— The pioneering gay writer and editor Michael Denneny, who died on April 12, learned from his teacher Arendt that an individual can be free only as part of a free community
by Blake Smith
Hannah Arendt left behind little in the way of an obvious institutional or intellectual legacy during her brief years at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought during the 1960s. The student who best understood her ideas—and the example of her life—as a summons to action in the world, was Michael Denneny, who died recently, shortly after the publication of a memoir-anthology, On Christopher Street. The book records how his teacher inspired him to abandon his Ph.D., follow her to New York, and found what would become America’s most important magazine for gay men—Christopher Street, along with its associated publishing line, Stonewall Inn Editions—in the late 1970s and 1980s, those pivotal years that saw first the emergence of a distinct gay male urban culture and then its near-annihilation from AIDS.
Arendt would not seem to be an obvious inspiration for a gay men’s magazine. Even if there is a certain chain-smoking archness in her 1964 interview for the German television show Zur Person, she is not among the straight women whom gay men single out for a typically ambivalent yet ardent brand of admiration, in what is usually a perverse sort of drag-performance-by-proxy. Arendt’s political philosophy, organized around claims about human nature supported by examples taken from ancient Athens (while engaged in a covert but insistent critique of her own former mentor, Martin Heidegger, who had awakened her to philosophy before covering himself with shame as a proud member of the Nazi Party), can seem both frustratingly distant from the historical present and icily indifferent to the problems of minorities. Denneny’s insight, however, is to have grasped how the apparently abstract universals of Arendt’s teaching grew out of her urgent engagement on behalf of the Jewish people in the 1930s and 40s.
Reading Arendt’s philosophical writing in light of her Zionist activism from that era, Denneny saw how central concepts of her later work made what can be easily dismissed as “lifestyle politics”—the publishing of magazines and novels; the demand for a space of cultural distinction—not a distraction from “real” politics, but an urgent task that makes politics, in Arendt’s special and widely misunderstood meaning, possible. Arendt, Denneny continually reminds readers in On Christopher Street, held that a person can be connected to humanity in general, to his own uniqueness, and indeed to the possibility of transforming himself, only insofar as he is a member of a free community—of a group that possesses the power to build and maintain what Arendt called a “world,” a domain in which members of a group can appear to each other, revealing, remaking, and remembering themselves.
Today, Arendt has many admirers in American academia, and a wide midwit readership that consults her writings for political and moral apothegems applicable to our ongoing crisis, whose origins they imagine as coming from the right and never from inside their own intellectual homes. Every university of any repute has on staff some left-liberal scholar who mistakenly sees in Arendt an ancestor of her own utterly conventional politics while doing her best to ignore the difficult, apparently reactionary positions Arendt took on everything from racial integration to immigration and the welfare state. If Arendt had been a man, she would have been, if not “cancelled,” then consigned by right-thinking scholars (and therefore cherished by right-wing cranks) among such other Teutonic anachronisms as Oswald Spenger and Eric Voegelin. Arendt is spared this fate at the price of being misunderstood.
Homosexuality is perhaps only a little less ancient than Adam and Eve, but, like Zionism, gay male life is a much more recent creation, one elaborated by activists who tried to transform themselves into something like a people.
She gets no better treatment from her centrist humanist admirers, who transform her into a defender of the warmed-over nineteenth-century liberalism that passes among them for “free thinking.” Her work—with its horror of cliché and mental conformity, its appreciation for the exchange of diverse perspectives, and its appeal to the fragile vitality of independent thought (its reminder, indeed, that these two words form a pleonasm) —is one of the fragments that hold-outs within the academy shore up against their ruin. To find a prestigious ally (a woman! a refugee!) in their resistance to the identitarian posturing that has become essential to elite self-performance, they make of Arendt a liberal individualist, an understanding to which Arendt would surely have responded with a Germanic feminine version of the genteel revulsion that Marshall McLuhan summons for the movie-goers in “Annie Hall.”
Arendt’s famous 1963 letter to Gershon Scholem, who had reproached his old friend in the aftermath of her reporting on the Eichmann trial for her apparent lack of love of the Jewish people, seems, but only seems, to confirm the cosmopolitan tote bag re-imagination of the philosopher. Her famous statement, “I have never in my life ‘loved’ any people or collective… I indeed love ‘only’ my friends,” seems to find Arendt a kindred spirit of those who wish to thwart our hastening spiral of mutually antagonizing collective narcissisms by insisting—in an apparently more humane version of Margaret Thatcher’s dictum—that there is no such thing as society, only individuals. But, as Arendt continued in her letter, if she could not “love” the Jewish people it was because “I cannot love myself.” Her response should be read not as a declaration of independence from the demands of the collective, but as a political equivalent of Cordelia’s speech to Lear.
Arendt did not remind Scholem that from 1933 to 1949 she had abandoned scholarship for Zionist activism, sometimes at personal risk, engaging in everything from the practical organizing of relief efforts to writing essays for German and English-language magazines like Aufbau and Menorah Journal—in which she called, with urgent anger sharper and hotter than any merely speakable “love,” for a Jewish army and a new Jewish self-consciousness. Arendt’s life had for so many years been lived for the Jewish people, she implied, that she could not look on “them” as something separate from “herself.” She was not proclaiming the sovereignty of the individual, but rather the non-existence of the latter in isolation from the group that provides its stage of action and frame of meaning—what Arendt called its “world.”
Arendt’s Zionism was as idiosyncratic—and to many, as frustratingly perplexing—as her view of a person’s constitutive mix of personal uniqueness and un-withdrawable membership in a human community into which we find ourselves thrown. She called for Jewish unity while acerbically critiquing every Jewish political institution, tradition and perspective, from Europe to the United States to Palestine—advocating an implausible post-war order in which a Jewish homeland would be secured as part of a vast post-Ottoman federation of nationalities extending from Europe to the Middle East.
Her disappointed hopes, her years of struggle alongside and against other activists, and, as she reminded Scholem, her sense of propriety—her inner alertness that to speak of such things would be an obscene self-sundering, bringing to light feelings that have their authentic life only in intimate darkness—perhaps explain why in her later reflections on politics, such as The Human Condition (1958)and On Revolution (1963), Arendt wrote as if she had not spent a decade and a half as a Jewish activist. Some would say, hardly as if she were a Jew. But the political experience she did not acknowledge having was specifically Jewish, and the path to the rediscovery of what she often called the hidden treasures of ancient Greek thought went directly through Zionism.
Indeed, many of the claims Arendt makes in her work after the 1940s should be understood as translations into universalistic terms of lessons she derived from her reflections on the world-historical emergency of European Jewry. What she described in later years as the problems of modernity—the end of authoritative traditions for orienting moral and political thought and action, the dangerous seductions of Marxism and ethno-nationalist fascism, and the stupidity of self-satisfied liberal elites unable to recognize these desperate conditions—were a cosmopolitanized version of the story she had told in her Zionist writings about, and to, Jews. She saw the latter as unable to return to traditional religion (cut off from it forever by the failure of Sabbatai Zevi’s messianism and the transformations of the Jewish Enlightenment and Reform movement) and faced with the task—from which Communism and Revisionist Zionism threatened to divert it—of building a specifically secular Jewish “world” anchored by, although by no means taking place only in, its historic homeland.
So what about Arendt’s vision appealed to Michael Denneny, a young man from a working-class Irish Catholic background? In part, simply the brilliance of the teacher. As a friend of his told me after his death, Denneny had met Arendt while working as a busboy in the faculty dining room. He would talk with her as he cleaned tables; gradually, she began timing her meals to coincide with his shifts. Arendt convinced Denneny, then an undergraduate with dreams of serving in the newly founded Peace Corps, to stay on at the university for doctoral study under her supervision. When she left Chicago in 1967 for the New School in New York, he followed her, continuing to sit in on her seminars even as he left academia for publishing.
In an essay written during these years about her own teacher, “Martin Heidegger at Eighty,” Arendt recalled that he had made her believe that “thinking can be learned.” That is—and rather contrary to the solitary vision of thinking Heidegger provides in much of his written work—thinking, however much it happens only within an isolated person, is a relation between people. Arendt, too, taught thinking; and, in a manner surpassing her teacher, taught how thinking is an uncanniness that connects and recombines us.
Arendt taught thinking—and she taught that thinking requires what she called a “world.” Just as the student needs a teacher, the thinker, in order to think at all, needs a community whose members she can address and argue with. It is not a question, of course, of creating a community out of thin air, or of taking an abstract, universal humanity as one’s audience. Rather the task, which is explicit in Arendt’s Zionist writing but only implicit in her later work, is one of more fully and expansively elaborating the world we already share with those with whom we are by virtue of historical circumstance, but perhaps not yet by virtue of our own conscious concern, in community.
Denneny saw Christopher Street magazine, which he helped found in 1976, and its associated publishing line Stonewall Inn Editions at St. Martin’s Press, as instruments for building a gay male world. In Arendt’s theory, a world is sustained by, and maintains the possibility of the exchange of, different perspectives on what interlocutors understand as being—albeit in a not yet fully agreed-upon way—the same object. In her later work, this is usually presented as a problem of “judgment” in which people have diverse points of view about some third thing—whether they are making aesthetic judgments about, say, a painting, or ethical judgments about an action. But in the case that most compelled her early thought, as in the case that preoccupied Denneny, the “object” at stake was the supposedly common identity that did not quite unite those who debated its meaning.
For it was not at all obvious how different sorts of Jewish people from across the globe constituted a single Jewish “world” as a stage for debate about so-called Jewish politics. Indeed, Arendt in her Zionist writing insisted that this world and this politics would have to be created through exchanges of judgments, and through appeals to a community that as yet existed more in the eyes of its enemies than in the hearts of potential future members.
Homosexuality is perhaps only a little less ancient than Adam and Eve, but, like Zionism, gay male life is a much more recent creation, one elaborated by activists who tried to transform themselves into something like a people. In its cultural politics of building a gay male world, Christopher Street featured poetry and short stories, helping launch the careers of the major gay writers of the late 20th century, such as Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, and Larry Kramer. It also ran many essays that contributed to an emerging awareness that there was a gay male canon in American letters, running from Walt Whitman and Hart Crane to John Ashbery and James Merrill.
Christopher Street was by no means the only venue for the construction of a gay world, but Denneny and his colleagues were perhaps the sharpest-minded defenders of its specificity—their demand that it be a world for gay men. In a debate that has now been largely forgotten, but which dominated gay intellectual life in the 1970s, Denneny’s Arendtian perspective, with its debts to Zionism, was ranged against a vision of politics in which gay men were to be a kind of shock force for a broader sexual-cum-socialist revolution.
Christopher Street’s main rival for the minds of gay male intellectual readers was the Boston-based Fag Rag, a self-proclaimed “radical” left newspaper. Fag Rag’s writership did not see gay men as a distinct group that needed to build a world of their own. Rather, it saw them as one of a number of oppressed groups with a common interest in overthrowing heterosexual, patriarchal, white, Christian, etc., power. Its pages gave equal space to women and men (Christopher Street, after a few experimental power-sharing issues with lesbians, booted them from the magazine). It featured gay men who made feminist-inspired critiques of masculinity, pornography, and leather, while promoting a supposedly sex-positive, gender-bending neo-paganism. They were the eunuch vanguard of the post-male alphabet soup left.
In the years before the AIDS crisis (1976-1981) Christopher Street did not have an obvious line on “sexual liberation” countering that of Fag Rag. While some of its articles cheekily investigated the history of gloryholes where anonymous oral sex was on offer, many others lamented what was already seen by many gay intellectuals as the excessive hedonism of the era immediately before AIDS. One March 1980 essay critiqued the “Tyranny of the Penis”—a title that could have been taken from an issue of Fag Rag. But promiscuity tended to be seen as problematic because it might undermine the possibility of forming stable couples among gay men, rather than because it epitomized the patriarchal power of the phallus (Christopher Street’s contributors did not evince any great opposition to the latter). They tended to be sympathetic observers or active participants in the shift over the course of the late 70s towards a more masculine gay male style of dress and comportment, featuring denim, cowboy boots, and other items of masculine accessorizing.
The lack of agreement, however, was the point—Christopher Street was meant to be a space in which gay men could disagree with each other about what gay men should do (what they should wear, read, and suck), and even about what it meant to be a gay man, provided they agreed that there are, and should be, gay men. Christopher Street did grant occasional room for feminist perspectives, from an interview with Gloria Steinem to a short story by Andrea Dworkin, and to representatives of the Marxist left like Jean-Paul Sartre. But these were presented as glimpses on something of potential interest to an imagined gay community, not as voices that must be, as we say today, “centered”—as a moral-political teaching to which gay men should conform.
