When the nation began to emerge from our collective Covid lockdowns two to three years ago, some public education advocates noticed that parents were developing strange new fears about what was going on in their children’s classrooms.kid Conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, the Family Policy Alliance, and others suddenly began translating the phobias that once powered debates over masking, vaccines and remote learning into curriculum battles, specifically over whether and how to teach sex education in public schools. In the past three years, urban and suburban districts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, and Georgia faced newly contentious school board meetings and suddenly contested school board races over sex ed, especially over the teaching of LGBTQ issues and anything related to “gender identity.” The backlash has been no mere red-state panic: In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin won an upset race for Virginia governor at least in part on parents’ fears of what was being taught in sex-ed classes.
Formerly quiet board rooms where new sex-ed curricula used to be calmly vetted blew up into shouting matches; educators accused of promoting “wrong” ideas faced death threats. That year, Education Week reported that at least 30 pieces of legislation around the country “would variously circumscribe LGBTQ representation in the curriculum, the pronouns that students and teachers can use, and put limits on school clubs, among other things.”
When I covered this movement two years ago, many sex-ed advocates I spoke to lamented that there weren’t many—maybe not any—groups solely devoted to supporting sex ed in schools. But over the last few months, a team of organizers led by the group EducateUS: Changing Sex Ed for Good, building on research by Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and others, has been developing ways of building support for sex ed from the classroom to school board chambers to local libraries to the ballot box. With support from the Harnisch Foundation and the Equality Federation, the group hired Gutsy Media to develop three 30-second digital ads based on messages they honed through testing.
“Sex ed has been a third-tier priority for the left,” says Jaclyn Friedman, founder and executive director of EducateUS. “But we’re finding it can poll better than abortion.” Earlier research by Planned Parenthood found that roughly 96 percent of parents want sex ed taught in high school, and more than 80 want it taught in middle school. EducateUS shared its new data exclusively with The Nation.
In 2022, Moms for Liberty made its first round of political endorsements, winning a healthy number. But its success was short-lived. The group’s candidates won fewer than one-third of school board seats where they had sought Moms for Liberty’s endorsement in 2023. The Brookings Institution observed the largest change in the suburbs, where the win rate dipped from from 54 percent to 34 percent.
EducateUS won three of the five seats where it backed school board candidates last year. But it is not declaring victory yet. “There are still a lot of places where people feel parents alone should be in charge of sex ed,” says Dr. Tarece Johnson-Morgan, a Gwinnett County School Board member in Georgia who has fought these battles on the ground. Last year, in a tough fight, the board adopted a new health curriculum, but opted to leave out its sex-ed components. They’ll revisit that decision this year, she says, and she believes EducateUS’s research and advertising will help her cause.
What EducateUS has tried to do is not merely poll attitudes but to test messaging that can lead to action in support of sexuality education—whether that’s voting for a school board candidate who shares your views, or lobbying an elected body to support your issues, or sharing its persuasive tested messages via social media. Its research began in 2022, and developed into a full-blown set of surveys, message development, and advertising in the second half of 2023. Ultimately, it surveyed 15,170 respondents across four surveys.
This week, the group and its partners are releasing messaging that they say has been shown to spur action, along with three ads that anyone can license, to share via social media, e-mail, or as an education tool to get folks organized. Overall, their research shows that support for sex ed increased between 2022 and 2023, with very little ground game going on.
Dr. Cara Berg Powers was my guide to the fraught politics of sex ed back in 2022. As a prominent supporter of sexuality education in schools, she’d lost a race for a school board seat in Worcester, Massachusetts. And even after her district adopted a progressive sex-ed curriculum in 2021, she had to watch as another school board candidate, Shanel Soucy, used her anti-sex-ed campaign—though ultimately unsuccessful—to organize more than 3,000 local parents to opt out of letting their kids take sex ed. (Parents have almost always been able to opt their kids out of sex ed, in big cities and small.)
Now Powers chairs the board of EducateUS. She feels like our side is catching up. “This issue has been really badly done for a while,” she notes. “Young people and sexuality can make us feel icky. It threatens a lot of us. But I think we see, with EducateUS, people are coming around to believe young people deserve honest sex education.”
Some of their winning messages were surprising to me. When I first wrote about this issue, I thought that pushing the message that sex education helps kids recognize and report child abuse was compelling. But for these survey groups, it was not. “Most people see it as a negative, marginal message that doesn’t affect a lot of people,” Powers notes (though it silently affects more people than any one knows). Soucy, herself a child survivor, told me flat-out two years ago that sex ed wouldn’t help abused kids like her: “No,” she said firmly. “When you’re having sex at 14, or 12, you’re not thinking about any of that. It’s about escaping dysfunction. It’s not a means of pleasure.” EducateUS says the days of pushing a “narrow, stigma- and fear-based message about unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections” are behind us.
The ads that broke through and moved people to action are remarkably joyous, not ominous. One of them was nicknamed “Break the Isolation.” It deals with the incomplete business, even in 2024, of moving teenagers back into school and into their lives, comfortably, post-Covid. Sex ed “has been shown to reduce bullying, and help kids develop healthy relationships,” the ad notes. And yes, there’s a closing nod to sexuality, and it’s sweet. It ends with the tagline: “Sex ed: It’s not what you’ve heard, and just what they need.” This ad moved the most people to action, overall. Ads focused on fighting bullying were especially effective with men and conservatives.
Another ad, “Know Means Know,” spotlights the youth empowerment that sexual knowledge represents. “They trust us, because we trust them,” it begins, as a young man hops out of a parent’s car, excitedly, to begin his school day. This one has an edge: It identifies that there are forces opposed to sex ed. “But some don’t trust them with any of it, and they’re getting bolder every day.” We see images of angry parents carrying signs saying things like “Education not sexualization” and “Too much too soon.” The ad concludes: “The time to fight for sex ed is now—because know means know.”
A third, “Liberation,” is a tribute to Black empowerment. “Black people have been fighting for bodily freedom since we came to this country,” a woman’s voice intones. “The fight for Black liberation continues. A vote for sex ed is a vote for bodily freedom.” Although the ad mainly features Black people, it motivated positive action among all races tested, but was far the most motivating to Black viewers.
“We have to remember people of color are our natural constituency,” Friedman told me. They test most strongly in favor of all of these messages. On average, people of color were found to be 14 percent more likely to take action for public school sex ed over their white counterparts. Compared with the first surveys EducateUS did in 2022, white men are improving and are showing themselves to be receptive. “We didn’t find a ‘gender gap’ on sex ed support this time around,” Friedman says. Some of the messaging tests particularly well with Republicans and even conservatives,” she says. “Don’t write anyone off!”
When they license the EducateUS ads, for free, groups will be able to develop their own closing message. It might be about elections, depending on the organization’s tax status, or it might be around supporting new policy or curriculum.
Jaclyn Friedman is a lifelong anti-sexual-violence advocate whose first book, Yes Means Yes, popularized the idea of affirmative consent. Talking on college campuses, she says, “I kept hearing the same thing from students, which was that they were so incredibly grateful to have this new-to-them information, but wish they had had it six or eight years ago so they wouldn’t have had to go through what they had already been through.” With American sexuality education already watered down and even unavailable to some students, Friedman was appalled watching the backlash that developed as we emerged from the nightmare of Covid. “Eventually, I couldn’t avoid the fact that I was failing these students.” Friedman and partners put together the funding to launch EducateUS, and a counter-movement was born.
Promoting sex education in schools has long been excoriated by conservatises. The John Birch Society railed against in the 1950s, and anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly put it this way in 1981: “The major goal of nearly all sex education curricula being taught in the schools is to teach teenagers (and sometimes children) how to enjoy fornication without having a baby and without feeling guilty.”
There seemed a chance for détente in the 1980s, however, as we learned more about the spread of HIV and AIDS, and the way healthy sex practices, especially the use of condoms, could limit it. Even then, some conservatives opposed it—or insisted that abstinence be the main message. But Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, came out for teaching about gay and straight sex, and the role of condoms in reducing spread of the disease. “The best protection against infection right now—barring abstinence—is use of a condom,” he wrote in 1984. Still, war broke out between those preaching only abstinence and those who wanted a more comprehensive curriculum. In one film shown in “abstinence only” classrooms, a student is seen asking a teacher, “What if I want to have sex before I get married?” The teacher replies, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to be prepared to die.”
But subsequent research showing the health benefits of a more comprehensive approach, even in terms of mental health, mainly won the day, and comprehensive sex-ed curricula spread in school districts around the country. Until recently. Now, along with book bans and other curriculum restrictions—like Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, restricting what elementary students can learn about gender and sexuality—a new movement to cut back on classroom sex-ed instruction has gained ground. It trades on some deeply pernicious myths and lies, especially about gay teachers using sex ed and other means to “groom” young people “sexually.”
The “groomer” slur particularly rattled a Florida teacher then with 29 years of classroom experience when we spoke two years ago. To those using it, he says,”Do you understand the consequences of that word?” He began to choke up. “I’m a Special Olympics coach. That requires people to have trust in me. I’m a prom sponsor. I chaperone the senior class trip.”
EducateUS hopes to combat fear and bitterness with a compassionate and commonsense advocacy for sex ed that centers students’ needs, especially as we reckon with the way three or more years of school lockdowns took a grave toll on the ability of young people to connect—socially, with their friends, and not just sexually.
At a Zoom meeting April 16 to preview the ads and the new research, more than 70 people showed up, and the mood was excited. Some represented major national advocacy organizations, while others were with smaller, state-level nonprofits; there were folks from organizations that endorse progressive school board candidates, as well as a couple of candidates themselves. The chat function crackled with questions but mainly emojis and other signs of elation. This group knew they were seeing something brand-new in the world of sex ed, and they couldn’t wait to learn how to use it.
Rosalie Wong, a leader of New Jersey’s SWEEP—“Suburban Women Engaged, Empowered, and Pissed!”—says she’d like to use the ads, and EducateUS’s research, to combat the growing threat of book bans at schools and libraries. “I mean, what the heck is going on with all of this?” she asks, rhetorically. Her 1,500 members are ready to fight back.
“This is some of the hardest work I’ve ever done,” Friedman tells me, “but it’s also the most satisfying—when we see school districts that were resisting sex ed start to implement a great curriculum after local organizers called us for backup, when we help powerhouse first-time candidates get elected to their school boards, when we hear from volunteers in red and purple states that our tested messages are helping them communicate more effectively with their local schools, parents, and communities—it’s incredible when you think of what the ripple effects will be.”
What I came away most impressed by was the ads’ decision to spotlight the joy and power of being young, not the angst adults so like to project onto teenagers. They’re not aliens, they’re us. When I told Friedman that was my primary takeaway from the work, she had a one-word answer. “Yes.”
Between the sorry state of sex education in the United States and a comparative lack of widely accessible LGBTQ+ sexual health resources, it takes a while for most queer and trans folks to learn — and name — the type of sex they want to have. This can be especially true for those who prefer non-normative types of sex or simply feel a bit boxed in by depictions of queer sexuality in the media or online. Often overlooked in popular representation of queer sex, outercourse, in particular, is a great way for folks across the gender, sexuality, and ability spectrum to explore pleasure.
As a catch-all term, “outercourse” describes the many sex acts and erotic activities that lie outside of internal (often called penetrative) sex. There are so many reasons queer and trans folks are drawn to outercourse, according to sexologist Marla Renee Stewart, sexpert for sexual wellness brand Lovers. For many people, outercourse may feel more affirming and pleasurable “particularly if you are undergoing bottom surgery recovery or getting used to your new growth because of HRT,” says Stewart.
Outercourse is often confused with foreplay — and for some people it is — but it can also be its own thing. Whereas foreplay is more like an appetizer, outercourse is about the holistic experience of sex, more of a potluck of pleasure than any single entrée.
Below, queer sex educators share everything you need to know about outercourse including what it is, how to have it, and why you might love it.
What is outercourse?
Outercourse describes sexual or erotic activity that does not involve internal vaginal and/or anal sex, or in other words non-penetrative sex. Often, outercourse is used as an umbrella term for external-only sex or hookups, but it encompasses a variety of sexual or erotic acts like mutual masturbation, oral sex, or grinding. But more on that later!
“Some people may view outercourse as foreplay and others may view outercourse as the main course,” says Lena Peak, a queer sexuality educator and founder of Eros Insights. “There’s no definitive answer here, you and your partner(s) get to define these terms for yourselves, or even reject them altogether!”
“One of the main reasons people might enjoy, prefer, or prioritize outercourse in their sex lives is because it de-centers penetration as the pinnacle of sex,” adds Peak. Traditional heteronormative sex — or intercourse if we want to get specific — is often defined by the presence of cis men and centers their pleasure. Outercourse, on the other hand, upends this narrow, more hegemonic understanding of sex and what “counts.” It allows people of all genders and bodies to imagine, speak back, and co-create the kind of connection they crave — regardless of the specific sex acts involved.
As a result, outercourse is a mainstay for many queer and trans people, particularly for those who may experience gender dysphoria, have a history of trauma, certain medical conditions, or disabilities, in addition to folks who simply prefer this type of pleasure.
Is it the same as abstinence?
No, outercourse isn’t the same thing as abstinence, but there is some nuance here.
Generally speaking, abstinence is the decision to refrain from sex or sexual activity, particularly P-in-V sex. Some people choose abstinence for moral, cultural, or religious reasons, while others opt to take a purposeful break for personal or medical reasons. Abstinence is also used for pregnancy and STI prevention.
But what exactly qualifies as sexual activity, or being abstinent more generally, depends on the person. For some, anything “beyond” kissing is off the table, while others consider everything except internal sex to be chaste. With such varied definitions, it’s possible that one person’s sex is another person’s abstinence. So while there can be overlap between the physical acts of outercourse and some types of abstinence, the main difference is intention.
Whereas abstinence is about limiting or distancing oneself from sex or gratification, Stewart says outercourse is inherently about receiving and giving pleasure. Make sure to have a conversation with any potential partner about how you define sex, outercourse, and abstinence.
How do I have outercourse?
The good news is there’s absolutely no “wrong” way to have outercourse. The only limit is your imagination.
To get you started, there are the usual suspects: heavy petting (or touching someone, often their genitals, indirectly through their clothing), oral sex, mutual masturbation, and hand jobs. Fingering may also come into play here, which means using your fingers and hands to arouse yourself or your partner. Typically, fingering refers to touching a vulva, clitoris, or anus. Though fingering often includes internal vaginal or anal touch, it doesn’t have to. Grab some lube and use your fingers to touch your partner’s vulva with long, gentle movements to “warm up,” before playing with their clit. Unless your partner is into it, you should avoid sharp, prodding motions. Instead use the pads of your fingers and focus on stroking motions.
You might also opt for grinding, which is sometimes referred to as “dry humping” or “tribbing.” Usually, this involves rubbing your genitals against someone’s body (like when straddling someone’s waist or thigh, for example.) The infamous act of scissoring is in this general family of touch as well, though it involves direct genital contact.
There are also sex acts that don’t focus on genitals, instead opting for a more integrated or erotic approach, like sensual massage or deep kissing. Some kink activities like impact play, bondage, or sensory play also fall under this category. If you’re not sure where to start, Peak recommends setting time aside to explore pleasure mapping, which involves using different types of external touch and sensations on different parts of the body. This can help you not only identify how you like to be touched, but also discover and potentially “map” new erogenous zones on your body.
