[A] few years ago, while an ex-partner was going down on me, I realized I was having trouble breathing. Then a sense of dread filled my head, and I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest. So I quickly asked him to stop — not because he was doing anything wrong, but because I was having a panic attack during sex.
One of the (few) good things about panic attacks is that they usually only last for about 15 minutes, says Gail Saltz, MD, psychiatrist and author of The Power of Different: The Link Between Disorder And Genius. When I had my attack, I sat on the edge of the bed and did a series of breathing exercises. Gradually, I did begin to feel better.
But one of the most perplexing aspects of panic attacks is that they’re intensely fearful physical reactions that occur in the absence of any real danger or identifiable cause, as the Mayo Clinic explains. In my case, I was in a safe space with someone I trusted when my ex was going down on me. However, I had very real and terrifying feelings of detachment, the aforementioned shortness of breath, and chest pains.
Of course, I’m speaking about panic attacks during consensual sex. Fear that happens during an assault or dangerous sexual experience is completely different than having a panic attack during healthy sexual intimacy. (Reach out to RAINN if that’s the case.)
Although there are many causes for panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often to blame, says Barbara Greenberg, PhD, clinical psychologist and relationship expert. That was true for me: I’m a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and have been diagnosed with PTSD by a psychiatrist. As a result, sometimes during sex, I’ll have a flashback of an incident and experience a panic attack. Although the attacks subsided thanks to therapy and medication, it’s an ongoing process.
That said, panic attacks during sex can also happen to people who haven’t been sexually assaulted or diagnosed with PTSD. Dr. Greenberg says that generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder can also trigger panic attacks during intimacy, but anyone can have one during their life — with or without a diagnosed disorder. Sometimes these things just happen.
However, if your panic attacks are, like mine, recurring and have an identifiable root cause, it’s an especially healthy idea to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Saltz says. “If you are having multiple panic attacks or PTSD flashbacks you should 100% get treatment,” Dr. Saltz says. Treatment will begin with an evaluation of the cause of the panic attacks with a mental health professional. Then, that person will suggest therapy, medication, or both.
But is there anything you can do when you’re in the midst of a panic attack during sex? The first thing to do, if you can, is explain to your partner what’s happening — and step back from sex to take care of yourself. You can always try having sex again later when you’re feeling better. Deep breathing exercises, mindfulness practice, and reassuring self-talk can all be helpful in calming a panic attack, says Michael Aaron, PhD, a sex therapist and author of Modern Sexuality: The Truth about Sex and Relationships. Changing your physical position or getting up to walk around can also help comfort you.
At that point, Dr. Aaron says it’s okay to take any anti-anxiety medication you’ve been prescribed, such as benzodiazepines (e.g. Xanax, Ativan, and Klonopin). Because you can become dependent on such medications over time, they’re meant to be used on an as-needed basis, Dr. Aaron says. But, depending on your individual needs, you may be taking them for a week or have a prescription at-the-ready for the rest of your life. While you’re taking these medications, though, you’re also (ideally) learning other self-soothing techniques in therapy that will come in handy when you stop taking the meds as frequently.
On top of managing what’s happening in your own mind and body, explaining it to your partner presents another challenge. In particular, when I had a panic attack, my partner had a hard time understanding that he did nothing wrong. But Dr. Saltz says that, in the moment, it’s enough to “tell your partner [your panic attack] will pass, take slow and deep breaths, and relax your muscles.” After the crisis has passed, you can get into a more detailed description of what you experienced — and how it wasn’t your partner’s fault.
If you’ve been a witness to someone else’s panic attack, know that they have likely experienced panic attacks before meeting you and probably will have them after you’ve parted ways, says Amanda Luterman, MA, OPQ, a psychotherapist who specializes in sexuality. “What you can do is be a soothing and stabilizing partner for that person, keep the focus on them, and reassure them that it’s going to pass,” she explains.
So, remember that panic attacks do go away. But if you continue to have them during sex as part of a larger mental health issue or due to unresolved trauma, you should seek treatment. Trust me, it can be a life- (and sex life-) saving experience.
Labiaplasty is on the rise. Boys and men continue to worry that their penis is too small. Every other week there seems to be a new treatment promising to make your penis longer and harder or your vagina tighter, smoother, and more sparkly.
These treatments prey on our insecurities – our deep, dark worry that there’s something wrong with our genitals. That they’re not ‘normal’.
It’s no wonder we think that, though, when we don’t get to see a range of all the different ways vaginas and penises can look.
If you’re interested in same-sex relationships or, well, sex, you’ll likely get to see a few more genitals that look a bit like yours.
But this only happens once you start getting to the point of stripping down – a point you’re unlikely to reach if you’re so filled with doubt and self-hatred for the appearance of your genitals that you can’t even imagine letting someone else see them.
And for those who exclusively get busy with people of the opposite sex, it’s easy to never see a real-life alternative of your own sex-specific genitals out in the world.
Instead, you see smoothed, Barbie-perfect versions of vaginas and whopping great penises that stay erect for hours in porn.
You see blurred out images online or dainty flowers, or bananas and crude doodles to illustrate their place.
When you never see genitals that look even a tiny bit like yours, you’re going to worry that you’re abnormal, that something’s wrong, that you need to change yourself.
That’s why we need to get in there early, and show students actual photos of actual vaginas and penises.
Not doodles.
Not just vague diagrams of the reproductive system.
Actual photos or – if that greatly offends you for reasons I don’t understand – a wide range of illustrations that shows all the parts of the genitals and all the different ways they can look.
Students should see where the clitoris is, because if they don’t they’ll struggle to give women pleasure or experience it themselves.
Students should understand what a circumcised penis looks like versus an uncircumcised one.
Students should see longer labia, different skin tones, penises that are short and fat, penises that are long and lean. A range of healthy genitals to expand the definition of ‘normal’ in young people’s minds.
‘Relationships and Sex Education is an opportunity to challenge the idea that any one type of body is ‘normal’,’ Lisa Hallgarten, coordinator of the Sex Education Forum, told metro.co.uk.
‘Learning about and celebrating body diversity may start with simply thinking about the different heights; body shapes; hair, eye and skin colour of people we can see around us; and learning about the difference between female and male body parts.
‘When it comes to genitals young people may think their own are unusual or unhealthy because they haven’t seen any images of different bodies, or because many sexual images they have accessed online depict a particular type of body (e.g. men with very large penises and women with hairless, surgically-altered vulvas).
‘Whether we use photographs, anatomical drawings or art works (such as Jamie McCartney’s Great Wall of Vagina) it is essential that any images we show properly represent the great diversity that exists in the shapes and sizes of people’s genitals.’
Hear hear.
