Category: Sexual Shame

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Many survivors aren’t sure what to do after a sexual assault

– Here’s what you need to know

By

Millions of people have experienced sexual violence and abuse in England and Wales, but many do not know where to go, or who to turn to afterwards. Shame felt by victims and survivors of sexual violence can be reinforced by the responses of family members and others.

This means many find it difficult to get help, sometimes carrying the burden of abuse for years. As one survivor I spoke to put it: “My parents didn’t want to know when I spoke to them about it. I grew up in the age of where everything was hidden. So, I kept this totally from everybody until 2021.” Perpetrators count on survivors of abuse not being heard.

I’ve been researching the work of Sexual Assault Referral Centres (Sarcs) in England, and speaking to survivors who have used their services. The narratives people share are upsetting, but give me hope – there is a strong network of Sarcs and other sexual violence and abuse services providing support to people across England, whether people choose to involve the police or not.

Getting help as soon as possible is important for any injuries and to reduce risks of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancy.

A person may prioritise contacting the police, especially if there is ongoing risk of harm to them or a third party. The police will check safety and refer victims and survivors to support agencies like Sarcs. A survivor can opt to provide a witness statement at the appropriate time.

The first Sarc opened in 1986. Today there are over 50 across England and Wales. Sarcs can be a first point of care for any survivor, no matter their age, gender or how long it has been since the abuse occurred. They can be reached 24/7, and offer crisis support, first aid, pregnancy and STI testing, emergency contraception, forensic care and referrals to other services like independent sexual violence advisers.

What happens when you seek help after sexual assault

Sarcs offer the choice to have a forensic medical examination to collect evidence, which may be useful if the case goes to court. These samples, which include swabs of where physical contact took place, must usually be taken within a few days. Acting quickly gives the greatest chance of securing forensic evidence.

These exams were once undertaken in busy emergency departments and police stations, but Sarcs provide dedicated private spaces and a supportive environment. One survivor I interviewed referred to their experience as “a remarkably positive experience, considering the circumstances. I was impressed by [the forensic practitioner’s] professionalism and her knowledge, she was supportive in terms of me being a victim.”

Unless there are overriding safeguarding concerns, survivors have a choice about whether or not to involve the police. The staff at a Sarc can help a person decide the best course of action for their situation. This could include storing samples for reporting in the future, and anonymous reporting.

A circle of people sitting in chairs in a support group, focus is on one young woman with peers comforting her
Sarcs help survivors access other services like counselling and support for domestic abuse.

Sarcs are not the same as Rape Crisis centres, which are run by the voluntary sector. Rape Crisis England and Wales provides a 24/7 helpline, with around 40 centres offering outreach, advocacy, pre-trial therapy, peer support and counselling. Many also provide specialist advocates who can help survivors navigate the justice system.

Rape Crisis is struggling to keep up with the high demand for its services, in response to record numbers of survivors coming forward for help. A backlog of cases in the courts due to the pandemic, delayed trials and lack of resources in the judicial system, means there are now nearly 10,000 cases waiting, each taking an average of two years to be heard. This places further pressure on voluntary sector services to support people for longer.

What do survivors say about Sarcs?

Through our research, my colleagues and I have spoken to hundreds of survivors between the ages of 18 and 75 about their experiences of Sarcs. We have found that these services are safe and effective, with around 1% of participants feeling they had been adversely affected by the care they received.

On joining our research (around 100 days after contacting the Sarc), 70% of participants had symptoms consistent with PTSD. After one year and contact with many different services, this had fallen to 55%. As one man shared: “I feel that the support I’ve had … has given me a better outlook on life.”

People said they felt safe, believed and understood at Sarcs, and they received accurate and accessible information. Traditionally, the voluntary sector has been the benchmark for survivor-centred, trauma-informed care. But participants in our research rated Sarc care at least as positively as support from the voluntary sector. These results are heartening.

But there is still work to be done to ensure people understand their options after sexual violence. Only around one in 10 eligible people ever access a Sarc’s services. In particular, survivors from ethnic minorities, those experiencing concurrent domestic abuse and those with mental health problems struggle to access help.

Giving survivors choices and control over decisions is crucial in the aftermath of sexual violence. Aside from Sarcs, survivors can talk to a health professional like their GP, sexual health or antenatal care provider, or get in touch with Rape Crisis or The Survivors Trust. No one should have to carry the burden of sexual violence and abuse alone.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Overcoming Adult Toys Stigma

— Embracing Pleasure Without Shame

In today’s society, the stigma surrounding adult toys can often prevent individuals from fully embracing their sexuality and exploring pleasure without shame. This unnecessary guilt not only suppresses personal growth but can also impact one’s overall mental and physical well-being.

Adult toys, when used responsibly, can provide numerous health benefits. They allow us to better understand our desires, preferences, and fantasies, which helps improve our self-confidence and self-awareness. If you want to take a look at some of these, visit Inya Rose.

Additionally, incorporating adult toys into our intimate experiences can significantly enhance pleasure and happiness, while reducing stress and anxiety.

Origins of Adult Toy Stigma

kama sutra

The stigma surrounding adult toys and sexual pleasure can be traced back to societal beliefs and norms throughout history. In many traditional cultures, open discussions on sexuality were discouraged and, as a result, misconceptions and taboos around the intercourse persisted.

These beliefs and attitudes led to shame and embarrassment surrounding the topic of physical pleasure. Consequently, the use of adult toys, seen as a manifestation of one’s pursuit of pleasure, faced taboo as well.

Ancient societies had diverse views towards sexual pleasure:

  • Greek and Roman civilizations embraced sexuality as a natural and healthy aspect of life. Sexual exploration and the use of pleasure devices were considered acceptable.
  • Middle Ages and Christianity brought a shift in attitudes, with conservative beliefs and self-restraint surrounding sexuality becoming prevalent. Sexual devices were stigmatized and seen as sinful.
  • Victorian era further cemented this stigma, with strict moral codes and a culture of prudery. Sexual desires and adult toy usage were kept secret and frowned upon.

Evolution of Norms

Over time, there has been a progressive shift towards a more open, inclusive, and destigmatized understanding of sexuality and pleasure. The 20th century marked a significant change in societal attitudes, with key milestones driving this transformation:

  • 1960s & 1970s: This period saw widespread change in sexual behavior, attitudes, and sexual liberation. Discussions surrounding sexuality grew more open, and the use of adult toys started to gain acceptance.
  • The late 20th century: Mass media played a crucial role in breaking taboos and promoting a healthier attitude towards sex. Movies, books, and television shows began tackling topics like pleasure, exploration, and the use of adult toys.
  • 21st century: The Internet has expanded access to information and resources, further contributing to the normalization of sexual pleasure and adult toy usage. Online stores, communities, and forums have made it easier for individuals to learn about and purchase adult toys confidentially.

Gender Differences and Expectations

Gender Differences

Adult toy stigma revolves around various factors such as gender, socio-cultural beliefs, and personal attitudes. Women who own adult toys may face more judgment or disgrace than their male counterparts. This disparity often stems from traditional gender roles and society’s expectations of what is deemed sexually appropriate for each gender.

Women are often expected to be sexually reserved and demure. When they embrace adult toys, they may be labeled as promiscuous or deviant, leading to stigmatization. This restricts women from exploring their desires and fantasies and reinforcing the idea that pleasure is only for men.

Men, on the other hand, are often assumed to be more sexually expressive and adventurous. While they might also face some judgment because of societal norms, it’s generally more accepted for men to use adult toys.

Our collective effort in challenging these gender stereotypes and breaking the barrier of shame around sexual pleasure is vital in overcoming the adult toy stigma.

Role of Education in Combating Myths

An essential factor in dismantling adult toy stigma is education. Misinformation and misconceptions around adult toys can reinforce negative beliefs and make people hesitant to own or discuss them.

A comprehensive and sex-positive education can help bridge the knowledge gap and create a more open mindset towards sexual exploration and pleasure. It reduces shame and embarrassment by debunking myths and presenting accurate information about adult toys and their benefits.

Schools, parents, and healthcare professionals should prioritize honest discussions and provide a safe space for people to learn and express themselves without fear.

Access to unbiased and informative resources can help individuals form a balanced view on adult toys, overcoming the misconceptions and gender biases associated with them. By curating articles, studies, and forums online, we can encourage open conversations, normalize the use of adult toys, and stress their significance in sexual health and personal wellbeing.

The Psychological Impact of Sexual Shame

Sexual shame can profoundly affect an individual’s mental well-being, influencing their emotions, self-worth, and interpersonal connections. It often stems from a variety of sources, including societal expectations, cultural norms, or personal experiences. Internalizing negative perceptions about sex and pleasure can lead to feelings of guilt and embarrassment, particularly in the context of using adult toys.

This kind of shame can aggravate mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Our emotional health is closely linked to our sexual experiences, and the presence of shame can create obstacles to achieving intimacy and experiencing pleasure. Moreover, the stigma surrounding sexuality can impede open communication with partners, which can strain relationships and reinforce harmful beliefs.

Overcoming Internalized Negative Beliefs

In order to embrace pleasure without shame, it’s important to address and overcome internalized negative beliefs about sex and adult toy use. Here are some steps we can take:

  • Education: Learn about healthy sexuality and the benefits of using adult toys. Knowledge can be empowering, helping dismantle misconceptions and reduce stigma.
  • Self-acceptance: Embrace our desires and understand that sexual pleasure is a natural part of human experience. Recognizing that adult toys can enhance our sex lives and relationships is a crucial step.
  • Open communication: Engage in honest conversations with partners or supportive communities to discuss sexual desires, fantasies, and adult toy preferences. This can foster understanding, break down barriers, and normalize these topics.

Closing Thoughts

couple hands

Approaching adult toys with openness and a positive attitude is essential. This mindset helps in breaking down the stigmas associated with their use, leading to a more open, inclusive, and respectful discourse on sexuality and pleasure. It is vital to always prioritize and respect consent and boundaries in any sexual journey. Upholding these fundamental principles is key to a healthy and respectful exploration of sexuality.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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This is how tech can help us talk about sex without embarrassment

— Examining various players in the field, from established dating platforms to innovative sexual wellness startups, reveals the multifaceted ways technology can serve as a bridge to understanding and acceptance.

By Gleb Tsipursky

How can technology assist us in having more open and honest conversations about sex and sexuality? This question strikes at the heart of a major cultural challenge: the taboos and stigmas around discussing sensitive topics like sexual health and pleasure.

Yet avoiding these conversations leads to negative outcomes on individual and societal levels. The good news is that technology is emerging as a powerful tool to enable shame-free dialogues and create social change.

Platforms enable constructive conversations

A number of platforms provide an opportunity to foster open and constructive dialogues that address sexuality and stigma.

Match, one of the trailblazers in online dating, has consistently refined its platform to foster more nuanced and authentic interactions among its users.

Recognizing the importance of sexual well-being as a component of overall compatibility, Match has integrated features that allow users to communicate their needs and desires more transparently. The profile structures, messaging systems, and compatibility algorithms are carefully designed to create a comfortable space for individuals to express their sexual preferences and boundaries without fear of judgment.

Match’s commitment to creating a user-friendly environment goes beyond mere matchmaking; it encapsulates a drive toward cultivating a community where open communication about sexuality is not only possible but encouraged.

Grindr, a platform dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community, confronts the intersection of technology and sexuality with a keen awareness of the historical and ongoing stigmatization faced by its users.

Grindr has carved out a space in the digital world where individuals can explore their identities, connect with others on a basis of shared experience, and find solidarity in their journeys of self-discovery. The platform’s approach to anonymity, safety, and community engagement is specifically tailored to reduce the sense of isolation that often accompanies the exploration of one’s sexuality, particularly in less-accepting environments.

Through features that cater to the nuances of LGBTQ+ dating and networking, Grindr plays a critical role in facilitating access to supportive networks and resources, thereby contributing significantly to the destigmatization of LGBTQ+ sexualities.