Though these are all great jumping-off points, it’s important not to get too bogged down with what is or isn’t considered outercourse. Just focus on what turns you on. “Rather than narrow your scope to certain specific behaviors, try making a list of all of the areas on the outside of your body that you enjoy stimulating or that you’re curious about stimulating,” sex educator Cassandra Corrado tells Them. “How do you like for them to be touched? What types of touch do you want to try? What about your partner, how do they like to be touched, and where? Create your menu from there.”
As with any type of sexual or erotic contact, you should always discuss boundaries, consent, and safe sex practices. Remember, if the outercourse activities you’re engaging with involve genital touching or any contact with sexual fluids, you can still spread STIs.
Why is outercourse important for queer folks?
Though anyone can enjoy outercourse, it can be especially powerful for queer and trans people. First and foremost, the term is a way to name the type of sex that feels best to you and start a conversation about what feels right (and hot) for you and your partner(s).
Second, outercourse can be a framework to help you take a big step back, think about what you’ve been consciously and unconsciously taught about sex, what’s “normal,” and create your own road map for meaningful shared pleasure.
“By prioritizing, or at least normalizing, outercourse, it makes space for us to reconfigure the sexual scripts that many of us are handed early on. It allows us to prioritize experiences that bring us pleasure and fulfillment, rather than following the sexual behavior escalator to its ‘final destination,’” says Corrado. “And it allows us to take a much wider approach to our sexual decision-making, encouraging us to think about our and our partners’ bodies, boundaries, desires, and pleasures in a more expansive way than society may have initially taught us.”
When you hear the word “submissive,” what do you think of?
Many people think sexual submissiveness is all about allowing yourself to be (consensually) “punished” or otherwise denigrated, but the reality is much more complicated.
And thanks to either sensationalist or outright false portrayals by movies and pop culture, myths and misinformation continue to abound when it comes to this unique area of sexuality.
In this piece, we spoke to several leading sexperts in the world of BDSM and beyond who know what it means to navigate submissive play time in a healthy, safe way.
So if you’re curious about exploring your submissive side, or wondering what that might look like, read on.
What Is Sexual Submission?
“Sexual submission is a form of power exchange and a way to experience a consensual negotiation of surrendering power or decision-making to another person,” says Mark Cunningham, a licensed marriage and family therapist, AASECT-certified sex therapist, psychedelic therapist and owner of Adaptive Therapy.
Ideally, says Cunningham, these actions are things that are discussed and mutually agreed upon prior to the experience.
“These negotiations define how one person may demand or take action toward another person,” he says.
If that sounds a little vague, it’s in part because submission is a broad concept. BDSM play is not a “one size fits all” or uniform area of sexual expression in the least.
“There is almost no ‘always’ when it comes to BDSM play,” says BDSM educator and author Jay Wiseman.
Being a submissive can thus vary widely depending on what you and your partner agree to.
“Sexual submission can involve the use of props, toys, ropes, nipple clamps, cages, and so much more,” says Cunningham. “Or it can purely be a psychological or behavioral relationship that does not involve any use of items.”
In other words, how you play is all down to you and your partner (or partners).
It’s also important to remember that “submission and kink are not always related to one another,” clarifies Leighanna Nordstrom MA, MFT-C of Break the Mold Therapy. “Kink is about non-normative sexual expression (i.e., trying all the things you didn’t learn about in traditional sex ed); submission is about power and control (i.e., allowing someone to determine how you feel and behave during certain scenarios).”
Meaning, you can be in an otherwise “vanilla” relationship, but still have a little power exchange dynamic in a sexual relationship, or you can use submission as a vehicle to explore various kinks, such as those that often fall under the umbrella of humiliation play.
Being a Sub Isn’t Set in Stone
It can be useful to see “submissive” and “dominant” power dynamics as appetites, instead of hardened identities. (And being a submissive also does not necessarily make one a “bottom” automatically either, contrary to many people’s assumptions — it’s definitely possible to bottom while domming, and vice versa.)
In a tutorial video, the world-renowned sexologist, educator and author Midori discusses the differences between topping and bottoming, and how these terms can work in the context of BDSM power exchange — but can also apply even if you’re more on the vanilla side, too.
“Top is usually the person doing an action — being in charge, doing the tying, doing the spanking, or being physically on top, or going ‘into’ the other person’s body with a finger, tongue, dildo or penis. Top may or may not include being dominant or sadistic,” Midori explains.
“Bottom is the person who is receiving the actions: being spanked, poked, nipple-clamped, penetrated, or following the orders. Bottoming may or may not involve being submissive [all the time] either,” she adds.
Therefore, this is why, as Midori suggests, it always a good idea to ask a current or potential new partner what exactly they mean when they say: “I’m a submissive” or “I’m a bottom” — and really listen to their explanation, because all too often people make the mistake of assuming that expressing sexuality is a uniform experience or undertaking when this is not the case.
Additionally, Midori cautions against assuming that our sexual appetites for how we want to experience sexuality are set in stone: “Sometimes we get really stuck in the idea that ‘I am a top’ or ‘I am a bottom’ [but] don’t narrow yourself, paint yourself into a corner being attached to an identity; these are ‘appetites,’ not identities,” she explains.
As such, it is totally normal for your appetites to change or evolve over time — it’s merely human nature.
As Nordstrom says, “If you’re reading this, you may be developing a new appetite for submission in sex. This could be because your appetite for dominance has been more than sated, or because you have become curious what other possibilities sex could hold if you were to experiment.”
Exploring Sexual Submissiveness & Masculinity
If you’re curious about sexual submission but worried that your sexual partner(s) might see you as less manly if you’re not fulfilling the dominant archetype, that’s understandable. It’s normal to experience anxiety when we crave the acceptance of a partner and are not sure how they will react.
However, if you “zoom out” and look at the bigger picture, you can see where this anxiety is ultimately born from outdated social stigmas and sexist stereotypes of manhood and gender roles.
As Cunningham suggests, ask yourself a question: “First, whose values/definition of masculinity are you using to define your masculinity, and do you agree with that or is this something you have simply adopted without much reflection?”
Cunningham also notes that “many top leaders in positions of power like CEOs, or high-ranking military members for example, are drawn to submissive play because of the freedom, excitement, and healing that they can experience in moving outside of their ‘normal’ mode of operation as a leader or position of power.”
“Sex is a powerful way for us humans to cope and express parts of ourselves that we may struggle to access in our day-to-day lives,” he adds.
In other words, you could be the most powerful man in the world, with days filled with success and conquering, but at night you might find yourself wanting the release of surrendering to a partner who’ll be in control.
Kink and power exchange can be a great, temporary escape from reality and the baggage that comes with the performative roles we all play in mundane society.
In short, you are not “lessened” in the least by wanting to explore submission; being brave enough to admit your true desires and allowing yourself that opportunity means you can be enhanced by a new depth of connection and variety in your sex life.
How to Talk to a Partner About Your Submissive Desires
Ok, I want to explore: What are some ideas for communicating with my partner about my submissive desires and fantasies?
Assuming your breakfast conversation does not get particularly kinky, you might be in need of an “icebreaker” or two. Not to worry! There’s no need to make this terribly complicated or convoluted…
“Having a ‘catalyst event’ for bringing up the conversation can be an easy “in,” says Nordstrom. “You might say, ‘Hey, I was reading this magazine, and it made a suggestion about having positive, playful conversations about sex with your partner. I’d love to try it! Would you?’”
Or, Nordstrom adds, “Instead of springing your newfound submissive appetite onto your partner, consider trying to have a positive conversation about your whole sex life, and work the submissive appetite into the conversation.”
In other words, “zoom out” and share with your partner what you already really enjoy about being with them–and then ask them what they’re enjoying — and would like to try. This way, you both have the opportunity to be and feel heard.
As another “in,” Wiseman also suggests commenting on a book, movie, TV show or other piece of pop culture that depicts a D/s dynamic.
And notwithstanding submissive desires, having an understanding of your partner’s fantasy life can help you to better understand where they are coming from and what might excite them.
Nevertheless, it’s always good to remember that it totally is normal for someone to have sexual fantasies that they do not necessarily want to act out in real life—so never, ever take for granted the need to establish clear consent.
Now, if you and your partner already enjoy open communication about your sex life (yay!), then by all means go ahead with a straightforward Q&A session.
Midori suggests you ask your partner how they would like to feel in a dominant role.
“This isn’t about what toys to use or what you end up doing,” she explains. “This is about the core of [their] pleasure, leading to your hot submission. [Do they] want to feel adored, cruel, gentle, imperious, fickle, selfish, nurturing, powerful, or….? Then ask yourself how you want to feel: surrendered, willful, obedience, devotional, small, strong, enduing, obliterated, vulnerable, or…? And [then] find an overlap of emotional journey in your scene.”
Additionally, give yourself and your partner some grace, especially if you are navigating uncharted waters together.
“It is very common to have fear, uncertainty, confusion and many other challenging feelings in addition to excitement and curiosity when considering submissive exploration,” says Cunningham. “Do your best to name and even journal about your feelings and thoughts and to share these with your play partner so you can feel a greater sense of connection, understanding and ultimately intimacy.”
But remember: this erotic play time should also be a source of unabashed joy and delight; being open to the experience fuels the enthusiasm, Nordstrom says.
“When it comes to trying out any new sexual behavior, I have to remind my clients that sexisplay!” she explains. “This means that it may be cumbersome, awkward, messy, confusing, or funny. But it shouldn’t be a job with an expected outcome. Going into new sexual scenarios in a curious mindset opens doors for anything to happen, instead of just focusing on one specific outcome.”
Best Practices for Exploring BDSM Submissiveness
According to Wiseman, good ‘best practices’ include getting adequate education and talking ahead of time about what will occur. In other words, sexual submission is not something you ever do (or expect your partner to do) ‘spontaneously,’ and certainly never under duress.
As with many other pursuits, when you are new to BDSM, it’s best to start slowly, as Nordstrom suggests: “My recommendation when partners are playing around with power dynamics is to always start slow, evaluate how different sexual acts are working, adapt behaviors as needed, and then go deeper into the dom/sub roles.”
“I cannot stress the importance of consent enough,” Nordstrom adds. “Creativity can take over when partners engage in BDSM. That said, it’s still VERY important to check in each time a new idea gets added to the sexual scenario. With consent comes trust (i.e., I believe you will ask me before you do something new to my body AND I believe you will tell me if I’ve done something that went too far).”
Nordstrom continues: “Safe words or actions are vital to any kink/BDSM scenario. Simple, easy to say words are best for safe words. “No” is not a good safe word, because, depending on the intensity of the scene, you may be begging your partner to stop when what you really want is for them to keep going.”
And this is where sexual submission can baffle outsiders.
“The funny thing is that in a power exchange relationship, the person who is in the submissive role is actually in a greater degree of control, because of their prior defining of their soft/hard boundaries and in their ability to create the play scene and rules with the dominant or master partner(s),” Cunningham explains.
As such, it is important to understand that the best BDSM scenes involve mutual collaboration between the submissive and the dominant well ahead of play time. If the power exchange feels one-sided or reluctant, then it’s really not a true exchange and the excitement is lost.
“Kink desires are much like appetites,” Midori says. “Creating a scene with your partner is like planning, cooking, and sharing that meal together. Even when you are surrendering in the scene, the creation is collaborative. Both of you have to like the ingredients and the whole meal for it to be fantastic.”
— Youngsters are turning to online sources to learn about sex which is leaving them vulnerable to potentially ‘dangerous’ information, a charity warned.
A poll suggests that 30% of young people turned to social media as their main source of information about sexual orientation and gender identity
Nearly a fifth of teenagers say the internet is their main source for information about sexual health and healthy relationships, a survey suggests.
Young people are turning to online sources to learn about relationships and sex which is leaving them vulnerable to potentially “dangerous” and “untrustworthy” information, the Sex Education Forum charity has warned.
A poll, of 1,001 students aged 16 and 17 in England, suggests that 30% of young people turned to social media as their main source of information about sexual orientation and gender identity, ahead of school (25%).
The survey, carried out by Censuswide on behalf of the charity in February, found that 22% of young people said the internet was their main source of information on pornography, while 15% said they turned to pornography itself as their main source of information on the topic.
Around a fifth said social media and websites were their main source of information about unhealthy relationships (21%), healthy relationships (18%) and sexual health (18%).
The findings, which have been shared with the PA news agency, come after the Government announced a review of its statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) guidance for schools more than a year ago.
Delegates at the annual conference of the National Education Union last week warned that social media influencers, such as Andrew Tate, are contributing to a rise in sexism and misogyny which young girls are facing in schools.
The Sex Education Forum poll suggests nearly half of students learned nothing at all or not enough at school on power imbalances in relationships (49%), porn (49%) and how to access local sexual health services (46%).
More than two in five reported learning nothing at all or not enough at school on attitudes and behaviour of boys and men towards girls and women (44%) and on gender identity (44%).
The charity’s report on relationships and sex education (RSE) said: “It is clear that schools feel under-confident about delivering on some areas of the curriculum that are statutory, but are particularly taboo and politicised.
“The problem is that these gaps leave young people vulnerable to misinformation as they seek out knowledge from online sources like social media, or have no access to advice at all.”
Last month, the Women and Equalities Committee said there was compelling evidence that RSE is “failing young people” as it warned of soaring rates of sexually transmitted diseases,
More than four in five (81%) of the teenagers who were surveyed said they agreed that primary school children should be taught about the importance of consent for things like touching another person’s body, while 73% said they believed they should be warned about the harms of pornography.
More than half (56%) said children should see examples of same-sex relationships – included in stories, scenarios and discussion – in primary schools, while 53% said children should learn what trans and non-binary mean.
Teenage girls were more likely to say children should be taught about the importance of consent in primary school than their male peers (85% compared with 77%), the survey suggests.
Since September 2020, relationships and sex education has been compulsory in secondary schools in England, while relationships education has been compulsory in primary schools.
In March last year, Rishi Sunak announced a review of RSHE guidance for schools following concerns that children were being exposed to “inappropriate” content.
But the Department for Education (DfE) has yet to publish a consultation on the guidance.
When asked to select from a list of possible actions the Government could take to help improve RSE, more than half called for training for teachers to develop more confidence with the subject (57%), and flexibility for schools to cover RSE topics at the age that their pupils need (52%).
Lucy Emmerson, chief executive of the Sex Education Forum, said: “More than a year after announcing a review of the subject, we are still waiting for Government to release its promised consultation and refreshed guidance for relationships and sex education (RSE).
“While we hope these launch following the Easter recess, Westminster has been delaying this critical review despite the increasingly complex relationships landscape for young people and the well-documented harms impacting them, from sexual abuse and violence to poor sexual health.
“I am alarmed to find that students feel today’s biggest issues, including pornography and attitudes of men and boys towards women and girls, are not being adequately covered.
“Hearing that young people seek questionable or even dangerous information on outlets like social media to fill gaps on key topics should be a wake-up call that better provision is needed from schools for the safety of our pupils.
“Government must heed the voices of young people and release improved guidance that deals with their realities – and soon.”
The charity is calling on the Government to prioritise flexible “age and stage” relevant content and providing more teacher training.
Ms Emmerson added: “Neglecting young people’s views does the next generation a disservice by leaving them dependent on potentially untrustworthy online sources for information and ill-equipped for healthy relationships.”
Margaret Mulholland, inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “It is extremely worrying that children are turning to the internet for information about sexual education and relationships as this information may be unreliable and harmful.
