A friend of mine recently asked me my opinion on vaginal steaming. At first I assumed that I mis-heard her. I mean, I’ve heard of facial steaming or steaming vegetables, but vaginal? Turns out, it’s a thing that has been around for some time, especially in Korea. The article explains that vaginal steaming isn’t purely cosmetic and some claim that it can “reduce stress, fight infections, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles and aid infertility, among many other health benefits.” My friend’s gynecologist mentioned it to her while she is undergoing fertility treatments (please note that I’m not suggesting this may or may not work, and this isn’t medical advice; if you are debating giving vaginal steaming a shot, run it past your own doctor). Continue Reading →
Women’s Sexual Health
Recent posts
Are You Aware Of The Clitoris?
Welcome to International Clitoris Awareness Week! This is the first year that the clitoris has its own week, and is celebrated May 6-12, according to the Huffington Post. While I agree that the clitoris is an amazing body part and deserves more than a little celebration, I had no idea that it had its own week. Clitoraid, an organization that aids survivors of female genital mutilation, came up with the idea and is sponsoring the week. Clitoraid’s spokeswoman Nadine Gary noticed that often talking about clitoris makes people uncomfortable and “whenever something has an ‘awareness day’ it makes it more comfortable to talk about” and I absolutely agree. Continue Reading →
Hymen Handling Tips
In the mood for a cute, upbeat video that discusses how to better understand and care for your (or your intimate partner’s) hymen? Then watch this, and take note of the speaker’s tips on how to ease into sexual activity while taking into account the porous membrane that partially covers the vagina. You can also read Dr. Debby’s advice on how to deal with a hymen that covers more of the vagina and can thus lead to painful sex. Continue Reading →
Is Sex-Based Medicine Helpful or Harmful?
Our society needs categories in able to function (or so it seems). These categories come in handy when we’re collecting data for the Census, but the rest of the time, they tend to do more harm than good. In the United States, many pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals use these categories to study human health. It seems like this would make sense, right? Some groups of people are prone to some diseases more than others, so stratifying the data could help to create cures or treatment specific to this group. Continue Reading →
Daily Sexual Violence, In India And America
The rape and murder of Jyothi Singh Pandey in New Delhi brought the world’s attention to the problem of sexual violence in India, with many calling for police reforms as well as culture-wide changes. And it is a culture-wide problem: as this article in The Atlantic demonstrates, there are a host of subtle cultural oppressions, which add up to “ongoing attacks on women, be they decisions to feed them last, marry them as teenagers, skimp on their medical care, or gang rape them on a bus.” But then read this piece, which focuses on the sexual violence American women face. With our rape rates - there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime – we also have an epidemic of ongoing attacks on women. Sexual violence is not an isolated phenomenon, and it’s not something our modernized culture has stamped out: it is systemic oppression. Continue Reading →
Strap-On Sex Shouldn’t Hurt!
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 →
Product Review: Renew Toy Revitalizing Cleanser
Our friends over at Good Vibrations recently sent me a new product to review. It’s like Christmas all over again! The Renew Toy Revitalization Cleanser is such a handy little thing! Forget about interrupting sexy times to run to the bathroom to clean a toy- a swift pump of this little spray bottle and you’re good to go! This comes in handy especially if you share a bathroom- I can’t tell you how awkward it is to try to clean a sex toy in a dormitory bathroom. You get all kinds of weird looks. Continue Reading →
My Mentor, Sex Therapist and Author Sallie Foley
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 →
Advances In Women’s Health Politics (Plus Ninjas Against Rape)
If you have the time to read it, I highly highly highly recommend checking out Echo Zen’s Feministe post “How Women’s Health and Social Media Won 2012: Retrospective.” This link-rich essay describes the political events of 2012 in relation to women’s health, the amazing role of social media, and the rise of feminist advocacy by everyday women. Zen points out that what the social media strategies of 2012 exposed is “the violent rhetoric that once came from GOP quarters about how women’s healthcare isn’t real healthcare, since only sluts and prostitutes need contraception and family planning. If the extremists have learned anything from this cycle, it’s that openly campaigning against women’s lives is no longer a winning strategy, just as relying entirely on the white Christian vote is no longer a viable tactic.” This underlines how politicized an issue women’s health has become. Continue Reading →
The “Delayed Notification” Phenomenon
It’s bad juju to publicize your pregnancy before you’ve reached the second trimester. This delay in notification is practiced widely in Western culture, but nobody has really asked why we keep our early pregnancies a secret. As a component of a recent research paper I wrote about miscarriage and fetal personhood, I anonymously interviewed 17 women who have given birth in the past seven years about this practice. The results were striking. According to my survey results, 10 out of the 17 women chose to keep their pregnancies secret until after the three-month mark. Continue Reading →