So it’s critical that parents do not avoid questions and are direct and honest in their responses. This builds trust and ensures a child will continue to ask without fear or shame.”

How to Keep the Conversation Inclusive

It’s also important to tell our kids that most sex is done for pleasure not reproduction, and not all sex can result in reproduction. Sometimes making babies does not always involve sex at all. Whether an individual or couple is heterosexual and cisgender or identifies as LGBTQIA+, fertility is never guaranteed.

“Lots of parents tell me that they worry that introducing the concepts of sex, sexuality, gender identity, reproduction, and other ‘adult’ topics will cause their children to have thoughts or feelings that aren’t appropriate for children. I try to help them to understand that children will hear and pick up all of this information implicitly and explicitly long before they think they are ‘ready,’ and that the best defense is an offense,” reassures Dr. Fechter-Leggett.

Both Pintor Carnagey and Dr. Fechter-Leggett agree that talking about these concepts does not increase the likelihood of sexual experimentation, it actually decreases it.

And you will need to be prepared to answer questions in honest and respectful ways when your child asks how a family with two dads can have a baby. Adoption, surrogacy, egg, and sperm donation are part of the ‘where do babies come from?’ conversation too. This will create allies in your children who respect diversity. It will also show your child you are an ally to them if they are questioning their sexuality or identity.

“It is crucial that discussions about bodies, relationships, and sex are open, shame-free, and inclusive,” emphasizes Pinto Carnagey. “If we limit the information we share with a child, based on assumptions about their gender identity or sexual orientation, we risk leaving them ill-equipped for safer, consensual, and pleasurable experiences with themselves and others.”

Dr. Fechter-Leggett adds, “Give kids the information they need to make healthy, safe, consensual choices about their bodies long before they are in a position to make those decisions. If we don’t talk to all kids about all kinds of sex, we risk only preparing our heterosexual, cisgender kids for healthy relationships and sex.”

All babies come from a sperm and an egg. Depending on the identity and sexual orientation of the parent(s), the logistics of how those two ingredients meet can vary. The “birds and bees” conversation doesn’t need to be tougher, it just needs to be bigger.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 18, 2019September 18, 2019

How to talk to your children about sexual consent

By Jennifer Cassarly

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

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

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

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

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

If it’s not yes then it’s no

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

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

Don’t fear rejection

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

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

Tackle the power of pressure

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

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

Deconstruct stereotypes

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

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

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

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

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 13, 2019September 13, 2019

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 Rebecca Hitchen

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↩!

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019

What College Students Should Know About Consent

By Erika W. Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Consent?

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

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

How Do I Know If My Partner Is Giving Consent?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consent & Alcohol Or Drugs

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

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

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

Consent & Condoms

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

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

Consent & Nude Photos

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

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

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

How Do I Ask For Consent?

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

What Is Title IX?

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

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

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

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 4, 2019September 3, 2019

From sex to money…

The eight deep discussions that can save a dying relationship

John and Julie Gottman have devised dates for ailing couples – but how many are ready for this level of openness and sincerity?

By Emine Saner

How often do we really talk to our partners? About the big stuff, not about childcare arrangements, or what the funny noise coming from the fridge means? According to a study at the University of California, Los Angeles, couples with small children, and who both have careers, talk for just 35 minutes a week, and mainly about errands. That study, says John Gottman, “alarmed” him and his wife, Julie. “It seemed like couples who had been together a long time were not taking care of the relationship – their curiosity in one another had died,” he says.

Gottman, the renowned relationships researcher known for his work on divorce predictors, and Julie Schwartz Gottman, a psychologist, have been married for 32 years. They founded the Gottman Institute, which conducts research and trains therapists. Their Gottman method is an approach designed to repair and deepen relationships, concentrating on three main areas – “friendship, conflict management and creation of shared meaning”. They have also written many books, together and separately. Their latest book, which they wrote as a couple, is Eight Dates. It guides couples through eight conversations – to have on dedicated dates – on the big issues such as sex, parenting and how to handle conflict. It was partly sparked by the rise of online dating and to provide new couples with a roadmap to navigate tricky subjects, but mainly to give long-term couples a project to steer their relationship to a better place. “Couples who have been together for quite a long time create a relationship that grows stale with time, and they lose track of one another,” says Julie. “People evolve over time. They change.”