“We are very concerned, in particular, about the rise of online misogyny and the impact this is having on the behaviour of some young people.
“Schools play a crucial role in providing reliable and responsible information on these issues through their relationships, sex and health education programmes.
“However, they have been poorly supported by the Government in terms of resources and training and are expected to deliver this sensitive and complex topic within packed timetables and severe funding pressures.”
A Government spokesperson said: “As part of the current review of the RSHE curriculum, we are looking at where certain topics can be strengthened, in an age-appropriate and factual way.
“We want to ensure all children are safe online and so, through our world-leading Online Safety Act, social media firms are being required to protect children from being exposed to harmful material online, and the Education Secretary recently took robust action by prohibiting the use of mobile phones in schools.”
Multiple sclerosis (MS), like many other chronic medical conditions, can affect every aspect of a person’s life, including their sex life. MS can create physical and emotional barriers that must be overcome to have a healthy sex life. Here is what you need to know about sex and MS.
MS can decrease sex drive and cause sexual dysfunction in men and women.
The emotional toll of MS can affect sexual function and intimate relationships.
Sexual dysfunction caused by MS is treatable with medication and other therapies. Patience, communication, and therapy can help improve relationship problems caused by MS.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Multiple sclerosis affects 2.8 million people worldwide, including 1 million people in the United States alone. MS is an immune-mediated disease that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks healthy nerve cells, ultimately preventing nerves from communicating with one another. MS affects nerves within the brain and throughout the body, causing both physical and mental problems. MS affects the body and the mind, both of which are involved in sexual function.
MS can affect different parts of the brain as well as different parts of the body. This causes people with MS to have different symptoms, severity, and disease progression. While individual experiences with MS vary, MS presents similar challenges and difficulties for everyone.
Physical effects of MS
MS can cause a variety of sexual problems, both directly and indirectly. These are described as primary, secondary, and tertiary sexual dysfunction. Because the brain plays a role in many different bodily functions, problems with communication within and outside the brain can affect sexual function by influencing hormone levels, mental sexual arousal, and physical sexual response. There are many, often unexpected, ways that MS can impact your life.
The effects of primary sexual dysfunction caused by MS include:
Low libido (sex drive).
Numbness or decreased sensitivity of the genitals.
Erectile dysfunction.
Poor vaginal lubrication.
Difficulty achieving orgasm or ejaculation.
Secondary sexual dysfunction caused by MS includes:
Muscle weakness.
Muscle spasticity.
Fatigue.
Pain.
Incontinence.
Emotional effects of MS
Sex is both physical and mental; your mental or emotional state affects your sex life. MS can have a profoundly negative impact on mental health and relationships.
Tertiary sexual dysfunction includes problems caused by the emotional and psychological effects of MS.
Depression can cause sexual dysfunction by lowering sex drive, decreasing sexual arousal, and preventing or delaying orgasm. Low self-esteem and poor body image can lead to emotional insecurity. Physical and emotional problems caused by MS can make it difficult to establish and maintain intimate relationships.
How to improve sex with MS
MS, like other chronic illnesses, can force you to make adjustments to how you would normally do things in your day-to-day life; this includes sex. You can improve your sex life by understanding the effects that MS has on your body and mind and making changes to your physical and emotional approach to sex. Treat sexual dysfunction
MS causes sexual dysfunction in men and women, but it is treatable. There are many treatments available for erectile dysfunction, but there are also treatments available for women with sexual dysfunction marked by difficulty with arousal and orgasm.
Treat female arousal problems with Addyi (flibanserin) or Vyleesi (bremelanotide).
Use water-soluble lubrication liberally.
Use sex toys to increase stimulation.
Make adjustments based on your limitations
Weakness, pain, and physical limitations can make sex more difficult, but you can make adjustments to your sexual routine to account for these things.
To overcome physical limitations caused by MS:
Adjust sexual positions to increase comfort, reduce pain, and improve stimulation;
Use medication to help with incontinence;
Take medication side effects into account; adjust when you take medications.
Building better relationships with MS
Physical difficulties caused by MS are only half of the problem; the other half is mental. Building and maintaining healthy intimate relationships can be difficult regardless of physical limitations or emotional problems. Relationship problems affect everyone at some point in their lives, whether you have MS or not. Any relationship, sexual or not, can benefit from self-care, patience, and good communication.
To have a healthy intimate relationship with MS:
Seek support, therapy, and/or medication to deal with emotional problems;
Communicate your needs, desires, and expectations with your partner;
Consider couples counseling or sexual therapy.
Communication is the cornerstone of any interpersonal relationship. Good communication is essential for healthy intimate relationships, especially when there are barriers that make intimacy more difficult. Perhaps the most important steps you can take to strengthen a relationship is to share your expectations with your partner and work together to meet those expectations.
Multiple sclerosis takes a physical and emotional toll on those who suffer from it. MS can decrease sexual drive, impair sexual function, make sex physically difficult, and damage intimate relationships. Fortunately, there are ways to improve sexual drive and function in those with MS by using medication and other sexual dysfunction therapies. Additionally, understanding the limitations to sexual activity caused by MS can help you make adjustments that allow you to meet your physical needs. Finally, patience and good communication with your partner are essential for establishing and maintaining a healthy intimate relationship.
A diagnosis of MS is life-changing for both you and those closest to you. MS presents many challenges to living a “normal” life, but those challenges can be met and conquered. Don’t let a diagnosis of MS or other chronic illness keep you from pursuing intimacy or other things that help make life fulfilling.
If you live in New York, it’s very possible you’ve recently found yourself chatting with a co-worker, or listening to the table next to you at a restaurant, and heard some variation of “They just opened up, and they’re so much happier.” Or “My partner’s partner truly sucks.” Ethical non-monogamy isn’t new (The Ethical Slut, the polyamorous bible, came out in 1997), and it isn’t exactly mainstream, but it isn’t so fringe either (or reserved for those who live in the Bay Area). A curious person might be tempted to download Feeld or let their partner know over salmon they’re ready to let in a third. But though people don’t talk about it in hushed tones anymore — Riverdale just ended with Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica in a quad, after all — it isn’t such a simple thing to do well. There are a million things that can go awry, from the small and awkward (oversharing about a date) to the enormous and life-imploding (ending an otherwise fine relationship). The poly-curious among you likely have questions about the day-to-day operations — how do you tell your kids about it? Where do you find people to date? What if your partner gets way more matches than you do? What if their new partner is way hotter than you? To that end, we’ve created an exceedingly in-depth guide. We talked to nearly 40 people — some who’ve had open relationships for decades, others who only recently opened things up — to figure out how to capably, or at least less messily, date non-monogamously.
Is There Only One Way to Do It?
There are many, and choosing which one suits you depends on a lot of factors: Are you currently in a relationship? If you are, do you want other relationships to take equal priority? Do you want to fall in love with other people or just have sex with them? A non-exhaustive taxonomy.
Open Relationship: In a strictly technical sense, this is when you and your partner can have sexual, but not romantic, relationships with other people.
Swinging: A couple who have sex or dates with other people as a duo.
Hierarchical polyamory: When you and your partner can have relationships — romantic or sexual — with other people but have agreed to remain each other’s primary partner. You might pursue these relationships as a couple or separately.
Nonhierarchical polyamory: There are no primary partners in this scenario — everyone is on an equal footing.
Solo-poly: A single person pursuing multiple intimate or sexual relationships while trying to avoid riding the Relationship Escalator. This means you’re not particularly interested in, say, sharing a home or bank account with any one person.
Wait, What Is a ‘Metamour’?
Becoming non-monogamous doesn’t mean you have to join a ten-person polycule or memorize ‘The Ethical Slut.’ Still, there are terms that many non-monogamous people will use while discussing their arrangements, and it’ll make things easier to familiarize yourself with at least a few.
Comet partner: A romantic or sexual partner who might live far away or appears in your life only occasionally. When around, you pick up your tryst, but there are no obligations to one another between these meeting points.
Compersion: The pleasure you derive from your partner enjoying romantic or sexual happiness or success with a person who isn’t you. The opposite of jealousy.
Kitchen-table polyamory: A style in which everybody in a polyamorous network — primary partners, tertiary partners, metamours — is encouraged to form close and friendly relationships with one another (without necessarily being romantically involved) to the point where they can all sit down and have dinner without its being weird.
Metamour: Your partner’s other partners whom you are not also dating.
Monogamish: Often attributed to relationship columnist Dan Savage, this arrangement is at the halfway point of monogamous and open: You and your partner are exclusively committed to each other but allowed purely physical encounters on the side. Think of Cameron and Daphne from White Lotus, season two.
New-relationship energy (NRE): The all-consuming, chemistry-altering high that accompanies the early period of being romantically involved with a new person. NRE, and the chance to experience it many times, is cited as one of the biggest perks of polyamory, but it’s also one of the biggest sources of anxiety when a partner is experiencing it with someone else.
Nesting partners: The partner(s) with whom you live. Not necessarily a primary partner.
One-penis policy (OPP): Probably the most-hated concept in the world of ethical non-monogamy; this is often when a cis straight man only allows his female partner to sleep with another person who doesn’t have a penis.
Polysaturated: When you’ve reached maximum capacity on partners and/or time.
Primary partners: For people who practice hierarchical non-monogamy, this is the relationship that comes above all others in terms of time, commitment, loyalty — sometimes the person you share a home, finances, or children with. If you have a primary partner, you might refer to your other partners as secondary or tertiary.
Relationship escalator: This refers to the way in which monogamous people, by default, “level up” their romantic relationships: how they go from dating to becoming exclusive to living together to getting married to merging finances to having children. A process that many non-monogamous people want to avoid or at least question.
Vee structure: A three-person arrangement in which one person acts as the “hinge,” or point of connection, while the other two don’t have a romantic or physical relationship with one another.
Veto Power: If you’re in a primary partnership, you may grant each other the ability to call for a change in each other’s outside relationships — whether they’re spending too much time with a person or you simply object to them dating that person as a whole. A controversial concept within the poly world.
How Do I Broach This With My Partner?
There are so many ways this conversation could go wrong. So we asked three couples who handled it well — and one who might have handled it better — to tell us how they first proposed it.
Julia told Matt she had a crush.
Julia: After we had our child, I went through a few years of lacking sexual interest. It got to the point where it felt like I might never be interested in having sex again and that would be fine. That began to change in May 2022. I started having a crush on someone. I didn’t know if I was even going to tell Matt, but I didn’t want to repress this part of myself. And I didn’t want to cheat on him. Eventually, I told him about this crush, how I was feeling different and vibrant. I said, “I’m feeling more open about my sexuality and more interested in exploring it.” He said, “Are you asking to open the marriage?”
Matt: We talked and cried for hours. But I knew it made no sense to hold her back. I was like, I’m not going to get in your fucking way.
Julia: It was still an unresolved idea, and we sat with it for a week. I never wanted to push it, I wanted to wait for him to be the one to suggest it. Eventually, he said, “I don’t want to hold you back from being yourself.”
Misty reminded Ari of an old conversation.
Ages: 29 and 29 Open for: 3 years
Misty: The conversation happened after Ari came out as nonbinary. I brought up these conversations we had had in college about having threesomes. I used to say, “I would only do it if it was two guys. I’m not gay.” He’d say: “I’d do it if it were two girls. I’m not gay.” So at the time we thought, Okay, well, then we’re never going to do this.
Ari: You had just come out as pansexual. You said, “Maybe we can talk about what it would look like for me to start exploring that part of my sexuality.” I was shocked at my own response because in the past I’ve been very territorial and heavily monogamous. But I was like, “Yeah, let’s start talking about it.”
Misty: You had the moral high ground of, “Oh, my wife is coming out to me. This is me honoring someone’s queerness.” Literally a few months later, at my birthday party, there was a girl there we were really into, and the threesome happened. The next day, we were like, “Wow, that was fun. Should we download Feeld?” I do think the first conversation was deceptively easy.
Steven and Andrew talked about flirting.
Ages: 45 and 39 Open for: 7 years
>Steven: Andrew can tell me every single day that I look great, that I look sexy. And of course I want to hear those things, but there’s a difference between your husband telling you that and someone you’re not married to saying it.
Andrew: Every year, we’d go to this Christmas party. It was lots of gay men on Broadway. They were all beautiful, and it was a party full of flirting. I remember one time asking Steven afterward, “How do you feel about me flirting with other people?” Because I felt the same way Steven did — a beautiful man at that party can make me feel sexy in a way that my husband can’t. So we discussed those feelings and talked about how we both thought it was healthy. That was a gateway for us.
Eva gave Tomas an ultimatum.
Ages: 30 and 30 Open for: 8 years
Tomas: I was in Europe, she was in the U.S., and she wasn’t happy with the relationship. We got to a stage where she said, “Either we open it up or we have to break up.”
Eva: I obviously know now that in the literature there’s this idea of non-monogamy by coercion, and that isn’t great. But it was challenging to do long distance. Also, Tomas was my first serious relationship, and I had this fear that I would settle too early. I wanted to date other people.
Tomas: It was not something I ever considered. I always saw myself in a monogamous relationship and married with kids and all that. But we talked about it over a few months, which helped.
Eva: At the beginning, he thought I was trying to find a way to replace him. Over time, when he realized that wasn’t happening, he was more fine with it.
Should We Come Up With Some Rules?
When couples start being non-monogamous, there are, in general, two kinds of rules they tend to set. The first is about the structure of the arrangement. Are you seeing new people as a duo, or is it okay to pursue an outside relationship on your own? Are you remaining each other’s primary partners, or are you eliminating the hierarchy entirely? Breaking these kinds of rules can feel like a violation or at least require serious negotiation. A few years ago, Alice and her husband opened their marriage. They knew they wanted to date together and had started seeing another couple but hadn’t set firm rules. One day, the four of them were together at a food festival in Brooklyn. “I had to go off somewhere, and the other husband had to go off somewhere. So my husband and the woman were left at this food festival and ended up going back to our apartment together and then slept together,” she says. “We hadn’t clearly said, ‘No, that’s not allowed.’ It was murky. But I felt really betrayed and devastated, which I think is hard for people outside of the lifestyle to understand.”
The second kind of rules are of the more tactical, logistics-y variety. Keep your wedding ring on always, for example, or no sleepovers at home, or no more than two dates with other people per week. Nearly every couple we spoke to said that these types of rules are more like training wheels: important to set up and follow in the beginning to make everyone feel safe but likely to fall off as people get more comfortable. Brittany and Roy gave each other curfews, which they stuck to in the beginning, until needing to be home at a certain time started to make them feel constrained and they realized they didn’t really care. It became a specific request for specific circumstances, like if one of them was sick. Blake and Paula had the “no sex in the shared bed” rule for a while, “but at a certain point I was like, ‘I personally don’t care anymore whether you have sex with someone else in our bed,’” says Paula. “This does not seem important to me. ‘Go forth and let’s see how it feels.’ And then you did it and I did it. And we were both like, ‘Oh, this is fine. We don’t care.’” Some non-monogamous people are skeptical of rules in general. “I think a path for success for an open couple is to be able to be very present, treat every moment as if it’s unique,” says Robert. His partner, Olivia, adds, “If you had a set of rules, it would almost feel very strict, like monogamy.”
Where Do I Meet People?