OMGYes dives into the relatively under-explored territory of women’s sexual pleasure with an educational and research-based approach. It represents a significant technological and cultural shift, leveraging empirical studies and real experiences to enhance understanding and communication around sexual pleasure.

Unlike traditional platforms, OMGYes employs tactile simulations and comprehensive tutorials derived from extensive research, including partnerships with researchers at Indiana University and the Kinsey Institute. Users are offered an array of interactive features that teach various techniques to improve sexual satisfaction, presenting this sensitive subject matter with the rigor and detail it deserves.

The platform uses direct user feedback and interactive content to empower individuals to explore and communicate their preferences more confidently, thereby contributing to the larger aim of normalizing conversations around sexual health and pleasure.

Match, Grindr, OMGYes, and others serve as case studies in the creation of digital environments that are respectful, inclusive, and affirming. Their success demonstrates the appetite for platforms that prioritize the complexities of human sexuality and the demand for innovations that transcend traditional limitations on sexual discourse.

Bridging online and offline worlds

Let’s do a deep dive into one specific platform. “Through technology and anonymity, we hope our users are empowered to ask other users anything they want regarding sex and sexuality and not feel judged for both their questions and their replies,” says Mariana Tomé Ribeiro, founder of Quycky, an innovative tech company focused on sexual wellness and education, in our interview.

As Ribeiro explains, Quycky aims to build a bridge between theoretical knowledge and lived experience by “making it easier for users to find toys and other accessories to support their sexual fantasies.” In doing so, it closes the gap between abstract information and embodied wisdom. Integrating mind and body leads to deeper understanding and self-acceptance.

Quycky utilizes gaming features and matching algorithms to connect users based on shared attitudes, interests, and compatibility regarding sex and relationships. This increases the likelihood of forging substantial connections that aren’t limited to physical attraction.

Creating a fun and playful environment through the game also helps users open up. Ribeiro observes that the screen acts as a buffer that allows people to connect more readily. Gaming dynamics make it easier to initiate substantive conversations and share intimate details that many people tend to keep private.

Designing safe community spaces

When tackling sensitive topics like sexuality online, maintaining a respectful environment is crucial. Quycky incorporates community reputation systems where positive behaviors like openness are rewarded through badges and statuses. Users can also block disrespectful individuals.

According to Ribeiro, the goal is to “cultivate respect” because “everyone is different.” Though anonymity sometimes breeds toxicity, consciously fostering inclusive norms can counteract this tendency. Setting communal guidelines, encouraging empathy, and giving users tools to curate their interactions enables healthy discord.

For marginalized groups like LGBTQ+ people, finding spaces to openly discuss sexuality can be especially challenging due to stigma. At Quycky, an adaptive matching system connects users with similarities in sexual orientation and interests, without requiring them to explicitly state a label. The platform “creates a sexual chart that will match you in the future with users alike,” Ribeiro says. This allows organic discovery of one’s desires and preferences.

Of course, bringing sensitive discussions online also poses potential risks around privacy, harassment, and misinformation. But conscious design choices can mitigate these pitfalls. Ribeiro believes that overall, tech will expand access to knowledge and community around sexuality: “I think it can be huge because it’s a way that people feel safe and they can understand more about themselves.”

Countering shame through virtual connections

Religious and cultural conditioning often discourage openness about intimacy. Most people feel some awkwardness discussing sexual details even with close confidantes. Anonymity helps override this hesitancy to share vulnerabilities.

According to Ribeiro, users tend to be more open online. The technology itself acts as a buffer against judgment. This psychological distancing empowers people to voice questions and details they may keep private in their daily lives. Virtual interactions can thus facilitate honesty that for many is much more difficult to achieve in actual relationships.

Some may argue that online platforms foster superficial connections compared to in-person interactions. Ribeiro asserts that by emulating the fluidity of face-to-face conversations, tech can enable meaningful exchanges: “It’s about creating something that is more meaningful and how people connect digitally.”

Elements like games and algorithms to drive interactive narratives counteract the static nature of most online communication. Kinetic energy flows when users respond dynamically to evolving scenarios. The nonlinear spontaneity of natural dialogue gets preserved in virtual environments that are designed to mimic real-world encounters.

Countering biases that perpetuate stigma

Two cognitive biases that likely reinforce stigma around sexuality are confirmation bias and the empathy gap. Confirmation bias leads us to interpret information in ways that fit our preconceptions, making us resistant to changing our minds about taboo topics. The empathy gap makes it hard to relate to experiences outside our own, causing judgment toward sexual practices we don’t share.

Virtual platforms help counteract these biases by exposing users to diverse perspectives and narratives they otherwise may never encounter. The anonymity provided online also bypasses knee-jerk judgments that are often experienced during in-person interactions. Gradually, assumptions get challenged and empathy gets fostered through broadened horizons.

Ultimately, technology platforms like Quycky and others aim to destigmatize sexuality on a societal level by empowering honest personal conversations. Ribeiro explains that “breaking the taboo around sex” begins by helping “people feel comfortable talking about sex in a fun way, and making conversations shame-free.”

Through strategic gamification and adaptive matching, virtual platforms can make users feel at ease opening up about intimate topics. Then the data and insights gained can inform educational content to further reshape public knowledge and attitudes. It is a self-reinforcing cycle where micro-level interaction feeds macro-level progress.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Virginity

Virginity is a very touchy issue in just about every culture on the globe. Curiously enough, it’s almost always exclusively about female virginity. This sad double standard gives rise to emotional conflicts for both genders. But again, it is young women and girls who bear the brunt of it.

Let’s begin with Katelyn who’s 18 years old:

My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year. We’ve just started talking about having sex even though we both took a virginity pledge through our church. We love each other very much and plan on getting married in a couple of years. If we are practically engaged do you think having sex now would be like breaking our promise?

I’m pretty sure that the creators of all those “abstinence only” and “virginity pledge” programs out there like to think they’re keeping kids like you safe from the unforeseen consequences of sex. I’d probably have less of a problem with them if they didn’t have at their base some pretty rank scare tactics.

Scaring people away from sex is a time-honored means of controlling people.

If you have sex, you well surely get a disease!

If you have sex, you will surely get pregnant!

If you have sex, you will be breaking the commandments and you’ll go to hell!

If you have sex, you will be a slut and no one will want to marry you!

And my all-time favorite: If he gets the milk for free, why would he buy the cow?

Full-On Fucking

These sex-negative messages only frighten, intimidate and instill guilt. They certainly don’t teach people how to behave knowledgably and responsibly. And they do absolutely nothing to prepare even those who wind up honoring their pledge of abstinence for the inevitable sex life they’ll have later in life. And that to me is criminal. Young people have a natural, healthy curiosity about their bodies and the bodies of others. Stifling this natural curiosity with veiled threats and fear-mongering does very little good—and a whole lot of harm.

But before I respond to your question, I have a question for you. I hope you’re not actually thinking I might help you rationalize away your impending behavior—Oh sure honey, if you’re gonna marry the lug anyway, why not give it up now?—because I won’t go there. Have the courage to make up your own mind. If you’re old enough to be considering sex, you’re old enough to take responsibility for your actions.

If you abstain from sex out of fear or religious duress, then where’s the virtue in that? It’s just as bad as having sex because you fear losing your boyfriend. Neither option suggests to me that you are behaving knowledgeably and responsibly.

Of course, it’s always easier to decide on a course of action when one has all the information. And that’s where I can be of some assistance. I’m not gonna tell you what you oughta do, but I can offer you some timely information about human sexuality that you apparently aren’t getting from your family, church or your community.

There are many sexual alternatives to full-on fucking. And if you want to remain a virgin, at least technically speaking, you might want to explore these options.

Are you both masturbating? If not, then that’s a good place to begin. You should both be familiar with your own pleasure zones and sexual response cycle before you launch into partnered sex of any kind. I believe that the best sex is mutual sex, where the partners knowingly and without reservation gift themselves to one another. And I don’t see how that’s possible unless you are well-acquainted with the gift…your own body.

I can guarantee that your boyfriend won’t know how to pleasure you, especially if he’s still discovering the pleasures of his own body. And you’d be a very remarkable young woman if you understood the mysteries of male sexuality. So if you’re both unversed in the joys of human sexuality, why not discover them together? Mutual masturbation—as well as oral sex—will help you appreciate the particulars and uniqueness of each of your sexual response cycles. And just think how far ahead you’ll be when you guys actually decide it’s time for full-on fucking. You’ll already know how your bodies work.

Even so, the two of you should be familiar with several different means of birth control—and practicing at least two methods. This is a precaution because, in the heat of the moment, you may decide to escalate things to include vaginal penetration. And if you do, you’ll be prepared. Always have water-based lubricants on hand, even for masturbation. These lubricants work very well with latex condoms. Oil lubricants, like petroleum jelly, baby oil or cooking oil, can cause latex condoms to break. So stay away from them.

I realize that procuring all this stuff is gonna be a challenge for young folks like you. But don’t just blow them off just because they’re not readily available to you. This is a big part of being knowledgeable and responsible about your sexuality. If you’re not prepared to go the distance in terms of preparation, you’re not ready to have sex.

Young men and boys have their share of trepidation about impending partnered sex. Here’s 18-year-old Tabor.

I feel kinda silly asking a complete stranger this, but here goes. I’m a pretty normal 18 year old. I’ve had a few girlfriends over the years, nothing really serious, though. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of this one girl; she’s 20, a junior at my school. I really like her and we’re discussing taking our friendship to the next level, but there’s a problem. I’m a virgin. My girlfriend is way more experienced than me and that makes me a little nervous too. She wants me to decide when the time is right. My question is how will I know when I’m ready for sex?

I have a question for you, Tabor, and I hope it doesn’t sound flippant. When do you know it’s time to eat, or sleep? I know many of us eat even when we’re not hungry and sometimes we don’t sleep even when we’re tired. That aside, I suggest that the same bodily signals that alert you to hunger and exhaustion will let you know when it’s time for sex. You’ll want to have sex when you feel the desire to be sexual. I’m not trying to be evasive; I’m trying to get you to listen to your body, because that’s how you’ll know. To be perfectly frank, that’s how all of us know it’s time for sex. We get a hankerin’ for some pleasure and we pursue that till we’re satisfied. Sometimes that’s solo sex and sometimes it’s partnered sex.

If I were to advise you further I’d want to know how much sex you’ve already had with your GF. Has there been any sex play at all? Probably some, right? Otherwise how would you know you like her well enough to consider taking things to the next level?

Penis/vagina intercourse, or as I like to call it, “fucking,” can bring more intimacy and more pleasure than other forms of sex, but it’s not the be-all end-all either. Fucking also carries far more responsibility, particularly for fertile young puppies like you and your honey.

Is it safe to assume that you are well-versed in the complexities of the human reproductive system? I hope so. Not everyone is, of course, even some otherwise smart people. If you’re not clear on the whole concept, there’s no time like the present to do a little boning up, so to speak. Being responsible about sex is as important as being sexual. And being informed about health risks and contraception is the beginning of taking responsibility for your sexual activity.

Remember what I said earlier—that you’ll want to have sex when your body says so? Well, if you take the time to prepare now, you’ll not need to interrupt the moment when your body tells you I’m ready! You should discuss birth control with your girlfriend in advance of any foolin’ around. You should have condoms and lube available. Don’t expect that you’ll have your wits about you when your dick is hard. Remember, you’re not the one who’ll get pregnant if ya’ll screw up. I’ll bet your sweetheart will be impressed with your forethought, too.

Remember, even if your girlfriend is on the pill or has a diaphragm; condoms are a must. One in every ten sexually active teens carries one or more STDs or as we call them nowadays, STIs (sexually transmitted infections). You can consider dropping the condoms only when you’re in an exclusive relationship.

Good luck!

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How Learning Your Desire Style Could Help Spice Up Your Sex Life

By Shaeden Berry

When you hear the word “desire” do you think of burning hot passions?