Seeing these images before we start having sex or having the power to make changes to our bodies through surgery or other means is incredibly important.
How we view our bodies informs how we view ourselves. It affects our sexual relationships, our decisions, our mental state.
Knowing that our genitals are okay, that there’s nothing wrong, gross, or weird about them just because they don’t match the images we see in porn, will inform healthier sexual decisions, make us more confident, and prevent people from considering drastic measures to ‘fix’ themselves.
As someone who was so self-concious about my vagina that I blamed it for breakups and went to the doctor to beg them to change the appearance of my vulva, I know how powerful learning that your genitals are normal can be.
It’s not just about seeing genitals similar to your own, mind you.
Seeing real, intimate pictures of bits of all genders will make sex significantly less intimidating.
If you’re shown accurate images of all different genitals, you won’t be confused and horrified when you start having sex and are greeted by a penis or vagina that looks entirely unlike the ones you’ve seen in porn.
Adding real images to sex ed will make people more understanding of the range of normal for the opposite sex, too. So boys won’t take the piss out of women’s labia or the size of their vagina*, and girls won’t say cruel things about the size of someone’s penis.**
*No, you can not tell how much sex someone’s had by how tight or loose a vagina feels. No, you should not make up songs about women’s ‘flaps hanging low’.
**No, it’s not cool to tell people your ex has a small dick just because he p*ssed you off.
It’ll make our sex lives better, too. There’ll be a greater understanding of how penises and vaginas work, and lots more pleasure happening when everyone understands where the clitoris is, which bits of the penis are more sensitive, and what to expect when they start going down.
Oh, and knowing the range of normal will make it easier to know when something’s gone a bit wrong.
If we know all the different ways a healthy vagina or penis can look, we’ll be more able to quickly notice a change in appearance or a dodgy symptom – and because we’re not holding on to the heavy worry of ‘what if my entire downstairs area is completely abnormal and the doctor will recoil in horror’, we’ll feel more able to ask for help.
And, of course, openly presenting students with pictures of genitals is all part of chipping away at our general silence and squeamishness around our bits.
Penises and vaginas are not inherently gross, or dirty, or wrong. We should be able to talk about them, ask questions about them, and not feel disgusted or scared when it comes to being presented with their natural states (*cough* periods are not gross, neither is body hair, and ‘vagina’ is not a dirty word *cough*).
Many of us are all too familiar with the “beer goggles” effect: friends and strangers alike become more attractive after a drink or two. Undoubtedly, drinking alcohol lowers our inhibitions and makes us more open to experimentation with the same sex. In a new study, published in The Journal of Social Psychology, straight men were found to be more physically attracted to other men after a few drinks.
“Most notably, alcohol intake was related to increased sexual willingness of men with a same-sex partner, suggesting a potential shift in normative casual sexual behavior among heterosexual men,” wrote the authors in the study.
Researchers recruited a total of 83 straight men and women who were bar hopping in the Midwest at night. The participants were asked to complete a survey about how many drinks they’d had that night. In addition, they had to watch a 40-second video of either a physically attractive man or woman drinking at a bar and chatting with the bartender. Then, the participants rated their sexual interest in the person in the video, from buying them a drink to going home together to have sex.
Unsurprisingly, men showed high interest when the attractive woman was on the screen; women naturally were more attracted to the man. Moreover, men were more likely to make sexual comments about the woman after the video. Overall, they expressed more sexual interest in the women, regardless of how much they had. This coincides with previous research that concedes men tend to be more lax about casual sex with strangers.
However, the researchers noted an interesting observation: the more alcohol men drank, the more interested they became in the man in the video. Men who had nothing to drink showed no interest. Those who consumed over 10 alcoholic drinks were more likely to entertain the idea of gay sex just as much as having sex with a woman.
“Sexual willingness was only influenced by alcohol intake and perceived attractiveness of a same-sex prospective partner,” the authors wrote.
In women, the more alcohol they drank, the more interested they were in other women, and the opposite sex.
This suggests sexuality for men and women does not fall under straight and gay, but instead is fluid. A 2016 study found women have been evolutionarily designed to have same-sex encounters. The researchers proposed women’s sexuality has evolved to be more fluid than men’s as a mechanism to reduce conflict and tension among co-wives in polygynous marriages.
In men, studies have found a large number of straight men watch gay porn and even have gay sexual fantasies. Researchers believe homosexuality has evolved in humans because it helps us bond with one another. In other words, sexual behavior is not a means to an end of reproduction, but it can also be used to help form and maintain social bonds.
It’s no surprise drinking alcohol leads to sexual behavior, and even makes us sexually fluid, and less inhibited. Alcohol’s influence on specific brain circuits has led us to feel euphoric and less anxious. It makes us more empathetic and leads us to see other people — even the same sex — as more attractive.
Alcohol may allow us to freely express our sexual side, without judgment or reservations.
[S]eventy-nine-year-old Jane Fonda is doing for vibrators what 44-year-old Jane Fonda did for aerobics videos: mainstreaming them.
And not a moment too soon.
The new season of her critically acclaimed Netflix series, “Grace and Frankie,” co-starring Lily Tomlin, sees the two women launch a business selling sex toys for women. If you happen to drive down Vine Street in Hollywood, you might see a giant billboard of Fonda and Tomlin holding ribbed, purple objects under the words “Good vibes” — in case there was any confusion about what they’re holding.
And if you watch “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” you may have happened upon Fonda unveiling a vibrator on daytime TV. (Take that, “The View”!)
“Use it or lose it, right?” Fonda says to DeGeneres, who seems uncharacteristically bewildered.
“Was this something you knew about before the character?” DeGeneres asks. “Before you researched it, was this something you knew about, I mean, were familiar with? Used?”
Fonda offers an emphatic “yes,” before explaining that she owns one vibrator that doubles as a necklace. “It looks like a beautiful piece of silver jewelry.”
Until it doesn’t.
“I applaud her,” said Lauren Streicher, medical director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause. “I’ve been trying to talk about this on daytime TV for years, and no one will have any part of it.”
Fifty-two percent of American women use a vibrator, Streicher said, according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. And women over 60, in particular, need to know about their benefits.
“Sometimes nerve endings aren’t as sensitive as they used to be, so what did it for you before isn’t going to necessarily do it anymore,” said Streicher, who wrote “Sex Rx: Hormones, Health, and Your Best Sex Ever” (Dey St.). “In addition, you have a lot of medical conditions — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis — that can cause a desensitization of nerve endings, so there is a need for increased stimulation.”
Which may explain why the Carol Wright Gifts catalog — known mostly for its compression support knee-high socks, bunion bandages and denture liners — features a two-page spread of “personal massagers” with such names as Couple’s Raging Bull and The Amazing Butterfly Kiss.