Michel Foucault—whose thinking in his last years was deeply informed by his encounter with the emerging American gay culture presented in its pages (and thus, in a strange roundabout way, to Hannah Arendt)—explained in an interview with Christopher Street that he was excited to see that gay men were, thanks to its efforts, at last able to imagine themselves as political agents in their own right without recourse to feminism, Marxism, and other rhetorics of the left. Foucault had perhaps read Denneny’s 1981 “manifesto,” published in Christopher Street, consisting of sixteen “propositions” for gay politics. The central proposition, number eight, began with a quote from Arendt, in which she claimed that “a man can live as a man,” that is as an individual (although perhaps with a special unintended resonance in its new context as a call for gay male specificity), only “within the framework of a people.” The word “framework” is deliberate and significant. “A people” is something made—to be sure, out of existing materials. Culture—the exchange of perspectives in philosophy, fiction, criticism—creates the framework within which we can act together. Denneny concludes, “a gay culture is a political necessity for our survival.” The point of gay politics, Denneny insisted, was not to make gay men’s discontent a kind of lever for the overthrow of our regime, but to build “power” so that gay men could invent forms of life together, creating the cultural resources by which they could pursue their necessarily mutual happiness.
Many readers took issue with Denneny’s propositions, and particularly with his ninth, which rejected the Fag Rag line that gay politics was just one iteration of a broader “social question.” In a response to discontented readers’ letters, charging Denneny of decoupling gay liberation from its alliance with the left, he answered that “genuflecting before the icon of socialism,” as he, in passing, charged his long-time collaborator Ed White of doing, “is an act of cultural piety, not political insight… a very weak basis on which to build a new politics.” (When I emailed White to ask about Denneny and his Arendtian view of politics, White replied tersely that he had never known Denneny to speak of her—a statement that contrasts with the memories of others in their circle).
Denneny countered that a “radical gay politics” was one reflecting and contributing to the creation of the forms of gay male life that were developing in the present—“not to the century-old theoretical tradition of the left, which strikes me as intellectually conservative, even old-fashioned.” That tradition subsumed supposedly local and contingent struggles in an over-arching agenda intended to bring about a new social order. It had a place for gay men qua gay men (or for Jews qua Jews, women qua women, etc.) only to the extent that their social movements could be interpreted as vehicles for progress towards a universal egalitarian horizon in which antagonisms would, at last, be dissolved.
Although many activists and academics try to prove the contrary, the left’s grand horizons have have often disappointed gay men. For much of the twentieth century, their primary manifestation was Marxism, which saw male homosexuality either as a revolting bourgeois (even fascist) practice—or as one of the many sites for political combat to be redirected towards the Revolution. Gay men who desired the freedom to create a specifically gay male culture were at best nuisances and at worst enemies.
The New Left of the 60s and 70s was only apparently more open to sexual minorities. If it promoted “sexual liberation,” it was in order to use gay men as a battering ram against traditional morality—not least masculinity. That gay men remain men—that their stubborn inassimilable particularity consists in nothing less than their attachment to masculinity, even if it might strike Judith Butler as ‘parodic’—made them permanently suspect allies of the post-Marxist cultural left that saw men (white men anyhow) as the oppressor class. Attachment to masculinity, however much attenuated today, makes gays equally unreliable members of the coalition of supposedly marginalized groups imagined to constitute the “progressive” or “woke” left, or whatever it is one might call the current ruling ideology of the Democratic Party and its associated elites in corporate life, media and academia.
Arendt was a critical reference point not only for Denneny but a number of other contributors to Christopher Street, who often compared the gay male experience in the 1970s with the historical experience of Jews in Europe and the United States. Some of the appeal of such parallels, doubtless, was that so many writers and subscribers were New Yorkers, whether Jewish or not, who were living in a milieu where debates about Jewish identity, culture and politics were commonplace. Moreover Jews—like gays and unlike most women, black people, prisoners or the other oppressed groups whose troubles were given much place in Fag Rag—had to think about their relationship to the non-Jewish world with some connection to the problem of “passing,” of having it within their power, to an extent that was always uncertain, shifting, and never total, to hide or reveal their “identity.”
It was no accident that the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had made Jewishness (in the 1944 essay “Antisemite and Jew”) and homosexuality (in his 1952 book Saint Genet) special topics of analysis; they illustrate, with particular clarity, what he understood as the complex union of determination and freedom that makes up every human life. We are born with certain traits, and involuntarily acquire others in the course of living. We are said by others to be such-and-such kinds of people on the basis of these traits, and are treated accordingly. Thrust by our bodies, desires, environments, families, cultures into roles, we are free within them, to a degree we can perhaps never rightly know, to act them out in various ways, including, sometimes, to deny them and “pass” as something else.
If Arendt had been a man, she would have been, if not ‘cancelled,’ then consigned by right-thinking scholars among such other Teutonic anachronisms as Oswald Spenger and Eric Voegelin.
Gay men and Jews—that is, those homosexuals who choose to live a distinctly modern “gay” life and those Jews who, with whatever relation they bear towards their religious traditions, live in a secular society—have seemed at times to instantiate the problem all modern people face of having to invent a life for themselves out of materials we have not chosen, to wrest, in some measure, autobiography out of biography. For the contributors of Christopher Street, Arendt’s ideas could be a call to resoluteness in addressing this challenge—or the grounds for a condemnation of what seemed to be the sterility of gay and Jewish life in America.
In a 1981 essay, “The New York GayCult, the Jewish Question… and Me,” journalist Neil Alan Marks used Arendt’s writing on political theory and Zionism to critique the “bourgeois” gay male scene that had emerged in New York, San Francisco and, to varying intensities, other major American cities. Gay and Jews in the United States, he argued, were still at the level of what Arendt had described as the “parvenu” Jews of pre-war Western Europe. These parvenus were often more “European” in taste and consciousness than the gentile elites they thought they were imitating. But, as Arendt saw it, they lacked both religious and political virtues. They had lost the faith of their ancestors but had not become true secular elites; they merely play-acted as wealthy Frenchmen, Germans, etc., and as beneficent leaders of charity organizations that cared for their ostensibly less fortunate brethren in the same manner that animal-rights activists care for animals: as ignorant recipients of benevolence.
Instead of building a modern, secular, Jewish world, Arendt implied, parvenu elites kept playing to a gentile audience that regarded them with condescension or hatred. Their charity to poor and foreign Jews was not an attempt to create a world in common with them by recognizing them as both an audience and actors on Judaism’s stage. It was because they were alienated from the very possibility of, or desire for, such a world, that parvenu Jewish leaders were so unable to respond to the steadily worsening challenge of antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Marks drew parallels between what he saw as the American Jewish parvenu experience and that of the emerging gay culture. American Jews with a “traditional humanist middle-class” sensibility hoped they, or at any rate their children, could succeed at “making it”—that combination of economic success and social climbing—“without taking advantage of anyone along the way.” Likewise, gays had hoped for a kind of “sexual liberation” that would free them from legal repression and moral stigma while also giving freer rein to the “universal desire to be sexually exploiting and exploited.” Both groups wielded progressive slogans appealing to the possibility of a gentler, less discriminatory America, while organizing their personal lives around competition for status—which is indeed another name for the American dream.
Denneny’s account in On Christopher Street, understandably but regrettably, writes out voices of despair likes Marks’, which reveal how, even on the verge of the AIDS crisis, some who shared his intellectual debts to Arendt saw a much bleaker picture than he did. Denneny likewise wrote out of his story how Charles Ortleb, for many years Christopher Street’s editor-in-chief, drew on Arendt in a hyper-ventilating 1979 essay that treated the release of William Friedkin’s film Cruising, set in the gay S&M subculture, as a prelude to anti-gay hatred that could culminate in something like the Holocaust. In a grim irony, as AIDS devastated the world of Christopher Street in the following years, Ortleb frequently denied, in print, any connection between the disease and sex, making himself responsible for innumerable deaths (having survived the crisis, Ortleb now devotes himself to COVID denialism—battling in both struggles the same foe, Dr. Fauci).
Invoking the ideas of Arendt—and using them to build a shared world in which ideas can be exchanged among members of a group to enlarge their inseparably collective and individual freedom—offers no guarantees of decent outcomes, anymore than it did for Arendt herself, whose campaign for a particular, perhaps impossible, kind of Zionism linked to a peaceful, federal solution in Palestine, ended in a failure on which she rarely reflected in public. But Arendt’s legacy still challenges us, as she put it in The Human Condition, to consider “that the innermost meaning of the acted deed and the spoken word is independent of victory and defeat and must remain untouched by any eventual outcome, by their consequences for better or worse… action can be judged only by the criterion of greatness.” In this breathtaking departure from all conventional standards, in her declaring the building of a world for magnificent action and thoughts to be as much beyond good and evil as it is beyond prudent and foolish, Arendt shows herself to be, no less than Foucault and more than her despisers like Costin Alamariu, a radical heir to Nietzsche whom we have only begun to understand.
Denneny’s 1979 essay, “The Privilege of Ourselves: Hannah Arendt on Judgment,” is the only scholarly paper in which he addresses the work of his mentor. It begins where Arendt ended, with the opening sentence: “After Hannah Arendt’s death in December 1975, friends found in her typewriter the title page, with two epigrams, of her projected work on Judging.” It then brilliantly retraces the problem of judgment throughout Arendt’s work, showing how the thread linking her otherwise confounding redefinitions of terms like “world” and “politics” is the exchange of different perspectives on a common object or problem, within a community of interlocutors whose points of view vary but who remain committed to communication and to the sense that what they are disagreeing about is in some not-yet-defined way the same thing.
For the next four decades, Denneny pursued what he called, in an email to me, “Arendtian praxis, putting many of her ideas into practice in a concrete way” by building a world of gay letters in which the pursuit of individual excellence within a community of competitors, admirers, peers and fellow strivers was directed towards an open-ended freedom to invent new forms of life. When I emailed him earlier this spring, for an essay on their relationship that has suddenly become an obituary, he was reading again through her complete works. A few days before his death, he told me that he had not read his 1979 essay since it had been published, and, looking back over it, in what he did not know were some of his last hours, he was relieved to find that he and Arendt had been struggling with the same problems. To continue that struggle is to continue their world.
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A science of sexuality is still possible
— But not in the traditional sense
Human sexuality has long been a subject of fascination and curiosity in the scientific community. Researchers from different fields have sought to understand why we are attracted to certain people and how our sexual orientation develops.
From Sigmund Freud to Judith Butler, the road to a science of sexuality is a fascinating history of ambition and culture wars, error and scientific breakthrough.
My recent research continues the quest to make a science out of sexuality. Two opposing schools of thought currently divide the field: psychoanalysis and queer theory.
Psychoanalysts believe desire follows specific laws and follows predictable patterns, while queer theorists argue that laws have exceptions and advocate for a more creative view of sexuality.
My research proposes an information theory of desire that straddles the line these two groups by arguing we should consider the object of our desire as information.
Psychoanalysis can help us understand how this particular kind of information is stored, while queer theory can help us understand how this information is organized and re-organized internally.
Birth of psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud, originally trained as a physician, believed in the scientific basis of sexuality. He was the first to regard sex as the subject of a serious discussion. Starting in 1902, colleagues gathered every Wednesday in his apartment to discuss the psychoanalytic practice he established.
Debates about how to study sexuality soon divided Freud’s circle of colleagues. In 1911, Alfred Adler broke away and turned psychoanalysis into social and cultural studies. Two years later, Carl Jung broke away and turned toward philosophical and existential questions.
At the time, Lou Andreas-Salomé, the first female psychoanalyst, did not believe either separation threatened the scientific status of psychoanalysis:
“The source of its vitality does not lie in any hazy mixture of science and sectarianism, but in having adopted as a fundamental principle that which is the highest principle of all scientific activity. I mean honesty.”
Though Freud retained Andreas-Salomé’s loyalty until the end, he didn’t share her optimism about the uniting power of honesty and thought divisions at the heart of his movement would delegitimize it.
North American psychology
The quest to turn sexuality into a credible science survived Freud, especially in North America. Clinically trained psychologists in the post-Second World War era borrowed Freudian theories and employed traditional scientific methods to empirically test them.
Dismissing Freud’s exclusive interest in individual case studies, American and Canadian psychologists aimed to understand populations more widely. However, this shift led to seeing homosexuals as a separate social group, which ultimately gave rise to homophobia and conversion therapy.
