In the past week or so, a few different colleagues have asked about, or reminded me about, a conversation I was honored to be a part of several months ago at Indiana University’s Statewide IT conference. The title of the panel was “Sexting, Privacy and I Agreed to What?” (which I love) and if you find issues about Facebook, sexting, sexual development during young adulthood, sexuality education, and/or technology to be interesting, there’s probably something for you here. Watch the video online here. And grab some popcorn – this isn’t your typical 2 minute YouTube video. Continue Reading →
Communication
Recent posts
Never Too Old For Divorce
Recently a friend of mine was shocked that she knew a couple in their 50s who divorced – they’d been married for more than 25 years, so she could not imagine why they couldn’t “make” their marriage work. I do think it’s incredibly difficult to start over at any age, but especially after spending so much time together. While I was mulling over her recent discovery, I found an article on a couple who split up after 77 years! Apparently a couple in Italy filed for divorce when the 99 year old husband discovered that his wife, 97, had written love letters to another man during a “secret affair” in the 1940s. The husband discovered these love letters just before Christmas, but they’d had problems before so don’t think this is all a recent thing. Continue Reading →
Map Some Love
I came across a neat little web site today called I Just Made Love!. I Just Made Love! allows you to where you’ve had sex, and also add when. You register for the site, and then add the location as well as the gender of the participants. Apparently my neighborhood is just not romantic – there is no hooking up there (or maybe my neighbors just aren’t registered on this site yet?). Continue Reading →
Sex Ed in High School- More Important Than You Think
I take the bus a lot. With two off-campus classes to get to every week, I frequent the route that provides transportation between the colleges. Unfortunately, this means I have to listen to a lot of annoying conversations. Usually I can tune them out and focus on my knitting (yeah, I knit on the bus…so what?), but there was something particularly frustrating about a conversation I overheard last week. The two women behind me were going on and on about how sex education in public schools is wrong. Continue Reading →
You’re Studying WHAT?
It’s the first question anybody asks me after finding out that I am a college student: “What are you studying?” The answer, for me, is not so simple. As a self-designed Human Sexuality major with a minor in Anthropology, I’m proud of my educational path. The problem is, it makes some people uncomfortable. Though many people I talk with are genuinely intrigued by my desire to become a sex therapist, a lot of the adults in my life aren’t prepared for my answer to that very common question. Continue Reading →
In Bed With Zoya
I love hearing any sex positive news, especially when it involves education, so when my friend S shared her excitement over Indonesia’s first sex therapist, I wanted to know more. Feministing wrote a great short article about Zoya Amirin and how she is passionately working to debunk myths and educate people in Indonesia. Myths surrounding sex are spread everywhere, and although I work as a sex educator, I realize that despite the hard work of so many of my amazing colleagues (now including Zoya Amirin!), they will probably always be around. However, with work I can see sex myths slowly being taken down. School House Rocks always taught me that knowledge is power, and it seems like Zoya agrees with this. Continue Reading →
Is There A Double Standard With Alcohol And Consent?
This controversial essay addresses the question of whether the concept of date rape under the influence exists in a double standard with the notion that people under the influence of alcohol should be responsible for their own actions. Consent where alcohol is involved is a tangled issue, as I’ve discussed previously, because of how social pressures to drink interact with social pressures to have sex. Add in the altered state that alcohol induces, and it can be a recipe for disaster. Consider this point from the essay:
If you’re blacked-out drunk, but still capable of talking, walking and doing things, you’re still responsible for your actions and your decisions. … Continue Reading →
Just Because I Study Sex Doesn’t Mean I’m Going To Sleep With You
I study sexuality for a living and teach it as well. I’ve quickly learned when I meet people, and they inevitably ask me what I do, that it’s just easier in the long run to say that I’m a graduate student (which is true) and that I teach health. First, it’s more complicated than it sounds to explain health education, and even then, most people just assume that I’m a gym teacher. Second, telling people that I am specializing in human sexuality and that I teach it leads to some issues. More than a few times, when I have told people what I study or teach, they immediately do the “Wow! Continue Reading →
One Year Of Sex Blogging
One year ago I began writing for MySexProfessor.com and since then, I’ve learned a lot. I thought I would write a little about the journey this year’s taken me on, so that readers can get a glimpse into the world of sex blogging. For one thing, I’ve learned to only call it “sex blogging” when I want to get someone’s attention (as I shamelessly have done in the title of this post). This is partly because while yes, I write about sex, I write about lots of other topics too: gender roles, different cultures, feminist theory, pop culture & subculture news, and folklore. All of these things relate to sex, or else I wouldn’t be writing about them here, but saying that I only write about sex would be reductionistic. Continue Reading →
The Joys Of Manual Pleasure
Sometimes “hand jobs” get a bad rap. “Intercourse’s [or a blow job's] poor cousin,” some people say. And as it applies to women, “fingering,” while an accurate descriptor for some vulva/vagina stimulation activities, evokes a rapid in-out motion of finger-in-vagina, which is insufficient for most women to to experience orgasm. The phrase often invoked to bring some legitimacy to the act, “mutual masturbation,” brings to mind more routine self-pleasure rather than the exchange of delicious, playful climaxes. Despite the negative press, the manual pleasuring of your partner’s sexy bits can be a delightful addition to your sexual repertoire. Continue Reading →