My Sex Professor (http://mysexprofessor.com/category/love-and-relationships/communication/)
image courtesy of rottentomatos.com
Quite a lot, it turns out. A few weeks ago, I watched The Sessions, a new film starring Hunt as Cheryl Cohen Greene, a California-based sex surrogate. What is sex surrogacy, you may ask? I asked myself the same thing. When my mom first proposed that we watch the movie together and explained a bit of the premise, I was dubious. Continue Reading →
An article I read recently hit a nerve. Apparently some teachers are telling kids that are being bullied that they need to act less gay. While this article is from England, I think that it is applicable for almost anywhere. The article from the London Evening Standard acknowledges that some children are teased for their sexuality, and I not only see this happen in college environments daily, but also witnessed it in my junior high and high school. A friend of mine actually started an organization, Write Your Principal, partially due to the bullying that LGBTQIQ students have had to face and also due to her own experiences. Continue Reading →
How to deal with harassment – street harassment like catcalls, as well as persistent attempts to flirt – is an ongoing topic in feminist circles (as it should be). There are frequently misunderstandings, however, about what harassment actually means, and why it’s considered a big deal. This Brute Reason post lays out a lot of reasons why the men who say “But I’d love that kind of/that much attention!” aren’t actually talking about street harassment. They fail to understand that harassment is, by its nature, unwanted attention. Continue Reading →
Most sex educators I know are constantly being asked why they go into the work they do. Fair enough, I think, since it’s a bit surprising when people learn that someone’s chosen to spend their days talking about a subject that most people find uncomfortable. I think it’s exactly that discomfort that inspires many sex educators to pursue their field. Sex is a near-universal human experience, yet it’s clouded by cultural shame, embarrassment, and mis-information. The light bulb moments that can occur as the result of actually talking about sex are powerful (and sometimes even healing). Continue Reading →
My friends always come to me first with their sex questions- which is both welcomed and appreciated. During a recent car ride, a few of them got to talking about strap-on sex. “Oh yeah, it’s so great, I can’t believe you’ve never done it!” “I don’t know, it kind of creeps me out.” “Really? Continue Reading →
LGTBQIA…and the list goes on. What we once simply called gay expanded to gay and lesbian, then to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and then further to include the umbrella term queer, as well as intersex and asexual. A recent New York Times article by Michael Schulman tackles this expansion of inclusive terms, discussing the new generation of queers and the gender inclusivity that they are striving for. “If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn’t whom they love, but who they are — that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation. Continue Reading →
On a lighter note, my partner and I were recently driving somewhere, and I was feeding him a tangerine (as he was the one driving). We generally have good communication in our relationship, especially when it comes to consent, which we took to a silly level with the act of eating a tangerine. Me: *tries to put a tangerine slice in his mouth*
Him: “I don’t consent to this. My silence is not consent.” Me: “But your body language made it look like you were asking for it!” Continue Reading →
Here at MSP, we’ve touched on the continuing debate on whether the word “creepy” is useful or reductive, including its place in the geek community, its relationship to respecting boundaries, and how not to be creepy in public. Feminist blogger Xenologer wrote a comprehensive post explaining why women “need a word to refer to guys who freak us out and make us feel unsafe, and that word for ‘failed my risk assessment’ doesn’t need to meet the approval of men.” Basically, while the word “creepy” is about men, it is not for men. This is a useful way of thinking about the word and its functions; it refers to the insider/outsider distinction we use in the study of folklore (often termed esoteric/exoteric). Sometimes the insiders of a group use special terminology related to their social needs, which outsiders can misunderstand, and this may well be one of those cases. Continue Reading →
Last week, I stumbled upon HeTexted.com, a website devoted to “interpreting” cryptic text messages from men. Here’s how it works: a user sends in a text message, includes their own comments giving necessary background information, and leaves the decision up to the internet. Anyone in the blogosphere can vote in one of three ways regarding the sender’s intentions: either he’s into you, he’s not into you, or the verdict is still out. Sound familiar? My first instinct was to hate it, to repost the link with some snarky comment about the novel idea of actually asking your partner what they meant. My second instinct was to hate it more, wondering why these people couldn’t just ask their friends what they thought rather than airing all their dirty laundry on the internet. Continue Reading →
One of my mentors during my graduate studies was Sallie Foley. Sallie has been a social worker and sex therapist for 30+ years and currently runs the Sexual Health Certificate Program at the University of Michigan’s School of Social Work. Check out that amazing program here. My first contact with Sallie was when I was the Peer Education Coordinator at the University of Michigan and I helped to put on ”Sexpertise”, the University’s annual conference on sexual health. Sallie was an integral part of this important conference and one of the premiere speakers, talking about her research and giving workshops on sexual pleasure. Continue Reading →