The categories – trust, conflict, sex, money, family, fun, spirituality and dreams – came out of the Gottmans’ years of observing the flashpoints in relationships, and they sent 300 heterosexual and same-sex couples out to test the dates. The dates have suggestions of places to go that fit the category – for instance, for the trust and commitment date, choose somewhere that is meaningful to your relationship – though they also have suggestions for meaningful dates at home, and open-ended questions to ask each other. Amazingly, they report that only one couple had an argument on one of their dates. But might disagreement be a danger for readers of the book? “It’s possible, but what we like to do is give people preparation in case conflict arises, so each chapter includes a bit of that,” says Julie. “But also we very carefully tailored the questions so that people were encouraged to self-disclose as opposed to comment on each other’s thoughts. And when you self-disclose, that’s really the antidote to creating conflict as opposed to judging the other person for their point of view.”

Each category has exercises and prompts to think about before the date – for instance, in the money and work section, you are encouraged to think about your family history with money, and complete a questionnaire on what money means to you, then bring these to the date to share, along with suggestions for discussion including: “What do you appreciate about your partner’s contribution to the wealth of the relationship?” and: “What is your biggest fear around money?”

Many of the questions will encourage you to confront your own prejudices and ideas of what a relationship should look like, probably influenced (for good or bad) by your parents’ relationship. “People tend to role-model after their caretakers,” says Julie. “Those are hard to step out of. It takes knowing what the alternative is and then practising it, making repairs when you do make a mistake and trying again.”

I can see the point of all of the dates, but some fill me with horror (talking about sex, mainly – I am British, after all). And my boyfriend would probably rather abandon his family, change his name and leave the country than have a date during which we try to have a serious conversation about growth and spirituality (sample question: “What do you consider sacred?”). How can you get your partner on board if they’re resisting? “Start with the chapter on sex,” says Julie. “I think it depends on what the objections are. If somebody is afraid of having a deeper conversation, you could say this is not about being judged. This is not meant as a sadistic torture for your partner, it’s about having a fun conversation and being able to have a jumping-off point. People are so caught up in the day-to-day tasks, they rarely have time to sit and reflect on: ‘What do I not know about my partner that I want to know?’” So many people in our culture are “broadcasters”, says John. “They think the important thing in a relationship is to be interesting, rather than to be interested.”

Which are the most important dates? Julie chooses trust and commitment, and dreams and ambitions. “When people talk about that, they have a chance to plumb their own depths, to see what really matters to them and what they really value, and how they want to give their lives meaning. Those are things that change and evolve over time.” She turns to John: “How about you, honey?” He smiles and says: “Fun and adventure, and sex.” They laugh and Julie says something about him being a typical man and kisses him on the cheek. “It was really sad that more than 70% of couples said that their lives had deteriorated in the bedroom,” says John, of his research. “They weren’t having much fun with one another. The things that really draw people together, that enhance living, wind up being put on the garbage heap. It’s certainly easy for relationships to become drudgery.”

John and Julie met in a coffee house in Seattle in 1986. John had recently moved to the city and was getting to know his new home: mainly, he says, by answering personals ads in the newspaper. “I dated 60 women. In three months.” Julie laughs and says: “He made a job of it.” Julie walked into the cafe and he invited her to join him: “Julie was number 61.” They were married within a year. How did they know each other was the right person? “We’d had other relationships so we had a lot of negative comparisons,” says Julie. “We’d made so many mistakes, and you really learn from your mistakes. Lo and behold, here’s this beautiful person who thinks you’re funny and cute, and whose eyes light up, and with whom you know you’ll never be bored.” They have worked together for much of that time. Even when they were newly married, they would go out “and we would ask each other these big open-ended questions, just like the ones in the book”, says Julie. John would bring a notebook on their nights out and make notes.