Unless you live in Brooklyn or San Francisco (and even if you do), chances are you’re meeting people on the apps. Many default to Feeld, the non-monogamy and kink-friendly dating app, but you could do just as well somewhere like Hinge, matching only with others who label themselves non-monogamous. If you and your partner are dating separately, you might consider acting as each other’s wingman. After Toni opened her marriage, she found that she was having trouble meeting women. “I joined several apps, and nothing was really happening for me,” she says. Her husband, Tom, started matching with people he could potentially set her up with on Feeld. To one woman, Clarissa, he wrote, ‘Hey, my wife would love to speak with you separately without me, are you okay if I connect you?” then put Clarissa and Toni in a group chat. The two of them dated for a few months.
Does My Wife Want to Hear About My Night?
Some couples who date separately follow a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — this can work well for those who like a little secrecy or just don’t want to talk about everything. But more often, couples like to share at least some details about how their respective love lives are going. Some ways to make those conversations less fraught.
Don’t debrief immediately.
“When we get home from a date with somebody else, that’s not the time to talk about it,” says Ethan, who opened his marriage three years ago. In that moment, he says, the most important thing is to reassure your partner: “Hey, I came home to you, and I want to be with you.” He adds, “Then, after some time has gone by, you can say, ‘How did the date go?’ It’s easier the second day.”
And don’t go into every detail.
Even if you and your partner want to be transparent with each other, it doesn’t necessitate giving a play-by-play. For one thing, too much information could send your partner into a spiral of anxiety or insecurity. Plus it’s not always the most considerate to the partners who aren’t in the room. “It feels a little bad to talk about every little thing you did with somebody, especially if they don’t have the ability to tell their own story,” says Blake, who has been partnered for ten years and poly for seven. “It’s just bad manners.”
But do consider sharing breakthroughs.
The one exception to Blake and his wife Paula’s rule is when they have a sexual first. “The first time I fisted someone, I was like, ‘Oh my God, Blake,’” Paula says. Another time, Blake called her with news. “I was like, ‘I fucked a guy in the butt,’” Blake says. “We celebrated.”
And findings.
“There’s one guy that I was with, and it was just a fabulous experience,” says Emily, who is married to Ethan. “I told him I couldn’t squirt. He said, ‘I am telling you, you can,’ and at the end of a four-hour session with him, I squirted for the first time.” Upon hearing about this, Ethan felt insecure. “But then I said, ‘Okay, what did he do? Let me learn,’” he says. “Now I think we need to send him Christmas cards.”
Should We Sleep With Them on the First Date?
If you’re a couple on a date with another couple, there are things to consider that you don’t have to think about as a single on a date with another single. “We’ve been a lot of couples’ first dates after they’ve opened up their relationship,” says Amelia, who frequently dates other couples with her husband, Chris. Below, the two share some advice.
Amelia: We’ve been together eight years, and it’s exciting to see that charming first-date persona anew in your partner.
Chris: But we often notice that other couples seem unsure of what they want out of the situation. We will say, “What are you guys hoping for?” And they’ll say, “We never really talked about it.” So we’re often putting the brakes on. People will want to go out for drinks, then go back to their place, and it’s like, “No, it would be better if you guys went home, processed your feelings, and then let us know if you’re both interested.” A red flag is when one partner seems overly excited and the other is pulling back. And sometimes two people just clearly want different things. So we try to really communicate — like, we’ll say, “Hey, are you in this pile of eight people because you want to be, or are you in it because you feel like you need to be?”
Amelia: When dating together, we have pretty good game: We’ll tee each other up to be charming. But sometimes we just have more of a connection with only one of the people in the couple: Our current girlfriend and boyfriend both started out as part of other couples. Things didn’t work out with the other partner, but we kept seeing them.
Am I Being Nice Enough to My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend?
If you’re not in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation, you may find yourself getting to know your partner’s partners, otherwise known as your metamours.
Don’t think of them as rivals.
When it comes to her husband’s girlfriends, Ali goes out of her way to avoid acting territorial. “I’m not in competition with these women. It’s not like, I’m more important because I am his wife. I am here to make sure that their needs are being met as well as mine,” she says. In the past, she’s given her phone number to new people her husband is dating in case they’re feeling unsure about him and want to talk. She’ll also intervene to make sure her husband is being a good boyfriend. “He has a girlfriend that he’s been with for two years,” she says. “I know the relationship is important, so sometimes I’ll facilitate. I’ll ask, ‘Have you FaceTimed or seen Daphne lately?’”
It’s okay to say, “Hey, this is our thing.”
Alejandra recently went on a trip upstate with Diego (her primary partner), Ivy (Diego’s partner), and Nathan (Ivy’s partner). It was the first vacation the group had taken together, and Alejandra pulled her metamour, Ivy, aside. “In bed, I refer to Diego a lot as ‘Daddy,’ and the one thing that I asked Ivy not to do in front of me on this trip was call him that because that might make me uncomfortable,” Alejandra said. “Ivy was like, ‘Oh, that’s totally fine. I’ve never called him that in my life.’ I was like, ‘Great.’”
But also, it’s not all on you.
A lot of the responsibility lies with the hinge, or mutual partner, in making sure nobody feels neglected. “When you are the middle person, you need to make sure that you’re giving equal amounts of attention to those two people,” Alejandra says. “It can be mental gymnastics: Okay, I held this person’s hand. So I have to hold this person’s hand. Oh, I gave this person a kiss. Oh, fuck, I want to make sure that everyone feels loved.” On their trip upstate, Diego, the hinge, was openly affectionate with Ivy in front of Alejandra, but later, when Alejandra began feeling insecure, he reassured her. Alejandra describes the situation: “I’m like, I’ve gained about 20 pounds, so I do not feel super-comfortable in my skin, and Ivy’s gorgeous. As soon as I felt that, I just started talking about it in front of everyone, and Diego told me some nice things, that I’m superhot and fuckable, and that’s what I needed. He did a great job. I would love to go on a little trip with them all again.”
But if your metamour is giving you a genuinely bad feeling, don’t ignore it.
Ali recalls a former metamour who grew angry after she and her husband tried to set boundaries. “She told him she had HPV, which is not a scary thing to most people, but I have a family history of cancer,” Ali says. “I said that certain sex acts are off the table, and she ended up exploding on him on his birthday while he was with his family, just keeping him on the phone for hours and hours.” The relationship ended on its own, but if it hadn’t, Ali would’ve intervened. “The language would have been, ‘I noticed so-and-so is treating you in this way, and I feel like you deserve better.’”
How Much Time Does This All Take?
You might be thinking at this point, I have a job, and a partner, and friends, and hobbies. How in the world am I going to make time for dating, and then talking about dating, on top of all of that? Some non-monogamous couples keep shared Google calendars or reserve one night a week for each other. Julia, who is in an open marriage with her husband, Matt, breaks down how they manage their week-to-week and what she’s had to give up to make room.
Matt and I have an agreement about how much time we can spend with another person weekly. Spending a whole evening out once a week, either Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, is totally fine; usually, it’s after we have dinner with our young child, so from 7 p.m. till 1 a.m. And then we’re okay with each other sleeping over somewhere else once every two weeks.
Right now, I feel at capacity with one secondary partner and my husband. If my one secondary partner were way more casual, then maybe I could date two people. In order to keep my nuclear family my priority, the amount of time I put toward this other relationship has a maximum. I’d guess it takes up, or keeps me away from Matt, eight to 12 hours a week, depending on if I stay over at my partner’s or not.
I think I’ve ended up sacrificing my more introverted hobbies. So I’ve done less reading. The gardening and yard work and just a lot of home-improvement stuff I let go to the wayside. I’ve done less crafts. I think Matt has too. I know he’s put aside house projects because he needs time to go on dates. He used to do a lot more woodworking.
Some poly people prefer not to tell every single person in their lives — it simply seems unnecessary, or they don’t feel like explaining or receiving judgment. Others find it more challenging, logistically and emotionally, to keep it private. (What if someone spots you out and thinks you’re cheating? Or you need to tell work you’re leaving early to pick up your partner’s child?) Writer Molly Roden Winter explains how she navigated talking to her children about her and her husband’s open marriage.
My husband and I never planned to tell our children about our open marriage. But seven years after we took our first fumbling steps toward non-monogamy, I got off a plane to find a series of text messages from my then-13-year-old son, Daniel. “Mom,” he wrote, “are you and Dad in an open marriage?” My husband, Stewart, had left his OKCupid profile open on his laptop, and Daniel had seen it.
I found a spot against the wall of the Houston airport to call him. When Daniel picked up, I began by telling him how happy his father and I were, how we were always honest with each other. But Daniel’s main question surprised me. “I get that Dad has time for it,” he asked. “But when do you do it?” This question brought me relief: Like many mothers with a full-time job, I’d worried that I wasn’t spending enough time with my children, and using precious nonworking hours to go on dates made me feel particularly guilty. Here was proof that, in Daniel’s mind at least, I was around so often he couldn’t fathom my managing to be anywhere else.
Daniel, the eldest of my two boys, had always been eminently reasonable. As an infant, he cried only when he needed something, and in elementary school, Daniel’s teachers often commented on his extraordinary comfort level with adults and his ability to mediate conflicts among his peers. With him, I had always leaned toward honesty: I’d told him about my limited drug use as a teenager, my fraught relationships with eating and body image, and my family’s history of mental illness. But speaking to my son about my sex life felt far more difficult. “I don’t do it very often,” I lied.
Daniel seemed satisfied, but over the next few weeks, once I returned to Brooklyn, he was consumed with curiosity about my whereabouts. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Are you really going to see a friend? Are you sure you’re going to the gym?” Stewart, meanwhile, continued to come and go as he pleased. “Why doesn’t Daniel ask where you’re going?” I asked Stewart one night. “Why doesn’t anyone seem to care if fathers have sex, but every mother is supposed to be the goddamn Virgin Mary?” Stewart offered to speak to Daniel, who afterward apologized to me. “I’m sorry I’ve been asking where you’re going all the time,” he said. “I know it’s private.”
“It’s okay, honey,” I answered. “It’s just that I don’t think you actually want to know if I’m on a date. And sometimes I really am just going out with friends or to the gym.” Daniel nodded. He’d try not to ask, he said, “but if I do, can you just lie if you have a date?” He seemed to agree: My dishonesty was also in his best interest.
While Daniel had always been compliant and even-tempered, his younger brother, Nate, had a penchant for emotional extremes. At the end of our phone call in the Houston airport, I’d asked Daniel to put away his father’s laptop; while he may have been mature enough to handle the truth, I hoped to keep our open marriage hidden from his younger brother as long as possible. But four years after Daniel called me in Houston, I was in my bedroom when I heard a scream from downstairs. Nate burst in with Stewart’s old iPhone in his hand. “Mom!” he shouted. “Dad’s cheating on you!” He had found pictures of Stew with his girlfriend.
Rather than asking questions stoically and matter-of-factly, as Daniel had when he first discovered Stewart’s dating profile, Nate’s eyes were wide, his breathing rapid. “Are you getting a divorce?” he asked. No, I said. He asked me who the woman was. “You don’t need to know who,” I said. “The important thing is I know who she is, and Dad isn’t cheating on me. Cheating means you lie, and Dad and I always tell each other the truth.”
There I was, standing on the same line between boundaries and honesty, exactly where I’d stood with Daniel four years earlier. Yet what I’d learned from Daniel was only halfway applicable. While Daniel was a classic introvert — often cutting discussions short in order to process his feelings alone — Nate was more like me, an extrovert who preferred to talk through complex emotions. Tell Nate too much, and he’d be anxious. Tell him too little, and he’d fill in details with his own worst fears. I checked my mind and my gut for signs of the old shame, but it registered only as a weak flicker. Calmly, I told Nate that his father and I had an open marriage. “Should we FaceTime Dad at his office?” I asked. While Stewart and I had spoken to Daniel separately when he first found out, I’d come to understand the importance of presenting a united front. Stewart and I proceeded to tell Nate our beliefs about open marriage — our commitment to each other, the emphasis on honest communication, the affirmation of each other as our life partners of choice. There was one question Nate came back to over and over again. “Just promise me you guys still really love each other,” he said.
In the months after, additional questions arose. “Are you sleeping with my orthodontist?” he asked. “No,” I responded. “Non-monogamy doesn’t mean you sleep with everyone. And I would never get involved with someone you know.”
“Cool,” he said, relieved. Then, a few days later: “Do you and Dad still like having sex with each other?” I said “yes,” to which Nate replied, “Okay, okay. Don’t say anything more!” Over time, Nate’s questions became less frequent. Stewart and I had always been affectionate with each other in front of the kids, but now I often saw Nate peeking around corners when Stew and I hugged, or jumping between us happily when we held hands on weekend outings or family vacations. And if Stewart and I fought in front of the kids, we tried to make sure they bore witness to our reconciliation as well.
Daniel, who is now an adult, recently confessed that back when he was 13, he’d been more upset about the open marriage than he’d let on. Like Nate, he’d equated open marriage with infidelity, fearing that any arrangement outside the conventions of monogamy was verboten. Would his parents stay together? Would the foundation of our family crumble beneath his feet? “It’s okay, though, Mom,” he said, registering my panic. “I’m fine with it now.” What helped, he said, was that nothing actually did change: My and Stewart’s marriage remained strong. Plus, he said, he grew up. It is tempting to believe that the choices we parents make are helping to shape our kids into confident, secure adults, but our children, ultimately, will become who they will become — maybe thanks to us, maybe in spite of us, and maybe a little bit of both.
And What About My Co-workers?
Katie Coyne, the environmental officer for the city of Austin, suggests being casual about it.
I’m married, and we’ve been poly for about two years. I have a public-facing job. It’s really important for me to feel like I’m not hiding anything about myself or hiding people who are important to me. I have it sort of worked out now. With people I’m closer with, I’ll just slide it in casually. For instance, when I was dating someone who has kids, I was going to soccer games and doing some part-time co-parenting. So at a happy hour with my staff, when someone asked what I was doing over the weekend, I said, “I’m going to my partner’s kid’s soccer game.” He was like, “Oh, I didn’t know you and your wife had kids.” I said, “Oh, we don’t. It’s my partner; I’m polyamorous.” The only person I was afraid to tell was my boss because he’s pretty religious. But the day after another partner and I broke up, we had an all-day executive-team coaching retreat. At the end of the day we were going to happy hour, and I said to him, “Hey, most of the rest of the executive team knows this about me, but I wanted to tell you that I am upset because my girlfriend and I broke up last night. I’m polyamorous.” He didn’t know how to react, but he’s adapted. A few months ago, I even took a date to a fundraiser. One of the organizers was like, “Oh, is this your partner?” And I said “No, actually, we’re on a date!” And my boss was like, “Great to meet you.” Everyone’s kind of rolling with it.
What Can Go Wrong?
More people means more interpersonal dynamics — double or triple the giddiness, maybe, but also double or triple the jealousy, anxiety, abandonment, and painful breakups.
The hierarchy might shift.
For the first five years of our open relationship, Eva and I were each other’s primary relationship. Any outside relationships never got super-serious. I was under the impression that that would always be the case. Then, two years ago, Eva met this other person and they fell in love. She started spending more nights at his house, and the relationship developed to a stage where Eva was very emotionally involved. Now her other boyfriend and I are on an equal footing in terms of the importance in the relationship. We celebrated her birthday together this year. — Tomas
You might become a third wheel.