In the United Kingdom, Freud’s daughter Anna promoted curing homosexuality even though her father had denounced similar practices.
In France, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan urged his colleagues to return to Freud’s methods. Consumer culture silenced similar voices in North America.
Psychotherapy lost its scientific motto — the pursuit of truth — and became a matter of pursuing happiness. Keenly aware how the big screen dumbed down Freud’s psychology, Marilyn Monroe — a serious reader of psychoanalysis — turned down starring in a movie about him out of respect.
Sexuality nowadays
By the time Canada decriminalized homosexuality in 1969 — and the American Psychological Association unclassified it as a mental disorder four years later — sexuality studies had shied away from its psychological origins.
But biological explanations prevailed. Scientists wondered whether homosexuality ran in the family and hypothesized the existence of a gay gene and its relationship to natural selection.
Despite the politically correct turn away from “why gay?” to “how gay?” in post–1970s clinical research, and the anti-psychological turn in feminism known as the Freud Wars of the 1980s, the prospect of a science of sexuality almost vanished until queer theorists made its case again in the 1990s.
Queer theory rejected fixed collective identities and re-emphasized individual case studies the same way Freud had. Instead, queer theorists viewed sexuality as something more dynamic.
Queer theorists like Judith Butler emphasized the relationship between internal and external life. They highlighted how drag artists disrupt the way we assign gender on a daily basis.
This disconnect between what we see and the meaning we give it is a chance for sexuality to break with habit and become unpredictable.
The challenge of our current moment
Nowadays, many regard sexuality as too complicated or too subjective to become a science. Freud’s theories are often dismissed as pseudoscience.
But this outlook is dangerous to the pursuit of science. According to Elizabeth Young–Bruehl, a queer psychoanalyst who practised in Toronto until her death in 2009, we have abandoned Freud’s depth psychology and his theory of the unconscious and promoted instead superficial psychological theories.
Homophobia and caricatures of psychoanalysis originated with our relationship to science, not Freud’s. Though he was keen on establishing a science of sexuality, he regarded that science as historical rather than experimental.
Historical sciences aim to reconstruct past events and favour the uniqueness of detail and individual cases. Experimental sciences, on the other hand, are concerned with the future and whether an event will repeat itself.
Information theory of desire
Why do individuals come out as gay or bisexual at a particular point in their lives, but not earlier? Why do some first same-sex experiences shape a queer identity while others do not?
An information theory of desire might offer insights into these questions. When queer people talk about the defining moment when they came out to themselves, it can be useful to think of self-acceptance as a kind of computing command — an input that demands a radical re-organization of someone’s information network or identity.
Life events become inputs, and sexual orientations and gender identities become information networks. Certain same-sex experiences may only result in partial changes to the information network, while others may lead to the complete re-configuring of someone’s identity.
What can we discover with a science of sexuality? Freud’s loyal friend Andreas-Salomé was right to regard honesty as the highest principle of any scientific activity. Without it, we would be dealing with incorrect inputs or information networks viewed upside down.
Pride Month is not just a celebration of sexuality — it’s also a celebration of science.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Emily Morse Wants You to Think Seriously About an Open Relationship
By David Marchese
For nearly 20 years, Emily Morse has been publicly talking with people about sex. She has done it in intimate, small-group conversations with friends; she has done it on radio and TV and social media; and the sex therapist has done it, most prominently, on her popular “Sex With Emily” podcast. A lot of what she has talked about over the years hasn’t changed: People want to discuss why they’re not having orgasms or their insecurities about penis size or their changing libido. But lately she has noticed something different: There’s a growing desire for more information about open sexual relationships. Indeed, Morse was already late in submitting a draft to her publisher of her new book, “Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure,” when she decided that she needed to add a section on nonmonogamy because she kept being asked about it. “People are realizing,” says Morse, who is 53, “that monogamy isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.”
Why do you think so many people are curious about nonmonogamy these days? People are in therapy more, taking care of themselves and thinking more deeply about their relationships. Now that’s part of the conversation; therapy is no longer stigmatized. That has been a big switch, and when couples get into their feelings and emotional intelligence, they’re realizing: We can love each other and be together, and we can create a relationship on our own terms that works for us. If you are in a long-term committed relationship, it can be exciting to experience sex in a new way that is equitable, consensual and pleasurable but doesn’t take away from the union of marriage.
A term I hear a lot now is “ethical nonmonogamy.”1
1
Broadly, it’s the practice of being romantically or sexually involved with multiple people who are all aware of and give consent to the arrangement.
My sense is that some couples experiment with that because one-half of a relationship feels that things have to open up or the relationship isn’t going to last. But in a situation like that, how ethical is the ethical nonmonogamy? That’s coercion. That’s manipulation. If you say to your partner, “We have to open up, or I’m leaving you” — I don’t feel great about the future of those couples. I can say that there usually is one partner who starts the nonmonogamy conversation. They might say, “I’ve been thinking about it, and our friends are doing it, and what would you think about being open?” They’ll talk about what it might look like and how they would navigate and negotiate it. But if one partner is like, “We should open up,” and the other is like, “I’m shut down to that; it doesn’t work for me,” and then the partner brings it up again and again and the answer is still “No,” then it won’t work. For a majority of people, their first thought is, I never want to hear about my partner having sex with somebody else; that is my biggest nightmare. That’s where most people are. So for nonmonogamy to work, you need to be self-aware and have self-knowledge about your sexual desires and do some work. Maybe we’ll talk to our friends who we know are into it. Maybe we’ll listen to a podcast about it. Maybe we’ll go to therapy. Maybe we’ll take baby steps and go to a play party.2
2
A party where people are free to engage in public sex or kinky behaviors.
But to do it to spice up your relationship is not the reason to do it. Do it because you’re open and curious and understand that your desire for pleasure extends beyond your relationship.
In the book, you say nonmonogamy is not a way to fix a relationship. Why not? The people in successful ethical nonmonogamous relationships have a very healthy relationship to their own sex life and their own intimacy, their own desires. People who are like, Yeah, let’s go find someone else to have sex with, to spice it up — usually those couples don’t have a deeper understanding of their own sex life and what they want from a partner. Another version of that is, “Let’s have a baby!” These drastic things that people do to make their relationship more interesting or to distract themselves from problems usually don’t work. Couples who are successful have rigorous honesty and a deeper knowledge of their own sexual wants and desires.
What about couples who stay together because their sex life is great but the rest of their relationship is bad? People who have great sex but they can’t stand each other? I think that’s rare. If they’re not connected in other areas and the sex is what’s carrying them, I would want to sit with that couple and find out more. Maybe the relationship is better than they think. But listen, people get to decide what works for them. To me, the most satisfying pleasurable sex is when you have trust and depth and openness and intimacy and communication. If you loathe your partner outside the bedroom? I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum; I’m sure that situation exists, but I don’t hear about it often.
It’s funny to hear you say you don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum, because in my life — If that’s you, David, in your relationship, that’s awesome! I’m so glad for you and your partner.
No, no. What I was going to say was that I use that phrase with my kids. One will say to the other, “Why are you eating that Jell-O?” or whatever, and I’ll say, “Don’t yuck their yum.” It’s a very different context! Well, that’s a big sex thing, too: You never want to yuck your partner’s yum. This is what comes up with fantasies and arousal and desire. If your partner tells you they want to use a sex toy, and you’re like, “Ew,” it’s hard to recover from that. So don’t yuck the yum if you don’t like Jell-O and if you don’t like anal sex.
You said a second ago that the best sex is about communication and depth and so on, which goes along with ideas in your book about what you call the five pillars of sex IQ,3
3
Which are embodiment (meaning awareness of your self in your own body), health, collaboration (relating to and working with your sexual partners), self-knowledge and self-acceptance.
which are basically all things that also go into being a balanced, healthy person. Obviously sex ties into one’s overall sense of self and well-being, but is there any way in which making it as central as you do also makes it more daunting? Or sets people up for disappointment? Because maybe sometimes sex is just OK, or sometimes it’s disappointing, or sometimes it’s great. Does it always have to be a referendum on one’s holistic well-being? I want people to think deeply about sex, to prioritize sex, to be intentional about sex and to think about it differently than just, I’m going to close my eyes in the dark and hope it works out. The problem is that most people compartmentalize sex. It’s shrouded in mystery. Since it’s so mysterious, people don’t want to talk about it, and they don’t have a lot of information — there’s a lot of misinformation. People are surprised every day to learn that maybe they can’t get an erection because they haven’t been working out or because of the food they’re eating. We don’t want to talk about sex unless we get a quick fix. For many years, I was like: Here’s the vibrator! Here’s the sex position! Here’s a quick-fix tip! Tips are great, but because sex becomes such a problem in relationships, I want to give people the tools to say: “I wonder if it’s a problem because I haven’t communicated with my partner lately. Maybe that’s how I can have better sex tonight.” So understanding all the elements to it might help you have more satisfaction. Once people realize this is foundational work that’s going to help you for a lifetime, once it becomes more integrated, it’ll help everybody have more freeing, satisfying sex
What are examples of misinformation about sex? That the most pleasure comes from penetration; that men want sex more than women; that men don’t fake orgasms; that desire stays the same in long-term relationships; if there isn’t desire, it means your relationship should end; that if you don’t have penetrative sex, you’re not really having sex. There’s so many of them, and every day I get hundreds of questions from people who you would think would know better. I have friends who have three children, educated, who are like, “Is the g-spot thing real?”
Can I ask about the ring you’re wearing?
4
It was quite a large ring.
I realize it looks like a vulva.
It does. It’s a vintage ring. At the time I got it, I literally didn’t realize what it looked like until the next day. [Laughs.] But now it’s my magic vulva ring!
What’s the most far-out thing that everyone should be doing? And I don’t mean far-out as in kinkiest. I mean what’s the thing that people are prudish about but need to get over? I think it’s important to masturbate. Solo sex is a great way to understand your body, what feels good. Healthy masturbation is good for people of all ages, in and out of relationships — when you are intentional about it and it makes you feel good, not bad. You don’t want to have shame after. You want to be accepting of your body, feel more in touch with yourself, feel your sexual energy. You can start to understand what turns you on. You know and accept your genitals for how they are today, and you do it without consequences.
On the subject of masturbation: In the book you write about this technique of “Meditate, masturbate” — remind me of the third one? Manifest.
Right. So the idea is that I’m supposed to meditate. Then once I’m in the right head space, I can start masturbating. And at the moment of climax, if I think about the thing I want to happen in my life — “I hope I get that raise!” — then it’s more likely to happen? Yeah. I mean, manifestation is the science behind the law of attraction and all the things you think about when you are in a heightened state. So when you’re meditating, which, I don’t know if you meditate.
I do two out of the three M’s. Two out of three! You’re good! So you meditate for a few minutes, you get in the zone, then you masturbate, and at the height of orgasm, when your sexual energy is at a peak level and you’re at a clear state to transmute whatever you believe into the universe — it’s very potent, clear energy at that moment to think about and feel what it is that you want. It could be about a raise. It could be about a better day. I feel like this is so woo. I’m from California! [Laughs.] But at that moment of your orgasm, if in that moment you can feel what you want, picture it, it has powerful resonance.
But that’s magic. Magic is not real. [Expletive.] I know. I wish I could explain this better to you, the science behind it, but a lot of people have had a lot of success with this feeling. I just think that meditate, masturbate, manifest is basically a way of using your creative energy to fuel your intentions in the moment of pleasure.
What are you working on in your sex life right now? I’m always working on my sex. Research is me-search, as I say. I’m working on staying connected. I love to slow down sex and take time to experience one-way touch.
5
Which in this context means when only one of the partners is offering touch without the expectation that the other will reciprocate.
So having a night where it’s more about giving and receiving. Expanding connection and understanding what feels good is something I’m always working on.
Just to go back to the five pillars of sex IQ: It seems self-evident that if you get healthier, become more self-aware, collaborate more honestly and openly, and if you’re more comfortable in your own body and you accept yourself, you’re more likely to have better sex. So what is your unique insight there? That’s a great question, because, yeah, those are the five pillars for a better life. But if you have a better sex life, you have a better life. So my thing is that you need to take a more holistic approach to your sex life. People don’t realize that all of those things matter. I don’t think these are so groundbreaking. It’s more applying them to sex on a daily basis. What I’m hearing you say is, Don’t people know this? They don’t.