Both agree on the most productive category for them – dreams. Each year they take a holiday together (they call it a honeymoon) and discuss three things: what was bad about the previous year, what was good, and what they hope for the year ahead. “We really take some time to take a look at our lives and figure out how to make it better,” says John. Julie adds: “That’s where the dreaming comes in.”

They seem happy and connected. What do they wish all couples knew? “If your partner is having one of the negative emotions – fear, anger, sadness – you approach it with interest and curiosity and really communicate: ‘I want to know what you’re feeling, I want to know what’s going on with you,’” says John. Julie laughs and says it says a lot about their relationship that John focuses on listening when she chooses the opposite. “My thought is related to the speaker – there’s a lot of responsibility for the health of the relationship from how you bring up issues,” she says. “What I wish all couples knew is, when they have a concern or complaint, they need to describe themselves, not their partner.” It’s the difference between “I’m feeling hurt” and “you’ve hurt me”.

They both still get it wrong, says John. “We’re all facing the same kinds of problems and we need these blueprints,” he says. “We’re not experts on relationships, we’ve taken these ideas from real couples that we’ve done research on. It’s the data that’s informing us, not our own expertise: we don’t really have that, we’re like any other couple, we struggle with the same things.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 1, 2019September 1, 2019

Does cannabis affect men’s sexual health?

There’s a lot of information floating around the interwebs on how weed affects your erection. What’s the truth?

Cannabis may not impact sexual health as previously thought.

By Alana Armstrong

Have you ever wondered, somewhere in the back of your mind (minimized to a tiny voice so as to not freak yourself out) whether the weed you smoke affects your erection?

Yeah, we all have. At least those who are equipped to get erections.

And it’s no wonder. The internet is full of anecdotal descriptions of marijuana-triggered erections, something Urban Dictionary contributors call “stoner boner.” To quote the entry, this is “an erection obtained for no reason other than the fact that the obtainee was too damn high.” (Let’s face it. That’s way better than whisky dick.)

And there is maybe even more content out there about how marijuana impedes the boner. So, what’s real?

As far as we can tell, you can rest easy, brother. The facts about weed use and erections are uncertain at best, with one investigation suggesting that frequent cannabis use caused the men in their study to reach orgasm too quickly, too slowly, or not at all.

And then there’s this other study, which suggests that cannabis could be used to treat erectile difficulties in men with high cholesterol.

In short? The jury is still out. If you’re concerned about how marijuana affects your bedroom presence, try out some different strains and consumption methods. It’s certainly more fun that way, and you can see how each one affects your desire and ability to perform. Bring on the boner!

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 28, 2019August 28, 2019

The Vagina Bible

This feminist gynecologist wants you to know your body and fight the patriarchy

By Julia Belluz

With her new book, Jen Gunter aims to fight the myths that plague women.

Before the advent of C-sections, every human passed through one. But not everybody knows where it is.

The vagina.

Surveys have repeatedly shown that there’s a startling level of ignorance about female anatomy. Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB-GYN in the San Francisco Bay Area, is on a quest to change that.

On August 27, she’ll publish The Vagina Bible, an encyclopedic guide to vagina-related topics born of what Gunter is calling a “vagenda” to empower people with facts about their own bodies

The book builds on her eponymous blog, which became a viral sensation when she took on jade eggs for the vagina sold on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website, Goop. The eggs were being marketed as devices “queens and concubines used … to stay in shape for emperors.” In an open letter to Paltrow, Gunter debunked the website’s claims and noted how sexist they were: “Nothing,” she wrote, “says female empowerment more than the only reason to do this is for your man.

Now officially Paltrow’s nemesis — the actress has subtweeted Gunter with Goop’s response to the doctor’s criticisms — Gunter says, “The basic tenet that I go by is that you can’t be an empowered patient with inaccurate information. It’s just not possible.”

Over the years, in Gunter’s blog posts and, more recently, columns in the New York Times, she’s set the record straight on myriad vagina-adjacent topics: vaginal steaming, abortion at or after 24 weeks, misinformation about the HPV vaccine, and best practices for pubic hair care.

There is so much misinformation, so if what you have been told has been riddled with half-truths and sometimes even lies, it is hard to know the facts. Western medicine has been linked with the patriarchy since the beginning. If you can’t dissect female cadavers, how can you know the anatomy?