A low urgent feeling in your belly?

Do you think of Hollywood movies and two lovers tearing each other’s clothes off, tucked behind the locked bathroom door of a party, because they couldn’t keep their hands off one another any longer?

And then, do you think, “can’t relate”? Not because you aren’t attracted to your partner, but because that urgent, spontaneous desire very rarely grips you. For some, that thought process can lead to feelings of shame or beginning to question whether there’s something wrong with them.

At the end of the day, no two people are the same, but it is easy to get bogged down in what you feel like you should want or should feel, rather than tapping into what you actually do crave in the bedroom. Learning whether you have a spontaneous or responsive desire style, or where you sit along the spectrum of desire may help you to understand how you approach our bedroom activities and ensure you’re getting what you really want from your sex life.

What Are Spontaneous & Responsive Desire?

We all exist on a desire spectrum, according to Georgia Grace, sexologist and co-founder of NORMAL, a queer- and women-owner wellness brand. She explains that it’s doubtful any of us will be wholly and entirely spontaneous or responsive, adding that it’s important to know these terms so we can understand there’s no one way of experiencing desire.

“Within spontaneous desire, the desire comes out of nowhere,” she tells Refinery29 Australia. “Like how it might be in the early stages of a relationship,” people who tend to experience spontaneous desire often don’t need an external influence to get them in the mood.

With responsive desire, things are different. “Your body needs a stimulus to bring sex to the front of the mind — whether it be porn, your partner kissing your neck, or even beginning the act of sex itself,” says Grace.

She explains that responsive desire is actually the most common way for people to experience desire, but between bodice-ripping romance novels and the way sex is often spoken about in popular culture, it “doesn’t get the airtime it deserves”.

If you exist on the Internet, you’re probably being fed a lot of content that references spontaneous jumping of bones, and not a lot of slow-building desire, foreplay or being introduced to the idea that many people need extra help or motivation to get in the mood for sex.

In fact, the stereotype that often plays out across our screens is a scenario featuring a long-term relationship, where amorous advances are being knocked back by one partner who’s “not in the mood”. When this is so often displayed as the tell-tale sign of a relationship being dead in the water, it’s unsurprising that many of us might feel the pressure to be spontaneously crackling with desire at all times and find ourselves wondering why we can’t just flick a switch and be instantly in the mood.

It’s also worth considering how these different desire styles are often presented as gendered. Whilst there’s not yet a scientific measurement for desire, Emily Nagoski, author of Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, cites research that indicates responsive desire is the primary desire style for about 30% of women. In an article about the concepts of desire, Nagoski also highlights how spontaneous desire is so actively pushed as the “norm” in society, when, in reality, many people will only feel desire after first experiencing pleasure (i.e. responsive desire). That means, you are not broken or wrong for not experiencing spontaneous desire, and your level of desire is not an indication of sexual wellbeing.

How Can You Navigate Differing Desire Styles In A Relationship?

Let’s return to the Hollywood movie scene we mentioned above. What if, after one party says they’re not in the mood, there was an open conversation between both parties about what could be done to help them get into the mood — perhaps not in that moment, but moving forward? What if not being in the mood wasn’t treated as an issue, but rather, something that’s actually extremely normal?

Having “desire discrepancies”, as Grace puts it, is not an uncommon phenomenon within a relationship. Grace often sees couples in sessions who have differing desire styles, i.e. where one person leans more towards spontaneous desire and the other is more responsive.

If this is something you might be experiencing, Grace suggests that rather than framing it as one person having a higher or lower libido than their partner or partners, she works to help them understand that they are just experiencing desire differently.

Perhaps the responsive partner isn’t getting enough stimulus to become aroused enough for sex, and in these cases, Grace works with them to examine what she refers to as their “brakes” and “accelerators”.

Some people can be extremely sensitive to “brakes”, which are those triggers that make us feel as if sex isn’t a good idea right now and have us finding reasons to not be aroused. They can be anything from feeling touch-fatigued, stressed, worried or even wider issues of social and cultural stresses and anxieties. Meanwhile, “accelerators” are the triggers that turn you on and can be a specific scent, setting, or a sexual act.

Grace says the key is working on becoming more aware of your brakes and accelerators and managing them, trying as best you can to remove brakes and amplify accelerators.

But the important thing is recognising that there is no right or wrong way to feel desire. We don’t need to be always raring to go. But if we are always in the mood? That’s fine too.&

The first step is figuring out how you personally experience desire, and then doing what works for you and your relationship.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How To Deal With ‘Vanilla Shaming’

—Because No One Should Be Made To Feel Bad About Enjoying Non-Kinky Sex

By Sara Youngblood Gregory

Cultural narratives around sex and sexual preferences have long been weaponized to make people feel embarrassed or ashamed of what they like. Indeed, the history of sex-negativity in this country is so rich—propped up by egregiously lacking sex education—that even the increasing normalization of kink in recent years (which is, in itself, a great thing) seems to have a cost. As it becomes more socially acceptable to enjoy fetishes, fantasies, and classically “deviant” sex acts associated with BDSM (like choking, bondage, and other forms of power play), it’s vanilla sex that is now being subjected to societal shaming.

Where kink has become the “new normal” within the popular discourse, vanilla sex has become the new target for derision, with the unfortunate trend of “vanilla shaming” leaving those who enjoy non-kinky sex unnecessarily ostracized. “Vanilla shaming is when there is judgment toward people who have more traditional sex lives,” says certified sexologist Megwyn White, director of education at sex toy retailer Satisfyer. “Some people believe conventional sex is boring, [which they consider a synonym for] vanilla, and this judgment can manifest in various ways, such as mockery [and] exclusion.”

Spend any time on the sex side of social media, and you’ll see the kind of eye-rolling White is talking about. A corner of TikTok called FreakTok is now rife with videos of people denouncing vanilla sex and mocking people, often women, for not being into choking, cutting, slapping, and other rougher kinds of kink, in particular. Even influencer Emma Chamberlain has stated that she feels “embarrassed” about her more conventional sexual preferences.

As vanilla sex gets the “undesirable” label, people may feel undue pressure to abandon their preferences and embrace kink, whether to appear less prudish or appease a partner (both of which are problematic).

What does vanilla shaming look like in practice?

Vanilla shaming isn’t so much a new phenomenon as it is a new brand of the same judgment long applied to sexual preferences, particularly of folks who identify as women. In our misogynistic society, a woman who seems to have “too much” sex—or, by proxy, enjoys sex or kink too much—has long been labeled a slut, whereas a woman who doesn’t have “enough” sex (or doesn’t get adventurous enough in bed) has long been called a prude.

Vanilla shaming, then, falls on the latter end of that spectrum and is akin to prude shaming, says AASECT-certified sexuality educator Jules Purnell, MEd. “If someone doesn’t engage in kink or BDSM play, they’re considered boring or uncool and aren’t exciting enough in bed.”

“If someone doesn’t engage in kink or BDSM play, they’re considered boring or uncool [by those engaging in vanilla shaming].” —Jules Purnell, MEd, AASECT-certified sexuality educator

Exactly what is considered vanilla in this frame is subjective; after all, one person’s spicy is another person’s “normal.” But generally, vanilla shaming can be any form of putting down someone for liking anything that falls within the traditional realm of heteronormative p-in-v intercourse.

The best way to identify vanilla shaming is to notice your emotional and physical reactions to other people’s actions and comments in regard to sex. Have you ever felt embarrassed when a partner says you’re not adventurous enough? Has your stomach ever dropped when your sexual desire, pleasure, or boundaries have been written off as boring? These feelings are all cues that you may be experiencing vanilla shaming.

What do people engage in vanilla shaming?

Shaming someone for any kind of sexual preference—whether their tendency toward overtly vanilla or kinky sex, or anything in between—is a tactic to make them feel less worthy of pleasure, respect, and care because of their desires. In this way, “sexual shaming can be used to erode a person’s sense of agency,” says White, in order to control or abuse them. After all, an ashamed, powerless person “is much easier to manipulate,” says Purnell.

“Sexual shaming can be used to erode a person’s sense of agency.” —Megwyn White, certified sexologist

For example, someone who is vanilla shamed by a partner (and made to feel as if their desires are unworthy) may be more easily coerced or pressured to try something that they don’t want to do, or that feels uncomfortable, scary, or even dangerous to them. A common scenario? A person urges their girlfriend to try a threesome, and when she declines, he criticizes her for being too bland. That puts her in the lose-lose position of either internalizing the criticism or giving into something she doesn’t want to do—which certainly aren’t fair circumstances under which to offer consent, anyway.

Though this kind of vanilla shaming comes from the same sex-negative root as kink shaming—with both emerging as ways to put down people with particular sex preferences—the two extremes differ in key historical context.

It’s important to remember that people who engaged in kink and types of “cross-dressing” associated with LGBTQ+ gender identities were considered mentally ill (as defined by diagnostic codes for BDSM, fetishism, and transvestic fetishism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until 2013. And even to this day, kinky people still run the risk of employment discrimination and job loss, and losing custody of their children. The same level of governmental discrimination has not been applied as a means to shame people who enjoy vanilla sex, thus still assigning these folks a level of privilege by comparison.

What are the negative effects of vanilla shaming?

Feeling ashamed of your sexual preferences can keep you from being able to connect with and act on your desires, says Purnell. “Once we’ve been shamed for long enough, we take on that shaming as a personal project and police our own desire, too.”

That means you could start denying your desires, identity, or sexual orientation in the face of shaming, says White. “This suppression of self can not only hinder personal growth and self-acceptance, but it can also have a negative impact on your sexual well-being,” she adds. Indeed, disconnection from your sexual self “can contribute to sexual dysfunction, such as erectile dysfunction, difficulty experiencing orgasm, or lack of sexual desire,” she says.

More broadly, feeling ashamed of your sexual desires could also cause you to neglect your sexual health, perhaps leading you to bypass the use of STI tests or birth control, or to refrain from seeking out information or education on sex, adds White.

On an emotional level, vanilla shaming can also create barriers to intimacy. “Intimacy is, at its core, about embracing vulnerability and creating trust between partners,” says White. “Sexual shame erodes both the ability to be vulnerable with your partner and the trust necessary for a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship.”

How to deal with vanilla shaming in a relationship and feel confident in your sexual self

Have a conversation about sexual shaming

If a sexual partner in your life is engaging in vanilla shaming (or any kind of sexual shaming), ask them to have a conversation. Let them know you’ve noticed their recent put-downs about your sexual preferences and share with them how these comments or actions are negatively affecting you and your ability to feel comfortable and intimate with them.

If their response indicates that they’re willing to be more mindful of their actions and to avoid vanilla shaming in the future, be clear about the kinds of behaviors and comments you’d like them to change, and what would allow you to feel completely shame-free during sex.

Set boundaries around sex talk

Boundaries are personal guidelines for behavior and are communicated to let others know how you will act in certain situations. “A boundary that may be important in this scenario would include not participating in conversations that engage in shaming the sexual experience, desires, or expression of others,” says therapist Jessica Good, LPC, owner of Good EMDR Therapy.

Abiding by this boundary would look like this: If you’re hanging out with friends or family members, and someone starts to make comments putting down or shaming the sexual preferences of another person, you would say, “I’m not comfortable with the way you’re talking about this person. If it keeps up, I’ll need to leave,” suggests Good. This way, you’re more likely to keep your interactions with sexual shaming to a minimum.

Re-evaluate the relationship

If sexual shaming is a continued issue with a romantic or sexual partner, it may be time to reconsider the relationship altogether. “If you are able to share your feelings, and your partner responds in a positive way, showing that they’re listening to your perspective and [are willing to] change their behavior, that is a positive sign for the relationship,” says Good. “However, if they seem disinterested in your experience or dismiss your feelings and concerns, it would be wise to exit that relationship.” There’s no amount of sexual shame that’s worth enduring as a cost to remaining in a relationship.