There should be no shame in the vibrator game.
“It’s really just an acknowledgment that women are entitled to pleasure,” Streicher said. “It’s OK for men to have sex and pleasure and to desire that until the day they die, but when you look at women in their 70s talking about sexuality, that’s been something mainstream media has absolutely no interest in.”
Maybe Fonda will help change that.
“I hope so,” Streicher told me. “When I teach medical students, I tell them: Don’t ever say to a woman, ‘Do you have a vibrator?’ That is the wrong question. What you say is, ‘When you use your vibrator …'”
She continued: “When I ask a patient, as part of her history, ‘Are you able to have an orgasm?’ and she says no, I say, ‘How about when you use your vibrator?'”
It lessens the stigma and leads to a more honest discussion, Streicher said.
“We know, at best, maybe 25 percent of women are able to have an orgasm through intercourse alone,” she said. “If men weren’t able to have orgasms and there was a device that made it happen, there would be nothing taboo about it.”
And if Fonda has her way, there won’t be for much longer.
[I]magine living in an aged care home. Now imagine your needs for touch and intimacy being overlooked. More than 500,000 individuals aged 65+ (double the population of Cardiff) live in care homes in Britain. Many could be missing out on needs and rights concerning intimacy and sexual activity because they appear to be “designed out” of policy and practice. The situation can be doubly complicated for lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans individuals who can feel obliged to go “back into the closet” and hide their identity when they enter care.
Little is known about intimacy and sexuality in this sub-sector of care. Residents are often assumed to be prudish and “past it”. Yet neglecting such needs can affect self-esteem and mental health.
A study by a research team for Older People’s Understandings of Sexuality (OPUS), based in Northwest England, involved residents, non-resident female spouses of residents with a dementia and 16 care staff. The study found individuals’ accounts more diverse and complicated than stereotypes of older people as asexual. Some study participants denied their sexuality. Others expressed nostalgia for something they considered as belonging in the past. Yet others still expressed an openness to sex and intimacy given the right conditions.
Insights
The most common story among study participants reflected the idea that older residents have moved past a life that features or is deserving of sex and intimacy. One male resident, aged 79, declared: “Nobody talks about it”. However, an 80-year-old female resident considered that some women residents might wish to continue sexual activity with the right person.
For spouses, cuddling and affection figured as basic human needs and could eclipse needs for sex. One spouse spoke about the importance of touch and holding hands to remind her partner that he was still loved and valued. Such gestures were vital in sustaining a relationship with a partner who had changed because of a dementia.
Care staff underlined the need for training to help them to assist residents meet their sexual and intimacy needs. Staff highlighted grey areas of consent within long-term relationships where one or both partners showed declining capacity. They also spoke about how expressions of sexuality posed ethical and legal dilemmas. For example, individuals affected by a dementia can project feelings towards another or receive such attention inappropriately. The challenge was to balance safeguarding welfare with individual needs and desires.
Some problems were literally built into care home environments and delivery of care. Most care homes consist of single rooms and provide few opportunities for people to sit together. A “no locked door” policy in one home caused one spouse to describe the situation as, “like living in a goldfish bowl”.
But not all accounts were problematic. Care staff wished to support the expression of sex, sexuality and intimacy needs but felt constrained by the need to safeguard. One manager described how their home managed this issue by placing curtains behind the frosted glass window in one room. This enabled a couple to enjoy each other’s company with privacy. Such simple changes suggest a more measured approach to safeguarding (not driven by anxiety over residents’ sexuality), which could ensure the privacy needed for intimacy.
Conclusions
Our study revealed a lack of awareness by staff of the need to meet sexuality and intimacy needs. Service providers need guidance on such needs and should provide it to staff. The information is out there and they can get the advice they need from the Care Quality Commission, Independent Longevity Centre, Local Government Association and the Royal College of Nursing.
Policies and practices should recognise resident diversity and avoid treating everyone the same. This approach risks reinforcing inequality and doesn’t meet the range of needs of very different residents. The views of black, working-class and LGBT individuals are commonly absent from research on ageing sexuality and service provision. One care worker spoke of how her home’s sexuality policy (a rare occurrence anyway) was effectively a “heterosexuality policy”. It may be harder for an older, working-class, black, female or trans-identified individual to express their sexuality needs compared to an older white, middle-class, heterosexual male.
Care homes need to provide awareness-raising events for staff and service users on this topic. These events should address stereotyping and ways of achieving a balance between enabling choices, desires, rights and safeguarding. There is also a need for nationally recognised training resources on these issues.
Older people should not be denied basic human rights. This policy vacuum could be so easily addressed over time and with appropriate training. What we need now is a bigger conversation about sex and intimacy in later life and what we can do to help bring about some simple changes in the care home system.
[W]hen your alarm clock rings, there’s a good chance that the only thing on your mind (besides your snooze button) is sex. People can feel very horny in the morning; John Legend even wrote a whole song about it. For people with penises, morning erections are an inevitable part of their sleep cycle, and even though a lot of people wake up with boners, it’s not always a sign that someone is aroused. But if someone with a vagina gets horny as hell in the morning, can they just blame it on biology? Maybe.
Turns out, people with vaginas also respond to their sleep cycle, and they can have increased clitoral and vaginal engorgement during the REM stage of sleep, says Aleece Fosnight, MSPAS, PA-C, a urology physician assistant and a sexual health counselor. “The clitoris has erectile tissue just like the penis, but instead of being out in the open for everyone to see, the clitoral engorgement happens internally and most women aren’t aware of the process,” Fosnight says.
Here’s how it works: During REM sleep, your body pumps oxygen-rich blood to your genital tissues to keep your genitals healthy, Fosnight says. This is also what happens when a person with a vagina gets aroused by something sexual: The erectile tissue in the clitoris becomes engorged and red because of the changes in circulation and heart rate, says Shannon Chavez, PsyD, a certified clinical sexologist. “The labia also has erectile tissue, and can become larger and more red in color as the arousal triggers a release of blood flow through the entire genital area,” she says. A person’s vagina could also get wetter or more lubricated during these bouts of arousal.
But, like penises, the changes your genitals experience at night don’t always occur because you’re exposed to something that arouses you — they just sort of happen. (Though if you woke up during one of these periods when your body thinks it’s aroused, you could subsequently feel more aroused and want to have sex, Fosnight says.)
That being said, some people do feel extra aroused in the morning, regardless of what their genitals are doing, because that’s when people’s testosterone levels peak, Dr. Chavez says. “This hormone is responsible for triggering feelings of sexual desire,” she says. You also might feel hornier in the morning because you’re more refreshed, relaxed, and comfortable than you are at night, according to Dr. Chavez. “This is the perfect formula for sexual arousal to take place,” she says, since sex at night can feel like work for some people, because you’re stressed and have used all your energy during the daytime. “There is lower tension in the morning when you are about to start the day ahead,” Dr. Chavez says.
