Do you know what makes you excited, motivated, and eager? Psychologists tend to distinguish between two main types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. In this post I’ll discuss some relationship-oriented examples of each and encourage you to figure out your own motivation map. Funnily enough, the idea for this blog post came about while I was procrastinating […]
February 2015
The Joys of Talking About Sex
I don’t talk about my sex life in print or in public very much. It’s not because I’m ashamed of what I do (though shame is a very pervasive force in Western conceptions of sexuality), but rather because I feel that I reach people better as an educator when I’ve got a bit more distance […]
Why I’m Silent About My Sexuality (For Now)
This is a topic that weighs heavily on me and is not easy to write about. I’m massively in favor of providing shame-free sex education, of oversharing as a political act, and of creating sex-positive learning environments. And yet I feel unable to talk about my own sexuality publicly or in print. In a way, this […]
A Body-Literate Society (The Case for Sex Ed Part 2)
In continuing my series making a case for sex education (see part 1 here), I’d like to make the point that we need sex ed in order to ensure that we live in a society where everyone knows how their bodies work. This includes anatomical functions like puberty and pregnancy, STI transmission, orgasm, and much […]
What If We Thought About Consent In Terms Of Food?
In my attempts to theorize consent, I sometimes think of it in terms of metaphors and stories (see my joking “tangerine consent” post for an example of this). Along those same lines, I began wondering: what if we thought of sexual consent in the same terms that we think of food? Ponder these scenarios: A woman […]