Pride 2017

Happy Gay Pride Month! It’s time, once again, to post my annual pride posting. In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a most remarkable change in societal attitudes toward those of us on the sexual fringe. One only needs to go back 50 years in time. I was 17 years old then and I knew I was …

Trans Writer E. Parker Phillips Finds Poetry in He/r Fluid Identity

By Liz Tracy [A]t a Yale writing workshop in 2003, one of E. Parker Phillips’ college classmates said Phillips’ erotic poem reminded them of a Calvin Klein ad. Phillips, who identifies as genderqueer and uses “s/he” and “he/r” pronouns, doesn’t remember the poem itself, only one line from the work about a lesbian sexual awakening: …

Dominant Submissive Relationships In The Bedroom – Part 2

Look for Part 1 HERE! Why BDSM Couples Like Having Rough Sex 4. BDSM: All About Communication BDSM is still viewed as an unconventional sensual, erotic, and sexual behavior, yet couples who practice this tend to develop a better sense of self. These couples are more likely to communicate their likes and dislikes with their …

Why Aftercare Is The BDSM Practice That Everyone Should Be Doing

By Sophie Saint Thomas [I]f you’re unfamiliar with the BDSM scene, you might think it’s all whips, handcuffs, and pleasurable pain, but there’s one important element that BDSM practitioners have built into their sex lives to make sure that everyone involved feels safe and cared for after play time is over: a practice known as …

Married LGBT older adults are healthier, happier than singles, study finds

By Kim Eckart Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for nearly two years — and in some states for even longer — but researchers can already detect positive health outcomes among couples who have tied the knot, a University of Washington study finds. For years, studies have linked marriage with happiness among …

Undoing the STIgma: Normalizing the discourse surrounding STIs

April is STD/STI Awareness Month. By Ericka Shin [L]et’s talk about sex. It’s fun, it’s natural. Now, considering that April is STD/STI Awareness Month, let’s take it one step further and talk about sexually transmitted diseases and infections, or STDs/STIs. They’re not so fun and not “natural,” per se, but they can and do happen …

Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles, Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders

By Pearson McKinney [I]t wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe. In fact, people who had both female and male …

Four of the biggest relationship mistakes people make

Relate counsellors have revealed how to prevent a relationship from turning sour  By Kashmira Gander [F]rom trawling Tinder to enduring bad date after bad date, finding a partner can be a painstaking process. But the effort that goes into tracking down someone compatible can feel insignificant when compared with what is needed to keep that partnership going. As …