Embrace personal sex-ploration

Sometimes, sexual shame can be so pervasive, you begin to apply it to yourself and perceive your own preferences or desires as the problematic thing that needs to change. Allow this to be a reminder that whatever preferences you may have—so long as they don’t harm anyone else—are valid and acceptable. And learning to celebrate your desires is a part of resisting sexual shame and reclaiming your right to sexual pleasure in the process.

A good place to start? Learning more about sex, pleasure, and anatomy. Consider reading up on pleasure, attending online sex-positivity workshops, exploring your sex personality type, or embracing the benefits of masturbation as a way to reconnect with your sexual self.

Seek professional support

If vanilla shaming is getting in the way of your ability to engage in sexual or intimate activities, or you can’t shake the belief that your vanilla preferences make you less-than or not “good” enough for a partner (or prospective partner), Good suggests seeking support from a sex therapist or mental-health practitioner. A professional can help you disengage from harmful beliefs internalized from others or from societal narratives, and reconnect with your worth, as both a person and a sexual being.

At the end of the day, it’s essential to remember that there’s nothing broken about enjoying vanilla sex; it’s one flavor among many.

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Can Kink Help You Let Go of Shame and Anxiety in the Bedroom?

— Folding in kink and BDSM play can help soothe anxious feelings and release shame.

By Jackie Lam

Key Points

  • Kink and BDSM may help alleviate anxiety, release shame and boost creativity.
  • Go slow. Learn the ropes of kink before you dive in.
  • It doesn’t have to look like “Fifty Shades of Grey.” There are other options, including safer ones that may be easier for beginners.

Common depictions of kink and BDSM, or bondage, discipline and sado-masochism, include latex, whips and flogging devices. These popularized notions of kink and BDSM culture are mainstream thanks to cultural phenomena such as “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

But kink has a much broader range of options—and it doesn’t have to involve a ball gag. Many women struggling with feelings of shame and anxiety experience challenges letting go in the bedroom. Here’s how kink could help.

How can kink help reduce anxiety?

In Norway, roughly 38 percent of people have experimented with a kinky activity during sex, suggested a 2021 study. Kink is more common than we may think, and it could have some unexpected potential health benefits.

Grounding techniques, meditation and spending time in nature can help you gain control of anxiety. There’s one avenue, though, that not everyone knows can help reduce anxiety—and it starts in the bedroom.

BDSM sex may help, as kink can potentially generate flow and transient hypofrontality, or the need for the brain to think, suggested a 2022 study.

What are the different types of sexual shame?

Sexual shame is a particular form of shame characterized by feelings of humiliation or disgust around one’s own identity and sexuality, according to a 2017 study.

Feelings of shame are made up of three main parts:

  1. Relationship sexual shame. This has to do with interpersonal relationships and feelings involving others.
  2. Internalized shame. Feelings of humiliation, disgust or abnormality are sometimes expressed as bodily shame.
  3. Sexual inferiority. Feeling as if you’re not meeting your sexual expectations, often due to societal norms and cultural expectations, can result in shame.

What are the origins of sexual shame?

Where do shameful feelings about sex come from? The answer is complex and varies between people, but there are common sources.

Sexual shame can stem from several places and may be due to the following factors, said Maria “Two-Straps” Hintog, an EDSE sex educator based in Los Angeles:

  • Culture
  • Gender norms
  • Gender roles
  • Gender expectations
  • Social settings
  • Religion and the church

“A lot of the shame comes from our upbringing and our past experiences because, especially as kids, we’re absorbing gender norms and the cultural norms and what you’re not supposed to do,” Hintog said.

Those childhood experiences shape our future selves. These feelings can lead to anxiety for some people.

“So we’re told not to do something, but we don’t know why. We just absorb that information. And then, as we grew older, we’re like, ‘Why is this bad? Nobody told me why it’s bad. They just told me it is,'” Hintog said.

What is the difference in sexual shame between men and women?

Men scored far higher than women on suppressing their sexual desire, suggested a 2023 study. However, there wasn’t much difference between the two genders when it came to sexual desire or sexual shame.

There wasn’t a dramatic difference in cognitive reappraisal, which has to do with changing how a person thinks about a particular situation in the bedroom. Many of us grow up in homes that discourage talking about sex, power and consent, said Mistress Amanda Wildefyre, a professional dominatrix based in Minneapolis.

“Some of us have been taught that it’s wrong to want experiences that don’t match up with our gender or that only certain types of people can enjoy sex,” Wildefrye said.

How can kink help women express desires and set boundaries?

“Engaging in kink/BDSM is a multi-edged sword—in a good way,” Wildefyre said. “These alternative practices ask us to learn to communicate our desires, negotiate expectations and express enthusiastic consent with our partners. BDSM play also encourages us to recognize and reflect on our physical and emotional reactions during and after intimacy.” By following a safe and consensual framework, kink and BDSM can offer the built-in reward of satisfaction and affirmation of our unique desires, which may lead to a reduction of shame and anxiety over time, Wildefyre said.

“When you’re doing those things in that controlled environment, sometimes that’s enough to remind the person that it’s okay,” Hintog said. “‘I’m safe. I don’t have any further repercussions from this.'”

How can kink help you feel safe with the right partner?

A controlled environment, boundaries and aftercare can play into creating a safe space. These feelings of safety can help release bouts of anxiety and shame. “Kink/BDSM play offers a template for clear communication about likes and dislikes, compatibility and expectations,” Wildfyre said. “Safewords give us an explicit language to indicate when we need a pause or would like the action to stop.” Healing can occur during aftercare—the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical caretaking aspects after a sexual experience.

“When you’re with a partner you trust, that aftercare builds connection and intimacy,” Two-Straps said. “And it tells your brain, ‘We did this scary thing in a controlled environment, and now we’re safe.'”

How can kink help you relax and transform shame?

At its best, kink/BDSM offers a narrative-changing context for pleasure and approval for the parts of ourselves we have been made to feel ashamed of, Wildfyre said.

As a teenager, Wildfyre was teased relentlessly for being “too tall.” When she started playing with female dominance, her height became an asset. An athletic, cis-gendered masculine-expressing male, for example, might feel more comfortable indulging in being submissive, something for which they may have previously been ashamed.

BDSM activities indicated reductions in psychological stress and an increase in a mental state linked to heightened creativity, indicated a 2016 study.

Where can you go to learn more about kink and BDSM?

If you’re keen on exploring kink, Hintog suggested relying on reputable sources. Immerse yourself in BDSM 101. Find local meetup groups or sign up for workshops to build community with like-minded people.

See if there are reputable dungeons, or safe areas for BDSM, near you. When exploring kink with a partner, it’s important to negotiate boundaries and consent, explained Hintog. Kinky scenes can involve physical, psychological and emotional risk. “Education, making friends and building community are a great way to start,” Hintog said. “That way, you’re learning as much as you can.”

Let your kinky side emerge at a pace you’re comfortable with.

“If in a relationship, you can introduce a few new things at a time and explore together, which is very bonding and playful when done with a loving partner,” said Charlynn Ruan, Ph.D., a California-based clinical psychologist and founder of Thrive Psychology Group. “If single, there are workshops and events where you can go and observe before getting involved.”

The bottom line

If you’re new to kink and the BDSM world, have realistic expectations, Wildfyre said. Kink and BDSM play may have a unique array of potential benefits, from alleviating shame and anxiety to boosting creativity, but don’t rush the learning process.

“Even though you may have had kinky fantasies all your life, it will take some time and a bit of compromise to bring your explorations to the real world,” Wildfyre said.

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“Pleasure is Holy”

— How These Latinas Broke Free From Purity Culture

By Jessica Hoppe

The story of how I lost my virginity — a tale I long held onto — was a lie. A fiction as false as the construct itself, I fabricated the narrative to please my boyfriend. Before we got together, he expressed that my chastity was one of the most appealing qualities I possessed. His previous girlfriend had not been a virgin, and he resented not having been her first. Sloppy seconds, the boys called it. Although I became sexually active with him, I’d done it once before, a fact that I clearly needed to keep secret if I wanted him to pick me.

This double standard barely registered to me as a teen. Though premarital sex was not allowed, it was normal for men to have sex before marriage. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, a sect of US evangelical Christianity, my mother hoped the religion would safeguard her daughters against the violence she’d endured — a common response to abuse and gender discrimination. In reality, however, organized religion often uses fear to control our bodies, corrupting natural rites of passage through an anti-pleasure philosophy.

Over a decade of affiliation, I watched as the church judged and punished dozens of women for acting upon their desires. The men who did the same didn’t face any humiliation or consequences. Sequestered behind closed doors for hours, girls had no choice but to answer to a tribunal of elders — three or four self-appointed, middle-aged white men — who, through an intimately inappropriate line of questioning and based on the rumors they had heard about each girl’s behavior, assessed her level of repentance. From what I saw, the tribunal never believed any of the women or girls were contrite. 

“
“Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, a sect of US evangelical Christianity, my mother hoped the religion would safeguard her daughters against the violence she’d endured — a common response to abuse and gender discrimination. In reality, however, organized religion often uses fear to control our bodies, corrupting natural rites of passage through an anti-pleasure philosophy.”
— jessica hoppe
”

When the elders deemed the victims guilty, everyone would find out. An appointed elder read their names aloud at the following service, publicly declaring their status to the congregation as disfellowshipped, which initiated a period of banishment. No one could speak to or acknowledge her for months — some for years — until the elders decided she was repentant and approved her reinstatement.

Through this indoctrination and the gravity of our family history, I began to think of my sexuality as separate from my body, aligning myself with the dictates of purity culture in order to be chosen. So I could feel safe. I had no idea I’d fallen prey to a favorite instrument of white supremacy.

Evangelists contextualize sex exclusively within a heteronormative framework and uphold the image of a thin, able-bodied, cis, straight, white woman as the epitome of purity, perpetuating colonial and Eurocentric values that systemically oppress women of color. The promise to wait for marriage seems universal, but what is the result when that aspiration is unattainable no matter your actions because it’s at odds with your identity?

As it turns out, it can wreak havoc on your mental health and familial relationships. A study conducted at University of Massachusetts Boston found that while the normalization of oppression — the restriction of sexual agency, the teaching of shame as a response to pleasure, and the perpetuation of rape culture — harms all, women of color were uniquely injured by the alienation of the rhetoric, expressing symptoms that “mimic that of posttraumatic stress disorder.”

“
“Specifically within the Latinx community, purity culture comes from marianismo, a deep devotion toward the Virgin Mary and a set of beliefs that encourage women to be pure, wait until marriage, respect patriarchal values, and self-sacrifice for the sake of the family.”
— Adriana Alejandre
”

“Specifically within the Latinx community, purity culture comes from marianismo, a deep devotion toward the Virgin Mary and a set of beliefs that encourage women to be pure, wait until marriage, respect patriarchal values, and self-sacrifice for the sake of the family, ” Adriana Alejandre, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy tells Refinery29 Somos. “Whereas, the opposite is allowed for men. There is more forgiveness when men do not respect purity culture than for girls or women. When individuals outgrow this controlling perspective, it often creates estrangement among family members.”

Alejandre further explains that the effects from childhood are lifelong and require that we “unlearn harmful messages around sexuality and gender, such as virginity being a woman’s only worth and gift to husband upon marriage, being ashamed of sexual desires, [dressing] modestly, among many others.”

It is in regaining self-trust that healing can begin. Alejandre advises her clients to pay attention to the feeling of control and imposition. When is the message not coming from within you? “We can reject purity culture by embracing liberation, having open and developmentally appropriate conversations about sex to children, refraining from making statements such as, ‘sex is for marriage,’ and teaching all generations about body autonomy and consent,” she explains. “Lastly, I would recommend journaling about messages you received around sex, sexual education, consent, and sexual expression. Some questions to ask can include: How do these topics make me feel when I talk about them out loud to someone else? What are messages I grew up with? What are some beliefs I still carry even though I may not want to? How has my sexual expression changed over time?”

