Feminism and Sexual Submission Aren’t Mutually Exclusive

A meme showed up on my Facebook newsfeed one afternoon a few weeks back. by Savannah Stewart It was shared by some fuckboy I worked with for about five minutes before he was never seen again, except when sliding into his female former colleagues’ DM’s—which should have been reason enough to keep scrolling past, yet …

Inside the Koreatown Dojo Dedicated to the Art of Japanese Rope Bondage

Mention anything bondage-related and Zetsu Nawa reflexively geeks out. By Lila Seidman [A] casual reference to a dotted gag in one of his thousands of drawings and photos of bound women launches him into a mini-lecture about its “humiliation factor” in modern Japan. It’s just a dishtowel, he explains. “It’s like he grabbed the thing …

Why Sex Education for Disabled People Is So Important

“Just because a person has a disability does not mean they don’t still have the same hormones and sexual desires as other individuals.”   By Ariel Henley “Sex and disability, disability and sex; the two words may seem incompatible,” Michael A. Rembis wrote in his 2009 paper on the social model of disabled sexuality. Though …

Bugs, Boners and BDSM: A Day in the Life of a Dominatrix

Because quirks can be quirky. By Andre Shakti “We’ve got a live one, ladies!” Svetlana called out from the office. The scantily clad women seated around the kitchen table barely flinched. Tuesdays were notoriously slow, with our phone lines typically dominated by time wasters. We called them “wankers,” the men who contacted us under the …

What to Do When You Want More—or Less—Sex Than Your Partner

By Justin Lehmiller [A]nyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship knows that, when it comes to sex, we aren’t always on the same wavelength as our partners. Sometimes we’re in the mood, but our partner isn’t. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, it’s usually not a big deal—unless it starts happening over …

Sex Education Based on Abstinence? There’s a Real Absence of Evidence

By Aaron E. Carroll [S]ex education has long occupied an ideological fault line in American life. Religious conservatives worry that teaching teenagers about birth control will encourage premarital sex. Liberals argue that failing to teach about it ensures more unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. So it was a welcome development when, a few years …

What it’s like to talk to your doctor about sexual health when you’re bisexual

There’s a misconception that bi people are just going through a phase — but what if our doctors believe it too? By Kate Sloan “Are you sexually active?” I’d been dreading this question since losing my virginity to a female friend a few weeks earlier, not long after my 16th birthday. Somehow, the harsh fluorescent …