So there you go: Women can have it all, even “morning wood.” There are tons of reasons why a person feels aroused when they do, but the time of day might have something to do with it after all. The next time you wake up with an urge to have sex, do it — morning sex is awesome, and your body knows it
Name: Dave
Gender: male
Age:
Location:
Does male nipple play excite all guys? Is there something wrong if it doesn’t?
THANKS,
Dave
[N]ipples of either the male or female variety are potential erogenous zones. The operative word in that sentence is “potential”. Not everyone has awakened his/her nipples to the delicious positive sex charge they can (and do) have. Some folks don’t know about the connection between their nipples and their cock (or pussy for that matter). Some folks are clueless because they’ve not taken the time to put 2 and 2 together, don’t cha know.
What a person to do? Simple! Spend some time wakin’ up them babies. This is where full-body masturbation comes in handy. While you’re pullin your pud; move the building sexual energy from your groin to other parts of your body — nipples, feet, ass hole, you name it.
If your nipples are particularly sensitive to start with, you may need a bit more stimulation than merely lightly stroking ‘em. Some guys find that the more erect their nip become, the more sensitive they are. No great mystery there, is suppose. To this end, some men employ some means of nipple enlargement. This might be done through clamps or suction. See Bully Nipple Clamps (C739), or a simple Snake Bite Kit (A300).
Once you got a nice nipple erections goin’ try stroin’, squeezin’ lickin’, suckin’ or even nibblin’ and bitin’ ‘em. Be sure to pay attention to the whole chest area, not just the nips.
If you’re workin’ on yourself, you will be getting immediate feedback on how it’s goin’. If you’re workin’ on someone else, or someone else is workin’ your nips — start out nice and gentle. Either you or your partner can ramp things up depending on the feedback you’re givin’ or gettin’. I always think adding different sensations like heat (candle wax) or cold (ice cubes) is a way to make things interesting. In other words, use your imagination. That’s why you have that block perched up on your shoulders.
[F]ollowing in the footsteps of its predecessor Viagra, the female libido drug Addyi has snuck into over-the-counter supplements that tout their ability to “naturally” enhance sexual desire.
The Food and Drug Administration announced a recall Wednesday of two supplements marketed to boost women’s sex drive. The supplements Zrect and LabidaMAX — both manufactured by Organic Herbal Supply — actually contained flibanserin, a medication approved by the FDA in late 2015 to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. It’s the first time federal officials have recalled a product contaminated with the drug.
“It’s the latest example of brand-new drugs being found in supplements,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, a physician at Harvard Medical School who studies dietary supplements.
The problem has long plagued the male sexual enhancement supplement market. Viagra has turned up in dozens of over-the-counter pills that never declared they contained the drug. The FDA regularly checks supplements shipments for the presence of Viagra, and has added flibanserin into their scans since the drug was approved.
“FDA lab tests have found that hundreds of these products contain undisclosed drug ingredients,” said Lyndsay Meyer, a spokesperson for the agency.
The massive dietary supplement industry is largely unregulated. The products can be sold without a prescription in supermarkets, supplement stores, and, increasingly, online. The products currently being recalled were sold on Amazon through February.
And while supplement makers are not allowed to claim that their products cure or treat a particular condition, they are allowed to make general claims that their products support health or, in this case, promote sexual desire.
“There’s nothing that you can actually put into the pill that lives up to advertised claims, so there is this temptation to introduce a pharmaceutical drug that attempts to meet those claims,” said Cohen. Organic Herbal Supply, which is recalling its products, did not respond to a request for comment.
The FDA said it has not received any reports of adverse events tied to either of the supplements. But Cohen said they are far from safe — and argued a lack of regulation will allow those risks to remain.
“We have no idea the harms being caused by these products. As long as these products can be sold as if they improve your sexual health, there’s going to be no stopping this,” he said.
The amount of undeclared flibanserin in a supplement could vary widely from one pill to the next, as has been the case with Viagra. It’s also possible the drug could be introduced into a supplement along with other potentially libido-boosting compounds, exacerbating those effects.
“We don’t know what danger this poses because these combinations have never been studied before they’re sold to unsuspecting consumers,” Meyer said. Consumers can report adverse events tied to these or other dietary supplements to the agency online.
Cohen said the message from the recall is clear: “Consumers should just completely avoid sexual enhancement supplements. They either might be safe and don’t work, or they might work but are likely to be dangerous.”
[I]f you sleep in the same bed as someone with a penis, your partner’s boner poking you in the back in the morning is like a natural alarm clock: inevitable, not always welcome, and hard to snooze. And it’s not just in the morning: Men get three to five erections during one night of sleep, and each one can last between 20 and 30 minutes. But does that mean that each of those times your partner gets hard they’re turned on and want to have sex? Not exactly, and most people can’t help that they randomly get boners in the middle of the night.
The proper term for “morning wood,” or night boners, is “nocturnal penile tumescence” (NPT). Nocturnal erections seem to follow a man’s sleep cycle, and usually happen during the REM phase of sleep, says Aleece Fosnight, MSPAS, PA-C, a urology physician assistant and a sexual health counselor. “It doesn’t mean that he is aroused or had a sexual dream or fantasy, but rather [it’s] the body’s way of ensuring the penile tissue remains healthy,” Fosnight says.
So, if they’re not aroused, why exactly do people get full-fledged boners? There’s a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, and it’s responsible for stopping blood flow from the penis, among other things, Fosnight says. “When your body goes into REM sleep, norepinephrine actually drops, causing a rush of blood flow into the penis,” she says. “The way that ‘morning wood’ happens is when you wake up during one of those REM cycles when the penis is fuller.” This might not happen every morning, because, technically, people with penises have to be experiencing REM sleep to wake up with a boner, and you usually don’t wake up during REM, because it’s the deep sleep phase. But still, morning wood is incredibly common, Fosnight says.
Some experts also say that when people with penises have a full bladder, there’s a mechanical pressure that their brain interprets as pleasurable sexual arousal, and causes an erection, says Laurie Watson, LMFT, certified sex therapist. Either way, when a person wakes up with a boner, there’s a good chance they weren’t aroused before. (Of course, that doesn’t mean they can’t become aroused once they realize they have a boner.) And this isn’t just biology’s way of messing with us; it could be evolutionary, Fosnight says.
“Most speculate that [NPT] helps to keep the penis healthy by promoting oxygen-rich blood flowing into those tissues,” Fosnight says, adding that NPT could also possibly prevent erectile dysfunction, or it could just be a sign that the penis is working normally. “Erections that occur during sleep are completely normal and happen nightly throughout a man’s life and are not caused by sexual stimulation,” she says.