You’re a doctor of human sexuality. I don’t mean this in a glib way at all, but what is that? So, 20 years ago when I was starting this career — and I know the school isn’t there anymore. It’s a whole thing. But I’m fully open about this. I wanted to go back to school and get a degree in human sexuality. In 2003 when I started looking, there weren’t really many places to go, and I wanted to learn more about sex and education. One school was in San Francisco, called the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.6
6
The institute operated from the mid-1970s to 2018. In 2017, California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education denied its renewal application to continue operating educational programs. In its decision, the bureau did note that the institute’s faculty and graduates “have produced a well-respected body of research and scholarship.”
A few people I admired highly recommended this school to me. So I did that for three years: an intensive program of learning everything about human sexuality and writing papers and reading everything about sex. That’s where everyone at the time in this space was going to school. Now I think there are other programs. There are some places popping up that I think are a bit better, but not a ton. It’s kind of a newer path.
My understanding is that the school didn’t meet California’s standards for private higher education. I know. This is my nightmare. But you can write about this if you want. Here’s the thing: It was run for like 40, 50 years, but it didn’t meet the criteria to be accredited, which is not fun. I haven’t really been following it. But then I went and got other degrees — in somatic sex therapy, and I’ve taken other things.
Do you think people assume that you’re a medical doctor? I hope not. I always make it clear. I don’t want people to think I’m a medical doctor. Then people think I’m a Ph.D. — not at all. I think after 20 years I’ve been doing this, people know that I’m not a medical doctor. I know putting “Dr. Emily” in the book might have been misleading, but I do say that I’m a doctor of human sexuality, which I understand might not be as well known.
I was interested in your ideas in the book about “core desires”
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The term came to Morse from the sex educators Celeste Hirschman and Danielle Harel. She defines it as “the specific feeling you want to experience during sex.” That could be feelings like power or humiliation, not merely arousal.
and how they shape our sexuality. Do you mind if I ask what your core desire is? I think to be nurtured, to be seen — loved, cared for, nourished and sometimes ravished. Twenty years ago, I was nervous around sex, disassociated. I was much more in my head and much more about my partner’s pleasure, and if they got off, that meant it was a success and a good time. I knew nothing about my body, my clitoris. I’m a totally different person. Growing up, maybe I wasn’t in an environment — divorced parents and life was hectic. I don’t think I felt as nurtured as I needed to feel. People have really intense core desires. I want to give permission to people to find out what they need, release any shame around it, express it to your partner and then see how that goes. Hopefully it goes well.
What’s the wisest thing someone ever said to you about sex? David, you with the good questions! I don’t remember who said it to me, but: “Sex isn’t just about sex.” It’s about so many other things. Sex is about your entire life. Sex is about energy, intimacy and connection. Oh, also: “Go five times slower.” That is a great sex tip!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations.
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What Is Gender-Affirming Care?
By Mira Miller
- Gender-affirming generally refers to the medical, psychological, and social support provided to individuals who are transgender, non-binary, or gender expansive. to help align their gender identity with their outward appearance and improve their overall well-being.
- This type of care can include socially transitioning by changing one’s name, pronouns or way of presenting; puberty blockers; gender-affirming hormone therapy; and gender-affirming surgeries.
- At least 30 states have introduced or are considering laws that restrict access to gender-affirming care.
Gender-affirming care has been the subject of much debate in legislatures around the country in recent months, leading to countless misconceptions and myths about what it actually entails and who it’s for.< According to a report from The Williams Institute, 30 states had introduced or were considering laws to restrict access to gender-affirming care as of March 2023. The result is 146,300 transgender youth who have lost or are at risk of losing access to gender-affirming care. Several bans proposed in 2023 would also limit access to care for those up to age 26.
While misinformation on the subject abounds, it’s important to get the facts straight: Gender-affirming care is considered safe, effective, and medically necessary by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Endocrine Society.
“Gender-affirming care is considered life-saving,” said Rebecca Minor, MSW, LICSW, a gender specialist and therapist who provides gender-affirming care. “It plays a crucial role in improving the mental health, well-being, and overall quality of life for transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals.”
What Does Gender-Affirming Care Involve?
Gender-affirming care refers to medical, psychological, and social support provided to individuals who are transgender, non-binary, or gender expansive, Minor explained. The goal of gender-affirming care is to assist individuals in aligning their sense of self with their outward appearance and to improve their overall well-being.
“Gender-affirming care means different things for different people,” Uri Belkind, MD, a pediatric medicine specialist who works in adolescent medicine at the New York-based LGBTQ+ health center Callen-Lorde, told Verywell. “It is not a specific process, but rather a collection of tools from which we can select to better fit the individual’s goals and needs.”
One aspect of gender-affirming care requires no medical intervention but instead involves transitioning socially. This may include changing one’s name and pronouns, and dressing or presenting in a way that affirms their gender identity, according to Sean Arayasirikul, PhD, an associate professor in residence of health, society, and behavior at the University of California, Irvine.
Beyond socially transitioning, there are three general medical options available when it comes to gender-affirming care, Belkind said, adding that some people may want or need all of them, while some may find happiness and well-being with only some. These include puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and gender-affirming procedures.
Puberty blockers are for younger patients who are entering puberty and are finding the changes their bodies are going through to be distressing. To access this kind of care, these patients must have shown insistent, persistent, and consistent identification with a gender that is different than their sex assigned at birth.
“This allows us to temporarily ‘pause’ these changes while the young person, with support from their family, further explores their needs and gains a better understanding of what is possible, medically speaking, and what it entails,” Belkind said.
Gender-affirming hormone therapy, on the other hand, refers to the process of using either estrogen or testosterone to promote certain physical changes and to inhibit others, Belkind said.
Gender-affirming procedures, both surgical and non-surgical, change certain physical characteristics that may not otherwise be modified with the use of hormone therapy. Belkind said these may include chest masculinization, facial feminization, permanent hair removal or hair grafting, and genital surgeries such as vaginoplasty or phalloplasty.
“One common misconception is that gender-affirming procedures are regulated only for trans and gender expansive people and that these procedures are experimental, lacking solid medical evidence,” Arayasirikul said.
In reality, cisgender people—or people who are not trans—also choose to undergo gender-affirming procedures to affirm their identity, Arayasirikul explained. This may include a breast augmentation, a mastectomy for gynecomastia, a hair transplant, a rhinoplasty, liposuction, facial fillers, or hormone therapy.
“These procedures and so many more are part of the health care of cisgender people,” Arayasirikul said. “Yet this same care is actively being criminalized for trans and gender-expansive people solely because they are different.”
Can People of All Ages Receive Gender-Affirming Care?
In states where gender-affirming care is not criminalized, trans youth can access puberty blockers to delay the onset of puberty and cross-sex hormones to develop their bodies in ways that align with their gender identity.
“Typically, gender-affirming surgeries are utilized by adults, not children,” Arayasirikul said.
And yet, much of the uproar surrounding gender-affirming care in the U.S. has been surrounding the subject of children undergoing surgery.
According to Belkind, some patients choose to start puberty blockers once puberty begins, while other patients may only begin to seek medical advice after puberty or much later into adulthood.
“It is important to note that, for children who strongly identify with a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth, there are no medical interventions needed before puberty begins and only then do we consider the use of puberty blockers, if needed,” Belkind said.
Medical interventions always happen after a thorough evaluation of the patient’s needs, Belkind added.
Why Gender-Affirming Care Is Necessary
Gender-affirming care helps to reduce gender dysphoria, which is the distress an individual may experience when their gender identity does not align with their assigned sex at birth, Minor said.< “Gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries, can help alleviate gender dysphoria by allowing individuals to align their physical appearance with their gender identity” she said. “This reduction in distress and discomfort can have a significant positive impact on mental health and overall well-being.” Trans and gender-diverse individuals often face higher rates of mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.1 Gender-affirming care, combined with mental health support, can help reduce these risks by providing individuals with the tools, resources, and interventions needed to alleviate distress and promote a positive self-image, Minor said.
According to one recent study, providing trans and non-binary youths aged 13 to 20 years with gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones, lowered their risk of developing moderate or severe depression by 60% and lowered suicidality by 73% over a 12-month follow-up.2
Another study found that gender-affirming surgeries were associated with a 42% reduction in psychological distress and a 44% reduction in suicidal ideation when compared with transgender and gender-diverse people who had not had gender-affirming surgery but wanted it.3
“Gender-affirming care allows individuals to express their gender identity authentically, promoting self-acceptance and improved self-esteem,” Minor said. “By aligning their physical appearance, social interactions, and personal identity, individuals can develop a stronger sense of identity and self-worth, leading to improved mental health outcomes.”
Additionally, gender-affirming care often includes support groups, peer networks, and counseling services that provide a safe and inclusive environment for individuals to connect, share experiences, and receive emotional support, Minor said. These social support systems, she said, are critical in combating feelings of isolation and promoting healthy relationships.
This kind of care can help combat the societal discrimination, stigma, and marginalization transgender and gender-diverse individuals often face. Minor said gender-affirming care can empower individuals to assert their rights, advocate for themselves, and challenge discriminatory practices.
“By affirming their gender identity, individuals can experience improved resilience, reduced psychological distress, and increased social acceptance,” she said.
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Are You Ready to Have ‘The Big Sex Talk’ With Your Teen?
— How to ensure the young adults in your life have the sexual health information they need.
As a parent, your child’s physical and emotional safety is likely your highest priority. While sexual health is a huge component of this, many parents don’t know how to support their teen’s sexual well-being. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and oftentimes parents don’t feel as if they have the proper support to talk to their teens about sexual health. Enter “The Big Sex Talk,” or simply “The Talk.”
For many parents and caregivers, navigating topics such as puberty, sex and romantic relationships represents an intimidating and overwhelming element of parenting.
No matter where the hesitation lies, there are experts and research that’ll help you support your teen to make informed and healthy decisions about sexual health.
Why is it so important to have “The Talk” anyway?
Young people need accurate information about sex, whether oral, anal or vaginal sex, in order to make safe, healthy and informed decisions.
Extensive research indicates young people who do not have accurate information about their sexual health are more likely to experiment with sex at younger ages than ones who do.
Even some information is better than none. When teens are able to talk with a parent or caregiver about safer sex, they are less likely to have unprotected sex.
There is a wealth of research that shows talking to your teen about sex and healthy relationships is one of the most important elements to help them make informed and healthy decisions.
However, there is an overwhelming amount of misinformation about sexuality on the internet, particularly on social media. This is something both Gabrielle S. Evans, MPH, CHES, a sexuality educator and researcher based in Houston, and Clarissa Herman, a Minnesota-based social, emotional, and sexual health educator for emerging teenagers, are well aware of.
“Talking to your teen about sex is important because without receiving information from you, it’s likely that they’ll encounter false and unsafe information about sex on social media, which can lead to making decisions that they do not understand the outcome of,” Herman explained.
“Add this to the fact that sex education in school has decreased since the 1990s, and we have a major problem,” she added. “It’s really important to talk to your teen about what is healthy, what is normal, what is safe. And what is going to happen when they don’t have good reliable sources for that information in their schools like they used to, or from their care providers? Their main source is social media.”
In addition, having conversations with your teen about sexual contact shows them you are a trusted person they can come to, Evans noted.
“Research has been telling us for decades that teens prefer to get information about sex from their parents and other trusted adults in their lives,” said Erica M. Butler, M.Ed., founder of Happ E. SexTalk, LLC in Columbus, Ohio, and creator of HAPPERMATIONS, sex-positive affirmation cards for toddlers. “The disconnect is that parents don’t know how to talk about it (or don’t want to) and teens definitely don’t know how to bring it up without feeling like they’ll get in trouble.”
How do you prepare to have ‘The Talk?’
If you’re at a loss for words, you’re not alone. Talking about sex can prove challenging, uncomfortable and overwhelming. When many parents today recall if they received accurate and adequate information about sex and healthy relationships from their own parents as a teen, the overwhelming response is: no.
It can be hard to know how to handle these conversations when you have no personal experience with your own parents or caregivers. And it can also be difficult if your own discomfort about sex is because it was ignored or not treated respectfully in your household growing up.
We asked experts how parents can best prepare to have “The Talk” with their teens:
1. Start with yourself
“I always tell parents to start with themselves,” said Rosalia Rivera, a consent educator and child sexual abuse prevention specialist in Canada. “I encourage them to reflect and journal on their own beliefs, values and ideas about sex and relationships.”
Butler said parents need to think back to their years as a teen and how topics connected to sex were addressed in their family.
“Did they feel supported or like they could ask questions openly? How did that make them feel and how would they want to change that for their teen?” Butler said. “The more we can unlearn our own shame and guilt through our experiences, the better equipped we’ll be to have these conversations with our kids.”
2. Do the research
“Parents and caregivers can prepare themselves for this conversation by first making sure the information they provide is accurate,” Evans said.
