I’m a big believer in the sex-positive movement, but this blog post is about contexts wherein open talk of sexuality – which is one of the things the movement promotes – can be problematic. There’s a misunderstanding about sex positivity, which conflates it with the idea that one should be having as much sex as […]
The Misagreement
One of the biggest problems I see people in relationships of all kinds facing is miscommunication. This takes many forms: people not saying what they mean because they’re afraid to be that vulnerable, one person saying something but their partner hearing something else, total communication breakdowns where no one’s even trying, and so on. In this […]
The Importance of Fluid Bonding
What, you may ask, is fluid bonding? And why should you care? Fluid bonding frequently comes up in the context of non-monogamous or polyamorous relationships, but it’s just as important for monogamous folks, because it entails discussion and negotiation of acceptable risks, intimacy, trust, and pleasure. Fluid bonding, at its most basic, is the agreement […]
Gender Is Not A Crime
As I discussed in my blog post about how better knowledge of bodies makes for better public policy, bathroom access is a public health issue that disproportionately affects women, transgender people, and other people on who are agender or non-binary. This is one reason why I’m incensed about Indiana’s Senate Bill 35, which makes ” it […]
Knowing Our Bodies Means Better Public Policies (The Case for Sex Ed Part 9)
After taking a brief hiatus (moving in the middle of the semester is fun!) my blog post series making a case for sex education is back. In this post, I’d like to talk about the widespread ignorance and disgust around bodies – especially women’s bodies – that could easily be remedied by universal evidence-based sex education. […]
Trans People Aren’t Sick, The Entire F*cking Patriarchy Is
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around autogynephilia for a few months now, and while I’m still evaluating the evidence for and against it, I want to make a point: when we pathologize people who do gender differently, we’re responding rationally within a sick system. Autogynephilia is a concept dating from the 1980s that […]
Theorizing Consent
Consent has been on my mind lately. And since I was just at an academic conference, I’m now looking for points of convergence between the two: who has theorized consent? In which academic disciplines? For which audiences? To what effect? Sex educators have written a lot about consent, and that’s especially true on this blog. […]
Sexually Active ≠ Unprincipled
One of the ways American culture gets sex wrong is by linking sexual activity with assumptions of being unprincipled, unethical, and perhaps even immoral. Historically, yes, we can somewhat blame the Puritans for upholding an atmosphere of sexual vigilance, wherein any deviation from heterosexual marital intimacy was violently punished. People who had affairs, or performed […]
Date People You Admire And Can Learn From
This is a choose-your-own adventure blog post. You can replace “Date” in the title with any verb that’s applicable to you: “hang out with,” “be friends with,” “hop into bed with,” or whatever gets you excited about human connection and is in line with your ethics and your relationship agreements. This is also a blog […]
Book Review: Designer Relationships (Michaels and Johnson)
While at a conference, I had the good fortune to run into Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, authors of Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory, and Optimistic Open Relationships (Cleis Press, 2015). While chatting with them about mono-normativity and other fun stuff, their new book came up, and I expressed an interest […]