Also, we speak with euphemisms to appease societal and religious mores. If you don’t use the words for female anatomy and normal function, then that imparts shame and can also lead to confusion.

Now we also have the “natural” fallacy gaining traction. Multiple influencers and even celebrities and some doctors advance the false notion that “your body knows” and “nature is best.” And if women look up vaginal garlic [yes, this is a thing] on a naturopath’s website and see it in Our Bodies, Ourselves, of course they will think it is a valid therapy when it is not.

Julia Belluz

Do you think the “sex recession” is real?

Jen Gunter

Gardasil 9, which is the one that protects against nine strains of HPV — seven high-risk and the two that cause genital warts — is now approved from ages 9 to 45. If you’re going to vaccinate people, you want to catch the people that you’re more likely to help. The younger you are, the less likely you are to have had HPV. The younger you can get people, the more likely you can protect them from all nine strains. As we age and have sexual partners, we’re more likely to be exposed to different strains of HPV. But the chance that you’re going to be exposed to all of them is low.

So I figured that since I’m dating again, and I personally have never had a positive HPV test, and I have no history of having had an abnormal Pap smear or HPV, I thought, well, I’m in a pretty good category then. The chance that I’ve had all nine strains of HPV is probably low. So I just thought, why not get the shot to protect myself from any of the additional strains?

Julia Belluz

Are there other things that you wish more women did to keep their vaginas happy and healthy — and their vulvas and vestibules too?

Jen Gunter

Well, I wish HPV shots for all my friends. I wish that nobody smoked. That’s a very bad thing. People think about lung cancer and smoking. People don’t think about cardiovascular disease from smoking. It’s also very deleterious for the good bacteria in your vagina. And people who smoke have a higher risk of having HPV-related diseases like cervical cancer, so it’s a co-factor in HPV becoming more aggressive. Not smoking, that would be a wonderful thing.

Condoms. You know, there is a little bit of a drop in condom use, and that is probably due to the increasing use of the IUD. That doesn’t mean that people are having risky sex — they’re actually not. But if you’re switching from a method of barrier protection to a method of non-barrier protection, then you’ll have an increased risk of exposure.

Julia Belluz

Great advice.

Jen Gunter

I wish everybody could talk about the genital tract in the same way we talk about the elbow or the foot. It’s just a body part.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 22, 2019August 22, 2019

How to Be an Ethical Hookup Partner

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

By Yana Tallon-Hicks

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

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

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

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

So how do you make sure your hookup is ethical?

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

Know and share your STI status.

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

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

Consider others’ feelings.

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

Know and be clear about your intentions.

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

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

Respect your own boundaries.

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

Respect your partner and their boundaries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practice makes perfect.

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

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

Check in regularly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t stir drama.

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

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 15, 2019August 15, 2019

Do You Need Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy?

by Vanessa Marin

You’ve probably never heard of pelvic floor physical therapy before, and that’s a shame: It’s an extremely helpful treatment option for a variety of difficult medical conditions. Your pelvic floor drapes across your pelvic area like a hammock, and supports the pelvic organs (the uterus, bladder, and rectum). It also assists with urinary and anal continence, and serves a role in core strength and orgasm. People of all genders have a pelvic floor.

To help me learn more about pelvic floor physical therapy, I spoke with Heather Jeffcoat, a physical therapist and the owner of Femina Physical Therapy in Los Angeles, and author of Sex Without Pain: A Self Treatment Guide to the Sex Life You Deserve. Here’s what you need to know about pelvic therapy and how it can help you.

How pelvic floor physical therapy works

A lot of things can weaken the pelvic floor, including pregnancy, childbirth, and aging, resulting in pelvic pain as well as bladder, bowel, and sexual dysfunctions.

The first step of pelvic floor physical therapy is gathering the client’s history, ascertaining their goals, and providing education about how the pelvic floor works. This is followed by a manual examination. From there, physical therapists use a combination of manual therapy, pelvic floor exercises, biofeedback, and/or vaginal dilators. Patients are seen for regular appointments, and are given exercises to complete at home.