Having accurate information, as well as age-appropriate information, is crucial, and there are a number of ways you can ensure this.
Herman recommends starting with an internet search.
“A parent or caregiver can prepare themselves for this conversation by doing the ‘poking around’ on the internet that their teenager can’t do,” Herman said. “Teenagers don’t know how to sift through good information or bad information. So a parent or caregiver can hop [online] and do this for them.”
3. Find additional resources
In addition to finding accurate, age-appropriate information on the internet, there are several organizations and adolescent sexual health professionals who have resources designed specifically to help parents and caregivers talk with their teens about sex.
Sex Positive Families, for example, offers workshops on puberty and other sexuality topics. They also have an entire library of resources that can be filtered by topic, age and type.
Amaze.org is another popular organization that provides parents with the tools and evidence-informed information they need to have conversations about sex with their teens.
Additionally, there are sexuality professionals such as Herman, Rivera and Butler, or Nadine Thornhill, Ed.D., for example, who are all specialized in helping caregivers support their teens with accurate information about sex and relationships.
4. Be willing to say ‘I don’t know’
While having accurate information to share with your teen is important, you don’t need to know everything. Before you try to learn about adolescent sexual health, remember it’s OK, and fairly important to admit when you don’t have the answer.
“Be OK with not knowing the answer to their question,” Butler said. “It’s impossible to know everything and remember you didn’t get great sex ed while growing up either, so there’s a lot we don’t know.”
Herman also stressed how important this is. If your teen asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, or you’re unsure how to explain it best, she said, “It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t know but I want to find out together.'”
5. Remember, ‘The Talk’ isn’t just one talk
While many caregivers would be relieved if just one conversation about sex and healthy relationships was enough, that’s not the case. Preparing your teen to make informed, healthy and safe decisions about sexuality and relationships takes more than a single conversation.
“People like myself who specialize in adolescent sexual health education, are really trying to move away from the entire concept of having ‘The Talk’ because having one talk is going to be uncomfortable, awkward, really weird and maybe not effective depending on the relationship they have with their kid,” Herman said.
“[Your teen] might get so dysregulated that they have to check out of the conversation. And you get so uncomfortable that nothing really happens. So people like myself, who are specialized in adolescent sex education, are really encouraging parents to start conversations early, have them often, keep them brief and keep them casual.”
For example, Herman said, you can have a brief and casual conversation by noticing something on TV or in a magazine and saying “What do you think about that?”
“Maybe you see a picture on social media of somebody wearing period underwear and you ask your kids ‘Hey, do you know about period underwear?’ or ‘What do you know about periods so far?’ and you talk for five minutes and then you move on,” Herman said.
6. Understanding ‘The Talk’ isn’t solely about sex
In addition to having more than one “talk,” it’s vital to remember these conversations aren’t just about sex. Parents and caregivers often think “The Talk” means teaching your teen strictly about STDs/STIs and pregnancy.
While these topics are important, they are small elements of what it means to provide your teen with adequate and accurate information to make healthy decisions about sex and relationships.
When parents and caregivers believe conversations are limited to just STDs/STIs and pregnancy, it can make the conversation feel even more intimidating and uncomfortable.
Prepare your teen with the information they need, which includes talking about topics such as rejection, how to understand your body boundaries and communicate them, learning what safe and unsafe touch is, puberty, breakups and internet safety.
7. Learn to stay calm
Giving your teen the information they need to succeed and create safe, healthy relationships and sexual experiences isn’t just about the facts you share, it’s also about how you share them.
“The No. 1 strategy I would recommend for a parent or caregiver preparing to have this conversation is to make sure that they themselves go into the conversation calm and regulated,” Herman said. “People are very sensitive, and kids especially are really sensitive to the energy you’re putting out.
“If you’re stressed out, if you’re radiating anger or fear, or defensiveness, they’re going to pick up on that. They’re going to start responding to that even before anyone has exchanged any words. So, do what you need to do to make sure that your body and your brain and your breath are calm before you go into that conversation.”
Go for a walk, practice deep breathing or call a friend and vent, Herman recommended. Taking an honest look at your own attitudes about sexuality, as Rivera and Butler mentioned, will help with this, too.
If you enter the conversation with your own discomfort about periods because you haven’t processed how periods were talked about in your household growing up, your teen will hear that in whatever you decide to tell them.
Take the time to journal, talk to a friend, or work with a coach or therapist. The goal is to enter conversations with your teen in a way that’s not defensive or guarded. Your script should be regulated, but allow for curious teens to ask whatever questions they have.
In fact, for some parents, it can be a relief to know the most important thing isn’t always knowing the facts or having the answer, but bringing a non-judgmental and open attitude to the conversation.
While topics like sex and relationships can be an intimidating and overwhelming element of parenting, start by taking a look at the feelings that arise for you as you’re finding the resources and information you need to feel prepared.
Your teen needs accurate information about sex and an open, non-judgmental attitude in order to make informed, safe and healthy sexual decisions. You may end up enjoying how close this process allows you to become with your teen, especially as they start to share other aspects of their lives, hoping for your input.
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When the Sex Is Good
— Ways to Avoid Unsatisfying Sex
It’s time we all elevated our sex lives to the next level.
By Ally Sweeten
You’re about to have a sexual encounter. All the elements seem to be in place, and you have high hopes. But in its aftermath, you may be forced to face an unfortunate reality.
The sex simply wasn’t very good.
Shuffling away and feeling unsatisfied or perhaps put off entirely, you can’t help but wonder how things could have gone wrong. You want to get to when the sex is good.
It’s 2023 and sex is everywhere—in advice columns, social media and woven into every aspect of our daily lives. There’s a good chance you’ll find overt or covert sexual tones in almost anything and everything. Yet despite this vast pool of information at our fingertips, people continue to have “bad” sex.
How is it possible?
Attitudes about sex over time
Over the years, societal perspectives on quality sex have undergone major generational shifts. What would have been acceptable to our grandparents may not be the case today, as society has shifted its priorities.
“Outdated beliefs would have looked at sex as a marital obligation, which does not consider pleasure and assumes sex to be more of a perfunctory role. This also continues patriarchal beliefs, which are changing,” said Lauren Muratore, an accredited sexologist and the director of Integrated Sex+Relationship Therapy in Melbourne, Australia. “A good sexual experience is also slowly shedding the social, religious, gender and media constructs that influence how people feel about their sexuality.”
She added that there is currently momentum provided by a sex-positive movement in which people are ultimately given the ability to have sex in a consenting, safe, healthy, pleasurable way whenever they feel like it. That consent education is a major shift in itself.
“What pleasure looks like can change each sexual experience; therefore, assuming consent regardless of how long you have known someone is not helpful,” she said. “Consent is sexy and having a voice to communicate sexual pleasure brings greater satisfaction.”
People need to create a safe place where all topics around sex can be exchanged positively and respectfully, according to Rebecca Alvarez Story, a sexologist and CEO/co-founder of the sexual wellness and intimate products website Bloomi.
“It’s crucial to ask for and obtain consent from your partner(s) in any sexual relationship or encounter,” she said. “Your body and sexuality belong only to you and no one else.”
Furthermore, she noted that the focus is shifting from orgasming to the giving and receiving of intimate moments and pleasure, without the pressure of reaching a climax. She believes there’s no such thing as “bad” sex because problems can be fixed with mutual communication and understanding.
Plus, there may be extenuating circumstances making sex insufficient, which have nothing to do with the actual act, such as stress, prior experiences, and cultural or religious conditioning.
“As such, ‘bad’ sex can be all situations where individuals aren’t receiving emotional or physical satisfaction, where one partner is selfish, and where there is no connection or compatibility between partners,” she explained.
Conversely, Muratore cautioned against seeing “good” sex as a one-size-fits-all approach. The spectrum of sexuality, including asexuality, is relevant.
‘Good’ and ‘bad’ sex today
Our access to sexual content has exploded, but it’s not enough to completely eradicate unsatisfying sex. A survey carried out in 2021 by OnePoll revealed 1 in 5 Americans have experienced more than 10 awful sexual encounters, and 2 in 5 have gone as far as to stop in the middle because the experience was so unpleasant. Established couples weren’t immune, either: half admitted their current partner was the worst sexual partner they’d had.
The quantity of information is part of the problem. It can be so overwhelming that people opt out of reading at all, said Debbie Rivers, a relationship coach in Australia. Instead, they learn from porn, which Rivers said is far from realistic and can warp their views on sex, particularly for men.
“Reading information is quite different from experiencing it, and people often don’t know what they don’t know, especially if they have never experienced what good sex actually is,” she said.
Acknowledging gender disparities is important, as well, as sexual encounters vary for each.
“Often, we think that people see and experience the world as we do, and that isn’t true here,” Rivers explained. “We project how we are onto other people.”
Story pointed to the changing goals of sex.
“Nowadays, sex is seen as a critical element of broader wellness and well-being, and essential for a person’s mental, emotional and physical health,” she said.
Rivers and Story agreed that the pros of a healthy sex life can:
- Improve connections to others and lead to more intimate relationships
- Improve self-confidence and willingness to try new sexual activities
- Increase romantic gestures (gifts, dates, vacations, displays of affection and telling each other “I love you”)
- Improve your immune system and lower blood pressure
- Reduce stress, anxiety and depression
With all those benefits, finding out why you aren’t enjoying sex is worth investigating. One way to do this is through masturbation and self-exploration.
Taking the time to become familiar with your body provides a no-pressure atmosphere to discover likes and dislikes, which you can then relay to your partner. Further, self-pleasure can lead to higher self-esteem and increased libido, Story said.
Talk dirty to me
Experts noted that the process of transforming “bad” sex into “good” sex relies on interpersonal communication with your partner. The degree to which couples are comfortable sharing is subjective, and it’s never OK to assume your partner is agreeable to divulging information.
For example, Rivers wondered how you might feel if you discovered your partner was telling their friends how bad you were in bed. The odds are your reaction might be less than stellar.
“The one person that you should be talking to is your partner, as they are the only ones with the ability to change the situation. Sometimes, it can be easier to be naked than to be emotionally vulnerable,” she said.
Discuss your values and boundaries and avoid comparing yourself to others.
“Every couple has a different sex life with a different meaning, a different script and a different frequency,” Muratore explained. “Once you start comparing yourself to those around you, people often feel inadequate and it sets up false expectations for your own relationship. If you want to share how you feel, speak to a friend who can listen to your feelings with empathy, without expectations that they’ll solve your problems.”
If you feel sexually unfulfilled, speak up. Muratore, Rivers and Story all recommended waiting for the right time—namely, not before, during or after sex—to bring up the topic.
Be open and build trust slowly. Focus on the positives, such as what you like, want more of or want to try. This will allow your partner to be more receptive to hearing you out. Avoid absolutes—”you always” or “you never”—and accusations. Use “I” statements instead of “you” statements.
Rivers also suggested giving a blame-free lighthearted sex review the following day.
The most important thing to remember is that it takes two to tango. After a sexual encounter, both of you should walk away feeling sexually gratified, so take the time to learn your partner’s likes and preferences, too.
“Sex is an important aspect of a relationship,” Muratore said. “However, each person’s sex needs to be considered.”
Story noted that it’s never too late to start having open conversations about sex with your partner.
“By sharing fantasies, likes, dislikes and expectations, you can learn about each other and create the best possible experience for all,” she said.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Let’s talk about sex
— And about asexuality, too
5 books explore why we don’t have to tolerate ‘bad sex,’ and what it means to have loving connections with no sex at all
By Julie Kliegman
Sex therapist Ruth Westheimer once said, when asked about the possibility of a “sex recession”: “Here is an activity that is free, here … is an activity that makes people happy, and what’s the matter with all of you not to engage in it?” Like Dr. Ruth’s dozens of books, most literature on the topic presumes that sexual attraction and desire do, in fact, exist in everyone, that sex is therefore a critical part of everyone’s life, and that there must be something wrong with people who don’t have it. Self-help resources like “The Joy of Sex,” mountains of Cosmopolitan tips and even the work of popular queer writers like Dan Savage focus on how to parlay that attraction and desire into satisfying, meaningful sex. There is something of a Freudian quality at play: the pervasive idea that sex is a critical part of fostering intimacy and personal attachment.
But for many, that’s not reality. “It’s almost like there’s a slow-moving unorganized sex strike of people who can’t find good partners or don’t desire relationships and are just opting out instead,” one 28-year-old tells Maria Yagoda in “Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop” (St. Martin’s, $27). Yagoda’s fresh book is the latest entry in a subgenre that seeks to illuminate why people may not be enjoying the sex they’re having or, in some cases, why they might be choosing not to have sex at all.