And even though these boners may wake up sleeping partners in the middle of the night, NPT is considered beneficial from a sexual health perspective, too. “NPT is a wonderful thing, because it shows that a man is capable of achieving an erection organically,” says Eric Garrison, a clinical sexologist. “If he is incapable of achieving an erection with a partner, though he experiences NPT, then we would assume that there is an emotional cause for his erectile concerns.”
So, the next time your partner bumps you with their hard penis, they’re not necessarily trying to have sex, but you can consider it an opportunity to ask, “You up?”
So, you’ve finally filled the antidepressant prescription that’s been acting as a bookmark for the most recent novel you’re feigning interest in. Somewhere between missing your own birthday party and watching everyone else have fun without you, you gave in. After a few medicated weeks, things are starting to look up. Except for your sex life, that is.
Just last week, you were tied to a kitchen chair enjoying an amazing (albeit rather mournful) few minutes of escape through sex. Today, getting naked seems less appealing than all the other pressing tasks you have new-found energy to complete.
“Is it the meds, or is it just me?” you wonder as you deep-clean the fridge with new vigour. After some soul-searching, it becomes clear that you’re still the same person—just with fewer festering foodstuffs and a lot less crying.
“It must be a side effect,” you decide. But months after filling your prescription, your genitals are still giving you the physiological equivalent of
Why Antidepressants May Be a Downer for Your Sex Life
“[Sexual dysfunction] is a difficult, frustrating, and very common issue with this class of medications,” says Jean Kim, M.D., clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University.
Twelve percent of American adults reported filling an antidepressant prescription in the most recent Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Not just for clinical depression, but for all kinds of off-label conditions like chronic pain and insomnia.
When fighting to survive a potentially fatal mental illness, there are often more important concerns than getting it on. It’s frequently not an option to stop taking life-saving medication to avoid side effects. So what’s a sexual being to do?
Despite SSRIs being pretty pedestrian, there’s no concrete answer to addressing sexual side effects. “Unfortunately, not much is reliably effective to deal with this [sexual dysfunction],” Dr. Kim notes.
This may sound pretty gloomy, but there are plenty of things you can try to bring sexy times back around. “Don’t hesitate to bring up the issue with your prescribing clinician, as there might be some helpful interventions available,” says Dr. Kim.
Here are other ways to work around the sexual side effects of antidepressants:
1. Time It Right
“Some literature advises trying to have sexual activity when the serum level of a daily antidepressant might be lowest in the bloodstream,” says Dr. Kim. In other words, the ideal time to get it on is right before you take your next daily dose.
If your dosing schedule makes it tough to pencil in sexual activities, chat with your clinician about changing the time of day you take your meds. In many cases, there’s room for flexibility.
“This would not work much with some SSRIs that have a longer half-life like fluoxetine (Prozac),” Dr. Kim adds. Those taking antidepressants that exit the body quickly, like Paxil and Zoloft, could be in luck.
2. Switch It Up
Switching to a different medication, with the support of your prescribing clinician, may make all the difference. Certain antidepressants have a greater incidence of sexual side effects than others. Commonly prescribed SSRIs associated with a high frequency of sexual dysfunction include paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft) and fluoxetine (Prozac).
Besides exploring the SSRI class, venturing into atypical antidepressant territory is another option. Buproprion (Wellbutrin) is an atypical antidepressant observed to present the lowest sexual side-effect profile of all antidepressants.
It may take some trial and error, mixing and matching to identify what works best for you, but it will all be worth it when you can [insert favorite sex act here] to your heart’s content again.
3. Augment
Some treatment add-ons may act as antidotes to SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction. “Supplementing with other medications that have serotonin blocking effects (like cyproheptadine [Peritol] or buspirone [Buspar]) or enhance other neurotransmitters like dopamine (like Wellbutrin) might help,” says Dr. Kim. She is quick to note that these findings are yet be confirmed by “larger-scale randomized controlled clinical trials.”
“Another common strategy is to prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs like sildenafil (Viagra) and the like for as-needed use before activity,” says Dr. Kim. Viagra has been found to reduce sexual side effects, even if you’re not in possession of a penis. In Dr. Kim’s clinical experience, “[Viagra] seems to help in more than a few cases.” Discuss with your doctor before adding any more medications to the mix.
4. Exercise
Now’s the time to take up aquacycling, indoor surfing sans water or whatever fitness fad tickles your fancy. Keeping active could be the key to preventing sexual dysfunction caused by SSRIs.
“Sometimes sexual dysfunction is not just a primary SSRI drug side effect but part of underlying depression/anxiety as well,” Dr. Kim explains. “Anything that helps enhance overall blood circulation, mood and libido might be helpful, such as exercise.”
[F]irst it was shocking, then it was having a cultural moment, now it’s practically standard in the modern bedroom repertoire—or so a quick scan of any media, from porn to HBO, will tell you. But the reality about anal is not, actually, that everyone’s doing it, says research psychoanalyst and author Paul Joannides, Psy.D., whose comprehensive book on sexuality, The Guide to Getting it On!, is used in college and medical school sex-ed courses across the US and Canada. The book is amazing not just for its straight-up factual information on practically any aspect of sex you can think of, but also for its easy, nonjudgmental, at-times humorous tone.
The CDC reports that the number of heterosexual men and women who’ve tried it vacillates between 30 and 40 percent (oddly, the CDC doesn’t report on how many homosexual men have tried it, except in a statistic that weirdly combines it with oral). If anal turns you on, you are definitely not alone, but its prevalence doesn’t change the fact that it’s the riskiest sexual behavior in terms of HIV and other STDs. Here, Joannides talks us through the realities of making anal both as safe and as pleasurable as possible.
A Q&A with Paul Joannides, Psy.D.
Q
When did heterosexual anal start to become a thing?
A
In the 80’s, I remember hearing from a friend that he had a videotape of anal porn. This seemed shocking at the time. (This was pre-Netflix: Everything was on videotape, from porn to Disney movies to highlights from the Olympics. Video rental stores were everywhere.) I’m not sure there are too many middle schoolers today who would be shocked or even surprised to watch anal sex on Pornhub or Xhamster.
Since porn became as easy to access as YouTube, porn producers have had to fight for clicks, and so porn has become more extreme. I’d say that by 2005, porn had totally blurred the distinction between a woman’s anus and vagina. This wasn’t because women were begging their lovers for anal, it’s because porn producers were afraid you’d click on someone else’s porn if they weren’t upping the ante in terms of shock value.
Q
Does the popularity of anal in porn reflect reality in both homosexual and heterosexual couples?