Most traditional physicians are ill-equipped to deal with sexual pain—even though the reality is that there’s almost always a physical cause

You can find therapists by searching American Physical Therapy Association and the International Pelvic Pain Society. Many PTs, including Dr. Jeffcoat, also offer telemedicine appointments if you’d prefer to get started that way or you can’t find a PT in your area.

What pelvic floor physical therapy can treat

Pelvic floor PT can be effective at treating a wide array of conditions, including:

Painful sex
Pain with tampon insertion or OB/GYN examinations
Vulvar pain
Vulvar itching
Urinary urgency and frequency
Recurrent UTIs
Urinary incontinence
Bowel incontinence
Pelvic and/or lower abdominal pain

Dr. Jeffcoat says, “I like to tell physicians that if they have been searching for a cause of someone’s pain between their ribs and their hips/pelvis and they have been medically cleared, they should be referred to a skilled PFPT.”

Pelvic floor PT can also be used to prepare transgender patients for gender confirmation surgery, and to facilitate healing post-surgery.

Pelvic floor physical therapy and sexual pain

Recently, researchers at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University found that 30% of women experienced pain during their last sexual encounter. Even though sexual pain is widespread, it often takes a very long time for a woman to get diagnosed with a sexual pain condition. I have heard horror stories from clients who were told by their doctors that their pain was “all in their head” or that they needed to “just have a glass of wine.” I’ve heard of doctors recommending a shot of alcohol or an anti-anxiety medication right before sex. Dr. Jeffcoat has heard the same stories, and says most traditional physicians are ill-equipped to deal with sexual pain even though the reality is that there’s almost always a physical cause.

If you try to talk to your doctor about your sexual pain and get met with an infuriating response like “just relax,” finding a pelvic floor physical therapist in your area could be a much better bet. A good PT will work with you to uncover the root of your pain and discomfort, and develop a targeted game plan for relief. I’ve worked with a lot of clients with sexual pain, and they’ve all sung the praises of pelvic floor PT.

Keeping your pelvic floor in shape

Even if you’ve never heard of pelvic floor physical therapy before, you’ve probably heard about the field’s most popular exercise: kegels. There has been an explosion of articles about kegels (also known as PC exercises) in the last few years, and there are also a ton kegel trainers on the market purporting to help you get your kegel muscles into tip-top shape. Kegel exercises can have great benefits, including stronger orgasms and greater urinary control. But Dr. Jeffcoat advises a bit of caution. She shared that about half of all women are doing kegels incorrectly, and around 25% are doing them in a way that could make their other symptoms worse. She’s not a fan of vaginal weights or trainers because, she says, they can worsen incorrect form.

Dr. Jeffcoat says that if you’re currently experiencing sexual pain, urinary urgency or frequency, bladder pain, urge incontinence, constipation, rectal pain or any pelvic pain, avoid kegels and check in with a PT first.

If you don’t have bowel or bladder symptoms, Dr. Jeffcoat recommends doing a mix of longer holds and shorter pulses. To find your PC muscles, cut off your flow of urine before your bladder is empty. The muscles that you have to use to do so are the ones you want to target. For the longer holds, gently squeeze your PC muscles for 3-5 seconds, then gradually release. For the shorter pulses, squeeze your PC muscles, then immediately release. If you want to ensure you’re doing kegels correctly, or want a customized game plan, definitely check in with a PT.

If you feel embarrassed about what’s involved in pelvic floor PT

Yes, your PT will be directly manipulating your muscles through the walls of your vagina or anus. But Dr. Jeffcoat assured me that a good pelvic floor physical therapist is passionate about their work, and about helping their clients feel comfortable. Pelvic floor issues are very common, and PTs want to help remove the stigma around getting help. Dr. Jeffcoat’s standard initial visit is 90 minutes, a good chunk of which is spent talking and helping you feel more comfortable. You also have the option to postpone the physical examination until a later session.