“
“It is my choice now to rebuke it and reclaim my own: Pleasure is holy; it is freedom, and it is my birthright.”
— JESSICA HOPPE
”

While I do not turn to scripture often in my recovery from religious and sexual trauma, I do take delight in knowing that the Bible muses erotically through the entire Book of Solomon: A sensual collection of poems depicting lustful, consensual encounters ripe with juicy metaphors for arousal, genitalia, oral sex, and a woman who is not cast to fall on her back and receive; she is the pursuant. It is the story of her sexual awakening, and she never suffers for her passion. The sex is triumphant.

In rereading these ancient texts, I am reminded that it is the church’s calculated interpretations that have perverted sex with shame, a toxic message perpetuated from pulpits all over the world and across generations. It is my choice now to rebuke it and reclaim my own: Pleasure is holy; it is freedom, and it is my birthright. Here, three Latinas from different religious backgrounds discuss how they liberated themselves from purity culture and what they found on the other side.

Joy Valerie Carrera

I grew up evangelical Christian. To me, purity culture was something that was about remaining pure for God, and how it manifested in my life was through unrealistic standards of perfectionism in my relationships, in my behavior, and in my ways of being to ensure that I would one day enter heaven and could not afford to mess up because of one tiny thing. It fed into this anxiety. As a neurodivergent child, it made me feel like I was constantly messing up and not fitting this mold of “perfect.” It contributed to masking so much of who I truly was.

As a teenager, I remember signing a pact with God that I would remain pure until marriage. I was given a key to symbolize my virginity, the key to my heart that on my wedding night I would give to my husband. When I was 16, I thought I was in love with my high school boyfriend. I was waiting for marriage, and we had been dating for a year. My hormonal teenage brain figured a “loophole” would be that it was fine if we had sex because we would eventually get married. I ended up leaving religion at 18, but the conditioning was there and something I would keep learning to rewire. I had been raised to believe that once you had sex, you were tied and bonded to the person for a lifetime, so I ended up staying in this relationship longer than I should have, even though it was unhealthy. I had this guilt and shame that I could not break my pact with God. 

“
“Purity culture was something that was about remaining pure for God, and how it manifested in my life was through unrealistic standards of perfectionism in my relationships, in my behavior, and in my ways of being to ensure that I would one day enter heaven.”
— Joy Valerie Carrera
”

I was assaulted at 21, and that was a huge turning point for me because I logically knew it was not my fault, but I had that deep ingrained belief that because I had betrayed God and left the church I was being punished. I transitioned into the complete opposite, exploring my sexuality fully and doing everything that I was told I was not supposed to, but still had this underlying guilt and shame.

It has taken me 10 years of therapy, coaching, deep reflection, so much exploration, and embracing self-love to unlearn the deep, old religious conditioning. I now feel more confident in who I am and realize when the shame pops up, those aren’t my beliefs. They are beliefs that are ready to be liberated. This next phase of my journey, I hope to keep letting go of those to enter into conscious, intimate, and healthy relationships free from the pressure that my religious upbringing put on me.

Margot Spindola

As a cis Latina woman who went to Catholic K-12 school in a small rural town, purity culture was communicated to me through a series of insidious signals and messages that brought about immense introspection, shame, and insecurity about my own body — something I still struggle with unlearning to this day.

I learned about purity in Catholic school. While in seventh grade, I took a sexual education course taught by one of the moms of the community who was also a registered nurse. Despite her background, I distinctly remember her standing at the front of the class, waving her hands in the air, and telling us, “Condoms are of the devil.”

When I was 14 or 15 years old, my immigrant mami slipped a “God’s Plan” brochure underneath my bedroom door.I was already on my way to having sex by then, so it’s maddening that other people felt like they had control over my body when I was barely even wrapping my head around my own relationship with it.

In my junior year of high school, I attended what they called a “Morality” class, where philosophical debate and scripture overlapped and we would spend hours listening to my teacher drone on about natural family planning and how having premarital sex would send me straight on the path to purgatory. Because I was already feeling the asphyxiating grasp of organized religion’s hands around my neck, I knew that this talk of being a virgin was likely to be a scam. I didn’t yet realize or understand the invisible script it had coded into my body as I grew older. For a short time, I wore a purity ring. At the time, I didn’t truly resonate with my body and felt numb. Following the scripts my community gave me felt like the only way forward

“
The most radical act of rejecting purity culture is acknowledging the harms it has perpetuated.”
— Margot Spindola
”

Fast-forward to today, I’m 27 years old, and I embrace pleasure. But this didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual process of self-reflection, critical thinking, and having conversations about sex. My body is no longer someone else’s to dictate. Instead, it is the “practice ground for transformation,” as adrianne maree brown so thoughtfully affirms in her book, Pleasure Activism. I’m thankful for the ways I was taught, regardless of the harm caused, because for better or for worse, it became a catalyst for my reckoning with my body. Instead of ignoring my body’s signals for pleasure (sexual or not), I embrace the ups and downs of where it takes me.

It has taken, and will take me, a long time to get to a place of crafting my own pleasure practice. It’s not to say that shame doesn’t sneak up on me, or that sometimes sex with a man can feel pressuring or the need to serve comes up. But the most radical act of rejecting purity culture is acknowledging the harms it has perpetuated.

Cindy Luquin

From my earliest memories, the concept of purity culture was ingrained in me through my family’s religious beliefs, particularly within the context of Pentecostalism. As the first child born in my family, I witnessed how religious congregations often served as a sanctuary for immigrant families from Latin America when they first arrived in the US, providing a sense of belonging and practical support.

The strong influence of Pentecostalism, combined with my Guatemalan heritage, created a subtle denial of our Maya Indigenous roots within our religious practice. I vividly recall an incident when I was just 4 years old, dressing up in traditional Indigenous clothing for a church event, which stirred conflicting emotions of pride and unease.

These early encounters with purity culture and the erasure of our Maya heritage left a lasting impression, highlighting the complex interplay between religious teachings, cultural identity, and the need for acceptance within the community. As I grew older, the effects of purity culture manifested in a profound internal struggle. I felt wrong for questioning the belief system and witnessed a disturbing double standard regarding gender roles and abusive behaviors.

“
“Although remnants of my religious upbringing occasionally resurface, I have done the necessary work in therapy and through personal healing to reclaim my bodily autonomy and liberate myself from judgment.”
— Cindy Luquin
”

The impact of purity culture led me to suppress my true identity and creative expression as a queer bisexual person. It burdened me with shame and guilt, leading to physical manifestations and a strategy of “faking” illness to avoid attending church. Only later did I realize that these feelings were genuine, rooted in the anxiety I felt about the constraints imposed on me.

In my early 20s, the pivotal experience of moving away to college granted me the freedom to explore my true identity and embark on a journey of self-discovery. Today, I proudly identify as a spiritual queer person, reconnecting with my Maya heritage and embracing the wisdom of Maya cosmology, which values earth, medicine, and nature.

Although remnants of my religious upbringing occasionally resurface, I have done the necessary work in therapy and through personal healing to reclaim my bodily autonomy and liberate myself from judgment. This process has instilled in me a sense of responsibility to support and guide others as a queer elder and educator, free from judgment.

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How growing up in purity culture impacts sex

— The effects of shame-based narratives can have a big impact on our ability to experience pleasure fully.

By Gigi Engle

Purity culture messaging is everywhere. Even if you didn’t grow up particularly religious or even if you had fully atheist caregivers, it’s likely you’ve been exposed to messages from purity culture in some form.

Just look at the sex ed we have in the western world: It’s often focused on abstinence and the dangers of sex. This is rooted in purity culture. Look at sexual spirituality (a movement that masquerades as enlightenment and spiritual awakening all over social media) claiming that you need to sage your genitals in order to “cleanse” yourself of past lovers. Purity. Culture.

Purity culture has seen a massive uptick on social media, especially on TikTok with the emergence of “puriteen” views, finding a niche where it can spread the messages of needing to stay “virginal” and “pure” in order to be considered a good or worthy person in the pretty dressing of fun little videos. It’s sinister, really.

While I myself did not grow up in the church, as a sexuality professional — a sex-positive certified sex educator who specializes, amongst other things, in undoing the damaging messages of purity culture, while advocating for sexual freedom and autonomy – I have worked with countless folx who have. Much of the work my colleagues and I do is around detangling sexuality from the messages of purity culture. It can feel like walking backwards on a treadmill sometimes. This messaging is incredibly harmful and impacts people in myriad ways.

Purity culture messaging is insidious from every angle – but one of the most salient is the impact on sexuality. This “type of subculture isolates us into a box (or perhaps a cage) to the point where it is difficult to express ourselves sexually and it prevents us from having autonomy in seeking sexual relationships,” says Dr. Lee Phillips, Ed.D, a psychotherapist and certified sex and couples therapist.

Basically, it messes with our understanding and connection to our sexuality. And it’s dangerous and damaging.

Whether you’ve freshly thrown off the shackles of purity culture, are attempting to do so presently – or escaped a long time ago, let’s break down how purity culture impacts sexuality – and how you can start to unlearn these messages in order to embrace pleasure and sexual freedom to the fullest extent.

Purity culture is centered on sexuality. While it targets everyone, it specifically centers around female sexuality – and female chastity, Philips says. It emphasizes staying “pure,” which means not having sex (usually intercourse) before marriage.

While this is sort of the cut-and-dry definition, Laurie Mintz, Ph.D. a licensed psychologist, certified sex therapist, and author of Becoming Cliterate, points out that modern Evangelical views of “purity” go far beyond this simplest framework. Within contemporary, fundamental Christianity, not only are women and girls responsible for not engaging in sex of any kind (or even having sexual thoughts), they become the gatekeepers for male sexuality. “Young women and girls in this culture are instructed to be submissive to men, and to be careful how they dress and interact with others to avoid ‘tempting’ men.” Women and girls are seen as the “moral foundation” of society and are pressured to behave modestly so they don’t make the men around them horny. Awesome.

“Young women and girls in this culture are instructed to be submissive to men, and to be careful how they dress and interact with others to avoid ‘tempting’ men.”

It is a culture of sexual suppression. It means “suppressing or trying to pray away any sexual thoughts and fantasies, desires, not masturbating, not looking at certain media, and generally demonizing all forms of sexual expression outside of traditional heterosexual marriage,” explains Lucy Rowett, a certified sex coach and clinical sexologist, who specializes in purity culture and sexuality.

What purity culture messages look like

Now, what do these messages look like, really? Here are a few deeply disturbing examples.

  • Mintz points to likening women to a chewed-up piece of gum than no one would want if they have sexual experiences before marriage.
  • Telling women and girls they are responsible for the behavior of men and boys – that they must have tempted them if they are sexually assaulted or harassed. “Men must be both leaders and ultra masculine, but also cannot control their sexual desires,” Rowett says.
  • Being a good woman means always being submissive to men.
  • Your spiritual value, your “purity”, and your whole value as a person “comes from not just not having sex before marriage, but suppressing your entire sexuality,” Rowett says.
  • Your ability to truly love a partner will be damaged if you have sex – and no one will want you anyway because you’re “damaged goods.
  • If you watch porn, you are addicted to porn. And porn will 100 percent ruin your life. AND you’re going to hell.

These messages are baseless, incorrect, damaging – and downright dangerous. They are anti-science – entirely socially constructed by a puritanical society that wants to demonize sexuality in any form that doesn’t fall within heterosexual marriage.

How the messages of purity culture can filter into our sexuality

Even if we choose to reject the messages of purity culture later in life, they can still negatively impact us without even being aware of it. Shame-based messages are sticky little fuckers. They get their claws into our psyche and refuse to let go. They’re like emotional bedbugs: They burrow in and end up disrupting your peace. Philips points out that these early messages of shame can be quite traumatic – and this trauma impacts the mind-body messaging system.

