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Folsom St. Fair was yesterday. It’s the biggest kink/leather/BDSM event anywhere and as often happens, the weather gods smiled on the pervs. The sun was out, but it was just enough to make the skin on the men glisten with sweat.
But I digress.
Every year, a few people get their knickers in a twist about the event, saying that all that open sexuality is dangerous, scary, and harmful to teh kiddiez. And yeah, it’s not a kid-friendly event. Unlike many people, I don’t think that children need to be protected from sexuality. I think that they deserve to be protected from adult sexuality because children and adolescents need the room to be sexual beings as children and adolescents. We let 5-year-olds play tee
Continue reading Why Folsom St. Fair is Fun, Sexy and Important
“It’s hard to get enough of something that almost works.” Vincent Felitti MD (quoted in In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts)
There are a lot of reasons people have sex. We do it because we want to express love, feel pleasure, or build connection. We also do it because we’re bored, we’re stressed out, we want to distract ourselves from our problems, we want to manipulate our partners, or to avoid arguments.
In one of my workshops, I have the participants list some of the reasons that people might choose to have sex. I (and other sex educators) have been doing this sort of exercise for years, so I’ll admit that I wish I’d published it before David Buss. His research team interviewed people about
Continue reading When Sex Almost Works
This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
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Every year, I get dozens of calls and emails from university groups, professors, fraternities and sororities, and residential assistants, asking about sex education presentations. I send trained educators to them to talk about sex-positivity, the physiology of pleasure (as compared to “reproductive anatomy”), safer sex, body image, sex toys, sexual diversity, relationships and communication, and many other topics. It’s a valuable part of our mission to provide accurate, non-judgmental information about sex, pleasure, and relationships to young adults.
So I was curious to read Margaret Brooks’ article ‘Sex Week’ Should Arouse Caution Most of All, in which she raises both questions and fears about these sorts of programs. (Update:
Continue reading There’s Nothing Wrong with University Sex Weeks
Clipped from: msmagazine.com (share this clip)
Over on the Ms Magazine blog, there’s a post exploring whether porn is racist, which was sparked by some of the things that Gail Dines has said about the industry. And in among the various comments, Dines herself includes a link to the chapter in her book on race and the porn industry. Since I believe in both giving different perspectives a fair shake and not talking about things that I haven’t checked out myself, I read through it. She also has another sample chapter on the topic of growing up female in a culture influenced by porn.
At the risk of saying something that may surprise some folks, I actually agree with quite a bit of what
Continue reading If Gail Dines Would Stop Shaming People, Maybe Folks Would Listen
I recently ran across a blog post called Regrets of the Dying, written by someone who worked for years in palliative care. The emotions and reflections that arise as one nears the end of life often seem to strip things down to the bare essentials. I think that many of the regrets and final wishes that people tend to express have a lot to offer anyone who wants to live a sexually fulfilled life.
(Note- the following numbered items come from the original post, but the subsequent interpretations are my own.)
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
There’s a lot of pressure on all of us to conform to a
Continue reading Living a Sexually Fulfilled Life: Lessons From the Dying
Clipped from: yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com (share this clip)
Every so often, there’s another cycle in the fight over casual sex. This time, the argument was sparked Jaclyn Friedman’s piece on Yes Means Yes! The author describes her sexual explorations and describes how they brought her pleasure, fun, and healing. She never suggests that her path will work for everyone. In fact, her entire story is simply a personal reflection.
But of course, that doesn’t mean she won’t get attacked for trying to ruin the world. Susan Walsh over at Hooking Up Smart insults Friedman and calls her dangerous, while making spurious claims about the current understanding of how oxytocin works:
Oxytocin is not some disinformation cooked up by the evil patriarchy. It’s a chemical that floods
Continue reading The Complexities of Casual Sex
Clipped from: www.scarleteen.com (share this clip)
Although I don’t identify as a feminist, I do describe myself as dedicated to fair and just treatment of all people, which includes working to end gender-based discrimination. One of the ways that this informs my work as a sex educator is that I advocate for accurate information that reflects the diversity of gender and recognizes that everyone should have the right to do what they want with their bodies, as long as it doesn’t cause harm to other people. Given the ways that this right is taken away from people based on their gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, social class, physical ability, etc., the links between sex-positivity and social justice seem pretty clear to me.
The amazing
Continue reading Words to Live By: What is Feminist Sex Education?
The NY Times reported today that anyone working out at a gym needs to be really careful to avoid skin infections such as MRSA, impetigo, jock itch, or athlete’s foot from contact with other people’s skin or from gym equipment. These Gym Transmitted Infections (GTIs- a term I just made up) can be annoying, in the case of athlete’s foot, or life threatening, in the case of MRSA. [As an aside, a great way to avoid jock itch is to put your socks on before your underwear. When you do it the other way round, you can transmit the fungus from your feet to your genitals.]
The article offers some great tips, such as assuming that you are being exposed to skin infections, washing
Continue reading GTIs vs. STIs: Notice the Difference?
This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
There’s a new article on ways that people are creating new visions of what monogamy means on the Psychotherapy Networker site. And while The New Monogamy is written for therapists and other mental health professionals, I think that there’s a lot of wisdom there for anyone interested in creating sustainable relationships.
The author, Tammy Nelson, describes some of the shifts that she has seen during her career as a therapist. As she sees it:
People no longer marry for economic, dynastic, or procreative reasons, as they did for millennia; they can’t be compelled to marry by law, religion, or custom; they don’t need to marry to have sex or cohabit or even produce and raise children.
Continue reading New Ways to Envision Monogamy
Sexual shame is one of the most difficult pieces of sexuality for many people. Yet in my experience, talking about it and exploring it is also one of the most rewarding. Unlike many educators, I don’t see any value in trying to create a shame-free world, any more than I see a reason to create a world without anger, sadness, joy, or pleasure. Like all of our other emotions, shame is simply part of the human experience and I prefer to explore constructive ways that we can work with it. After all, I don’t think there’s any shame in feeling shame.
I’m really pleased to announce that I’ll be offering a workshop on the topic through San Francisco Sex Information. This workshop is open to
Continue reading Upcoming Workshop: Sexuality and Shame
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