One time, we met a girl who showed interest primarily in Ethan but said she was also interested in me. We had her over for drinks, and when things carried into the bedroom, it was clear that the focus was really him. It was our first threesome. At one point, we were talking about what we all wanted. So I said to Ethan, “What do you want? I want you to have what you want.” And he said he wanted to fuck the other girl. Then they went off to do their thing and I wasn’t involved. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I left the house. —Emily
Your partner might date someone who wants you gone.
The first time that Blake fell in love with someone else, it felt clear to me that she hoped that she would win him over and that he would leave me for her. When I met her in person, it didn’t feel to me like, Oh, she’s not ready to meet me. It felt like, She’s bummed about me. She was sad. She did not want me in the picture. Since then, I’ve met other women Blake has been in love with and it’s been great. And I’m able to look back and say, “The vibes were really off.” —Paula
They might realize they’d rather be monogamous.
We met on OKCupid and had both set ourselves as non-monogamous. We’d both just gotten out of eight-year relationships. She and her ex had decided to be non-monogamous to try to save their relationship. Over the course of ours, she basically figured out a poly relationship was not really what she wanted. I was encouraging her to date. I thought over time she’d become more comfortable. But she didn’t. She’d get really anxious and have a lot of fear and jealousy when I was trying to date. She’d say, “Hey, please don’t do this. I’m not ready for it.” There was this sense that I was somehow hurting her, and she felt like she was cheating on me when she went on dates with other people. I felt constricted. And then there was the fact that we kind of wanted different things — like, she wanted to have a child very soon. Over time, once we realized this feeling wasn’t going away, we started talking about ending the relationship. We’d do this thing sometimes where we’d lie around and scroll through OKCupid and try to find people for each other. She came across this one guy’s profile one day, and I was like, “Oh my God, you have to, like, go out with him. He’s just like me except better for you than I am.” And she did, and she ended up married to him, and they had children soon after. —Nikhil
You might tire of your secondary status.
I was dating somebody — I’ll call him Michael. And he was in a primary relationship with Michelle.
At the time, they were making a lot of space for loving other people and inviting those lovers or boyfriends into their home and on vacations with them. I was their secondary. I was very connected to them, and I very much fell in love with Michael. Michael very much fell in love with me. I was supporting Michael while he prepared to propose to Michelle. But then I went through a really rough period. I needed more emotional support than he could give me. I was impulsive and broke up with him. I knew Michelle was consoling him for many months afterward. A few years later, Michelle reached out to me. She’d asked seven of his lovers and former lovers to come surprise him for his birthday. We tied him up and throttled him in complete silence. So it was ultimately a happy ending. —Sonya
They might leave you behind.
Seven years ago, I met this woman. I was mostly monogamous and single. She was very up front that she had a boyfriend and they were open. We started dating, and for those two years, I wasn’t dating multiple people — I just was dating her, and she really just wanted one female companion and him. The beginning of the end was when her and her boyfriend’s relationship started to become codified in traditions. He proposed to her, and it threw me. It made the balance beam that I was on feel uneven and one-sided. He invited me to the wedding, but she was like, “Uh, no.” She said she didn’t want to have to explain to her family who I was at the wedding. It felt like she chose him over me, like, “You’re not fully included.” I think I saw her one more time after the wedding, but it was just awkward. —M.J.
You two might drift apart.
A few years after my husband and I opened our marriage, I met this woman. We fell in love really, really fast. One morning, after she slept over, my husband said, “Seeing you this excited about someone else really freaks me out.” But I’d seen him happy with people over the years we’d been open, so he let me give it a shot. Eventually, he even suggested she move in. Now, I live in very separate worlds with them in the same house. He’s a very tidy person. She loves to play music, cook, be messy. He’s reserved; she loves to give attention. My husband and I haven’t had sex in over a year. We love each other, but our connectedness just doesn’t run as deep as mine and hers. —Caroline
Or it might just break your relationship.
>My partner and I started dating in college, and we stayed together after. She was always interested in alternative relationship modalities, and over the years she brought it up a couple of times. I’d be like, “Okay, that’s interesting. Let me think about it.” Eventually, when we moved cities, I was like, “Why don’t we give this a shot?” In the beginning, it felt really fun. Then she got more serious with someone and it became more difficult to talk about with each other. She was never anything but transparent about the facts. I would ask her what she was doing one day, and she’d say, “Oh, I’m seeing this person.” At one point, they started taking trips together, so I knew they were getting more serious.
I felt upset and wondered if I should be doing something similar. I started looking around more on Hinge and found somebody I had amazing chemistry with. Eventually, my feelings toward her and hers toward me grew so strong that I was like, I have to make a decision. It’s gotten out of hand, emotionally. The main relationship was suffering. Neither of us was putting the same attention into that that we were into the other relationships.
I ended up breaking things off with my partner. The conversation was consuming. I feel like I’ve never been so focused on something. I walked around the city for days and days thinking, What should I do? At one point, she asked, “Well, would you change your mind if I ended things with the other person?” I said, “Honestly, I don’t know. The cat’s kind of out of the bag.” And she said, “Well, honestly, I don’t know whether I’d be able to do it and hurt the other person in this way.” I don’t know if we’d have stayed together if we’d stayed closed. Or if it would have been the right decision to stay together. —Lucas
All names have been changed at the request of the subjects.
We’re living in the age of normalising sexual wellness, and it looks like the boys are getting on board. Here are the latest innovations in the male sex toy sphere you need to get your hands on.
Sexual wellness is coming for men. In fact, it has been for quite some time now. The proof?
A global market report conducted in the mecca of sex – the US – has revealed the male sex toy industry is set to hit a compound annual growth rate of more than seven per cent over the next decade, expanding the overall market value from $23,000 in 2019 to an eye-watering $59 billion by 2032. And with the current popularity of female pleasure heating up social discourse, it seems sex toys for guys have officially gone mainstream.
“I think society is gradually shifting towards a more open and inclusive dialogue about male sexual wellness, beyond function and hydraulics,” says men’s sex and relationships coach, Cam Fraser.
“[Generally speaking], this trend is indicative of a broader cultural movement toward destigmatising sexual exploration and prioritising mutually pleasurable experiences.”
While long assumed to be only for women, there is, in reality, a huge and varied range of sex toys designed explicitly for men. And all men at that. Whether you’re shopping for yourself or a male partner – there’s a sex toy out there to enhance both solo or partner play.
According to a survey by pleasure-aid brand, Womanizer, men masturbate an average of 155 times per year, which equates to almost three times per week.
“As restrictive stereotypes about being a ‘real man’ have lessened, many men have become more comfortable with exploring different aspects of pleasure,” says Fraser, adding that digital dialogues have also played a major role in this shift.
“Social media, wellness influencers and a more open public conversation about masculinity and sexuality have contributed to normalising discussions around male sexual health and pleasure… [and] a more accepting and curious attitude toward exploring one’s own body and desires.”
These stats alone beg the question: if you’re putting that much time into something, why not spice things up a bit?
Turns out toys can have major health benefits
According to science (yes, actual science), masturbation, prostate massage and using sex toys can be life saving for men.
Firstly, it turns out masturbation can lower your prostate cancer risk, improve heart health, boost immunity and (if you orgasm once or twice a week) help you live longer.
“The man who has 350 orgasms a year, versus the national average of around a third of that, lives about four years longer,” says Michael Roizen, the chair of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic who conducted a study on the topic.
Meanwhile, in Wales, researchers determined that men who had two or more orgasms a week halved their rate of mortality to those who had orgasms less than once a month.
“Sexual activity seems to have a protective effect on men’s health,” the researchers concluded, and these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to longevity.
Experts say that the new breed of male sex tech can actually help with sexual issues such as erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, lack of libido and post-surgical problems, like urine flow, for a variety of conditions.
In fact, one study revealed that “72 per cent of men with secondary delayed orgasm [difficulty achieving ejaculation or orgasm] were able to restore orgasm with penile vibratory stimulation” – aka the use of male vibrators.
If that hasn’t put you in the mood for self-love, then we don’t know what will.
Design is more high-tech than ever before
“In addition to improved ergonomic designs and advancing technology, which have made self-pleasure more appealing and enjoyable, I think the way that sex toys are being marketed and packaged has encouraged more men to explore self-pleasure,” says Fraser.
“Instead of sleazy, back-alley shops and lewd imagery, many toys are now being sold by reputable companies in sleek and unassuming packaging.”
Brands are creating a range of vibrators for men that are rooted in enjoyment – both physically and aesthetically – meaning, most of the time, they don’t actually resemble one.
“When we develop our toys, their design is always top-of-mind,” says Sarah Moglia, head of innovation at sexual pleasure brand, Arcwave. “We keep our products discrete-looking so that users don’t feel the need to hide them away when not in use.”
In fact, most new designs can be displayed around the home as a piece of art without impromptu visitors knowing what they actually are.
“Not only should the toys bring users sexual satisfaction, but we also want them to look great in interior spaces so that our customers can feel proud that they are embracing pleasure,” says Moglia.
“These changes have made sex toys more approachable and accessible, perhaps resulting in men feeling less ashamed to purchase [and use] them,” adds Fraser.
“I think this signals a promising future for sexual wellness, where personal pleasure is both prioritised and destigmatised.” It’s something female brands have been adopting for a while now, but an element that has long been neglected in male pleasure.
Earlier this year, Womanizer unveiled the world’s first shower head designed for masturbation.
Created in partnership with luxury German bathware manufacturer, Hansgrohe, the Wave shower head looks discreet in the bathroom, but packs a punch when it comes to enjoyment.
“A chic-looking sex toy on your shelf, bedside table or in your shower is the ultimate tool – both aesthetically and sexually,” says Elisabeth Neumann, sexologist and head of user research at Womanizer.
“Design has played a significant role in changing perceptions around pleasure and sex toys,” adds Fraser. “By focusing on aesthetics, functionality and discretion, [brands] are breaking down stereotypes that sex toys are either taboo or vulgar.”
Not only is this pivotal in normalising sexual wellness as an integral element of overall health and wellbeing, but it also plays a major role in reducing shame around sex and self-care. And we’re all for that.
Many people assume aging means losing interest in sex. A recent study sheds light on the misconceptions surrounding older adults’ sexual lives.
Society’s beliefs about aging and sex are complex and vary widely, but one common belief is that disinterest in sex is a standard part of aging. A recent study explores how misconceptions like these can complicate the acceptance of older adults’ sexual lives.
The study surveyed 270 young adults, ages 18 to 35, about their perceptions of sexuality in older adulthood, general attitudes towards sex and sex as a leisure activity. It was conducted by Liza Berdychevsky, professor of recreation, sport and tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Iulia Fratila, an assistant professor of global and community health at George Mason University.
“The entire premise is: How do we combat ageism?” Berdychevsky said.
The study found that young adults have a moderate level of knowledge and are typically open-minded regarding later-life sexuality. But it also revealed the ageist views and misconceptions that can potentially harm older adults’ sexual expression.
More than one in four young adults surveyed incorrectly believed that sex might increase the chance of heart attacks for older folks. About 12% mistakenly thought that sex in later years could be bad for health overall. And roughly one in five were under the wrong impression that older men and women can’t be partners to each other for sex, thinking instead that they need younger partners for any sexual connection.
Older adults can internalize ageism, Fratila said, leading them to limit their willingness and confidence to seek help if issues with their sexual life do arise.
“We see a lot in movies, that older adults become asexual, or that it’s a dirty, creepy phenomenon to have sexual interest still as you get older,” Fratila said. “It might just hurt their psychological well-being and self-esteem, being marginalized or stereotyped in that way.”
It’s a shame, she said, because these false ideas “[don’t] allow people to actually pursue the maximum health that they can, given that sexual health is a part of our overall well-being.”
In an earlier study, Berdychevsky spoke with older adults about ageist beliefs they’ve encountered. Many said that at least some of these ideas came from uninformed health care providers or close family members — like adult children — who did not appreciate the idea of their parents having sexual relations.
The new study also found that some participants would be reluctant to admit a relative to a nursing home that allowed and supported sexual activity among its residents.
“I think they should view it through the lens of: Am I infringing on my relative’s sexual expression rights? And if the answer is yes, then rethink your position,” Berdychevsky said. “It’s up to them. The infrastructure for privacy and intimacy and sexual relationships need to be provided, and then it’s up to older adults whether to take advantage of that.”
Illinois Student Newsroom spoke with young people on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to see what they thought about the topic of aging and sex.
UIUC freshman Seher Bhaskar said sex is seen as taboo for older generations.
“It’s that idea that there’s a prime of your age – the idea that a senior citizen is not as capable as someone who’s younger,” Bhaskar said. “So we just feel that they’re just not part of normal life, so they shouldn’t be doing those ‘un-innocent’ activities.”
Numerous research studies show that sexual activity in later life has numerous health benefits, including improved cardiovascular function, relaxation, and decreased pain sensitivity and depressive symptoms. Fratila also noted the psychological and social benefits.
“It doesn’t stop after our reproductive years,” Fratila said. “This is something that can be a glue for relationships, it can be something that’s empowering for individuals when they’re able to practice safe sex, and sex that is adaptable to where they are in their life stage. It doesn’t have to look like how it [did] when you were younger.”
When asked what age they thought adults stopped having sex, Alex Lopez, a UIUC freshman, guessed somewhere in their 30s.
“I have no idea,” they said. “At least for me in middle school, I had no sex ed, and then in high school as well. I got educated by a friend of mine during a free period in a classroom.”
Berdychevsky said the next steps are to focus on developing appropriate sexual health education throughout life.
“It has to be tailored to [a] particular life stage with the focus that there’s no expiration date on sexuality,” Berdychevsky said. “It’s not only older adults. It’s not only younger adults. [Sex] can continue to be enjoyed, perhaps differently at every life stage, but it still comes with all its benefits.”
Better sexual education of young people, the researchers said, could help alleviate fears many young people have about mortality and aging.
Mallory Miller, a junior at UIUC, said she believes more representation would also be beneficial.
“We only hear about sex with people who have the ‘perfect’ bodies or early 20-year-olds or college students,” Miller said. “You don’t even realize that it happens at all ages. I think it’d be great if we could change that mental imagery to something that’s more inclusive.”
Currently, Berdychevsky is spearheading another project – an app with tailored sexual health education messages for older adults. Her team has already developed 30 modules and is working on an algorithm and screener.
“Every good thing in our life requires some work, and ageist stereotypes tend to inhibit some people’s ability to do that work because it’s not viewed as worthy or as appropriate or whatnot,” Berdychevsky said. “Removing that ageist inhibition is so crucially important, so that people could act upon their change in needs and desires and get that fulfillment that they’re looking for.”
— PrEP has been hailed by sexual health experts as crucial in bringing the HIV epidemic to an end, but studies show that only 20 per cent of the British public even know it exists.
BY CONOR CLARK
Taking PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is one of the most effective ways to reduce the risk of getting HIV, but knowledge about it among the British public remains scarce. In fact, just 20 per cent of people in the UK know it exists, according to research conducted by YouGov on behalf of Terrence Higgins Trust, the country’s leading sexual health charity. A staggering 77 per cent were also unaware that England can end new cases of HIV by 2030, which sexual health experts have said PrEP is key to making a reality. So, what is the drug, how effective is it at preventing HIV and where can you get it?
What is PrEP?
PrEP (sometimes known as Truvada) is a medicine that drastically reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex or injection drug use when taken effectively. It typically comes in the form of a tablet containing tenofovir disoproxil and emtricitabine, both of which are used to treat HIV. Once there’s enough of the drug inside you, it works by blocking HIV from getting into the body and replicating itself.
