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This piece also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
Clipped from: www.huffingtonpost.com (share this clip)
At the beginning of September, I wrote about an opinion piece published on the Chronicle of Higher Education website. The original piece, by Margaret Brooks, is a pretty standard example of how people attack sex education through fear, shame, innuendo and misrepresentation of the facts. And several of my colleagues and I responded to it. We also collaborated to write a letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which we sent them on Sept 16:
Dear Chronicle Editors,
We were deeply disappointed by your recent publication of economics Professor Margaret Brooks’ op-ed, “‘Sex Week’ Should Arouse Caution Most of All.” It is clear that
Continue reading Sex Educators Call Out the Chronicle of Higher Education
“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.
Clipped from: chronicle.com (share this clip)
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
This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
For years, safer sex advocates have been saying that self-esteem has a huge effect on how much people engage in risk-reduction and harm-reduction behaviors. That’s why many of the most effective intervention programs & organizations, whether online like Scarleteen.com or in-person like the StopAIDS Project, offer counseling and support, in addition to information.
So I was really interested to read this post on ScienceDaily.com about research showing that among the 1,000 HIV-positive and negative gay and bisexual men surveyed:
Almost 10 percent of the participants reported that they had been victims of childhood sexual abuse and nearly 30 percent had experienced gay-related victimization between the ages of 12 and 14, including verbal insults, bullying, threats of
Continue reading Shame as a Public Health Issue
One of the most common responses to the anti-porn critiques of pornography is that they’re sex-negative and all too often, that ends up creating a “no we’re not/yes you are” argument. And yet, whenever I read the anti-porn side of things, I’m struck by how often sex-negativity is woven into their claims, although in all fairness, that’s not always the case.
I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that bothered me by the way that Gail Dines keeps talking about gagfactor.com, a website that focuses on men facefucking women. And then it hit me- there are two parts to it. First, Dines is trying to foment a moral panic. And second, she simply doesn’t understand sex.
I can explain the first point better
Continue reading 7 Ways to Create a Sex-Positive Critique of Porn
This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine.
One of the most important ways to help foster positive changes in peoples’ behaviors is to use a risk reduction approach. Rather than requiring 100% compliance with an unyielding rule, this philosophy says that any movement in a more healthy or safe direction is a good thing, whether it ultimately leads to completely letting go of risky behaviors or not.
While it may seem counter-intuitive at first, risk reduction consistently works better than a rigid rule. After all, if a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then we need to help ourselves and others take that first step. That’s a lot easier to do when we stop expecting people to somehow
Continue reading Risk Reduction and Sex Positivity
There’s been a flurry of articles recently about the shift on college campuses and within feminism about casual sex, hooking up, and abstinence. According to these stories on Salon.com, the Atlantic.com, the New York Post, and others around the internet, women are discovering that casual sex doesn’t work for them and are embracing celibacy and abstinence. And I think that most of these articles are missing the point.
First, though, I want to be very clear about what I think sex-positivity has to offer when talking about abstinence. From a sex-positive perspective, it doesn’t matter how often you have sex, or how many people you have sex with, or what kinds of sexual activities you do. What matters is that your decisions are coming
Continue reading What Does Sex-Positivity Say About Abstinence?
I received a comment recently from someone that I think brings up some really important topics:
Unfortunately I found that there’s this binary in the feminist and/or sex-positive worlds: either you are against all porn and BDSM etc or you are sex-positive and therefore are unwilling to admit that sexuality all too often has a truly sinister side.
I really wanted to figure out more about sexuality but found it hard to read most of the sex-positive sites, where making fun of people for being uptight is common. As a certifiably uptight person, these supposedly sex-positive people are (no doubt unintentionally but still) sending me a message loud and clear – they are not there for me.
I have certainly seen this sort of thing
Continue reading Sex-Positivity, Feminism, Arrogance, and Shame
“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” ~Gandhi via @tinybuddha
I’ve always said that if you can’t say no, then you can’t really say yes. The ability to consent requires the ability to freely choose either option. Unfortunately, a lot of people give in to their partner’s requests/demands as a way to minimize friction, avoid fights, or because it feels easier than speaking up.
Giving up our power to another in these ways is very different from the negotiated and consensual forms of submission common in BDSM, primarily because kinky submission is (ideally, at least) based on the conviction of a strong “yes.” This is a distinction that is often lost on
Continue reading A ‘No’ Uttered From the Deepest Conviction
There’s a great piece on HuffPo about our continuing reluctance to deal with preventing sexually transmitted infections. Here’s the opening:
Among the many vital health issues not addressed by healthcare reform is the state of our sexual health. There are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease (STD) infections in the United States each year according to the Centers for Disease Control. What does our government spend to prevent this pandemic? One hundred and fifty-one million dollars. That is less than 50 cents per person.
Some of you may already be thinking this doesn’t affect me. Think again. Half of all STDs are among young people ages 15 – 24. They are your child, grandchild, sister, brother, cousin or friend. (And by the way, STDs cost
Continue reading Are We Too Afraid to Deal With STIs?
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