Central to our ability to experience pleasure during sex is the connection between our brains and bodies. In order to experience pleasure and orgasm to the fullest extent, we need to feel calm and safe. This relaxed state facilitates the messages between the brain and body which, in turn, allows us to experience desire and physical arousal.

Because of the negative messages of purity culture and sexual shame, we can go into a state of Fight, Flight, or Freeze during sexual activity. This breaks the mind-body messaging system. This is a trauma response. As Mintz explains, “If one has been indoctrinated with the message that sex is sinful, that they are sinful, and the like, it is going to result in being immersed in shameful, negative self-talk during sex, rather than experiencing and immersing in one’s body sensations.”

Philips points to the following examples of how the trauma of purity culture messaging can lead to sexual difficulties:

  • Experiencing a sexual problem and believing it is your fault.
  • Feeling very little or nothing during sex.
  • Not speaking up or avoiding discussing sex at all.
  • Unexplained pain, tension, softness, or ejaculation problems for AMAB (assigned male at birth) people.
  • Wanting to rush through sexual experiences.
  • Finding it difficult to engage in sex without relying on substances.
  • Feeling like you are too much or not enough.
  • Feeling afraid to take risks.
  • Losing connection to playfulness.
  • Difficulties with orgasm.
  • Feeling unworthy of pleasure.
  • Being stuck in a cycle of unfulfilling sexual behavior and/or experiences.

5 tips for purity culture dropouts to increase their sexual pleasure

Give yourself the time you need to really heal

Congratulations! You’ve escaped from purity culture and you should be proud. With that being said, the healing process will likely take a long time. “Remember to give yourself a lot of time and space to heal, and know that you don’t need to figure it all out now,” Rowett says. You’ve been inundated with these sex-shaming messages for your whole upbringing. It is going to take time to untangle them and move forward. You’re brave and you’ve got this.

Feel your damn feelings

When it comes to unlearning harmful messaging, emotions can bubble up and spill out. As tempting as it may be to tamp these down, try to sit with them. Revel in the discomfort of it. “You might feel sad and want to mourn the lost years of your sex life,” Philips explains. “You might feel angry, or personally victimized. You may feel hurt. Whatever is there to feel, feel it fully.”

Resource yourself and find community

Start reading books and digesting media from people who have been on this same journey. Mintz suggests reading the book Pure and watching the documentary Deconstructing My Religion to start. Media can help you feel less alone. Next, find your people. There are so many purity culture dropout forums online where you can find people who have the same lived experience that you do.

“Unlearning such toxic, harmful messages is difficult — but with education and support, it is possible.”

Seek professional help

“Unlearning such toxic, harmful messages is difficult — but with education and support, it is possible,” Mitz says. Hire a professional sex therapist or coach who specifically works with folx who come from purity culture. Rowett even has amazing classes that are centered on embracing your pleasure and leaving shame in the past. Learn more here.

Practice conscious masturbation

Conscious masturbation is when you go really slowly with self-touch, breathing deeply and connecting with the sensations in your body. “As you practice conscious masturbation, you will progressively begin to feel safer in your body. This might not happen overnight (especially if the roots of trauma or sexual shame run deep), but it will happen with patience, love, and persistence,” Philips says. It’s simply about being with your body and allowing it to experience pleasure. It is a brilliant way to come into yourself and embrace that your body’s a vessel for pleasure. And that you deserve pleasure!

It might feel like a long road ahead of you, but you can and WILL recover from the trauma of growing up in purity culture. You’re already on your way. And you’re going to crush it.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Is Sexual Repression?

— Do I Have It?

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

By Natalie Evenson, MSN

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

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

What is sexual repression?

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

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

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

Sexual repression symptoms

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

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

Risks associated with sexual repression

If untreated, sexual repression may cause:

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

How to cope with sexual repression

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

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

How to help your loved one

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

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

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

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Surviving purity culture

— How I healed a lifetime of sexual shame

By Linda Kay Klein

In the 1990s, a movement born out of the white, American, evangelical Christian church swept the globe: purity culture. They weren’t the first or only fundamentalist religion to sexually shame women & girls. But this time, the message was mainstream, almost cool: women and girls are either pure or impure, depending on their sexuality. Decades later, we’re just starting to grapple with the long-term effects of these teachings. In this deeply intimate talk, Linda Kay Klein shares how she recovered from purity culture’s toxic teaching — and how she helps others do the same.

Linda Kay Klein is the award-winning author of “Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free.” She is a purity culture recovery coach and the founder and president of Break Free Together, a nonprofit serving individuals recovering from gender- and sexuality-based religious trauma. She has an interdisciplinary Master’s degree in gender, sexuality, and religion from New York University and is a trained Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality education facilitator. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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How To Reclaim Your Sexuality After Sexual Assault

— According to Trauma-Informed Sex Educators Who Are Also Survivors

By Erica Sloan

If you think of the body like a circuit system, “sexual trauma has a way of rewiring things,” says trauma-informed sex educator Jimanekia Eborn, founder of Tending the Garden, a support organization for marginalized sexual-assault survivors that offers a quarterly subscription care package. In the aftermath of endured sexual trauma, things that once sparked pleasure or arousal, like a certain kind of touch or even the words of a loved one, might instead trigger pain, setting off a negative chain reaction circuit-wide, says Eborn. Rebuilding that circuit—not necessarily into what it was, but into a version that lights up just as brightly—can help survivors reclaim their sexuality after assault.

The circuit metaphor is particularly apt for describing the effects of sexual assault because of the ways in which the trauma can infiltrate your whole system. “It isn’t just something that happened to our bodies; it isn’t just something that happened to our brains,” says Eborn. “It is all-encompassing.”

“It’s not that you’re broken, but you have to navigate yourself in a new way.” —Jimanekia Eborn, trauma-informed sex educator

That reality can make it easy to feel like you’re broken. But the switchboard isn’t dead; it’s more accurate to say it needs some reconfiguring. “Sometimes, I have days where my body feels very disconnected from me, or I feel like I’m existing at an angle,” says Eborn, of healing from her own sexual trauma. “It’s not that you’re broken, but you have to navigate yourself in a new way.”

What that path looks like will be different for every survivor, says somatic coach and restorative-justice advocate Marlee Liss. “There’s no one-size-fits-all roadmap to reclaiming your sexuality and pleasure after assault, and it isn’t a linear process either,” she says, “but I think realizing that is a really big part of the healing.”

How sexual trauma can disconnect you from the experience of pleasure and your own sexuality

Though the body can respond to trauma in a number of ways, any response is “an attempt at protecting you and helping you to feel safe,” says Liss. (And it’s helpful to see it through that lens in order to find some self-compassion if your body’s response isn’t what you’d like it to be.)

In terms of a person’s relationship to sexuality, two opposite responses are the most common, says Liss: hyposexuality and hypersexuality. The former is an aversion or fear of sex that typically looks like shutting down desires, rejecting sexual feelings, or numbing out in sexual circumstances “often so that you can feel a greater sense of control over your body and your decisions,” says Liss. It’s the body’s way of compensating for a loss of that control in the past.

The latter, however, is a compulsion toward sex, when “someone hyper-sexualizes themselves more than their typical amount, perhaps because they’ve internalized sexual objectification that’s been imposed upon them or because they’re trying to deny or minimize the reality of the trauma they’ve experienced,” says Liss.

This hypersexualization response may make it seem, on the surface, as if the person has fully learned how to reclaim their sexuality after assault when, in reality, they’re sexualizing themselves purely as a result of trauma, and not because they’re in tune with their body or seeking pleasure.

It’s also possible for sexuality to ebb and flow post-trauma. “Perhaps, one day, all the switches on your circuit are off, and you just want to stay in bed all day, and the next, they’re all on, and you’re craving a sexual experience,” says Eborn. “I think there’s so much shame and blame placed on both sides [of that spectrum] that people struggle figuring out where they fall. But in a healing journey, there’s room for all of it.”

The key to reconnecting with an honest expression of your sexuality after trauma is to be able to observe the way your body responds to different sensory inputs and then listen to its cues.

The key to reconnecting with an honest expression of your sexuality after trauma is to be able to observe the way your body responds to different sensory inputs and then listen to its cues. “Our bodies are constantly telling us in many different ways whether we’re feeling safe, whether we’re feeling unsafe,” says Liss. But when you go into a hyposexual or hypersexual state, or enter another kind of trauma response, it’s easy to miss those cues, she says.

Learning how to turn back toward your own body’s senses and sensations, notice them, and value your right to feel however you feel is the core process of sexual reclamation.

5 strategies that can help you learn how to reclaim your sexuality after assault

1. Release yourself from shame and blame

While it may seem obvious that the survivor of sexual assault is never to blame, the reality is that trauma can get twisted in retrospect.

“There’s a lot of shame that can come with experiencing sexual assault,” says Eborn. And when you consider that the brain is our biggest sex organ, it’s no wonder that holding onto all that shame can distance you from sexual pleasure. “If you’re constantly thinking, ‘This is my fault,’ or ‘I could’ve prevented this,’ it’ll be very difficult to reclaim your sexuality,” says Eborn.

Her advice? Remember that shame is a feeling put upon you by other people, other things, or other circumstances. “Instead of owning that shame as yours, think about it like, ‘This feeling is not mine, and it’s not of my creation,’” says Eborn. Yes, you have to deal with it now, she qualifies, but the important thing to remember is, you didn’t ask for or deserve this.

2. Take yourself on pleasure-focused “self dates”

It’s essential to carve out solo time on your calendar that’s designated just for your pleasure while you’re on the journey of learning how to reclaim your sexuality after assault. Eborn and Liss both call these pockets of time “self dates.” They can be any length of time—whether three minutes or 60, depending on what you can swing—and the only rule is that you use the time to feel good.

Notably, that means you’re not going into these self dates with a particular goal to accomplish or sexual act to achieve. “I think that there can be this kind of capitalist, productive approach to healing from sexual trauma that’s like, ‘I need to be okay again, and I need to be like I was with sexuality, and I need to get there by tomorrow,’” says Liss. “But that kind of pressure can lead us to cross our boundaries and just put ourselves in re-traumatizing places.”

Instead, the point of the self-dates is to focus purely on pleasure—and not necessarily orgasm or masturbation or even anything sexual at all. While you certainly can use the time for a solo sex session, you might also use it to take a hot bath, dance with reckless abandon, or savor a piece of pizza.

“Ask yourself, ‘What would bring me pleasure right now?’ or, ‘What would allow me to connect with 1 percent more pleasure right now?'” —Marlee Liss, somatic coach and sex educator

To figure out which route to go, Liss says to ask yourself the deceivingly simple (yet often overlooked) question, “What would bring me pleasure right now?” Or, if that feels too inaccessible, even just, “What would allow me to connect with 1 percent more pleasure, or peace, or comfort right now?”

This practice can help increase your awareness of your own body and senses, allowing you to practice self-consent, says Liss: You’re asking yourself what would feel good, and then you’re acting upon that, which is a beautiful reclamation of power over your physical being.

Indeed, allowing yourself to answer the question honestly is a reminder of an essential truth: “You know yourself better than anyone else does, no matter what anyone tells you or tries to talk you out of or talk you into,” says Eborn.

3. Reimagine the physical or mental context you’ve created around sex

Simple changes to your environment or approach to sexual pleasure can make a world of difference in how you perceive it in the wake of trauma.

On the physical side of things, consider how you might rid your space from as many triggers as possible, says Liss. Toss any objects that take you to an uncomfortable space, remove triggering songs from playlists, adjust anxiety-provoking lighting, and the like. And at the same time, consider how you might add glimmers—aka the opposite of triggers—into your physical space. Perhaps these safety cues include a particularly calming sound or smell, or a comforting blanket.