In “Laid and Confused,” Yagoda chronicles her quest to understand why she and Americans writ large have historically consented to unsatisfying sex. It excels as creative reportage, as Yagoda — who briefly quotes me in her book as a source on asexuality — gamely chats with sex therapists and sex toy creators alike. She keeps an open mind about improvement in her own life and offers tips to readers who may be in the same boat.
Editor and sex columnist Nona Willis Aronowitz explores similar themes in her 2022 book, “Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution” (Plume, $28), a multigenerational memoir and manifesto that weaves together her own thoughts and feelings around sex and romance with those of her late mother, the feminist writer Ellen Willis. Specifically, Aronowitz recounts her marriage and divorce, including her reluctance to break up with her husband (in part) on the basis of what she considered bad sex.
The books of Yagoda and Aronowitz both veer far away from what is more traditionally considered “sex writing.” And three more books, all by asexual authors and published since the start of the pandemic — “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex” by Angela Chen (Beacon, $26.95), “Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture” by Sherronda J. Brown (North Atlantic, $17.95, paperback) and “Sounds Fake but Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else” by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca (Jessica Kingsley, $19.95, paperback) — show that when it comes to consensual, partnered sex, voicing displeasure is slowly becoming more accepted.
In “Ace,” Chen, an acquaintance of mine in ace — short for “asexual” — circles, dives into what life is like for people who do not experience sexual attraction, but also how asexuality can be used as a framework for reevaluating all types of platonic and romantic relationships, as well as one’s sense of self. In a particularly compelling chapter, she challenges the way most people, consciously or not, arrange their lives around a hierarchy in which romantic and sexual relationships, especially marriages, are valued above all else, emotionally and legally.
Asexuality (albeit often known by other names) is not a new orientation by any stretch — in fact, evidence of people’s lack of sexual attraction goes back centuries. But in the digital era, asexuality has gained more recognition, in part because of Julie Sondra Decker’s 2014 book, “The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality” (Skyhorse, $16.99, paperback). Chen, Brown, Costello and Kaszyca all build off Decker’s resource to present a more nuanced way of thinking about sex. The proliferation of these and similar books is also a long-overdue acknowledgment by the publishing world that topics related to asexuality and the deprioritization of sex will interest asexual and allosexual readers alike.
As Brown’s title, “Refusing Compulsory Sexuality,” indicates, questioning and ultimately casting aside “compulsory sexuality” is a huge theme of their work. The term is a riff on “compulsory heterosexuality,” the idea that societal norms force a politically constructed heterosexuality on everyone from birth — those who identify as straight and those who know they don’t fit that bill. “Asexuality exists as a refusal of compulsory sexuality, in defiance of cisheteropatriarchal mandates, and as an opportunity to deeply interrogate how sexual scripts connect with and inform conceptions of gender and race,” Brown writes. Their book pays particular attention to the way Black people are cast aside or maligned in conversations about (a)sexuality, and how the very idea of sexuality in the West is interlaced with anti-Blackness and white supremacy. Most public leaders of the asexual movement are White, but there’s room aplenty within the aspec lens (aspec is short for “asexual spectrum”) to broaden our understanding of who can be ace (anyone) and who in the community faces the most oppression (Black people, especially those who are gender-nonconforming).
As Costello and Kaszyca, creators of a podcast called “Sounds Fake but Okay,” write in their conversational book of the same name, the aspec lens is in part about “decentering the romantic-sexual relationship in our broader conversations about human connection.” It considers the flaws of putting romantic and sexual attraction at the top of our collective and personal hierarchies of needs, even at the expense of biological and chosen family, platonic friendships, and self-care. The aspec lens, Costello and Kaszyca warn, can make everything seem tinged with hopelessness, but it also offers a way to see our surroundings as they can be: beyond what was dictated in sex education classes, modeled by family members or portrayed in pop culture.
By questioning why we go through the motions of sex we don’t find rewarding, we can start to demystify the grip that compulsory sexuality has over our lives. Whether or not the readers who pick up these titles are asexual, there’s a lot to be learned about the merits of taking a step back from sex to reevaluate its place on a societal — and, in many cases, a personal — pedestal.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Everything to Know About Gender-Neutral Terms and How to Use Them
— “Gender-neutral language is honestly an easy way to show respect and acceptance to everyone we come into contact with.”
The language we use when we’re speaking to and about people is significant. It can impact how we see others, how we see ourselves, and how people are treated in workplaces, social settings, classrooms, places of worship, and just about everywhere else. As we strive for a more inclusive world, one small thing you can do is to try practicing gender-neutral language and using gender-neutral terms.
“Gender-neutral language in and of itself is not a new concept, it has just become more of a topic of conversation as we strive to be more inclusive and accepting of all populations,” explains Jillian Amodio, social worker and founder of Moms for Mental Health.
To use gender-neutral terms is to recognize that “society has a way of gendering just about everything,” as Amodio puts it, and to find alternative ways to say or write things. For example, instead of addressing a group of people as “ladies and gentlemen,” you might try saying “everyone,” “colleagues,” “attendees,” “students,” or another term that makes sense in the context. One big reason for doing this is to ensure that non-binary or gender nonconforming people are recognized and included. You might be familiar with the idea of sharing your pronouns, and using gender neutral terms is another way to be inclusive.
Gender-neutral language can be beneficial for everyone, regardless of how they identify. Here’s everything to know about gender-neutral language and how you can incorporate it in your daily life.
What are some examples of gendered language and some gender-neutral alternatives?
“Given that our society has for so long been built on gender norms and stereotypes, the division by gender has become ingrained in many aspects of daily living,” notes Amodio. You might find yourself assuming that a teacher, nurse, or daycare provider is female and a mechanic or construction worker is male. But obviously, that’s not always the case. One reason we might associate certain jobs as being “male” is because they often end with “-man,” such as “fireman,” “postman,” “congressman” and so forth. Instead, you could use descriptors that don’t assume gender, such as “firefighter,” “postal worker” or “mail carrier,” and “congressperson” or “member of Congress,” for example.
“When referencing someone or a group of people just ask yourself if there are words you can replace to be more inclusive,” Amodio explains.
Beyond job titles, there are other commonly-used phrases that tend to make assumptions about gender. Here are a few examples, along with gender-neutral terms you could use instead.
- Boys and girls — instead, consider using children, kiddos, or everyone
- Ladies and gentlemen — instead, consider using folks, everyone, students, or colleagues
- Councilman/Councilwoman — instead, consider using councilperson
- Husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend — instead, consider using partner, significant other, or spouse
- Mother or father — instead, consider using parent
- Niece or nephew — instead, consider using nibling
- Man-made — instead, consider using artificial or machine-made
- Pregnant woman or mother-to-be — instead consider pregnant person, expectant person, or birthing parent
- Freshman — instead consider first-year student
To be clear, it’s not necessarily insensitive to use a gendered phrase that you feel applies to you, such as “I’m a mother of two” or “My wife and I liked that movie.” However, when you’re speaking to others, particularly in a group, it’s more inclusive to use gender-neutral phrasing like “parents” or “partners” since it doesn’t assume anyone else’s gender identity or sexuality. Plus, using gender-neutral language in reference to yourself and others can also be a way to signify that you are supportive and respectful of all identities.
Why is it important to use gender-neutral language?
“By using gender neutral language we are also not assuming that we know someone’s identity,” says Amodio. “The terms which people use to express their gender and gender identity can vary based on personal preference and what feels right to each individual. Some people are not ‘out’ publicly in terms of how they identify, and gender-neutral language is honestly an easy way to show respect and acceptance to everyone we come into contact with.”
She also notes that in some situations — such as a teacher addressing a new group of students or an employee speaking at a conference or meeting — you may not know the people you’re communicating with. In these cases, “gender-neutral language would be the best option by default,” Amodio says.
Should I say something when I hear other people using gendered language?
“We don’t have to be the language police, but if someone uses the wrong pronouns, a gentle correction is perfectly fine,” Amodio says. “If colleagues are addressing people in gendered terms, perhaps suggesting neutral terminology will be of benefit.”
What are some other ways I can support people who have diverse gender identities?
In addition to being thoughtful about the way you speak and write, there are plenty of meaningful ways you can support people who are non-binary, gender nonconforming, or have other gender identities. You can donate to organizations advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, such as The Trevor Project or the Human Rights Campaign. You can also make it a point to shop at businesses owned by LGBTQ+ people and at businesses that donate a certain amount of their profits to LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations. You can also look to local LGBTQ+ organizations and activists in your community and support them by donating, volunteering, spreading the word about their work on your own social media, or finding another way to get involved.
Lastly, don’t underestimate the impact of your words. Using gender-neutral language, sharing your pronouns in a work meeting, and being vocal about your support of LGBTQ+ people are all ways that you can be supportive.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Beyond the Bedroom
—Why Great Sex Makes for a Great Life (and Good Health)
I’ve always understood good sex to include an orgasm and a connection with the person I’m sleeping with. But great mindful sex that’s spiritually, physically, and mentally illuminating for everyone involved is like watching Queen Rania speak: I leave the experience feeling capable and empowered, my body flooded with electric confetti.
When I started having great mindful sex (which began when I turned 40), I noticed a shift in other areas of my life. Work felt more fulfilling and my friendships more meaningful. I wanted to take better care of my body and mind. I swear I started walking a little taller, too. As I’ve continued to feel this way at 41, I’ve realized the gist: When you have mindful sex, the bliss extends beyond the sheets. Because great sex is a portal. More than a happy addition to life, it’s a pillar of good health, a way to connect with yourself and another (or others), and a beautiful right we’re all worthy of.
Featured image from our interview with Remi Ishizuka by Michelle Nash.
Experts Answer: What Is Mindful Sex
But as incredible as mindful sex is, it can be an enigma. Lack of connection, health issues, stigmatization, and many other things can get in our way. This is why we need to talk about it—more and more. So I called on two brilliant minds in this space, Cindy Barshop, founder of VSPOT, a women’s intimate and sexual clinic, and Dr. Monica Grover, a double board certified gynecologist and VSPOT Chief Medical Officer, to talk about women’s intimate health, why mindful sex is so critical, and how we can have it.
Because when we have the mindful sex that we want and we talk about it openly—look out: We’re capable of anything.
Why Women Need More Intimate and Sexual Care Support
“We’re just starting to understand how many things impact women’s intimate lives today,” Barshop tells me. Too many women aren’t enjoying the intimacy and connection they deserve. “Sex doesn’t feel good,” she adds. “It’s like, let’s do it and move on to the next thing.” This is why Barshop founded VSPOT: To give women a place to openly talk about their sexual and intimate health concerns and needs without judgment and to connect with a resource for treatment. “You would not believe how many women have sex and intimacy issues—and we are not discussing this enough.”
How often do we take the time to focus on ourselves, our self-care, and what makes us happy? — Dr. Monica Grover
Additionally, women deserve more than just 10 minutes in the doctor’s office, which is so common in Western medicine today. “It’s a shame,” says Dr. Gordon. “Not only do women feel hesitant to speak about some of these conditions in a typical doctor’s office scenario, but doctors are not even allowed to listen.” We need the room, freedom, and support to fully vent, ask, and learn about what makes us feel sexually great.
How Mindful Sex Impacts Our Lives
Sex is more than sex. It’s an avenue for so many more profound things in our lives. But too often, it gets pushed aside and “clouded,” says Dr. Grover. “Women find it as a chore, or it’s painful, or something they’re not looking forward to” because of life stressors, health conditions, menopause, or more.
This is to our detriment because sex makes us feel good. “It’s physiological,” adds Dr. Grover. “When we have an orgasm, we release all of these happy neurotransmitters—oxytocin, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin—everything that makes us feel great about ourselves.” Add to that, having mindful sex may help ward off certain illnesses and ailments. “We should be focused on our sexual health because that helps with depression.” Plus, research shows that sex can improve productivity.
Barshop puts it best: “Great sex makes your body stronger and healthier. It changes everything.”
How to Have Great, Mindful Sex
In my conversation with Barshop and Dr. Grover, I came away with three takeaways for how to nourish our sexual lives:
#1: We must be bold at the doctor’s office and discuss our sexual frustrations and desires.
“Open up these conversations,” says Dr. Grover. “Say, ‘I’m here because I want to talk about the fact that I have vaginal dryness or I can’t have an orgasm. This is my chief complaint.’ Get the doctors uncomfortable because that’s the only way to open up more awareness around this.”
