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 […]

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 […]

Teaching Relationships Empowers Everyone (The Case for Sex Ed Part 7)

In this installment of my The Case for Sex Ed blog post series, I’m going to address how teaching the basics of equitable relationships as part of a sex education curriculum can improve the lives of teens and everyone. When we talk about relationships there’s a tendency to assume that we mean sexual and/or romantic […]

Upholding Boundaries Feels Good

The title of this blog post is super, super obvious. At least that’s how I felt when I was writing it – but then I don’t think this concept is as prominent in our culture as it should be. Hence this post. One time, I was about to be intimate with a partner. We did […]

How Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Erases Consent (The Case for Sex Ed Part 5)

We’re now onto part 5 of my blog series The Case for Sex Ed! You can read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 here. RoleReboot blogger Lynn Beisner beat me to the theme of this post with her post On Josh Duggar And Why It’s Time To Do Away With Abstinence-Only Sex Education. But there are […]

When It Comes To Sex Or Religion, Intent Doesn’t Excuse Bad Behavior

In a recent conversation, a friend mentioned that she was upset about about a pattern she noticed. She described how when Christians tried to convert her, her attempts to describe how hurtful it was were met with their disbelief – after all, everyone involved had good intentions! This set off bells in my head. Because […]

In Order to Fix Professional Boundaries, We Must Revolutionize the Meaning of Sex

I think about professional boundaries a lot. This is in large part because I occupy a number of professions: scholar, adjunct professor, sex educator, dance instructor, dance performer, and freelance writer, to name a few. I see a lot of people in a lot of different contexts (some of them even social!) and I like […]

And Then I Brought Up Flesh Hooks.

One of the topics I discussed with my fall 2013 college-level class on non-monogamy is BDSM and kink. I deliberately introduced the topic at the end of the semester, when we’d already studied sexual and gender configurations around the world, past and present, with an eye toward how gender, sexuality, and relationship models inform one […]