A
No. There are some couples who enjoy anal sex a lot, maybe 10 percent to 15 percent of all straight couples. But if you ask them how often they have anal vs. vaginal intercourse, they’ll say maybe they have anal one time for every five or ten times they have vaginal intercourse. We occasionally, as in once a year, hear from women who say they have anal as often as vaginal, but that’s unusual.
As for gay men, statistics vary widely, and studies aren’t always consistent in how they collect data—some might be looking at different levels of frequency, i.e. have you had anal once in the past year, or do you have it regularly? I’ve seen studies suggesting that 65 percent of men have anal sex, and others that suggest the figure is less than 50 percent. So, I don’t have exact figures for hetero or homosexual couples, but there is data suggesting that a good percentage of gay men would rather give and receive blowjobs than have anal sex.
Q
How should we modify the anal sex we see modeled in porn to best suit an in-real-life couple?
A
The way the rectum curves shortly after the opening tells us we need to make a lot of adjustments for anal to feel good. Also, the two sets of sphincter muscles that nature placed around the opening of the anus to help humans maintain their dignity when in crowded spaces (to keep poop from dropping out) mean there’s an automatic reflex if you push against them from the outside.
So one of the first things a woman or man needs to do if they want to be on the receiving end of anal sex is to teach their sphincter muscles to relax enough that a penis can get past their gates. This takes a lot of practice.
Also, unlike the vagina, the anus provides no lubrication. So in addition to teaching the sphincters to relax, and in addition to getting the angle right so you don’t poke the receiver in the wall of the rectum, you need to use lots of lube.
They show none of this in porn. Nor do they show communication, feedback, or trust. Couples who do not have excellent sexual communication, who don’t freely give and receive feedback about what feels good and what doesn’t, and who don’t have a high level of trust should not be having anal sex.
Q
What are the health risks of anal?
A
A woman has a 17-times-greater risk of getting HIV and AIDS from receiving anal intercourse than from having vaginal intercourse. So your partner needs to be wearing a condom and using lots of lube, unless both of you are true-blue monogamous, with no sexual diseases. Any sexually transmitted infection can be transmitted and received in the anus. Because of the amount of trauma the anus and rectum receive during anal intercourse, the likelihood of getting a sexually transmitted infection is higher than with vaginal intercourse.
Unprotected anal sex, regardless of whether it is practiced by straight or gay couples, is considered the riskiest activity for sexually transmitted diseases because of the physical design of the anus: It is narrow, it does not self-lubricate, and the skin is more fragile and likely to tear, allowing STDs such as HIV and hepatitis easy passage into the bloodstream.
Q
Are those risks all mitigated by the use of condoms and lube, or are there still issues, even beyond that?
A
The risks are substantially reduced by the use of condoms and lube as long as they are used correctly, but you won’t find too many condoms that say “safe for anal sex” because the FDA has not cleared condoms for use in anal sex. That said, research indicates that regular condoms hold up as well as thicker condoms for anal sex, so there’s nothing to be gained from getting heavy-duty condoms.
As for using the female condom for anal sex—studies report more slippage and more pain than with regular condoms.
Do not use numbing lube, and do not have anal sex while drunk or stoned. Pain is an important indicator that damage can occur if you don’t make the necessary adjustments, including stopping. If there is pain, perhaps try replacing a penis with a well lubed and gloved finger. The glove will help your finger glide more easily, and might be more pleasurable for the person on the receiving end. Also, this allows a woman to do anal play on a male partner. (When it comes to anal sex, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.)
Q
Are there known health consequences of anal practiced over the long-term? Can you do it too much?
A
One of the urology consultants for my book believes that unprotected anal sex can be a way for bacteria to get into the man’s prostate gland. He prefers the person with the penis that’s going into the other person’s butt use a condom.
Also, small chunks of fecal matter can lodge into the man’s urethra. So if the couple has vaginal intercourse following anal intercourse without a condom, the male partner should pee first in addition to washing his penis with soap and water.
Q
Do pre-anal enemas make a difference in terms of health safety? What about preventing accidents?
A
I know of no studies on the relationship between pre-anal enemas and health outcomes. As for its general wisdom, people seem as divided on that as on politics in Washington. So I would say, to each her own. Also, some people use a “short shot,” which is a quick enema with one of those bulb devices instead of using a bag and going the full nine yards. In any case, accidents are likely to happen at one time or another.
Q
What tests should people be getting if they practice anal?
A
There’s “should” and there’s reality. If I were on the receiving end of anal sex, I would want to be sure my partner did not have HIV before I’d even let him get close to my bum with his penis.
Q
Probably more people try anal today than in the past—are there ways to make a first experience a good one?
A
Both of you should read all you can about it first. Spend a few weeks helping the receiving partner train her/his anal sphincters to relax. Make sure you and your partner have great sexual communication, trust, and that you both want to do it, as opposed to one trying to pressure the other, or not wanting to do it but doing it because you are afraid your partner will find someone else who will. Do not do it drunk or stoned, and do not use lube that numbs your anus. If it doesn’t feel good when it’s happening, stop.
Q
Do people orgasm from anal stimulation? Is it common or uncommon?
A
Some women say they have amazing orgasms from anal, but usually they will be stimulating their clitoris at the same time.
Q
Does it usually take a few tries to enjoy anal? Are there positions that make it easiest?
A
It depends on how much you are willing to work on training the receptive partner’s anal sphincters to relax, how good your communication is, how much trust there is, and probably on the width or girth of the dude’s penis. Common sense would tell you it should go way better if a guy is normal-sized as opposed to porn-sized.
Q
What should we be telling our kids about anal?
A
We don’t tell them about the clitoris, about women’s orgasms, about masturbation, about the importance of exploring a partner’s body, and learning from each other. We don’t tell them that much of what they see in porn is unreal, and we don’t talk to them about the importance of mutual consent. So I don’t see anal being at the top of most parents’ “should talk to our kids about” lists. There are more important things we need to be talking about first.
Paul Joannides, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst, researcher, and author of the acclaimed Guide to Getting it On!, which is now in its ninth edition and is used in college courses across the country. He’s also written for Psychology Today Magazine and authors his own sex-focused blog, Guide2Getting.com. Dr. Joannides has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Sexual Medicine and the American Journal of Sexuality Education, and was granted the Professional Standard of Excellence Award from The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. Joannides also lectures widely about sex and sexuality on college campuses.
If you are consistently emotionally distressed due to social, economic or relationship pressures, you can be sure to lose erections. Being annoyed with your intimate partner all the time, and feeling undermined or frustrated are bad for your erections.