It may also help to think about the positive effects of pelvic floor physical therapy. I asked Dr. Jeffcoat about some of her favorite patient success stories, and she told me about seeing patients consummate their marriages for the first time ever. One case was after 19 years of marriage. She also wrote, “I’ve had so many women that are able to get pregnant without fertility treatments because they can have pain-free sex. I’ve seen women gain a new sense of empowerment by reaching a goal they truly never thought would never happen.” There can also be something incredibly validating about knowing that the pain isn’t “in your head.” The bottom line: pelvic floor physical therapy can be life-changing.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 12, 2019August 12, 2019

When Starting To Talk To Your Kids About Sex, Younger Is Better

By Kelly Gonsalves

There’s a common misconception that talking to kids about sex at a younger age will encourage them to start having sex earlier in life. But new research finds there’s little truth behind this worry and suggests that when it comes to teaching your kids about sex, the younger, the better.

In a new study published in the JAMA Pediatrics journal, researchers sought to understand how parental involvement in kids’ sex ed affected actual sexual health outcomes. In other words, does having parents who talk to them about sex lead to kids making better decisions about their sex lives?

To answer this question, the researchers examined 31 past studies on sex education programs that substantially involve parents in teaching kids about sex—not a perfect barometer for measuring how much parents teach their kids about sex at home in general but at least a good way to gauge its effects. In total, the meta-analysis involved data on over 12,000 kids between ages 9 and 18 whose parents participated in their sex education.

Learning about sex doesn’t make kids start having sex earlier.

First of all, the results showed parents should be actively engaged in teaching their kids about sex: Kids with more parental involvement were more likely to use condoms during sex, were more open with their parents about their sexual experiences, and had higher sexual self-efficacy, which is essentially the ability to advocate for your needs in bed. And the more hours their parents spent participating in their kids’ sex education, the stronger these effects were.

But the most interesting findings dealt with age: The study found parents helping to educate their kids about sex had no effect on how old their kids were when they started having sex.

“[These initiatives] were not associated with earlier initiation of sexual activity,” the researchers explain. “This should be reassuring for parents who are concerned that talking about sex with their children may somehow result in their children initiating sex. This meta-analysis shows that across the dozens of interventions for parents, youth were no more or less likely to initiate sex at the conclusion of the interventions.”

Talking to kids about sex earlier is good for their health—and their confidence.

The results also showed the positive effects of these parental interventions were even stronger when they happened at a younger age. When parents talked to their kids about sex earlier on (specifically between ages 9 and 14), those kids were even more likely to practice safe sex later on, more willing to communicate with their parents about their experiences, and had an even higher increase in sexual self-efficacy than kids whose parents waited until they were older to start their sex education.

Rather than encouraging kids to start having sex earlier, these conversations actually just create an environment where kids have more knowledge to make more informed decisions about sex later in life. Instead of stumbling into sexual situations in their teens still without having had any formal conversations about sexual health or communication, kids have that basic information with them for whenever their sexual lives begin.

“Thirty years of public health research has shown that young people are not more likely to have sex earlier because they learn about sex,” says Lucinda Holt, M.S., a sex educator and director of communications and development at Answer, a national sex-ed organization based at Rutgers University, in an interview with mindbodygreen. “When you are talking with your child about these topics, you are providing the information they need and helping them prepare to make healthy decisions as they get older.”

She adds that another key benefit of starting these sex talks early is taking away the shame around sexuality so that young people feel comfortable asking their parents and guardians questions instead of feeling like they’ll get in trouble for bringing it up.

“It’s better that they have you as a resource than hearsay from their friends or from sexually explicit content online,” she says.

The myth of “sexualizing our children.”

Some people worry that just knowing about the existence of sex will “corrupt” their child’s innocence and make them become interested in sex at an earlier, inappropriate age—despite the fact that this and many other studies prove that this theory isn’t true.

“People hear the word ‘sex’ in the same sentence with ‘kids,’ and they think talking to their child about sex is about having a sexually explicit conversation. That is not what we’re talking about,” Holt explains. “We are talking about parents and guardians using the correct names of body parts, helping kids understand privacy, empowering them around bodily autonomy, teaching them to respect others’ boundaries, and providing age-appropriate answers to their questions about their bodies and where babies come from.”