When it comes to the mental context you’ve constructed around sex, Eborn also suggests dropping preconceived notions and starting fresh by taking the Erotic Blueprint quiz, which sexologist Jaiya Ma created. The five categories it includes—energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky, and shapeshifter—each encompasses unique sexual turn-ons (for example, soft and wispy touch for the sensual people and something that feels personally taboo for the kinky people).

“By taking the quiz, you can see what might feel connected to get you back in your body,” says Eborn. That answer certainly may have changed as a result of experiencing trauma—and that’s not a bad thing so much as something important to notice. “It’s okay if you no longer want or feel comfortable doing that one thing that was once a turn-on,” says Eborn. “There’s so much body, there are so many ways to touch it, and sex is about far more than penetration.”

4. Redefine your sexual boundaries

Part of learning how to reclaim your sexuality after assault is identifying and honoring your own sexual limits. One way to do this is by creating a Yes/No/Maybe list, says Eborn. Just like it sounds, this involves categorizing any number of different sex acts, fantasies, toys, and positions as “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe,” based on your interest (or lack thereof) in trying them.

This way, you have a reference—“a cheat sheet of sorts,” says Eborn—for what you enjoy, what you don’t, and what you’re open to exploring, which you can also share with a current or future sexual partner, if relevant. Though it might seem like TMI to share it, it’s important to remember that “most people actually want to know how to have sex with you, rather than guessing,” says Eborn.

You can also explore where your sexual boundaries fall during one of your pleasure-focused self dates, above. If you’re tuned into what feels pleasurable, you’ll also be able to better identify what doesn’t (or when something stops feeling good). “A key piece that’s easy to miss is that sometimes, the most liberating breakthrough is you being like, ‘That’s enough for today,’ and knowing where to draw a boundary,” says Liss. “That, in and of itself, can be an experience of pleasure.”

5. Know that sexual reclamation post-trauma isn’t all or nothing

In the headspace—and body-space—of healing from sexual trauma, accessing pleasure of any sort can sometimes feel like a stretch. Which is why, Liss says it’s important to remember that two things can be true: You can feel grief or sadness or pain or anger (or all of the above) about the experience of sexual assault, and you can also reclaim pleasure. “Different feelings can coexist,” says Liss, “and the journey to healing is really about allowing that coexistence to happen without denial.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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It’s Tough to Talk to Your Partner About Sex.

— Here’s How to Start.

First, simply acknowledge that you have it, says sex therapist Vanessa Marin. Then move on to some compliments.

By Catherine Pearson

Vanessa Marin has dedicated her career to discussing the most private details of other people’s sex lives. But, for a long time, she found it hard to talk about her own.

In a new book, “Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life,” the sex therapist, 38, admits that she faked orgasms for 10 years because she couldn’t bring herself to tell partners what she liked. Things improved when she met her husband, Xander Marin, now 37, but once the initial excitement wore off, the pair found themselves in front of an expensive couples counselor, struggling to articulate why their sex life sometimes felt disappointing.

Today, the Marins have parlayed their radical honesty and relatability into a business centered around sexual education, with a popular podcast, a suite of online courses and more than 300,000 followers on Instagram. Ms. Marin paints herself as someone who has often felt awkward and unsure in the bedroom, despite her professional credentials. Mr. Marin, who is not a therapist, says he offers a nonexpert perspective on what it takes to get more comfortable talking about sex.

“So many of us feel alone when we’re struggling with sex,” Ms. Marin explained. “Like, I must be broken; I must be the only person going through this; everyone else has a great sex life. So it feels important to me to lead with vulnerability.”

The book, which the Marins co-wrote, is based on a simple — and, they acknowledge, well-trodden — conceit: Many sex problems stem from poor communication. Yet people seldom get specific and structured advice about how to have those conversations, the Marins believe. The book’s five sex talks are centered around acknowledgment (“sex is a thing, and we have it”), connection, desire, pleasure and exploration.

“I’ve never had a relationship in which I talked about sex as openly, honestly or frequently as I now do with Xander. I’ve also never had a relationship in which the sex was as deeply intimate and wildly satisfying as it is now,” Ms. Marin writes. “I don’t think those two things are coincidences.”

Here’s what Ms. Marin had to say about why it can feel so daunting to talk about sex with our partners and about how to get started.

Questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.

You write that most of us don’t talk about sex often, if at all, with the person who regularly sees us naked. How do you suggest people start those conversations?

A big mistake people make is either they never talk about sex, or the only time they do acknowledge it is when there is a problem, so you sit down to have one of those “we need to talk” conversations. What we tell people is to incorporate talking about sex into their lives on a more regular basis. We recommend you start with giving compliments.

Try giving a compliment about your partner’s physical attractiveness, or the attraction that you feel for them throughout the day. It could be something really tame like: “You look nice today” or “Your eyes are really beautiful.” You can also offer some sort of compliment about the connection you feel. If you’re giving them a hug hello or goodbye, you say, “It feels so good to be in your arms.”

Compliments are an easy way to start talking about sex more openly. There are no goals to those conversations. You’re not trying to accomplish anything. You’re not making any requests or raising any complaints. There’s a little flirtation in it.

You do write a lot about the importance of flirting and trying to create a sense of anticipation around sex. Why is that so important, and what if that kind of flirtation just isn’t part of a couple’s relationship anymore?

Many of us have this expectation that we should feel desire spontaneously out of nowhere, in the exact same moment our partner does. But that’s just not how it works in real life. We write about an idea called the “sex drive simmer,” which is about finding ways to maintain some of the sense of tension and anticipation that you may have had early on in your relationship throughout the day.

One thing a couple can do is exchange flirty text messages, and that doesn’t mean that you’re constantly texting back and forth. It could be something simple like, “Looking forward to seeing you later.” Another thing that we love telling couples to do is to make a playlist of songs that get them in the mood. Just playing that in the background can also be a great way to keep that tension alive.

Part of the book focuses on building a foundation of sexual self-awareness, so people get to know what they enjoy and can eventually share that with a partner. What’s a good first step?

I think anyone can think about the question: What does good sex mean to me? Try to be as detailed as you can about it and to come up with as many answers as you can.

You can kind of trace the arc of a sexual experience so: What is it that you like to feel leading up to sex? (Like, I like it when we’ve had some quality time together already that day.) It can get into how you like sex to be initiated. It could get into what kind of environment you like sex to happen in, and what energy you like to feel during sex. Is it passionate? Is it intimate? Is it safe? Silly? What do you like after?

It’s very easy for us to focus on the problems with our sex life and our frustrations with it and not flip that around to ask: Well, what is it that I actually want?

You write a lot about awkwardness. For instance, you tell people who worry if it will feel strange to start having sex again after a dry spell that it probably will. And you write that awkwardness is the price of admission for good sex. Why?

When you see sex portrayed on TV or in the movies, everything flows, everything looks beautiful and perfect. But sex is a very awkward thing. Maybe you try a new position and it doesn’t feel very good, or you can’t figure it out. We really love just turning that on its head and saying it’s not something to be afraid of or embarrassed about, it’s something to embrace. If you anticipate awkwardness, that brings that pressure way down.

There’s no way to grow up without some amount of sexual shame. We all have embarrassment that comes up around sex. We have areas of our sex life that we don’t want to talk about. We’re all in the same boat together in that sense. But it can make such a big difference in your life individually, and in your relationship, if you can tackle that head on.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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I’m Intersex

— Here’s How That Affects My Sex Life.

“I’ve never understood the idea in society that people should be ashamed of differences like this.”

By Mark Hay

About 1.7 percent of all people are born with intersex characteristics, an umbrella term for sex traits—such as external genitalia, internal reproductive organs, and chromosomal configurations—that don’t line up with society’s artificially tidy binary concepts of male or female bodies. Some of these characteristics are visible at birth: for example, genitals that are notably different from the norms or hard to classify as definitively male or female. Some only make their presence known during puberty, like when people don’t develop in the ways they might’ve expected. Some are so internal and subtle that they’re only identified during an autopsy. In any case, it’s usually impossible to tell if someone has intersex traits just by looking at them in everyday life. Still, living with intersex characteristics can have major impacts on people’s lives—including their sex lives.

To be clear, an intersex characteristic isn’t a medical condition or disability. It’s just one of many natural variations in the way diverse human bodies look and operate. Some factors that lead to intersex variations, like atypical hormone production, can at times also cause serious medical issues that require treatment, but most differences themselves are purely neutral. Yet society’s obsession with categorizing people into one of two binary genders at birth—and with erasing or ignoring anything that complicates the clean (over)simplicity of that binary—means many people with intersex traits grow up with the notion that there is supposedly something wrong with them, but they shouldn’t talk about it. Often, they’re also pressured or forced into “normalizing” themselves to match typical male or female anatomy: Across the world, kids with visible intersex traits are regularly subjected to objectively unnecessary and often harmful surgeries to reshape or remove their genitals, expressly to make them look “normal” and supposedly help them fit into society.

A fair number of people with intersex characteristics don’t feel these traits have much effect, if any, on their sex lives. But several intersex differences can lead to unique experiences of sex and pleasure. And many “normalization” surgeries drastically reduce or eliminate people’s genital sensations, and/or lead to chronic pain and dysfunction in erogenous zones. Thanks to the extreme culture of shame and silence around these traits and experiences, it’s difficult for people with intersex traits—or who are grappling with the effects of unnecessary surgeries—to learn about their bodies, much less articulate and advocate for their sexual wants and needs. Popular misconceptions and stigmas, as well as the risk of someone reacting poorly to diverse genitals or a body that doesn’t work in the ways they’d expect it to, also make it hard for some people with intersex traits to feel comfortable exploring intimacy, or to feel sexy and sexual.

In recent decades, several intersex organizations have formed to push back on pathologization and stigmatization and to help people with intersex characteristics find community and support. But most of their public advocacy and education to date has (understandably) focused on ending unnecessary and harmful surgeries—so there’s still not a ton of public information out there on the issues people with intersex characteristics can face when navigating sex, and how to manage them.

To help bring more visibility to these issues and experiences, VICE reached out to Addy Berry, an intersex woman, and her wife Leea to talk about the ways they’ve approached sex and intimacy. Every intersex experience is unique, so Addy and Leea’s story is hardly universal. But Addy also studies the sexual experiences of people with intersex traits as a PhD candidate and an activist, and shared some of the wider insights she’s gleaned through her research, advocacy, and education work over the years.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Addy: When I was born, my urethra opened on the underside of my phallus, close to the testes. I underwent surgery as a child to reroute it. In medical papers published as late as 2022, doctors have attempted to justify that type of surgery by saying it’s important for boys to be able to pee with their friends—which is a wild justification for a surgery that they perform when no one goes back to see what the long-term effects were on other people. [Editor’s Note: This is one of the most common surgeries performed on infants and toddlers with intersex characteristics.] It’s actually pretty difficult for me to pee anywhere now because there’s a mass of scar tissue within my urethra due to that surgery. So moving my urethra hasn’t done me a whole lot of good.

Doctors insist they can do things like reduce the size of a clitoris—in the past they’d fully remove it—and it’ll all be fine, when there’s no way for them to know that will be the case. Young people I’ve talked to who’ve undergone those surgeries report a lot of pain and also a lot of psychological issues related to the procedures and their long-term effects.

I was also put on hormones pre-puberty, under false pretenses. I didn’t act in accordance with the gender I was assigned—ever—and I got punished for that. Transgender and intersex are not the same thing, but a lot of us were assigned a gender despite uncertainties, and the surgeries done to make us fit that gender then don’t really suit us.

Growing up, my father said things to me like, “You weren’t born with a proper penis,” which is how I knew what my scars were from. And my mother referred to me as an abomination. The effects of all that stigma and shame come up in almost all of the interviews I do—it all has a big effect on your sexuality. I felt the effect on my sense of sexuality pretty early on in life.