Long-acting injectable PrEP also exists and has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, though is not yet available in the UK. It can also exist as a vaginal ring, though this is also not yet available in the UK.
PrEP does not protect you against any other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
How effective is it at preventing HIV?
When taken effectively, PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by 99 per cent. When taking it daily, PrEP needs to be taken for seven days until it becomes fully effective.
The PrEP Impact Trial, which involved more than 24,000 participants across 157 sexual health services from October 2017 to July 2020, proved the real-world effectiveness of the drug and concluded that it should be used more widely to prevent the spread of HIV. John Stewart, National Director for Specialised Commissioning at NHS England and co-Chair of the PrEP Impact Trial Oversight Board, said: “Not only did the trial directly prevent many cases of HIV, help normalise the use of PrEP, remove stigma and pave the way for a routinely commissioned clinically and cost-effective PrEP service; but it also made a very real contribution towards our goal of ending new cases of HIV by 2030.”
How often should I take it?
Most people take it orally in the form of a tablet, either regularly (one a day) or ‘event-based’ (two tablets two to 24 hours before sex, then one 24 hours after sex and a further one 48 hours after).
Those who were assigned female at birth and trans people using hormone treatment are recommended to take PrEP daily due to the lack of data available in supporting other dosing options. More information about this is available here.
Do I still need to test for HIV if I’m on PrEP?
The short answer is yes. Sam, a doctor at the Dean Street sexual health clinics in London, which are world-famous for their services to LGBTQIA+ people, said: “PrEP is the most effective way of protecting yourself from HIV. However, mistakes can happen with taking your PrEP, so we still advise testing every three to four months for HIV and all the other STIs.”
Kidney tests are done before you begin taking PrEP and continue routinely while you are on it. This is because it can sometimes affect your kidneys, though this is incredibly rare and typically only happens in those aged 50 and older or those who already have kidney problems.
Are there any side effects?
Not everyone gets side effects from PrEP and those who do usually see them go away after the first few weeks of taking it. “This is one of the number one reasons for people not wanting to take PrEP, but actually only about one in 10 people get side effects from PrEP and these tend to be quite mild and not very severe,” Sam told GAY TIMES.
According to the NHS, the most common side effects some people experience are:
Headache
Nausea and/or vomiting
Diarrhoea
Feeling dizzy and/or weak
Trouble sleeping
Bloating and/or indigestion
Clinicians recommend that anyone experiencing side effects seek medical advice if they persist.
Over half of women have faked an orgasm. Surprised? Probably not.
But while some women fake it from time-to-time, for others the lack of ability to reach orgasm is a far more debilitating issue.
Female orgasm disorder/difficulty (FOD), sometimes referred to as orgasm dysfunction, occurs when an individual has difficulty reaching orgasm, even when they are sexually aroused.
It affects millions of women worldwide and yet remains drastically under-studied.
“FOD is an under-recognized and under-treated serious public health issue,” says Dr Suzanne Mulvehill, founder of the Female Orgasm Research Institute, in written correspondence.
“The purpose of the Female Orgasm Research Institute is to identify proven pathways to female orgasm, conduct female orgasm research, bring awareness to the persistently high percentage of women affected by female orgasm difficulty, and provide an online female orgasm research library.”
According to Mulvehill’s research, the condition affects up to 41% of the female population, a statistic that has remained unchanged for 50 years.
She puts this down to a number of reasons that include “shame, stigma, lack of research, and lack of treatments”.
A quick search of clinicaltrials.gov and you’ll see that there are currently no clinical trials recruiting or in the early stages of development on FOD and only 13 completed studies.
This is compared to 363 completed studies on erectile dysfunction and 88 in the early stages.
Dr Mulvehill says: “When I was conducting my dissertation research, I was shocked to discover that there is only one empirically validated treatment for FOD and that is only for women who never orgasmed, or rather, have not yet orgasmed, and this is called directed masturbation and was developed in the 1970s.
“There are no empirically validated treatments for the largest group of women affected by FOD which is women who have what is referred to as Situational FOD, meaning women who can orgasm in some situations but not others, such as orgasm from masturbation but not during partnered sex.”
There is one potential treatment which is showing significant promise though.
While previous research has suggested cannabis could have therapeutic potential in a number of female sexual disorders and could enhance pleasure for both men and women, the latest study to be published by the Female Orgasm Research Institute is the first to specifically evaluate the effects of cannabis in treating FOD.
What The Study Found
The observational study conducted among almost 400 women between March-November 2022, evaluated baseline demographics, sexual behavior, mental health, cannabis use, and the orgasm subscale questions of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), evaluating orgasm frequency, orgasm satisfaction, and orgasm ease, with and without cannabis before sex.
The majority of women in the study who reported difficulty reaching orgasm were between the ages of 25–34 (52%), reported their race as white (75%) and were married or in a relationship (82%).
Among those respondents reporting orgasm difficulty, cannabis use before partnered sex was found to increase orgasm frequency (72.8%) improve orgasm satisfaction (67%) or make reaching orgasm easier (71%).
According to the findings, the frequency of cannabis use before partnered sex correlated with increased orgasm frequency for women with FOD, while orgasm response to cannabis depended on the reasons for use.
“I honestly do not know of any other condition that has more of a research history than cannabis and sex, and in particular female orgasm,” she continues.
“What we do know is that 50 years of research shows cannabis helps women orgasm and helps women who have FOD. In the 1970s Dr Eric Goode speculated that it helped women release sexual inhibition.
“Aldrich found that cannabis has been used since ancient times to enhance sexual pleasure, and extensively documented the tantric use of cannabis in India from the seventh century onward to aid sexual pleasure and enlightenment.
“In 2020, Kasman et al. found that for each step up in cannabis use, female sexual dysfunction declined by 21%.”
FOD: The Bigger Picture
It starts to make sense when you look at the bigger picture around FOD.
Dr Mulvehill’s study also examined the mental health difficulties experienced by women with FOD. Those with the condition reported 24% more mental health issues, 52.6% more PTSD, 29% more depressive disorders, 13% more anxiety disorders, and 22% more prescription drug use than women without FOD. Women with FOD were also more likely to report sexual abuse history than women without.
“We also know that orgasm difficulties are the number one sexual complaint of sexual abuse survivors. When we start to put the research puzzle together, we see cannabis medicine helping women overcome FOD.”
Dr Mulvehill and her research partner, Dr Jordan Tishler, have been trying for three years to secure the funding to conduct a randomized controlled trial to examine cannabis as a treatment for FOD in more depth.
Among as yet unanswered questions such as why it works first-time for some and not others, this is an issue about “more than just pleasure” and could have a much wider impact on health.
FOD has a well-documented link to anxiety, childhood sexual abuse, PTSD, and cognitive distractions.
Studies have shown that THC, one of the main cannabinoids found in cannabis, can significantly reduce rates of anxiety and traumatic memories related to trauma and PTSD by reducing activity in the amygdala and reduces cognitive distractions by inhibiting activity in the prefrontal cortex.“
“As it turns out, orgasm is way more than being about pleasure. It is about a human right, a sexual right, and mental and physical health,” says Dr Mulvehill.
FOD has been linked to heart disease and cardiovascular issues, while a 2009 study found that of the sexually active women with type 1 diabetes, 51% of women reporting female sexual dysfunction had problems with orgasm.”
“If we start to actually ask women if they orgasm or not when screening for medical conditions, we may find out that lack of orgasm is linked to other health conditions. We know that during orgasm massive amounts of oxytocin are released.
“And what condition is related to a lack of oxytocin? Alzheimer’s disease. We also know that women in their 60’s are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s. We will not know until we start asking the questions.”
FOD And Public Policy Changes
Dr Mulvehill began researching this area following her own experience of overcoming FOD with the help of cannabis. And she’s not alone.
The study comes as four U.S. states are now considering adding FOD to the list of qualifying conditions for a medical cannabis prescription.
This month, the Illinois Medical Cannabis Board approved adding FOD and endometriosis as conditions of treatment with medical cannabis and is now awaiting final approval from the state’s director of public health.
Dr Mulvehill’s personal testimony has been submitted as part of the Illinois public comments process, alongside that of other women.
Meanwhile, Ohio’s State Medical Board also recently announced that FOD, along with autism spectrum disorder, would move forward for expert review and public comment following petitions submitted online.
New Mexico and Connecticut are also reported to be considering the issue.
Dr Tishler, founder of the Association of Cannabinoid Specialists and president of inhaleMD, already prescribes cannabis for FOD and other sexual disorders, and has also submitted a letter of support to regulators in New Mexico.
He highlights the importance of women having access to legally prescribed cannabis and clinical guidance when using it to manage these conditions.
“Cannabis is a medicine and as such must be treated as a medication,” he comments over email.
“It has risks as well as benefits and best practices that lead to better outcomes. This is certainly true for the treatment of FOD. Using cannabis in a recreational manner is more likely to lead to no benefit and higher risk of misuse. Further, as cannabis overuse can worsen anxiety and depression, it can worsen FOD. Women who have FOD, like any other illness, deserve proper treatment from a knowledgeable and caring cannabinoid specialist.”
Despite the lack of robust scientific evidence through RCTs, Dr Mulvehill highlights how this hasn’t prevented other conditions being approved for medical cannabis treatment. PTSD was approved in New Mexico in 2009, with no published studies and only case reports.
“The 50 years of research, combined with doctors prescribing medical cannabis for FOD, therapists recommending it, and women using cannabis before sex, tells me there is enough evidence for FOD to become a condition of treatment with medical cannabis,” she says.
“Just google cannabis and orgasm and you will see all of the articles on it. It is not new news. What is new is getting a public policy change to add FOD as a condition of treatment with medical cannabis. Just like PTSD has dealt with stigma through awareness and education, the same can be said for FOD.”
Dr Mulvehill adds: “FOD is a medical condition that deserves proper medical treatment. It is not something that women should have to ‘figure out on their own’.”
Every type of prostate cancer treatment has the potential to negatively affect sexual function and may impact fertility. But there is good news: A variety of therapies make it possible to have an active and fulfilling sex life during and after prostate cancer treatment, even if it means slightly reimagining what it means to have good sex. If your sex life has been altered by prostate cancer treatments, some unwanted side effects like erectile dysfunction have been known to improve over time, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The prostate is surrounded by nerves, muscles, and blood vessels that help produce an erection, but the prostate isn’t required for an erection or orgasm. However, the prostate and seminal vesicles are required for ejaculation and fertility. Some cancer treatments may affect the ability to get an erection and ejaculate.
Sexual Side Effects of Prostate Cancer Treatments
Prostate Surgery
It’s important to understand that orgasm and ejaculation are different physical reactions, although they often happen at the same time. Because the prostate and seminal vesicles are removed in a prostatectomy, no ejaculation can happen, but an erection and orgasm can happen. Sometimes the climax is called a dry orgasm because there is no semen.
Typically, a surgeon will attempt a sparing prostatectomy to save the neurovascular bundles on the side of the prostate that are necessary for erections and orgasms. But sometimes these nerves are damaged in surgery, which could diminish the ability to get erections or keep them.
If there is nerve damage, erectile dysfunction can improve over time even without intervention, according to Raevti Bole, MD, a urologist and specialist in men’s health at the Cleveland Clinic. “In general, patients notice the biggest impact on their erections right after surgery, then start to see improvements for up to two years after surgery,” says Dr. Bole.
There’s also the potential for another frustrating side effect of surgery: climacturia, or orgasmic incontinence. This is when a bit of urine leaks out during arousal. It is treatable through bladder training and exercising the pelvic floor muscles, or Kegel exercises.
Radiation
Although the goal of radiation therapy is to deliver the treatment to only the areas affected by cancer, sometimes it affects nearby nerves as well. When this happens, the nerves may not send a signal to have an erection. Unlike a prostatectomy, for which the biggest impact is right after surgery, the effects from radiation, if they happen, may occur over the course of years.
“Patients who have radiation can still orgasm and ejaculate, but often their ejaculate is diminished because, over time, the seminal vesicles in the prostate don’t produce semen like they used to,” says Scott Shelfo, MD, the medical director of urology at City of Hope in Atlanta.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is unlikely to cause erectile dysfunction, though it does have other side effects, such as fatigue and hair loss. Chemotherapy can, however, lower testosterone levels during the treatment period, per the National Cancer Institute, which leads to decreased libido. Chemo is always given in conjunction with hormonal therapy.
Hormone Therapy
Hormone therapy is used to stop the progression of cancer by significantly reducing testosterone, which can affect libido. With lower testosterone, the desire to have sex decreases. Low testosterone, or low T, can also affect the quality of erections, even though it isn’t physically affecting the sensory nerves. Testosterone is important for maintaining rigidity as well.
But patients with prostate cancer aren’t likely to be on hormone therapy for life. The length of time depends on the aggressiveness of the cancer. If you’ve been on hormone therapy for a while and the cancer is under control, you might have a discussion with your oncologist about taking a “hormone holiday,” according to Bole. “But there will still be intensive monitoring to make sure you’re doing it safely,” Bole says.
Common Questions About Sexual Side Effects of Prostate Cancer
Can You Function Sexually Without a Prostate?
There is life after prostate cancer, and you absolutely can have sex after a prostatectomy, although the quality of the sex depends on how well the nerves that stimulate erections and lead to orgasms survive the surgery.
Regardless of any possible damage to the nerves around the prostate, the sensory nerves, which are different from the ones that control erections, remain untouched by surgery. This means that the process that leads to arousal, but not necessarily erections, shouldn’t change.
Can You Get an Erection if You Have Prostate Cancer or Had Your Prostate Removed?
Yes. The nerves that control erections run along the back of the prostate. As long as the cancer has not invaded those nerves, your surgeon will make every effort to peel the prostate gland from those nerves without doing damage to them.
“If the surgeon does a good prostatectomy, and the patient had good erectile function before it, they have a better chance [of avoiding erectile dysfunction],” says Dr. Shelfo. Of course, if you had erectile dysfunction before prostate removal, chances are that you’re still going to have it after the procedure.
Can You Ejaculate After Prostate Removal?
No. Once the prostate is removed along with seminal vesicles, you can’t ejaculate.
Does Sex Feel Different After Prostate Removal?
Sex after prostate removal might feel different for some people. People with intact prostates often ejaculate and orgasm at the same time, although they are actually different processes. With prostate removal, erections and orgasms should be unchanged, unless the nerves around the prostate are damaged.
But Bole, who surveys patients after surgery, found that some patients find a dry orgasm after prostate surgery less satisfying, adding that same-sex couples may have issues if one partner is lacking a prostate. “For men having receptive anal intercourse, where the prostate is a source of pleasure, having the prostate removed definitely changes the sexual experience,” Bole says.
Can Prostate Cancer Affect Fertility?
Prostate cancer itself won’t necessarily affect fertility, but prostate removal definitely will. When the prostate and seminal vesicles are removed, there can be no ejaculation, which is necessary for fertility.
Sperm is still being produced, however. It’s possible to retrieve sperm surgically though a testicular biopsy for use in assisted reproductive procedures like in vitro fertilization.
Because the average age of prostate cancer diagnosis is 66 years old, according to Cancer.Net, many patients with prostate cancer will be past the age of wanting to conceive.
With other treatments that leave the prostate in place, there may be an impact on erections, depending on whether the nerves that lead to arousal are damaged. However, if you have a prostate, it is possible to ejaculate without a full erection, according to UCLA Health.