#2: Mindful sex can be with others or just ourselves.
Whatever it looks like for you, dive into the incredible products available today, from vibrators to lubricants, that encourage more flow to any scenario. “You don’t need a partner,” says Dr. Grover. “Sometimes it’s even better on your own!”
#3: If you have hiccups around your sexual wellness, you’re not alone.
There is a growing community revolutionizing sexual health outside the medical world—including Barshop and Dr. Grover’s work at VSPOT. “Now we have a place where we can spend an hour with you and look at all the solutions,” says Dr. Grover. “We can give women the tools, so they can find that happiness again when they go home.”
The Takeaway
Like anything worthwhile, mindful sex takes a more profound knowing and connection with ourselves. Our instincts may be to quiet our desires and not speak about our sexual issues or wants. Don’t do that, say Barshop and Dr. Grover. We must talk openly—with our doctors, partners, and friends.
Through honesty and conviction, let’s start to normalize and prioritize sexual wellness so we can all have more mindful sex—and feel empowered in everything we want to do.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
The culture of mistrust is bleeding into our personal lives.
— No wonder there’s a sex recession
The allure of digital relationships that can be curated and controlled comes at the expense of mutual vulnerability
By Van Badham
The western drift away from seeking moral instruction from the church is understandable; the morality plays staged every day on Reddit’s infamous “Am I the Asshole?” threads are far more entertaining.
A few weeks ago, a post went viral in which the author seeks a public verdict on the question “AITA for asking my roommates to remove their dildos from the bathroom mirror in a way that was not kind?” The young poster had responded to the presence of newly washed sex toys in a shared space with a disgusted hostility and the dildo-owning flatmate complained the poster should have requested the removal more politely.
This brash – and now VERY public – story of objects once unlikely to be mentioned outside (ahem) the most personal of circumstances appears at the same time US magazine the Atlantic has been discussing “America’s intimacy problem”.
Researchers in the US have noticed a decline in secure attachments between individuals. Growing numbers of Americans find themselves either avoiding or incapable of maintaining intimate social relationships, with the consequence being loneliness and isolation. Psychologists report that even when their clients do want the security and comfort of meaningful connections, “there’s a lot of confusion and fear in terms of how to get there”.
In a cultural moment where liberalised attitudes towards sex and sexuality have destigmatised so many forms of sexual behaviour, younger generations appear to be growing less sexually intimate.
It’s not an exclusively American problem. In Australia, younger generations have also been in a “sex recession” for years. Figures compiled in 2020 revealed 40% of people in the 18-24 age bracket had never had a sexual partner. Disturbingly, some of those who know sexual contact may not necessarily know it with intimacy, but with coercion.
Sociologists and other researchers have speculated that social media is driving this. From chat to porn, the new networks provide on-demand experiences of connection that resemble in-person interactions without sharing the awkward, human rhythms of the real-world thing. The digital allure is of relationships that can be curated, controlled and contained.
Simultaneously, the portability of image-capture technology has facilitated an era of relentless self-surveillance. Powerful forces incentivise the exploitation of the personal, from the monetisation of the influencer to the desperate social competition for online attention.
The digital paradigm has come to contain us. To admit one is messy, inexperienced, scared, human-shaped or in any way truly vulnerable is an act of trust before another person and we’ve all learned by now to never trust anything pretending to be a person on the internet. Maybe the culture of mistrust fostered on the internet is what’s bleeding into our external lives? The relentless exposure of it renders any revelation of frailty a dangerous prospect.
Meanwhile, experiments such as Arthur Aron’s “36 questions that lead to love” established that it’s the mutual revelation of vulnerability that creates our most intimate bonds.
The terror is valid. The personal cost is incalculable.
Recently I received the sad news that an old theatre friend had passed away, and far too young. We lived on separate continents and had not been in touch for quite some time.
This news of his death, though, has shattered me. The memory that replays itself dates from 19 years ago; we’d stumbled into my apartment to crash after an all-night drunken adventure, and in his besozzlement he found himself unable to remove his contact lenses. He asked for help. My careful fingers peeled the plastic droplets from the eyeballs of my prone-on-the-spare-bed, fully clothed friend and it remains one of the most intimate experiences I’ve had with another human being. It changed the channel of our relationship – not into anything romantic, but into another kind of closeness that remains tricky to explain.
The pain of loss I’m feeling now is the price humans pay for the intensity of these connections.
Restless and raging at the sky in the wake of too many recent deaths, I’m yet to be convinced that the worst flatmate or view-aggregating Tokfluencer doesn’t yearn for the intimacy of a profound friendship, or a loving family, or true romantic love.
For those who may find themselves insecurely attached and sad about it, some gentle guidance: it’s not our social performances that leave an indelible impression behind us – it’s the risk taken to trust someone else when we are in our greatest vulnerability. It’s in these moments we become immortal to each other.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Exploring Sex and Aging
— Good sex is about being good at communication. It’s not about how big anything is or where you put it.
Minnesota Women’s Press hosted panel discussions about “Sex, Menopause, and Aging Bodies” in April, moderated by the magazine’s sexuality writer Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli and outreach director Crystal Brown.
Q: As our bodies change, it can impact our sexual relationships. How do we talk about that and get away from feeling like there is a goal to reach, or dismay that we aren’t feeling the same physically?
Lindsey Hoskins, health education, Family Tree Clinic: Good sex is about being good at communication. It’s not about how big anything is or where you put it. I love this recipe from sex educator Reid Mihalko for having a difficult conversation:
1) I’ve got something I want to talk to you about. 2) I’m nervous to talk to you about it because … 3) What I hope happens is … 4) Then you say what you need to say.
I also highly recommend pelvic floor physical therapy. The muscles in the pelvic area are small, so even a little exercise is a lot. Orgasm feelings are dependent on the strength of those muscles sometimes. The beefier those muscles are, the stronger and easier it is to experience orgasm. Toning those muscles can make a huge difference.
And orgasm doesn’t have to be a goal. Learning to enjoy pleasures large and small, and without a goal, leads to greater satisfaction.
If you’ve got aches and pains in your body — your hips hurt or you can’t lie on your back anymore — talk to a good pelvic floor physical therapist. There’s a lot of referred pain in the pelvis; something hurts over here, but the cause is there.
AJ, psychotherapist, Rainbow Health:
Open up space to talk about sex that isn’t just in the bedroom. Have regular relationship check-ins, when you can talk about a variety of issues. The acronym I suggest is RADAR: Review the amount of time of since your last check in, Agree on the agenda of what you want to talk about, Discuss, name Action steps, and Reconnect after a hard conversation.
Remember that sex is about exploring each other’s bodies and your own body. Maybe there’s room for parallel masturbation or different forms of touch. Sex is expansive, and it can look different ways as we age.
People over the age of 55 have the fastest- growing rate of sexually transmitted illness (STI) in the U.S. The younger age groups are more likely to have an STI, but the older generations are more likely to contract one due to decline in practicing safe sex. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2019 that the number of cases in the previous five years among Americans aged 55 and older rose 164 percent for gonorrhea, 120 percent for syphilis, and 86 percent for chlamydia.
Recommended Resources
- Comstock Films offers sex documentaries with real couples, comstockfilms.com
- Joan Price, ageless sexuality educator, joanprice.com
- Guide and podcast, blackgirlsguidetosurvivingmenopause.com
- Beyond Menopause: New Pathways to Holistic Health, by Carolyn Torkelson
- Safe sex toys not made with harmful chemicals, smittenkittenonline.com
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Sexual Health Is Mental Health
— Comprehensive sex ed is key to supporting youth mental health development.
BY Molly Moreau
May is Mental Health Awareness Month—a time to share knowledge and bust stigma around mental health issues and empower our communities to take greater care of themselves and each other. As a youth sexuality educator, I have seen firsthand how comprehensive sex education that teaches young people healthy sexuality and communication, boundary-setting and consent is key to youth mental health and development.
I first got involved with Planned Parenthood as a volunteer for their Community Action team in Nashville. After working as a sex educator at Vanderbilt University, I joined Planned Parenthood’s Sex Education Training series in a state known for being difficult when it comes to amplifying sexual and reproductive health and education. After being exposed to all the possibilities that sex education can create for people, it didn’t take me long to realize that Planned Parenthood has its finger in the pulse when it comes to advancing the reproductive and sexual justice movement. I wanted to get involved in whichever capacity I could, so I asked to work with Planned Parenthood of Greater New York.
Today, I get to give workshops and interact with teenagers about interpersonal relationships, reproductive health, safe sex, STI prevention, consent and even relationship management strategies. I have gotten to see the way sexual health competency influences the mental, emotional and physical health of young people specifically. Evidence-based research shows how a better understanding of their bodies and sexuality can have profound positive effects on a young person’s mental health, but even though we have the data, there is so much work that still needs to be done.
Young people who receive comprehensive sex education are better at maintaining a balanced sexual and mental health.
In my everyday work, it’s very common for me to hear young people talk about the first time they experience jealousy, shame, excitement or even love. In those moments of openness, I can teach young people healthy strategies to respond to these very human emotions, and how their response can set healthy relationships and a safer experience for everyone.
Because age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education for our youth is not a requirement in our current education system, most teenagers—especially those in disenfranchised communities of color—still hold on to deeply troubling, outdated ideas about what is happening in their bodies. They believe that their development is not normal or shouldn’t be happening at all.
For those of us in the sex education field, it is common to have a holistic approach to our practice. In the classroom, we don’t just quiz young people on STIs. We go deeper, asking how they would feel if someone they knew was diagnosed with HIV, or how they would approach talking about a diagnosis with a partner. We explore the difficulties around discussing safe sex, and the reasons why it can make someone feel anxious or avoidant.
According to a study by the Guttmacher institute, the feeling-while-learning strategy improves confidence, teaches teenagers interpersonal relationship skills, coping strategies, to speak up when violence or abuse might be happening, how to advocate for themselves and others, how to manage problematic partnerships, and how to reduce shame, stigma and general feelings of discomfort around sex. The research shows that young people who receive comprehensive sex education are better at maintaining a balanced sexual and mental health.
By talking about sex with young people, we not only create a trust-based system that allows us to better guide them when making decisions, but we empower them with the tools and knowledge that could have life-altering outcomes for their futures. By receiving age-appropriate sex and emotional education, young people gain a wealth of knowledge, attitudes, skills and values to make healthier choices in their sexual and reproductive lives, which can help them gain an increased awareness of an already universal human experience and in exchange, have a happier life.
I’m still here today because I believe the educational work I get to do daily could have profound consequences for the betterment of all our communities. But I can’t continue to do my job the best way possible until comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education is expanded, protected and codified into law. Sexual health is mental health, and the only way we can stop the epidemic of youth self-harm and deteriorating mental health that has invaded the lives of our young people is by giving them the kind of education and resources they deserve.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Getting too excited can stop men from orgasming
– But there’s a solution
The way sex is portrayed in pop culture films and music could easily give you the idea that it, at least physically, should happen easily – particularly for men.
Sex may seem like a straightforward activity but it actually involves a high degree of coordination between the brain and body parts. Recent data suggests that erectile dysfunction affects around one in five UK men, with the figure rising to 50% for the 40-70 age group.
With this data in mind, we set out to explore how we could mathematically model the essence of sexual response in men and improve the experience. We found that too much psychological arousal before or during sexual stimulation can make it difficult to climax.
Until recently, little was known scientifically about physiology and psychology of what happens when people are having sex, partly because of the taboo around it. A breakthrough came in the 1960s with the work of US researchers William Masters and Virgina Johnson. They invited over 380 women and over 300 men to a lab and observed them having sex, taking notes of the physiological changes that happened.
Having collected data from over 10,000 sex acts, Masters and Johnson published their results in 1966 in their Human Sexual Response paper. It proposed a paradigm of the human sexual response cycle as a sequence of excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution. For each of these stages Masters and Johnson described in minute detail physiological changes in genital areas, as well as more general reactions, such as hyperventilation, increased pulse and blood pressure, and involuntary sweating immediately after orgasm.
While sexual responses in women are less understood, the Masters-Johnson sexual response cycle for men has stood the test of time and is still the best representation of the stages men go through when having sex. Data collected by later studies showed that female sexual responses are more diverse and don’t follow the linear progression of excitement-plateau-orgasm-resolution of the Masters-Johnson model.
Practical insights
One of the criticisms of the Masters-Johnson framework was that it did not account for psychological component of sexual response. In our mathematical model, we wanted to capture interactions between physiological and psychological aspects of sexual response in men. Our model focused on how the levels of physiological and psychological arousal (turn-on) change during sexual stimulation.