Without much sensation in my genitals, likely thanks to that surgery, sex for me was never genital-centric. I could perform penetrative sex, but it doesn’t really do me any good. I was drawn to BDSM, and particularly female domination, from an early age. I’m essentially a masochist. Not everyone in the BDSM community links their involvement back to trauma, but for me I think it’s tied to my history of treatment as an autistic and intersex child who tended to be gender non-conforming and who was raised by a superstitious, sadistic Catholic woman with a lot of issues.

Due to what I was put through in my childhood, I developed into a physically masculine person, and I’d get involved with girls who liked me because of what I looked like—but who’d get angry at me for being feminine even though I was always open about who I am and I didn’t really act masculine. One partner told me that having sex with me was “like having sex with a girl,” and I was like, “Well…” They get angry at you for being the thing you said you were rather than the thing they wanted you to be. There was a lot of incompatibility in my intimate life. And then I found Leea, and there’s been so much compatibility between us that I almost wonder how she’s real. How did we find each other? We should have bought all of the lottery tickets that day. [Laughs.]

Leea: I like to read personal ads because it’s interesting to me to see what people put in them to find a mate. It’s like a love CV or something. I saw this really cute, well-written, dirty Craigslist ad one day, talking about BDSM stuff and with a cute picture, and I said “Oh that’s cool” and moved on. A few days later, I saw the same ad, but all the dirty bits were gone, and I thought that was cute too. I’d never felt inclined to write back to an ad before, but I replied, “Hey, I thought your dirty ad was cuter.” We started texting and then met for a coffee date and really hit it off. 

My dad has a cousin who has intersex characteristics. I’m not sure what they are exactly, but as far as I understood it she’d undergone surgery to make her more female, but because of those surgeries she couldn’t have a child, so they adopted. She told my mother about it because they were good friends, and most of my family knew a bit about it, but nobody talked about it or asked questions. It was kind of a family secret. So I knew intersex characteristics existed before I met Addy, but that was about it. Fairly quickly, it became obvious she was trans but not out. 

Addy: Because of my kiddos.

Leea: But it took a while to realize, “Oh, Addy’s intersex.”

Addy: Yeah, we talked about the surgeries I went through early on and all of that, but I hadn’t attached intersex language to that yet, for myself even.

Leea: Addy had to do a lot of figuring things out because she always knew she’d had these surgeries but she’d never been told specifically what had happened.

Addy: I’d known other words, and I found intersex later. The modern intersex movement has only existed as long as we’ve been able to find and reach each other online.

“The modern intersex movement has only existed as long as we’ve been able to find and reach each other online.” —Addy

Leea: Still, from early on I understood a lot about Addy—and none of it was an issue for me. We’ve just constantly had discussions about where we are. And Addy likes to talk a lot anyway. 

Addy: [Laughs.] It came up early on that you weren’t interested in penetrative sex as well.

Leea: I’d dated a lot of people, and by then I was clear on the sex I wanted to have. I was over men. I don’t give a shit about sex the way a man typically wants to have it. That’s part of why Addy was the one for me. I found someone with whom sex wasn’t centered on the male gaze. 

Addy: In the beginning, we also established that I’m not just a submissive but a masochist, and a pretty feminine person. While Leea is pretty feminine physically, she has more traditionally masculine aspects and aptitudes to her. Outside of this relationship, I’m brave, and I take care of tough things. But in this relationship, I find great comfort in being submissive to Leea.

Leea: It’s hard to remember specific conversations from that far back, but we still constantly discuss things, and the BDSM play we have today has evolved from the play we had 5, 10 years ago as we realize we like some things more or less than we did in the past and adjust.

Addy: For example, through exploration, we’ve found that medical play can be pretty cathartic for me—probably because of my history.

I’ve also experienced pretty severe depression for most of my life, and it’s very hard to get mental health help as an intersex person because not many people are qualified to help with the specific type of trauma you’ve been through. I’ve never found a therapist who’s capable of adequately addressing my trauma. But we’ve found that, when I’m in a depressive state, a caning can bring me right out of it. For example, a person I used to work with once asked me—right in front of Leea—“So if I pulled down your pants right now, what would I be looking at?” After that, I was not in a good place. But BDSM lifted up my dopamine or serotonin or something. Whatever it is, I don’t know. If we could get an MRI machine in here, that’d be interesting.

Leea: It’s really exciting as we explore more and more together. We’ve decided to dedicate this year to taking care of us, putting boundaries on who can come over to our place and when, so we can do things like exploring more BDSM play together. We want to go to more dungeons, too.

Ultimately, Addy being intersex doesn’t define anything in our relationship. It’s a part of who she is, and a part of what makes her the person I love. And because she works on intersex issues, it is something we’re always talking about. It plays a role in our life. But it isn’t who she is.

Addy: A lot of the people I’ve talked to who’ve really struggled are straight intersex people who live in a world where sex is all about a penis going into a vagina. A lot of intersex people have small penises, so living in a world full of comments insulting people for having small penises, where they learn that’s inherently bad and shameful, really sucks. For me and a lot of other intersex people who are queer, we’ve been forced to develop a wider vocabulary around sex.

Leea: The fact that we’re a queer couple has also, I think, given us more space to have conversations about things like the different kinds of sex we want to have. I feel really bad for a lot of straight couples because there isn’t a lot of space for conversations around what is good sex, how each partner is feeling, and what works and doesn’t work for them.

Addy: We have had to adapt our sex around the effects of the surgeries, and the effects of the stigma and shame I went through. But personally, I’ve never understood the idea in society that people should be ashamed of differences like this. I didn’t choose to be intersex or to be trans. So why should I be ashamed of those things? Or of being a submissive to, really, a goddess? Or for having done sex work? I don’t harm anyone. I work to make the world a better place.

I think my parents should be ashamed of how they treated me. The medical establishment should be ashamed. Society at large should be ashamed. I don’t see why I should carry shame.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What It Really Means To Be Sex Positive

— And Why It Matters

It’s all about compassion for yourself AND others.

By Lexi Inks

Even though you’ve probably heard people talking about sex positivity online or in your own social circles, the concept is more complex than just enjoying sex, or trying to ditch shame. While there’s an entire history and movement behind it, actually embracing a sex-positive lifestyle and mindset can be very personal and nuanced.

That said, experts like board-certified sexologist and sex therapist Gloria Brame, PhD, are quick to note that the idea is all about a sense of understanding and levity regarding, well, sex. “Sex positivity recognizes that sex is a place of pleasure and emotional relief for consenting adults, not just duty to one’s country or faith. Sex positivity is more of an evidence-based, non-ideological, and non-patriarchal approach to sex,” Brame says.

The history behind the sex positivity movement is long, and the concept leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation and ways to make it feel significant to you. Ahead, experts explain what exactly it means to be sex positive and how you can adopt this new mindset in your own life and relationships.

Meet the Experts:
Gloria Brame, PhD is a sex therapist and certified sexologist based in Athens, GA.

Tara Suwinyattichaiporn, PhD is a professor of sexual communication at California State University, Fullerton and host of the Luvbites by Dr. Tara podcast.

What is the history of the sex positivity movement?

The core values behind sex positivity can be traced back quite a few decades. The ideals of the sexual liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s set up what is now known as the sex positivity movement, according to Brame. She shares that the sex positivity movement was largely inspired by the work of the late Allena Gabosch, a sex educator and advocate for the movement who founded The Center for Sex Positive Culture in 1999.

An important flagship for the movement, the Seattle-based Center for Sex Positive Culture, along with the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, began using the term “sex positive” in the 1990s and promoted the mission of educating and empowering all people about sexuality and how embracing it can change their lives. These community-based spaces still exist today, both physically and digitally, and continue to spread the work started decades ago.

What does it mean to be sex positive?

You’ve probably heard the term thrown around in various capacities, but what does sex positivity mean, exactly? Brame explains that a large part of the term is derived from open-mindedness and acceptance, even when you don’t quite understand it.

“Sex positivity is rejecting the traditional narrative that sex is dirty and shameful and learning to accept it—in all its configurations—as a normal part of a healthy life,” she says. “It means respecting that everyone has a human right to engage in consensual sex, regardless of what type of sex they enjoy… It goes against the Puritanical doctrine that sex is for reproductive purposes only.”

As opposed to kink-shaming, or “yucking” someone’s “yum,” as the saying goes, being sex positive not only involves empowering your own sense of sexual identity, but also withholding judgment or shame regarding that of others.

“[Being] sex positive means being sexually empowered to communicate and make your own informed decisions regarding your sexuality and sexual activity, while keeping a compassionate, non-judgmental attitude about yourself and other people’s sexual attitudes and behaviors,” says Tara Suwinyattichaiporn, PhD, professor of sexual communication at California State University Fullerton and host of the Luvbites by Dr. Tara podcast.

Why should I be sex positive?

Empowering yourself and others to embrace your personal sexuality, whatever that looks like, and enjoy pleasure and sexual freedom without shame or negativity is always a good thing. The benefits of being sex positive are countless, so an alternative question might be: Why should you not be sex positive? As long as your sexual choices are safe and consensual, being sex positive can really only help you learn more about yourself and your desires.

Having a sex-positive mindset can not only improve your sex life, but other aspects of your wellbeing, too. Suwinyattichaiporn shares that some of the major benefits to practicing sex positivity are a higher level of sexual self-confidence, communication skills (as far as your boundaries and desires are concerned), reduced anxiety around sex, and even a higher level of sexual satisfaction. All of these “pros” can even be translated to a partner when you’re in a sexual relationship, boosting your intimacy and creating a mutually-fulfilling sex life together.

Releasing shame or stigma around sexuality is anoter massive benefit to becoming sex positive, Brame adds. She notes that whether you’re insecure about your body or your sexual interests, sex positivity can be the best antidote.

“It’s a vital aspect of human self-esteem to feel at home in your body and at peace with your sexuality. With sex-positive attitudes, you become stronger about boundaries and more focused on what actually works for you as an individual—and as a partner,” Brame says. “Being pleasure-based rather than reproductive-based relieves a lot of the pressure of sex and gives you the freedom to be more sexually authentic.”

How can I be more sex positive?

Understanding the overall concept of sex positivity may be relatively simple, but figuring out what being sex positive looks like for you is often easier said than done.

If you’re unsure where to start, Brame suggests leaning into curiosity. “Think about what has worked for you sexually: Have you been too shy to ask for it? To pursue it actively? Why?” she says. “Sexually healthy people ask for what they need to feel great.” Exploring what you really want, what makes you comfortable, and what helps you feel best sexually are the first steps to take.

When you’re ready to embark on your sex-positive journey, Suwinyattichaiporn recommends you begin with talking about sex. Even if you just share your sexual boundaries or preferences, chatting about sex more often with your partner(s) or close friends can lead you to foster a more sex-positive mindset. She also suggests trying out sexual meditations or affirmations; saying things like “I am a great lover” or “I am a sexual being” to yourself can start to shift your perspective and help you gain sexual confidence, which is a huge foundation of sex positivity.

If you’re someone who deals with shame or guilt surrounding sex, whether from a cultural/religious background or otherwise, practicing sex positivity can seem intimidating or even impossible at first. While these are valid feelings, Brame reminds that you’re not alone—shame and guilt around sex are the primary reason many of her sex therapy clients seek her help.

“Shame and discomfort can be hard nuts to crack alone. I recommend reading, going to sex-positive workshops, and working with sex therapists or coaches,” she says. “But you don’t need to have money to win the war against shame inside. Sometimes, what I recommend to clients is that they make choices with their heads and not their hearts.” This can be something as small as using safe sex protocols to ensure you feel fully comfortable and safe making your own sexual choices, which can empower you to continue exploring your desires.

Even if it seems like a big task at first, taking small and steady steps toward becoming more sex positive can only benefit you in the long-term. Whether you choose to enroll in sex therapy, try out kink-friendly spaces and events, or even just talk more about your sexual preferences and desires, the journey you take in promoting sex positivity in your own life just might inspire those around you to do the same—and the more sex-positive people there are, the better.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!