Holt points to projects like AMAZE, an online resource that offers kid-friendly educational, animated videos about sexuality, gender, reproductive health, and other body stuff. Created by Answer and other reputable national sex education organizations, AMAZE offers content for kids as young as 4 years old.

Starting these conversations from this young age helps kids grow up in an environment where they’re not afraid or ashamed of their bodies—meaning they’ll be better equipped to ask their parents questions when they need help and know how and when to protect themselves from possible harm.

“When you use appropriate names like ‘penis’ and ‘vulva,’ you’re sending the message that these body parts are like ‘knee’ or ‘arm,’ and we don’t have to be ashamed of our bodies. This sets younger kids up to feel comfortable speaking with a parent about their bodies and to ask questions if they have them,” Holt explains. “Giving kids some basic language and concepts means they will be better prepared to have conversations with a parent as they get older about healthy relationships, consent, and safer sex.”

The younger they are when they start learning about sex, the more prepared and safe they’ll be in the long run whenever they do decide to start their sexual lives—which, according to the research, will be no earlier than if no one had ever started teaching them about sex.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 10, 2019August 10, 2019

Bed Death Is Real.

Here’s How to Keep It from Turning into a Sexless Marriage

by PureWow

If you and your S.O. haven’t done the deed in six months or longer, you are not alone. In fact, you are trending. If you believe recent headlines, tons of married or long-term couples all over the world are in the midst of a full-blown sex strike. Even Pink is talking about it: “…you’ll go through times when you haven’t had sex in a year,” the singer and mom of two recently said of her 13-year marriage to Carey Hart. “Is this bed death? Is this the end of it? Do I want him? Does he want me? Monogamy is work! But you do the work and it’s good again

According to the New York Post, “’Dead bedrooms,’ the buzzy new term for when couples in long-term relationships stop having sex, are on a zombie-apocalypse-like rise.” It cites a study that shows 69 percent of couples are intimate 8 times a year or less; 17 percent of those surveyed hadn’t had sex in a year or more. This is on the heels of research out of the University of Chicago demonstrating that between the late 1990s and 2014, sex for all adults dropped from 62 to 54 times a year on average. And, per Time, “The highest drop in sexual frequency has been among married people with higher levels of education.”

In her cover story on The Sex Recession, The Atlantic’s Kate Julian reports on the many possible causes behind this unsexy ebb: “hookup culture, crushing economic pressures, surging anxiety rates, psychological frailty, widespread antidepressant use, streaming television, environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, dropping testosterone levels, digital porn, the vibrator’s golden age…helicopter parents, careerism, smartphones, the news cycle, information overload generally, sleep deprivation, obesity. Name a modern blight, and someone, somewhere, is ready to blame it for messing with the modern libido.”

Chances are you and/or your spouse are impacted by one (if not several) of the above. So what can you do to break a dry spell? Read on for expert tips.

1. Focus on each other as well as the kids

We could tell you to start putting each other first. But chances are it’s not gonna happen. Parents with children between the ages of 6 and 17 are having less sex than even those with younger children, according to research. Blame co-sleeping, snowplow parenting or “generalized family anxiety” caused by everything from travel soccer to SAT prep. More than past generations, parents are putting kids front and center, and their sex lives are taking a hit. Here’s advice from psychologist and author Dr. Debra Campbell: “Dispense with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ attitude to sex because passion and excitement thrive most on creativity and a bit of novelty. That means, don’t limit yourselves by thinking about sex as purely intercourse, as only happening at a particular time of day or night, or requiring certain circumstances— especially now circumstances have changed.” A weekly date night might not be feasible, but making out in the car after a parent-teacher conference could be. Hug occasionally. Say thank you. Kiss hello and goodbye. As relationship guru Dr. John Gottman says, good marriages thrive on “small things often” as opposed to the single, annual, grand romantic gesture.

2. Check your meds

This one’s complicated. Depression and anxiety inhibit sexual desire. But often, so do the essential antidepressants and birth control pills we take to mitigate both. However, depending on multiple personal factors, from physiology to psychology, you may find that a lower dose or a certain type of birth control impacts your sexual desire differently. You may have a better response to an IUD than to an oral contraceptive, for example. Definitely talk to your doctor. And (here’s an idea) bring your spouse in on the conversation.