By JOACHIM OSUR
Lois came to the sexology clinic because she was sexually dissatisfied with her husband. It had been six months of no sex in their 11-year old marriage. Before that, her man had suffered repeated episodes of erection failure. “The few times he did get an erection, it was flaccid and short-lived,” Lois explained. “You can only imagine how that can be frustrating to a faithful wife.”
Lois suspected that her husband was getting sexual satisfaction elsewhere, and had angrily told him she didn’t want to have sex with him anymore. “I thought he was no longer interested in me because I had gained too much weight after bearing our two children, a very hurtful thought,” she explained sadly.
And so for six months the couple kept off each other. The relationship got strained and unfortunately Andrew, Lois’ husband, threw himself into his work. He stayed late at work and came home after everyone was asleep. He woke up and left the house early. He paid no attention to their two children anymore.
“So how can I help you?” I asked, lots of thoughts going through my mind due to the complexity of the case. You see, the man, who was the one having a problem, had not come to the clinic. Erection failure or erectile dysfunction (ED) is a complex symptom that requires a thorough assessment for its cause to be pinpointed. I needed Andrew to come see me himself.
VICTIM OF THE RELATIONSHIP
“What do you mean that it is a symptom of complex problems?” Lois asked, frowning. ED is simply a failure to be aroused sexually. This could be due to the derangement of some chemicals in the brain such as dopamine. It could also be due to hormonal problems such as low testosterone, high prolactin and so on.
What we are also seeing at the clinic is a rise in cases of diabetes and hypertension, usually accompanied by obesity. Most of the affected people have high cholesterol. These diseases destroy blood vessels, including those in the penis, making erections impossible. Further still, the diseases can destroy nerves, and if the nerves of the penis are affected, erections fail. People with heart, kidney, liver and other chronic illnesses may similarly get ED either from the diseases or from the medicines used to treat them.
Stressful lifestyles are also contributing to ED quite a bit these days. Many people work two jobs to get by, and have no time to relax or get adequate sleep. A physically worn out, sleep-deprived body is too weak to have an erection and you should expect ED to befall you any time if this is your lifestyle.
But emotional distress is even more dangerous for ED. If you are consistently emotionally distressed due to social, economic or relationship pressures, you can be sure to lose erections. Being annoyed with your intimate partner all the time, and feeling undermined or frustrated are bad for your erections. Further, feeling like a victim in the relationship can lead to ED. All these are further complicated by anxiety and depression, which are bound to set in as part of the relationship problem or as a result of the ED itself.
“So can’t you just give me some medicine for him to try then if it fails he can come for full assessment?” Lois asked, realising that my explanation was taking longer than she had anticipated.
Unfortunately that was not possible. We get this kind of request all the time at the clinic. In fact, people make phone calls asking for tablets to swallow to get erections immediately. Sometimes they call from the bathroom with their partner in the bed waiting for action yet the erection has failed. There is however no alternative to a thorough assessment and treatment of the cause of the ED.
Andrew came to the clinic a few days later. A full assessment found that he had a stressful career and relationship difficulties, and both had taken a toll on his sex life. He had to undergo a lifestyle change. Further, the couple went through intimacy coaching. It was another six months before they resumed having sex.
[I]t is a common assumption that once a couple ties the knot, sex goes out the window. Indeed, the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who said “I do” nine times, once quipped: “I know nothing about sex, because I was always married”.
Yet new research indicates that most couples in long-term relationships remain happy well into their sixties.
While it is not uncommon for couples to disagree about how often they should have sex, this does not necessarily alter their commitment to the relationship, scientists at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Manchester will hear on Wednesday.
Levels of sexual desire
Researchers surveyed more than 5,000 heterosexual, lesbian, gay and bisexual people aged 16 to 65 to discuss their relationships.
Around 60 per cent of respondents believed that sex was an important part of their relationship while 15 per cent disagreed. The remainder neither agreed nor disagreed.
One third (33 per cent) of women reported that their partners wanted sex more frequently than they did, while a larger proportion, 40 per cent, said this was not the case.
Only 10 per cent of men said that their partners wanted sex more frequently than they did, compared with nearly two thirds (60 per cent) who said they did not.
‘Part and parcel’ of relationship cycle
The research, conducted by Professor Jacqui Gabb, of the Open University, and Professor Janet Fink, of the University of Huddersfield, and presented in Manchester on Wednesday, reveals that differences in sexual desire are not considered “particularly significant”.
“Couples are saying that differences in sexual frequency and desire are just part and parcel of the relationship cycle and are accepted as not particularly significant,” Professor Gabb said.
Still going strong
The study also found that many older participants continued to derive pleasure from their sex lives even when sexual activity was less frequent than it had once been.
One older woman who participated in the research described sex as “one of the prerequisites of a relationship” for her.
However, she added: “There are other areas of a relationship which I think need a lot more work and are far more important, like trust, money, love [and] teamwork.”
Long-term love
Professor Gabb said of the findings: “Fluctuations in desire are inexorably tied into other life factors, but it is the sharing of a life together, the investment in that joint venture and the acceptance of change as an integral part of this shared life which enables couples to weather the ebbs and flows that characterise sexual intimacy and the passage of time in long-term relationships.”
She added: “The longevity of partnerships seems to be connected with couples’ capacity to negotiate changing circumstances. For older couples, the first blush of a new relationship may have worn off but the relationship has not tarnished.”
[W]hen it comes to reporting the number of sex partners or how often they have sexual intercourse, men and women both lie. While men tend to overreport it, women have a tendency to underreport it. Although the story is not that simple and clear-cut, I have discovered some interesting reasons why this is the case – and why it matters to doing research on sexual health.
Lying is an inherent aspect of reporting sexual behaviors. For instance, more females report being a virgin (i.e., had not had sexual intercourse) despite having had genital contact with a partner, compared to males.
The low validity and usefulness of self-reported sexual behavior data is very bad news for public health officials. Sexual behavior data should be both accurate and reliable, as they are paramount for effective reproductive health interventions to prevent HIV and STD. When men and women misreport their sexual behaviors, it undermines program designers’ and health care providers’ ability to plan appropriately.
Pregnant virgins, and STDs among the abstinent
A very clear example is the proportion of self-reported virginal status among pregnant women. In a study of multi-ethnic National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health, a nationally representative study of American youth, 45 women of 7,870 women reported at least one virgin pregnancy.
Another example is the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) which are not expected among young adults reporting sexual abstinence. Yet more than 10 percent of young adults who had a confirmed positive STD reported abstaining from any sexual intercourse in the last year before STD testing.
If we ask youth who have had sexual experience, only 22 percent of them report the same date of first sex the second time we ask about it. On average, people revise their (reported) age at first sex to older ages the second time. Boys have higher inconsistency reporting their first sex compared to females. Males are more likely than females to give inconsistent sexual information globally.
