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Sex addiction is a slippery slope, but perhaps not in the way you might think I mean. One of the big difficulties we have in talking about sex addiction is the lack of clarity around what we’re talking about.
People get into habits or get hooked on all kinds of things: shopping, food, drugs, sex, football, video games, or facebook. If you’ve ever gone on a Law and Order binge (or maybe Battlestar Galactica is your preferred drug show), you know what it’s like when it’s hard to say no.
While I don’t usually get hooked on TV shows, I do find that sugar is a really steep, slippery slope for me. I’m pre-diabetic and my body simply doesn’t handle sugar all that well.
Continue reading The Slippery Slope of Sex Addiction
One of the most common questions that sex educators hear is “am I normal?” A lot of people feel incredible amounts of anxiety when they imagine that they aren’t normal, especially when it comes to sex. That has plenty of consequences for people’s sex lives and relationships. Ironically, it’s rooted in what I call the Myth of the Normal, rather than how things really are.
I’m sure you’ve seen the magazines that offer articles with headlines like “Am I Normal Down There?” I’ve lost track of how many sex advice columns and books I’ve read that talk about sex as if there’s one way to do it or experience it. And of course, many of the ongoing debates arguments about homosexuality, polyamory, BDSM, and
Continue reading You Don’t Get to Be Normal
“As a queer person, I feel…”
The other night, I was talking with someone who said something along these lines and although I’ve heard that kind of thing many times (with substitutions where it says “queer”), I finally figured out what it is about that phrase that bothers me.
I had a teacher once who pointed out that in English, we tend to say things like “I am hungry” while other languages approach it differently. In French or Spanish, for example, the literal translation is “I have hunger”. While this might seem like a trivial difference at first glance, it’s pretty profound. If I say “I’m feeling anger” instead of “I am angry”, then I’m also leaving room to feel sadness, boredom, excitement, or an
Continue reading When Identity Gets In The Way
Over the last few months, I’ve been amazed at how much shame has been heaped upon Tiger Woods. And it just keeps on going.
Here’s a blog post from Dr. Howard Samuels, a psychotherapist who runs the Wonderland Treatment Center (an alcohol & addiction center that caters to the Hollywood set). Apparently, he thinks that he knows what Tiger needs and he says that Tiger isn’t genuinely remorseful because he hasn’t displayed enough emotion:
Tiger spoke all the right words in taking responsibility, yet displayed no emotion. The only glimpse he gave us of his feelings was when he expressed his anger with the media. That is a troubling indication that he’s still playing the blame game and being a victim.
Now, this might be
Continue reading Are We Done Shaming Tiger Woods yet?
There’s a really useful word that’s been floating around in certain communities and I want to take a moment to help it spread.
Cisgender refers to people who experience and present their gender in a way that’s aligned with the sex of their body. It contrasts with transgender, which refers to people who experience their gender as different from the physical sex they were assigned at birth. Generally, transgender folks take various steps to bring them into closer alignment, such as wearing clothes of the gender they feel themselves to be, surgery, taking hormones, and having their legal name changed.
The word has been since at least 1994, although it has become more well-known since Julia Serrano’s book Whipping Girl came out. The prefix cis
Continue reading Vocabulary Lesson: Cisgender
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