I love talking about the intersections of folklore and sex, gender, and sexuality. Thus I was thrilled when Cooper Beckett, host of the non-monogamy podcast Life on the Swingset and author of My Life on the Swingset, invited me to be a guest on an episode of the podcast. This has been an interest of […]
social conditioning
My SAR Experience (Told In Memes)
I recently had the opportunity to take a SAR – that is, a Sexual Attitude Reassessment. It’s generally a 10-12 hour-long workshop wherein an instructor guides the class through a series of sexual images and topics. The point is to prepare sexuality professionals (sex educators, counselors, and therapists) for all the varied sexual practices we’ll […]
We Could Reduce STI Stigma & Improve Public Health…But We’re Not (The Case for Sex Ed Part 6)
Defining stigma, and then discussing its associations with sexuality, are important steps in furthering sexual health. This is number 6 in my “The Case for Sex Ed” blog post series; click here to check out the rest. In Bruce Link and Jo Phelan’s article, “On Stigma and Its Public Health Implications,” they describe the ways in […]
Stigma & Sexuality
If we define stigma as an undesirable identity that gets attributed to a person (often against their wishes), then it’s possible to explore the intersections of stigma and sexual identity, sexual acts, and so on. In this blog post I’ll describe some of these connections, and in an upcoming post, I’ll talk about why the stigma around […]
What is Stigma?
A lot of our cultural conversations around sexuality, STIs, slut-shaming, and more are shaped by the concept of stigma. Seems worth a blog post, right? In the academic world, stigma became an important concept with the publication of sociologist Erving Goffman’s 1963 book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. In it, Goffman defines stigma […]
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 […]
My Family Made Sex Normal, and I’m So Grateful
As I add to my blog post series on the case for sex ed (part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4 are all available), I thought I’d leap in with a slightly more personal reflection on how informal sex education can be normalized and how this can benefit everyone. I was fortunate to […]
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 […]
Because Teaching Sex Ed Is Not Encouraging Sex (The Case for Sex Ed Part 3)
Time for another post in my series on why we need sex education! Feel free to catch up on part 1 and part 2 if you haven’t already. While perusing my Twitter feed, I came across Rebecca Zamon’s Huffpost Canada blog supporting the new Canadian (specifically Ontario) curriculum for health and physical education. Why? Because, among other […]
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 […]