We combined data about physiological responses from the Masters-Johnson study with insights from five functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of people having sex from 2003 to 2011. fMRI measures the small changes in blood flow that occur with brain activity.
Our model made two assumptions. First, that psychological turn on increases when someone is physically excited, from watching porn or from observing a partner and interacting with them. We also assumed that after sex, psychological excitement eventually subsides.
Getting over excited
The results of our model show that if a man becomes psychologically overly excited, either due to their initial level of psychological turn-on before, or during sex, this can be detrimental to their chances of achieving orgasm. One explanation for this is that when someone is overly excited they are too focused on their sexual performance or achieving an orgasm.
This can cause anxiety, which is itself a state of psychological overstimulation. As a result, people can come to a frustrating state of being agonisingly close to the point of climax yet not being able to reach it. The solution to this is to mentally switch-off and relax to allow your psychological arousal to decrease.
Another finding of our model is that the level of physical arousal decreases with psychological stimulation. Although this may seem counter-intuitive, it fits with the data from fMRI studies from around 15 years ago, in which 21 men were put inside an fMRI scanner and asked to bring themselves to orgasm either through self-stimulation or with the help of their partners.
The results showed that right before orgasm, many areas of the brain become deactivated. These include the amygdala (responsible for processing emotions and threatening stimuli) frontal cortical regions (controls judgement and decision making) and orbitofrontal cortex (integrates sensory input and takes part in decision making for emotional and reward-related behaviour).
So orgasm is associated with letting go – it’s a mental release as much as a physical one.
The same result follows from the Yerkes-Dodson law, which over 100 years ago established that for some tasks optimal physical performance is achieved with intermediate levels of psychological arousal. For example, difficult or intellectually demanding tasks may require a lower level of arousal (to facilitate concentration), whereas tasks demanding stamina or persistence need higher levels of arousal (to increase motivation).
Mathematical models have already helped us understand the dynamics of other physiological processes, such as blood circulation, heart disease, cancer, neural firing in the brain. Applying them to such complex phenomenon such as sexual response can provide insights that can help improve sexual performance and develop new approaches to treatment of sexual dysfunction.
What next?
Women have a greater variety of sexual responses that can include single or multiple orgasms.
Recent data suggests that while heterosexual men achieve orgasm about 95% of the time, the equivalent figure for heterosexual women is a measly 65%.
Our next step would be to explore how to develop a mathematical model to represent the dynamics of female sexual response using the latest Basson’s circular model, which will hopefully help close the orgasm gap.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Does Penis Size Actually Matter?
What’s the short answer?
No, penis size doesn’t matter — at least not in terms of desirability or function.
Its size has zero bearing on its ability to give and receive pleasure or do any of what it’s supposed to do.
That’s not to say that some people don’t prefer a bigger or smaller one, but that’s a matter of perceived preference, kind of like pineapple on pizza. To each their own.
Need some reassurance — or better yet, proof? Read on.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better
Contrary to the bull you might hear in the locker room or media, a bigger dick isn’t everything.
Bigger-than-average penises have been associated with a higher risk of injury and infection.
Extra length can also make some positions especially painful.
Too much girth can cause tearing if you’re not careful, especially during anal sex. Then there’s the whole choking and gag reflex to contend with during oral.
Of course, there are ways around these things, but it just goes to show that having a huge D isn’t all that.
Smaller isn’t necessarily bad
A smaller D is automatically easier to handle, which means all involved can focus on pleasure rather than pain or trying to figure out how the eff you’re gonna get THAT in there.
It’s certainly easier for fitting in the mouth. And when it comes to anal, a smaller peen is basically top dog.
Like any size penis, any perceived shortcomings are easily — and enjoyably — rectified with the right position.
And average is, well, smaller than you probably think
Most people with penises — around 85 percent — overestimate what average is when it comes to dick size and are convinced everyone else is packing something a lot beefier.
Here’s a dose of reality based on the most recent stats on schlong size:
- The average penis length is 3.6 in (9.1 cm) when flaccid and 5.2 in (13.1 cm) when erect.
- Girth-wise, the average flaccid penis measures 3.66 (9.31 cm) around and 4.59 (11.66 cm) in while erect.
To be clear: Size has nothing to do with stamina
You can be hung like the proverbial stallion and still lack stamina in the sack.
A big dick won’t last longer than a smaller one or keep you from running out of steam or cumming faster than you’d like.
It doesn’t affect fertility, either
If you’ve got baby-making on the mind, the last thing you need to do is stress about your size.
For starters, sperm is produced in the testicles — not the penis. Plus, there’s evidence that stress can reduce sperm quality and affect fertility.
FYI, stress can also put a kibosh on sexual pleasure, boners, and negatively impact your overall health.
The only thing size can do is affect your game — for better or worse
Peen size can totally affect your game, but how comes down to you.
Learn how to make the most of what you’ve got and all the other ways there are to give pleasure and you’ll be a rockstar. Focus on size alone and you’ll flop — literally and figuratively.
For example, some folks neglect their skillset because they think a big dick is all they need to rock someone’s world… and it’s not.
Others may let worries of a small D drain their confidence, causing them to overcompensate in other ways.
All of these things can take a mental toll on the penis-haver and suck the fun out of a sex sesh for all involved.
How to maximize what you’re working with
Not to keep hammering away at it, but it’s not the size of your penis that matters as much as what you do with it.
There’s nothing quite like leaving your partner writhing in ecstasy to thrust your confidence sky high, which will serve you well, in and out of the bedroom.
Here’s how to max the crap out of what you’ve got and feel good about what you’re working with — whether you lean bigger, smaller, or fall someplace between.
If you’re more endowed
The key to working with a bigger-than-average penis isn’t even really about your penis — at least not at first.
Making sure your partner is super-aroused will make it easier for them to handle your beast of a boner, so some extra focus on foreplay is a must. And lube. Lots of lube.
Use your mouth, tongue, or fingers to tease their erogenous zones, focusing on all the usual suspects, like the nips and genitals, as well as some less explored but surprisingly erotic bits, like the inner arms of behind the knees.
If you’re both ready to move onto penetration, choose positions that allow your partner a little more control over the depth. Having them on top is always a good way to go.
First, they can take you in at a pace that feels good. Plus, you get a bangin’ view of all the action and easy access to their other parts for maximum arousal.
If you’re less endowed
If your penis falls to the smaller side of the spectrum, focus on positions that let you go deep, like doggy style. Take it deeper by having your partner lower their head and chest while arching their back.
If you have a thinner penis, choose positions that make for a tighter squeeze. This can be any sex position, really, so long as your partner keeps their legs tight together.
Missionary, face-down, and them-on-top positions all work with closed legs.
And don’t let your wang worries make you forget about other types of sex. Add oral sex to the menu as the appetizer or even the main course.
And when giving, incorporate your hands or a sex toy to increase the chances of a clitoral or anal orgasm.
And speaking of orgasms, know that the chances of having them increases greatly with manual or oral stimulation than with intercourse.
You may also find it easier to hit the G spot, A spot, or P spot using your fingers or a toy. Seriously. Give it a try. You can thank us later.
If you’re somewhere in the middle
Well look at you and your not-too-big and not-too-small D, Goldicocks!
In terms of sex positions, anything goes if you aren’t trying to accommodate a penis that falls outside the average range. This is your chance to experiment like mad and fine tune the positions that you and your partner enjoy the most.
As long as your partner’s up for it, mix things up with sex in different places or consider exploring your kinky side.
Sensation play using sex toys, feathers, and ice cubes is a good start, especially if you’re BDSM-curious.
The bottom line
Being good in bed — or anywhere else you choose to get busy — isn’t about penis size, but how you handle it.
Figuring out what feels good for you and your partner and choosing moves that make the most of your penis type will serve you better than worrying will, so get to it!
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
What You Should Do if a Condom Breaks
— Turn to emergency birth control and STI tests
Nothing ruins the post-sex glow like realizing the condom broke. Now what?
“You’re probably anxious about what to do next. It’s natural to jump to worst-case scenarios,” says sexual health specialist Henry Ng, MD, MPH. “But don’t let your fears get the best of you. Take a breath.”
Don’t panic but do get prompt medical care. Dr. Ng explains what to do next and what to expect.
What to do if a condom breaks
If the condom broke while you were having sex, you may be worried about:
- Pregnancy.
- Sexually transmitted infection (STI) exposure.
“Seek care right away,” Dr. Ng advises. “If you have a primary care provider, that’s a good place to start.” When you contact your healthcare provider, say you have an urgent concern. You may be able to get a same-day appointment.
If you don’t have a primary care provider, your options for quick care include:
- Community clinics and health centers.
- Express care or urgent care clinics.
- Reproductive and sexual health clinics, such as Planned Parenthood.
“Go where you think you’ll feel most comfortable talking openly about sex and your needs,” encourages Dr. Ng. “When you call for an appointment, check that the clinic provides emergency contraception and STI testing, depending on your concerns.”
Dr. Ng also advises against going to the emergency room unless you have a true medical emergency. Trips to the ER can be very costly, and it’s better not to tie up emergency services unless you need them.
How to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex
If you’re worried about potential unwanted pregnancy, get emergency contraception as soon as possible after unprotected sex. Dr. Ng explains your options.
Plan B One-Step (levonorgestrel)
Known as a “morning-after pill,” Plan B One-Step® and its generics (My Choice®, My Way®, Preventeza®, Take Action®) are available over the counter. It’s best to take it within 72 hours (three days) of unprotected sex, but you can take it up to five days after.
“The longer you wait, the less effective Plan B is for preventing pregnancy,” says Dr. Ng. “So, it’s really important to get it within that three-day window.”
Plan B One-Step and the generic versions contain levonorgestrel, a synthetic hormone used in some birth control pills. But the dose is different than regular birth control pills. You take Plan B One-Step in one dose.
ella® (ulipristal acetate)
Another morning-after pill option is ella®, but it’s only available with a prescription. It’s a single-dose pill, and you can take it up to five days after unprotected sex. But like Plan B, ella is most effective if you take it within the first 72 hours.
Can you take multiple birth control pills after unprotected sex?
“We typically don’t recommend taking multiple birth control pills for emergency contraception,” says Dr. Ng. “The pills you have on hand may not be the right type of drug or the right dose to prevent pregnancy.”
He says the most effective options are Plan B One-Step (or its generics) and ella, which are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency birth control.
What to do about potential STIs when the condom breaks
Potential STI exposure can be scary to think about. And even if your partner doesn’t show symptoms of an STI, they could still have one.
If possible, ask your partner about their STI status. If they currently have an STI, you know you need to get tested. If you’re unsure if your partner exposed you to an STI, you may still want to get tested.
STIs to be aware of
STIs are widespread and on the rise in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 5 people have an STI. Some people have an STI but don’t have any symptoms.
Bacterial STIs
Dr. Ng says the most common STIs are gonorrhea and chlamydia, both bacterial infections. Syphilis is also a bacterial STI. If you’ve been exposed, the bacteria will show up on a test right away. Tests are typically done by taking a pee (urine) sample or swabbing your genital area.
“When you get tested, talk to your provider about how you express yourself sexually — the type of sexual activity you engage in,” Dr. Ng says. “A urine test and genital swab may miss a gonorrhea or chlamydia infection if you engaged in oral sex, for example.” Be sure to ask for an oral or rectal swab if you had oral or anal sex.
Antibiotics can treat gonorrhea and chlamydia. Dr. Ng urges that you seek out treatment quickly for these conditions, so you can avoid complications like pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), urethritis or infertility.
Viral STIs
STIs that are viruses include:
These viral STIs won’t show up on a blood test right away. It takes time for your body to make antibodies to the virus, which are the signs (markers) that show up on a test. But it’s still important to get tested, especially if you think you were exposed. Your care provider will guide you on the testing windows for viral STIs.
If you know you were exposed to HIV, get medical care right away. Preventive treatments, called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), can protect you, but you must begin taking PEP within 72 hours of exposure to HIV.
“Also consider talking to your care provider about going on pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV,” suggests Dr. Ng. This medication, often called PrEP, is for people who don’t have HIV but are at risk of getting the virus. You take it every day, and it can lower your risk of sexually transmitted HIV by up to 99%.
Condoms are still great protection
There’s no such thing as perfect protection during sex. Even though condoms can fail, it happens rarely, and they’re still your best defense against STIs. Condoms (and there are many different types) are effective birth control when used consistently and correctly.
If your main concern is preventing pregnancy, many birth control options work even better than condoms. Just remember, other birth control methods don’t protect you from STIs, but condoms do.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
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