Why don’t people tell the truth about sex?
Why do people lie about their sexual behavior? There are many reasons. One is that people underreport stigmatized activities, such as having multiple sexual partners among women. They overreport the normative ones, such as higher frequency of sex for men. In both cases, people think their actual behavior would be considered socially unacceptable. This is also called social desirability or social approval bias.
Social desirability bias causes problems in health research. It reduces reliability and validity of self-reported sexual behavior data. Simply said, social desirability helps us look good.
As gender norms create different expectations about socially acceptable behavior of men and women, males and females face pressures in reporting certain (socially accepted) behaviors.
In particular, self-reports on premarital sexual experience is of poor quality. Also self-reports of infidelity are less valid.
Although most studies suggest these differences are due to the systematic tendency of men and women to exaggerate and hide their number of partners, there are studies that suggest much of this difference is driven by a handful of men and women who grossly inflate and underreport their sexual encounters.
Even married couples lie
Men and women also lie when we ask them who is making sexual decisions regarding who has more power when it comes to sexual decision-making.
We do not expect disagreement when we ask the same question from husbands and wives in the same couples. But, interestingly, there is a systematic disagreement. More interestingly, in most cases when spouses disagree, husbands are more likely to say “yes” and wives “no.” The findings are interpreted in terms of gendered strategies in the interview process.
Not all of the gender differences in reported sexual behaviors are due to men’s and women’s selective under- and over- reporting of sexual acts. And, some of the sexual behaviors do vary by gender. For instance, men have more sex than women, and men less commonly use condoms. Men have more casual partners, regardless of the validity of their report.
Secretive females, swaggering males
Studies have found that on average, women report fewer nonmarital sexual partners than men, as well as more stable longer relationships. This is in line with the idea that in general men “swagger” (i.e., exaggerate their sexual activity), while women are “secretive” (i.e., underreport sex).
Structural factors such as social norms shape men’s and women’s perceptions of appropriate sexual behaviors. Society expects men to have more sexual partners, and women to have fewer sexual partners.
According to the sexual double standard, the same sexual behavior is judged differently depending on the gender of the (sexual) actor (Milhausen and Herold 2001). Interestingly, men are more likely to endorse a double standard than women.
In the presence of sexual double standards, males are praised for their sexual contacts, whereas females are derogated and stigmatized for the same behaviors, “He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut.”
Research suggests that lifetime sexual partnerships affect peer status of genders differently. A greater number of sexual partners is positively correlated with boys’ peer acceptance, but negatively correlated with girls’ peer acceptance.
Self-serving bias is common
As humans, self-serving bias is a part of how we think and how we act. A common type of cognitive bias, self-serving bias can be defined as an individual’s tendency to attribute positive events and attributes to their own actions but negative events and attributes to others and external factors. We report on sexual behaviors which are normative and accepted to protect ourselves, and avoid stress and conflict. That will reduce our distinction from our surroundings, and will help us feel safe.
As a result, in our society, men are rewarded for having a high number of sexual partners, whereas women are penalized for the same behavior.
The only long-term solution is the ongoing decline in “double standard” about sexual morality. Until then, researchers should continue questioning the accuracy of their data. Computerized interviews may be only a partial solution. Increasing privacy and confidentiality is another partial solution.
[H]ave you ever been called disgusting? What about deceitful or a liar? I have been called all three of these things, some more than once actually. I wish I could tell you that for every time I was called these names it was for a different reason but, unfortunately, the answer always boiled down to anatomy. What’s under my bra and what’s between my legs has made me fear for my life while simultaneously worrying I might let the possibility of experimentation pass me by.
Sex and gender are two very different things, and yet to most cisgender people, they are entirely the same: genitals equate sex, sex equates gender and therefore sexuality, and “badda bing badda boom we’re in business.” To be able to normalize the idea that everyone’s genitals align to their sex because that’s just how “it is” or is “science,” is enacting cisgender privilege and perpetuates transphobia. However, in actuality, “Most societies view sex as a binary concept, with two rigidly fixed options: male or female, both based on a person’s reproductive functions,” whereas gender is defined by “our internal experience and naming of our gender,” according to genderspectrum.org.
Privilege permeates in all different facets, in every community. In my own community, I have privilege, due to being white and cisgender-passing, but I also face the implementation of privilege done by cisgender people. One of the biggest examples of cisgender privilege is that of “hookup culture.” Hookup culture is defined as “one that accepts and encourages casual sexual encounters, including one-night stands and other related activity, which focus on physical pleasure without necessarily including emotional bonding or long-term commitment.” I’ve said it before, and as a trans woman, I’ll say it again: Hookup culture is a cisgender privilege.
It always has been and always will be. For most cisgender people, excluding demisexual (a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone), asexual (someone who does not experience sexual attraction), or non-sexually active cisgender people, it can be as simple as swiping right or finding someone at a party and going home with them. For trans people, it is an explanation. Sometimes, the explanation can happen at the beginning with “Just so you know, I’m trans,” or it can happen later after the “Why can’t we have sex?” talk. No matter what, the explanation will happen, and more often than not, it is greeted with rejection, erasure of identity or repulsion.
Some trans people, myself included, often feel we have to hide our identities as if it’s some shameful secret, rather than our gender. Not to mention, being hesitant to talk about our identities only reconstitutes the belief that trans people are always out to deceive. Or trans people, again myself included, experience the converse and are fetishized for our gender. I still remember my freshman year when some cisgender man told me, “I prefer trans women because, since they used to be guys, they know exactly what we like.”
Trans people are subjected to all of these treatments and are much more likely to experience violence due to sex than cisgender people, especially trans people of color. There are so many privileges to recognize that exist within hookup culture:
Not having to lie or hide your identity to a potential partner is a cisgender privilege. Having a one-night stand is a cisgender privilege. Unwavering sex positivity is a cisgender privilege. Stigmatization of no sexual activity/being a virgin is a cisgender privilege. Not being pressured into body-altering surgery is a cisgender privilege. Never having to worry if someone won’t like you because you’re transgender is a cisgender privilege. Not ever having to feel unlovable because of your own gender is a cisgender privilege.
The previous examples are only a small few of the long list of privileges that exist from hookup culture. Not to mention countless other societal institutions that also preserve cisgender privilege.
Transgender Day of Visibility is a day for members of the gender nonconforming community to feel proud, safe and valid. The best way cisgender people can present support is by understanding privileges within social constructs like gender and virginity, and actively combatting them. For example, when someone is complaining that “it’s so hard to find people” or “hookup culture is so annoying sometimes” remind them that not everyone, although still pressured by society to do so, can participate in hookup culture, and also face adversity, dysphoria or vilification for trying to.
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