Treating Erectile Dysfunction Caused by Prostate Cancer
Nearly all patients will experience some erectile dysfunction after a prostatectomy. How long it lasts depends on age, overall health, and the amount of damage done to the nerves surrounding the prostate, says Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Some erectile dysfunction treatments include the following:
Medications Sildenafil (Viagra), vardenafil (Levitra), and tadalafil (Cialis) will help if the issue is getting blood to the penis but won’t be effective if the nerves have been damaged by surgery or radiation. This class of drugs won’t help with low libido.
Vacuum Erection Device Also called a penis pump, the device pulls blood into the penis. It can be effective for men who can get an erection but can’t maintain it.
Penile Injection Therapy You give yourself a shot at the base of the penis with a mixture of alprostadil, phentolamine, and papaverine (Trimix) to open the blood vessels in the penis and help achieve an erection.
Penile Implants These devices placed in the penis to get an erection are sometimes recommended when other treatments for erectile dysfunction fail.
“I always tell my patients, When there’s a will, there’s a way for you to get a firm enough erection for sex,” says Shelfo.
In addition to these interventions, lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking and cutting back on drinking can improve the ability to get an erection, per Cancer Research UK. This is also true for men with erectile dysfunction not related to prostate cancer treatment.
Reimagining Good Sex
Many men believe that good sex involves an erect — and constantly erect — penis, as well as an orgasm and ejaculation. But Bole says that if there are unwanted sexual side effects of prostate cancer treatment, it’s possible to imagine different ways to be sexual.
“Sexual therapy, psychology [experts], and couples counseling can help patients communicate with their partners about what they’re going through and explore other ways to be intimate and express affection,” she says.
Any kind of treatment for cancer can affect not just your anatomy and sexual function but also the way you feel about yourself. Bole says that it’s important to speak with doctors before treatment for prostate cancer about what kinds of sexual changes can be expected. “A lot of times, when the oncologist identifies a problem, they are good at reaching out to get the patient a consultation with someone like myself or one of my partners who specializes in talking about some of the [symptoms] that might not be brought up during an oncology-focused visit,” says Bole.
Picture this: It’s 3 a.m., and instead of blissfully snoozing beneath your sleep mask (…or adding a bunch of viral TikTok finds to your cart), you’re deep in the trenches of your feelings, wrestling with the kind of heartache no amount of beauty sleep or online shopping can heal. Welcome to the not-so-exclusive club of the lovesick, bb, where the main activities include over-analyzing text messages, obsessing about ~the one that got away~, and wondering if your soulmate is really out there. Bleak, right? That’s because, hi, lovesickness is a real thing, and unfortunately for all of us, it hurts like hell.
“Lovesickness describes the intense emotional and physical experiences associated with romantic love,” says Sarah Hill, PhD, a research psychologist and consultant for Cougar Life, specializing in women’s health and sexual psychology. “The symptoms resemble those of a physical illness because of the profound links between the mind and body.” You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you feel depressed, and the thought of doing anything other than crying in bed and watching Love is Blind seems impossible. Sound familiar?
Even though the term isn’t a recognized medical diagnosis, Hill stresses that it’s a very real, very painful mental ailment. To put it bluntly, being lovesick makes it feel like your heart got hit by a semi-truck. Whether you’re trying to get over a breakup, grappling with unrequited love, or coming to terms with a going-nowhere situationship, lovesickness isn’t just for the dramatically inclined—it’s a legit rollercoaster of physical and emotional symptoms that can leave even the strongest among us reeling.
The silver lining? While lovesickness is your body and mind grappling with loss, remember, you’re not spiraling alone—you’ve got us! And with the help of relationship pros, we’re breaking down every damn thing you need to know about lovesickness, from what it is to how to heal. Stick with us, y’all, because happier days are on the horizon, no matter how lovesick you feel rn.
What Actually *Is* Lovesickness?
As the name suggests, lovesickness is the feeling of being “sick” due to the loss or lack of romantic love. Again, it’s not an official medical or clinical condition, but holistic relationship coach Alexandra Roxo stresses just how uncomfortable the experience can be.<
“It’s the point where emotional pain turns to physical pain after going through a breakup, heartbreak, or a separation,” she says. While heartbreak—an existential experience—makes you feel sad, Roxo says the difference is that lovesickness is usually described as the physiological response to that heartbreak. Feeling lovesick means you might find it hard to eat, sleep, work, or even have fun. Food might lose its taste, music might sound flat, and you might even experience real symptoms of clinical depression and anxiety. So, no! You’re not being dramatic! Your body *literally* feels sick from lost love, dammit!
The term is sometimes mistaken for limerence—an obsessive form of love—but lovesickness primarily stems from the absence of love, triggering a feeling similar to that experienced from addictive substances. “Being lovesick can feel akin to the withdrawal symptoms from opioid drugs,” Hill explains, “As both scenarios involve a lack of stimulus that usually activates the brain’s reward centers, leading to a dopamine withdrawal.”
While this all sounds, frankly, miserable, it’s important to note that feeling lovesick is actually totally normal. “Both lovesickness and heartbreak can be intense and distressing emotional experiences, but they are also natural responses to the complexities of relationships,” Hill says. Knowing how to heal is key, and curing your lovesickness is possible. Promise.
What Are the Signs and Symptoms of Lovesickness?
Feeling lovesick isn’t just about wallowing in your feelings post-breakup (but, like, that’s totally valid too). According to Hill and Roxo, the symptoms of lovesickness can—and likely will—vary from person to person, ranging from mood swings to sleeplessness to yearning for your former partner. Sometimes, you might feel fine, and other times, you feel like you’re on autopilot or have a hard time functioning in daily life.
So, if you find yourself wanting to call out of work because your heart literally hurts, there’s a chance you’re feeling lovesick. While the signs of lovesickness aren’t always obvious, here’s what the pros say to look out for:
Difficulty sleeping: Your love interest’s absence can disrupt your sleep cycle, making it hard to fall or stay asleep.
Restlessness and anxiety: A constant state of unease, especially after the breakup or when exposed to triggers? Check.
Inability to concentrate: Your thoughts might be consumed by your partner or your breakup, distracting you from any and all tasks at hand.
Increased tearfulness: You might find yourself crying over songs, random memories, or simply out of nowhere. Inconvenient, sure, but normal.
Pain or tension in the chest: This can be a physical manifestation of your emotional pain (but if it persists, feels uncomfortable, or intensifies, reach out to your doctor ASAP).
Mood and appetite changes: Swings in mood and changes in appetite are A Real Response, often leading to eating too little or too much.
Obsessive thoughts and idealization: You may find yourself putting the relationship on a pedestal or obsessing over what went wrong.
Understanding these symptoms is the first step toward healing, and can empower you to take steps toward recovery and eventually find balance and happiness again. Because, yes! You will be happy again!
How Do You Heal from Lovesickness?
Dealing with lovesickness can feel like you’re wading through emotional quicksand, but there *are* effective ways to pull yourself out and move forward. Let’s break down some expert-backed strategies to heal from lovesickness and find your footing again.
Be Kind to Yourself.
First and foremost, be gentle with yourself. Lovesickness can take a toll not just emotionally, but physically too. Roxo suggests giving yourself plenty of extra TLC. Eat soothing foods, take bubble baths, get a massage, or cuddle with your pet for some quality physical touch. Don’t be afraid to feel your feelings—so cue up that sad playlist or watch some breakup movies—but Roxo says to schedule something uplifting afterward (like coffee with a pal) to help balance your emotions.
Set Boundaries…and Stick To Them.
As hard as it might be to delete a number or block an account, Hill emphasizes the importance of the whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing. Delete the pics, toss the mementos, and try to keep contact to an absolute minimum. Setting healthy boundaries for yourself—whatever that looks like to you—during this time is key, and once you’ve decided that you’re not going to talk to your ex and that you’re going to avoid stalking their socials, stick to it!
Sweat It Out.
I realize working out whilst sad sounds like agony, but physical activity can actually be a crucial component of healing. “Exercise, especially cardio, can significantly improve your brain chemistry, helping to alleviate the fog of lovesickness,” Roxo says. She recommends incorporating upbeat music into your workouts to elevate your mood further.
Have Fun. Seriously.
Since lovesickness is often a dopamine withdrawal, rediscovering joy and pleasure outside of your romantic relationships is crucial to overcoming the ailment. Whether it’s picking up a new hobby, going on a trip, or reading everything trending on BookTok, find fun new activities to look forward to. And if the idea of a rebound relationship sounds alluring (which is okay!), Hill suggests taking things slow and dating people different from your former partner. “Opening yourself up to new experiences can encourage healing,” says Hill.
Ask For Help.
Remember, it’s more than okay to ask for help during this challenging time. Whether it’s a friend or a professional, having someone to act as a sounding board and uplift you when you feel low is paramount. In fact, Roxo encourages reaching out to a therapist or coach who can support you through this transition. “This period of pain could very well be a pivotal moment leading to a breakthrough in your love life,” she says. What’s important is taking proactive steps towards recovery, allowing yourself to grieve, and gradually opening your heart to the possibility of love again.
How Long Does Lovesickness Last?
The truth is, there’s no universal clock for recovering from lovesickness. Some of us might shake it off in a few weeks, while others might be in the trenches for far longer. As Roxo puts it, “The acute symptoms usually start to chill out after a week or two, but really, lovesickness fades in time, depending on how you deal with it.”
While you might wish for a magic potion to speed up the process (don’t we all?), everyone mends at their own pace. It’s a journey, but trust the process. Your heart didn’t come with a fast-forward button, but it’s equipped with resilience and the capacity to heal. You got this.
It’s been a tricky landscape since Roe v. Wade was overturned almost two years ago, as reproductive health care has become increasingly complicated to navigate — and misinformation is on the rise.
Not only are the attacks on abortion care merging with limits on the availability of infertility treatment, but the same court that reversed the constitutional protection for abortion will hear arguments this week on restricting access to mifepristone, one of two medications commonly used to induce an abortion. And on the state level, new bills are aiming to cut back contraception options.
In Oklahoma, one bill in the state legislature has sparked questions about whether it might ban emergency contraception — like the day-after Plan B pill — and intrauterine devices, or IUDs. Part of it targets contraception that prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg. At the same time, some birth control options are expanding. This month, Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill, began sales. And, under a new policy, New York pharmacists can dispense certain hormonal contraceptives without a prescription.
Capital B asked three Black reproductive health care experts some of the big questions about how to access birth control, navigate the misinformation online, and understand what’s unfolding politically. Here’s what you need to know.
What is the difference between abortion care and birth control?
Amid the uptick in misinformation, experts want patients to understand there is a distinct difference between abortion care and birth control. Birth control, like the pill and IUDs, is not abortion inducing, doctors say.
While both are considered a part of reproductive health care, birth control, also called contraception, is intended to prevent pregnancy before it occurs and is often discussed and prescribed by gynecologists, which are doctors who specialize in women’s reproductive health systems.
“Birth control is acting to fundamentally prevent pregnancy,” said Dr. Alexandra Wells, an OB-GYN in Washington state. It works by stopping sperm from meeting the egg, she said.
Abortion care is separate. It terminates an already existing pregnancy, either out of patient choice up to a certain time period or medical necessity. It takes place after folks know they are pregnant and is typically managed by obstetricians, or doctors that focus on the pregnancy of patients. Many practitioners have their training in both gynecology and obstetrics.
Over the past year, how has the landscape over available birth control changed?
With so many different bills being introduced in states across the country, aiming to both limit and expand access to reproductive health care, the amount of misinformation spreading across social media platforms is surging.
While birth control and abortion care are different, the landscape in terms of access to both is shifting nationwide.
Soon after the 2022 Dobbs decision reversing federal abortion protections, when states began moving to restrict abortion, many physicians were concerned about the implications on birth control, said Dr. Yolanda Lawson, a Texas-based OB-GYN. It was not the first time. Several years prior, in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations run by religious families cannot be required to pay for insurance coverage for contraception care.
More recently, changes in abortion care have also trickled into changes in birth control access and infertility treatment for families. When reproductive health care clinics offering abortions close, other services are impacted, said Wells, who’s also a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. The good news is technology is making online access to birth control options more accessible. Many options can be mailed and are often covered by insurance, she said.
Opill is now available, adding to the many other options, including condoms, spermicide, the ring, IUDs, implants, patches and cycle tracking.
How do I know what’s happening with access to birth control in my state?
There is no comprehensive, central location for all of this information, said Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights at SiX, an organization that works with elected officials after they win office. The federal Title X family planning websites have a lot of information and resources for patients, said Driver. The best way to find out what is happening with legislation is directly through the state legislator. On each website, you can see what bills are being introduced and which representatives may have brought it forth.
Local news coverage from trusted outlets may also break down what bills are impacting your reproductive health care. Experts caution against relying on social media for health information, given the sheer amount of misinformation and myths.
Do IUDs induce abortions?
No. The devices work by thickening the mucus along the uterine wall, making it difficult for sperm to migrate and meet with the egg, preventing fertilization.
“It’s a simple mechanism, but it really works,” said Lawson, who’s also the president of the National Medical Association. It prevents conception. They are 99.9% effective at preventing pregnancy.
What birth control is now available?
Condoms, spermicide, contraceptive sponges, apps to track your menstrual cycle, emergency contraception like Plan B, and most recently Opill, are all birth control options that do not require a prescription from a doctor.
Some hormonal contraceptives require either a prescription or insertion by a medical provider. Those include the ring, IUDs, implants, contraceptive injections, and birth control pills. Sterilization is also an option regardless of the gender of the patient.
“It’s really amazing that women have so many contraception options,” said Lawson. There is some slight variation in how well each works, she said. “There are options that our grandmothers and even mothers did not have. I hope women are empowered by that.”
It’s also important to make sure you feel comfortable with your provider, said Wells. You should feel free to ask questions about how each contraceptive option works and might impact your body.
A lot of birth control options are covered by insurance, and many clinics and health centers may offer free condoms. Some birth control pill companies offer discounts on their websites.
If you’re uninsured, many freestanding health clinics offer sliding scale payment options based on your household income and ability to pay, which could bring the price down.
How do I know what my best birth control option is?
It’s important to understand your medical history, said Wells. In person or online, your provider may ask about your history with high blood pressure, blood clots, and conditions like lupus. Those conditions may preclude the use of certain forms of contraception.
People should also consider their lifestyle and goals, she said. For example, the IUD requires a one-time insertion every handful of years depending on the types, whereas the pill requires patients to take them at the same time each day. Each option offers a different level of independence. The pill can be stopped at any time. The IUD and implant require an appointment with a provider to remove.
An assortment of contraceptives such as Plan B and condoms provided by Planned Parenthood Generation Action at the Sex and Relationships photoshoot. Sex-ed is an important part of K-12 education, and the risk of losing the curriculum in schools can lead to an increase in unwanted teen pregnancies and STIs.
Although it may be a cliche, there is some truth to the trope ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ — whether it be through teachers, pediatricians, athletic coaches or politicians who create laws directly affecting youth. But in some states across the U.S., the adults in charge of youth policies are not doing their part in ensuring quality education for all.
According to an Associated Press article, GOP-led states are at risk of losing sex education curricula in their schools. This idea was amplified after the emergence of the “parents’ rights” movement, whose main concern is dismantling inclusive LGBTQ+ sex education. Republican leaders and parents are trying to ensure that it is the parents’ choice to allow their children to take part in any sex education.
