As I ventured down to Miami a few weeks ago for yet another spring break in the sun, I realized that I never blogged about my trip to the city’s famous erotic art museum! The museum isn’t a huge tourist attraction, probably because it’s so small. It sits on the top floor of a retail building, so it’s pretty easy to miss- but a shame if you do miss it! Here are some of my favorite photos from their collection. Naturally, I had to pose in front of the giant gilded penis. Continue Reading →
Sex Around the Globe
Recent posts
Denmark’s Sperm Bike
Talk about genitals in the wild! I recently stumbled upon an article that added another bullet point to my long list of reasons to live in a Scandinavian country. The Nordisk Cryobank, a European sperm bank, decided to get creative in transporting donor samples. Naturally, they chose a bike- but this isn’t just any bike.
The “sperm bike” is not only a green form of transportation, but it serves as a wonderful form of advertisement for the Cryobank. Continue Reading →
My Visit to Tokyo’s Female Masturbation Bar
Like many sex geeks who inhabit the internet, I delighted in reading about the existence of Love Joule, Tokyo’s “female masturbation bar” when it made the rounds on Jezebel, Huffington Post, and Wired back in October. I was especially excited because I had an upcoming trip to Tokyo planned, and any place whose sole purpose is the de-stigmatization of female masturbation was surely going to top my to-do list. While Love Joule’s website is (not surprisingly) in Japanese, I managed to find their location and opening hours through their Facebook page. Completely coincidentally, Love Joule was a five-minute walk away from my hotel. Call it divine intervention or sex geek synchronicity: given how giant and sprawling Tokyo is, I considered this a sign of awesomeness to ensue. Continue Reading →
Where in the World is the Wondrous Vulva Puppet? Chichén Itzá Edition
My favorite travel accessory and I recently got to see the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá, located in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The archeological site covers a spectacular five square kilometers and includes the pyramid (called El Castillo), the observatory (called El Caracol), and the Great Ball Court, among other fascinating structures. Here’s the vulva puppet posing in front of El Castillo (which is actually a calendar, not a castle as the name suggests). Despite attracting over a million visitors a year to the site, this shot is delightfully free of throngs of tourists to share the vulva puppet’s limelight. Travel with your own vulva puppet? Continue Reading →
Semen-Eating in Papua New Guinea
This semester, I took an anthropology seminar called Anthropology & Sexualities. We spent each three-hour class meeting discussing various practices around the world that have to do with sex, sexuality, gender identity, and rituals. So, when Kate announced to us that we were jumping back into our theme weeks with a “Sex Around The Globe” theme, I was pumped! It took a pretty serious process of elimination to figure out what I wasn’t going to write about, and finally, I settled on the fascinating rituals of male rites of passage in Papua New Guinea. The Sambia of Papua New Guinea are one of many cultures that practice rite of passage rituals. Continue Reading →
Hijra In India
What if you were born male, but identified as female? For many people, that would make their gender female (and I personally agree). In India, they have a “third gender” of people called hijra. As with transgender individuals in just about any country, hijra face discrimination and abuse. However, there seems to be more and more articles demanding support and equality, and there was even recently a Hijra Habba (festival). Continue Reading →
How The Germans Do It
When I was coming of age and starting to ask my parents questions about sex and puberty, they did their best to educate me. Like many good Midwestern liberal parents, they sat me down, looked me in the eye…and handed me a book. The “What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys” allowed me to learn about the changes in my body and mind, and read about masturbation, body growth, and attraction. This book was my entryway not only into my pubescent years, but also into my lifelong interest in sexuality and sex education. However, as I grew older and learned that many aspects of sexuality made people in the USA uncomfortable, I found I was interested not only in what this seminal book contained, but also what it omitted. So, while studying abroad in Germany, I acquired a book called “Weil Wir Jungen Sind (Because we are boys)” that was also aimed at teens trying to figure out what to do with their growing bodies and feelings. After a decade spent with the American version, I was surprised by how open and detailed the German version was about some aspects of sex that my book simply glossed over. Topics covered in detail in the German book, but conspicuously absent even in the latest edition of the American book include:
Anal Intercourse
Coming Out
Fetishes
Erogenous Zones
Sexual Positions (with line drawings!)
I found myself thinking, “Why can’t we have such detailed sexual health information in the United States?” And I realized that any book marketed for teenagers in the US and containing these topics would be quickly attacked and accused of being pornography. One of the reasons I love to travel and explore is to notice these cultural differences, and see what I/we can learn from them. Maybe from the Germans, we Americans can learn to be a little more open when talking about sexuality. Continue Reading →
Australia’s Chlamydial Pursuits
As a researcher working in sexual health, I try to keep an ear to the ground with regard to developments in the STI realm. Regardless of one’s personal or professional interests, however, it is difficult to ignore the spotlight that has been shining on chlamydia in recent times. From posters on public toilet doors, to plotlines on Australia’s second-favourite evening soap, one can certainly argue that chlamydia is Australia’s STI du jour. As I am currently devoting my professional life to chlamydia-specific research, I must disclose that the chlamydia fervor is subsidizing my lifestyle. But aside from funding my penchant for fine cheeses and late-night Etsy binges, there are a number of reasons why chlamydia is deservedly the focus of national attention. Continue Reading →
Labia Modification in Mozambique and Australia
In the last month, I’ve heard a couple of anecdotes about changing labial length that I found intriguing. In the workshops I teach on sexual anatomy and physiology, I always like to mention that the length of labia minora varies and that longer labial length has no correlation with sexual experience (a myth I’ve been asked about previously). One of my favorite quotes about natural labia length comes from sex educator Becca Brewer, who said in one of her workshops that “labia minora are like sisters, not twins,” meaning that it’s completely normal for them to not be identical. After a recent workshop I taught, a colleague of mine shared with me that in Mozambique (her home country), women are taught before they get married to lengthen their labia minora. She described how women will gently stretch their labia minora in the hopes of making it longer and better able to “wrap around the penis” and increase both partners’ sensation. Continue Reading →
To Sauna Or Not To Sauna?
The sauna, or a heated room wherein one can sit and sweat for health and therapeutic purposes, has become well-known in Western health clubs and spas, though it originated in Baltic, Scandinavian, and Slavic cultures. Each region has local variations: some saunas are wet and humid while others are bone-dry; some feature bundles of birch branches that you can use to massage yourself; and in some places, attendees leap into icy lakes or roll around in the snow in order to stimulate blood flow between sessions in the heated room. This all sounds good, right? But would you enter a sauna with the opposite sex when everyone was nude? I did. Continue Reading →