3. Banish tech from your bedroom

For many long-term couples, Netflix and Chill evolves into Netflix and Pass Out. We’ve done deep dives into how phubbing can be toxic for romantic relationships. And research shows that sleep deprivation (whether it’s caused by parenthood, work worry or tech use) reduces sexual desire. More sleep = more and better sex. And it turns out all that late-night Instagram scrolling may be eating away at your self-esteem and your sex life as well as your sleep. “A large and growing body of research reports that for both men and women, social-media use is correlated with body dissatisfaction,” writes Julian in her Atlantic story. Feeling hot is key to arousal. Is watching a 26-year-old travel Influencer jog down the beach in Phuket going to help? “A review of 57 studies examining the relationship between women’s body image and sexual behavior suggests that positive body image is linked to having better sex. Conversely, not feeling comfortable in your own skin complicates sex.” Anything healthy and positive you can do for your body—and the less time you spend comparing it to anyone online in a bikini—will probably improve your sex life.

4. Stop counting

When it comes to sex, it’s quality over quantity. How often you do it matters less than how happy you are with your sex life, according to relationship therapist, author and sex researcher Dr. Sarah Hunter Murray. The average married couple has sex once a week or less, and those who do are just as happy—and perhaps happier—than those having it two to three times a week, per research in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. “The frequency with which we have sex receives a lot of attention because it’s the easiest way to measure and compare our sex lives to our peers,” writes Hunter Murray. “But having lots of bad sex isn’t going to make anyone happy nor is it going to leave you feeling satisfied.” She advises looking at the reasons why you’re not having sex and doing what you can to work on those together. Is it because you approach money differently? He’s critical of your parenting style? Your careers are in different stages? You resent the division of household labor or carry more than your share of the mental load? What can you do to communicate about or change your circumstances? “If we are fighting or falling out of love with our partner, not having sex could be a symptom of a much larger problem,” writes Hunter Murray. “However, if we are simply busy, sick, navigating parenthood, or identify as asexual (and the list goes on) then it may be more circumstantial and nothing to panic over.” The bottom line? Less frequent good sex is better than bi-weekly sex that leaves you cold or not feeling any closer.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

Is the Body-Affirming, Gender-Expansive Sex Ed Preteens Need

Three new books explore the variety of transgender experiences.

Why many parents struggle to let their boys be “feminine.”

How to raise sons without pigeonholing them into gender stereotypes.

1. Remember that “boy” doesn’t really tell us anything specific about someone’s interests or habits.

2. Actively offer your son the “feminine” options.

3. Watch your gendered language.

4. Introduce your sons to people who are gender-nonconforming.

5. Keep educating yourself.

6. Be an advocate in your community.

Here’s how to answer kid’s reproduction questions to raise children who are allies and respect diversity.

Why Are These Conversations So Hard?

The ‘birds and bees’ conversation doesn’t need to be tougher, it just needs to be bigger.

Learning the Language

The Right Time to Talk

How to Keep the Conversation Inclusive

If it’s not yes then it’s no

Don’t fear rejection

Tackle the power of pressure

Deconstruct stereotypes

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

What Is Consent?

How Do I Know If My Partner Is Giving Consent?

Consent & Alcohol Or Drugs

Consent & Condoms

Consent & Nude Photos

How Do I Ask For Consent?

What Is Title IX?

The eight deep discussions that can save a dying relationship

John and Julie Gottman have devised dates for ailing couples – but how many are ready for this level of openness and sincerity?

There’s a lot of information floating around the interwebs on how weed affects your erection. What’s the truth?

This feminist gynecologist wants you to know your body and fight the patriarchy

With her new book, Jen Gunter aims to fight the myths that plague women.

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

So how do you make sure your hookup is ethical?

Men who burned over 8,000 calories each week had lower risks of erectile dysfunction

Women who logged more cardio time said they had better orgasms

How pelvic floor physical therapy works