So what can we expect in the absence of sex education at K-12 institutions if these policies are implemented?
Lack of sex education for all youth may lead to an increase in unwanted teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Since GOP state leaders tend to oppose abortion rights, minimizing unwanted pregnancy is crucial in these states to protect teens from potential physical, emotional and financial harms. In fact, teen birth rates are much higher in states that ban abortion and have minimal sex education curricula.
Moreover, the number of contracted sexually transmitted disease (STD) cases has risen again since the COVID-19 pandemic — reaching more than 2.5 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia according to the CDC’s 2022 statistics.
GOP-led states are especially at higher risk; out of the top 10 states with the highest rate of STDs, eight are Republican-controlled states.
Many of the Republican voters who oppose mandatory sex education argue that it is the parents’ responsibility to determine what constitutes appropriate sex education for their children. But this begs the question: is sex education really taught at home?
According to OnePoll, one in five parents are not willing to have conversations about sexual matters with their kids at all. Even the parents who discuss sex education with their kids tend to avoid more complex topics, such as birth control and consent.
While sex education in schools is taught by qualified instructors, parents may not have the same level of professional expertise. Not only do they tend to avoid harder topics, but their own lack of education can lead to misinformation. For instance, older generations who are more socially conservative may be more likely to still believe in myths regarding sexual assault, such as victim-blaming for dressing or acting in a “sexually provoking way,” or believing that victims could have prevented it if they wanted to. A study from the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences’ journal proves that individuals with sexually conservative views are more likely to accept these myths.
Furthermore, teenagers are more likely to seek sexual information from peers and teachers than parents. We must keep these resources open, allowing for spaces where minors feel comfortable participating in honest outreach discussions.
The controversy surrounding sex education in public schools has been a longstanding issue, but it significantly escalated recently in GOP-led states due to opposition from parents and politicians who are reluctant to incorporate LGBTQ+ topics. The “Don’t Say Gay Bill” in Florida exemplifies the strong aversion for such discussions in politically conservative states. Given that the inclusion of LGBTQ+ sexual health in the curricula is the biggest concern among Republican-controlled states, should schools offer LGBTQ+ exclusive sex education to satisfy everyone?
The main reason why LGBTQ-inclusive sex education is important is that gender and sexually-marginalized youth are at a higher risk for sexual health issues such as STIs, sexual activity under the influence and dating violence.
LGBTQ+ youth are also far less likely to have open sex discussions with their parents. Even if they do, unless their parents are part of the community themselves, it is often difficult for kids to receive useful and accurate information specifically concerning their sexual health. It is important that schools protect LGBTQ+ youth by providing adequate education to prevent against poor health outcomes and lack of support within their homes.
Sex education is a shared responsibility between schools and parents. While schools need to provide children with quality health education, they also need a welcoming environment at home to seek answers. Instead, youth are struggling to find proper information in a world where open discussions about sex and sexual diversity are considered taboo. In each of our villages, adults and educators are responsible for ensuring safe environments and comprehensive education for all youth, including the LGBTQ+ community.
Since not everyone is privileged enough to receive quality sex education at home, K-12 schools provide necessary education for everyone regardless of socioeconomic status, family background and sexual orientation. When giving equal educational opportunities is the main function of primary and secondary schools, how is it acceptable to exclude one of the most important subjects?
Sex education is directly related to a person’s physical, emotional and social well-being. The World Health Organization defines sexual health as “a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality.” Teaching adolescents about sexual health ensures a better quality of life overall.
According to a study from the Journal of Adolescent Health conducted with adolescent women, better sexual health is associated with better social integration, higher self-esteem, less substance use and lower self-reported depression. Another study from the Frontiers in Reproductive Health Journal suggests that among male adolescents, mental and reproductive health are intertwined; poor sexual health leads to poor mental health and vice versa.
Hence, comprehensive sex education can prevent many health issues and encourage healthy habits in various aspects of life. Minimizing sex education curricula means young people who are not fortunate enough to have sexually accepting and knowledgeable parents will have to learn on their own while risking their sexual health.
Conservatives’ irrational fear of healthy relationships being formed between members of same sex and non-binary gender identities, along with their false beliefs of comprehensive sex education encouraging reckless sex, are putting children at risk — including their own. What may hurt their kids is delaying essential education, as well as restricting exposure to healthy homosexual love or confident transgender people. The exclusion of proper sex education may leave people with irreversible consequences, such as unwanted pregnancy, HIV or sexual trauma.
Children should be set up for success, not put in a position where they have to rely on misinformation or the internet to be taught healthy sexual habits.
When discussing reproductive health choices, one procedure has been gaining attention—especially since the fall of Roe v. Wade—for its effectiveness: the vasectomy. As individuals and couples explore long-term contraception options, vasectomies have emerged as a popular choice for those seeking a permanent solution—rates have increased by 26% in the past decade. With its relatively low risks and high success rates, this procedure is reshaping conversations about family planning.
The AMA’s What Doctors Wish Patients Knew™ series provides physicians with a platform to share what they want patients to understand about today’s health care headlines.
In this installment, three physicians took time to discuss what patients need to know about getting a vasectomy. These AMA members are:
Jason Jameson, MD, a urologist and chief of urology at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who serves as a delegate for the American Urological Association in the AMA House of Delegates.
Amarnath Rambhatla, MD, a urologist at Henry Ford Health and director of men’s health at the Vattikuti Urology Institute in Detroit.
Moshe Wald, MD, a urologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics and an associate professor in the department of urology at Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City.
Henry Ford Health and University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics are members of the AMA Health System Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
There are seasonal spikes in vasectomies
“We sometimes see seasonal spikes in vasectomies. We see it in March and then also in November and December before the end of the year,” Dr. Rambhatla said. “We think it spikes at the end of the year because everyone has met their deductible for the year.
“In March, it’s been loosely associated with March Madness, he added, noting “the running joke is that men get their vasectomy around the NCAA basketball tournament and ask their wives for permission to lay on the couch for four straight days so they can watch the basketball tournament.”
“The other interesting thing we’ve seen is with the Roe v. Wade reversal. There are studies showing an increase in Google trends, searches and consultations for vasectomies after that,” Dr. Rambhatla said. “So, it seems like some men are more inclined to be in control of their fertility status after that ruling.”
It’s a minor surgical procedure
“A vasectomy is a minor surgical procedure, which is aimed at eventually achieving permanent birth control,” said Dr. Wald, noting “the procedure is typically performed in a clinic setting under local anesthesia, which means injection of numbing medication into the area.
“However, in some cases, based on anatomy and on the patient’s preference it could also potentially be done in the operating room under sedation or general anesthesia,” he added. “But the vast majority are being performed in the clinic under local anesthesia.”
“The procedure involves the surgical interruption of a tube called the vas deferens. The vas deferens is the tube that drains sperm from the testicle outwards and a man typically has two of them, one on each side,” Dr. Wald said. “So, the idea is to interrupt these tubes, and then allow enough time for the sperm that at the time of the vasectomy was already beyond the vasectomy site to wash out.”
The procedure “usually takes about 20–30 minutes. One or two small cuts are made in the scrotum with a scalpel or no-scalpel instrument,” Dr. Jameson said, noting “the vas deferens are cut and tied or sealed with heat. The skin may or may not be closed with sutures.”
But “if the vas deferens are not easy to feel due to body characteristics—obesity, previous scarring—the procedure may be more challenging to perform,” Dr. Jameson noted.
It’s OK to drive yourself home
“Most of the time patients are OK to drive themselves home after the procedure. Occasionally I’ll have some patients who are a little nervous or anxious about getting a vasectomy,” said Dr. Rambhatla. “So, we can prescribe them medication to help calm down their anxiety for the procedure.
“In those situations, they need to have a driver with them because that medicine can alter their ability to drive,” he added. “Otherwise yes, you could drive yourself home.”
Don’t be nervous, it’s straightforward
Patients “should definitely relax. It’s a straightforward, easy procedure,” said Dr. Rambhatla. “The most common feedback I get from men after the procedure is: Oh, I thought it was going to be a lot worse than that.”
“Sometimes their friends will mess with them before the procedure and say it’s going to be a terrible experience and it is just good old fun,” he said. “But most of the time, people say it wasn’t so bad and they had nothing to worry about.”
Follow up requires a semen test
A vasectomy is “not immediately effective. If you can imagine a tube through which sperm is passing, the vasectomy is basically occluding that tube so sperm isn’t passing through anymore, but there’s still sperm on the other side of that tube we’ve occluded,” said Dr. Rambhatla. “And so, all that old sperm needs to be cleared out for men to become sterile.”
“We check a post-vasectomy semen analysis about three months after the procedure to make sure all that old sperm has been cleared out,” he said. “And sometimes some men may take longer, so it can take up to six months or so to clear out all the old sperm.”
Vasectomy is very effective
It is important to note that a “vasectomy would never provide a 100% guarantee. The only way to reach a 100% guarantee of no pregnancy is simply to avoid sexual intercourse altogether,” said Dr. Wald. “Even after a man gets a vasectomy and later gets a semen test that will show no sperm cells in the semen, there is still a very small risk for an unwanted pregnancy in the future.
“That risk is estimated in many studies at one in 2,000, which is, for example, much better than condoms. But it’s not zero and never will be,” he added. “That risk of roughly one in 2,000 by most series is after a man has a post-vasectomy semen test that showed no sperm. If somebody had unprotected sexual intercourse after a vasectomy before having such semen test at all, his chances for pregnancy could be close to 100%.”
This is meant to be permanent
“The best candidates for a vasectomy are couples who are done having kids or men who may be single and know that for sure they do not want any kids in the future,” said Dr. Rambhatla. That is “because we do consider it a permanent form of sterilization. It can be reversed, but really we want people going into it with the idea of permanent sterilization.”
Dr. Wald agreed, emphasizing that “If there’s any question about that, then I would advise against the vasectomy at that particular time.”
Vasectomies don’t always work
“There is a risk of failure. Even if done by an experienced physician, vasectomies could fail. Not necessarily due to surgical error—which is a possibility,” Dr. Wald said, noting “there have been multiple studies that showed the potential reconnection that can happen.”
“Sometimes there could be microscopic channels that can sprout from one end of the interrupted tube and at least in a transient manner allow for some sperm to sneak into the other side,” he said. “The risk varies a lot depending on if the patient had or did not have a semen test following the vasectomy that was negative for sperm. If he did that, his risk for such failure is very small.”
It may be covered by insurance
“Most private insurers cover some or all of the cost of vasectomies,” Dr. Jameson said. “For men without coverage, various self-pay options may be available in certain local facilities.”
“It’s a lot cheaper for insurance to pay for men to have a vasectomy than pay for them to have another child,” noted Dr. Rambhatla, emphasizing “most insurance companies are happy to cover a vasectomy.”
Vasectomy reversals are complicated
“Vasectomies are theoretically surgically reversible. The problem is that vasectomy reversals are a very different thing,” Dr. Wald said, noting that “vasectomy reversals are true surgery performed in the operating room. It is very expensive if not covered by insurance and it does not always work, even if done by an expert.”
The success of a vasectomy reversal “depends on various factors such as how long it’s been since the vasectomy, what your fertility status was prior to the vasectomy and what your partner’s fertility status is,” said Dr. Rambhatla. “Because sometimes we see men with new partners who may have different fertility potential than their previous partner or now their same partner is older, and her fertility potential has changed.”
“And the closer you are to the vasectomy period, the better success rates with the reversal,” he said. “Generally, if this is done within 10 years, there’s a good chance that we can get sperm back in the ejaculate. But sperm in the ejaculate doesn’t necessarily translate to a pregnancy.”
There is a risk of bleeding
“From the surgical standpoint, this is a fairly small procedure, so the risks are not to the magnitude of anything life threatening, but there are certainly risks that are worth mentioning,” Dr. Wald said. “There are the most obvious risks of bleeding and infection. Bleeding, if it happens, is not even close to being anything life threatening.
“Such bleeding happens not externally, but rather internally into the scrotal sac and it could cause bruising, swelling and patient discomfort, and it can take a few weeks to gradually absorb,” he added. “It typically involves the surgical wound or the skin, but sometimes can be deeper and even involve the testicle. These are almost always managed by antibiotics, but it’s a risk.”
“The risk of bleeding with vasectomy increases with blood pressure,” Dr. Jameson said. That’s why it is important to have blood pressure controlled before getting a vasectomy.
Watch out for abnormal pain
“What is not that obvious is the risk of chronic testicular pain. I’m not referring to the obvious post-procedural pain, but a chronic condition that can last months, years or even be there for life,” Dr. Wald said.
According to the American Urological Association, about 1% to 2% of men may experience ongoing pain or discomfort, explained Dr. Jameson. The pain is often treated with anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen.
“This chronic type of pain is a treatable condition, but in some men such treatment could involve surgery that could be bigger in its magnitude than the original vasectomy,” Dr. Wald said.
Men can develop antibodies to sperm
“Not all, but most men who undergo a vasectomy do develop antibodies to sperm. This is because sperm is typically separated from the immune system,” Dr. Wald said. “However, a vasectomy is one of the most common causes where sperm is exposed to blood and the immune system, and that could lead to the formation of anti-sperm antibodies.”
“This is not something that is posing a general health concern and patients will not feel it,” he said. “But the problem is that if somebody does seek fertility later in life and undergoes a vasectomy reversal, even if the vasectomy reversal works, these antibodies do not go away and can coat sperm, slow sperm down and impair its function.”
It should not affect sex
“A vasectomy does not change sexual function. It does not protect against sexually transmitted infections,” said Dr. Rambhatla. “It’s simply a way to prevent sperm from coming out in the ejaculate.”
Additionally, Dr. Jameson noted, according to the Urological Care Foundation, that a vasectomy should also not cause any erection problems—ejaculations and orgasms should feel the same. And while there is no sperm, the amount of semen does not decrease more than 5%.
Avoid extensive activity
“Typically, if the procedure is done towards the end of the week, then the patient can simply take a long weekend and then plan to go back to work Monday,” Dr. Wald said. “It’s not something that requires you to be in bed, but definitely avoid extensive physical activity.”
That means “no heavy lifting, running. Any gym type activities should be refrained from,” said Dr. Rambhatla, noting that “walking is OK. Just no strenuous activity.”
Additionally, “men with more activity and heavy lifting at work may need more time off as you should avoid heavy lifting for a week,” Dr. Jameson said.
Address pain control
“In terms of pain control, usually most people do well with alternating between Tylenol and ibuprofen as needed,” said Dr. Rambhatla, adding that icing for the first couple days also helps.
Patients can “resume sexual activity once the pain and swelling have resolved,” he explained.
Wear snug underwear and ice area
After a vasectomy, it is common to have swelling and minor pain in the scrotum for a few days, Dr. Jameson said, noting that “wearing snug underwear or a jockstrap can help ease discomfort and support the area.”
Additionally, “patients are typically asked to wear a jock strap with a pretty bulky dressing for 48 hours, and also to ice the area intermittently for 48 hours,” Dr. Wald said.
There are other forms of contraception
“Other birth control methods include condoms or birth control pills for females,” Dr. Jameson said, noting “both of these methods are effective but must be consistently used, and the one-time cost of a vasectomy may be cheaper over time than the cost of other birth control methods.”
Additionally, “tubal ligation in females is another surgical option for birth control and is performed by gynecologists,” he said.
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