Stuck at home?

Now’s the time to have these important talks with your kids. By Phyllis Fagell As children witness and experience the outpouring of pain in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, they need adults to help them make sense of the unrest, says Baruti Kafele, a social …

Gay Couples Can Teach Straight People a Thing or Two About Arguing

Same-sex couples, on average, resolve conflict more constructively than different-sex couples, and with less animosity, studies have shown. By Christina Caron Elana Arian and Julia Cadrain, a same-sex couple in Brooklyn, recently fought about a hat. OK, it wasn’t really about the hat. (It never is.) Cadrain likes things tidy. Really tidy. To the point …

To end conversion therapy, we must understand what it actually means

By Travis Salway On Monday, Calgary City Council voted, nearly unanimously, to pass a municipal ban of advertising around conversion therapy, which the city defined as “practice, treatment, or service designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.” …

A very, very beginner’s guide to understanding BDSM

By Mary Grace Garis Even as BDSM comes to popular light via media portrayals and increased openness about intimate habits and preferences, much about the sexual practice remains misunderstood and incorrectly presumed to be negative and abusive—especially in those media portrayals. This is perhaps most recently depicted in that degrading scene in Hulu’s Normal People, …

17 Totally Normal Things to Experience in Your Relationship Right Now

The good, the bad, and the irritating. By Anna Borges It doesn’t take a scientist to know that the coronavirus crisis is rife with stressors and challenges that would shake up even the healthiest of relationships. Maybe the pandemic is acting as a pressure cooker for relationship problems you already had or maybe it’s serving …

It took us long enough, but we’re finally paying attention to women’s pleasure

By Erin Magner While the history of women and pleasure is fraught with stigma, it appears we’re in the midst of a pleasure revolution. Now, female-identifying founders are creating pornography, sex toys, sex-education platforms, and erotica, all of which normalizes and celebrates a woman’s right to get off. Not only are consumers turned on by …

Xs & Os:

Couples Who Regularly Show Physical Affection Have Happier Relationships by John Anderer Cuddling, hugging, and touching that doesn’t lead to sex can help build a stronger and happier relationship and marriage, according to a new study conducted at Binghamton University. The research team examined the effect of non-sexual physical intimacy on relationship satisfaction across a …

How not to destroy your relationship during lockdown

By Melody Thomas Humans don’t deal all that well with uncertainty – not knowing what’s about to happen causes us more stress than knowing for certain something bad is. In the face of a global pandemic, where the outcomes are largely unknown, many romantic relationships will experience an increase in tension and conflict. Uncertainty breeds …