Sigh. Okay. I didn’t want to write this post, but I guess I have to. Consider me a reluctant defender of sexual freedom, even when the particular sexual desire under question does seem kinda icky to me. Here goes: as the academic cohort on the internet knows, a recent kinky sex ad went viral and […]
stigma
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 […]
Genitals, Stigma, & Shame (or why camel toe needs to die in a fire)
I don’t know whether to blame lack of universal, accurate sex education in America, or the more general sex-negative and sex-phobic lens of mainstream American culture, but it seems to me that people don’t know what’s up with their genitals. Things having to do with genitals are largely seem as shameful, and hence too stigmatized […]
Whether It’s “Appropriate” to Write/Talk/Blog About Sex
I am occasionally seized with fear that someone will find it “inappropriate” that I talk and blog and write about sexuality as much as I do. While recently reading Mary Roach’s book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, it struck me how many sex researchers have been vilified as perverted freaks for being […]
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 […]
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 […]
Syphilis in the Social Sciences Classroom
A lot of the work I do as a sex educator is in the college classroom. I haven’t taught a Human Sexuality class yet, or done a campus Sex Week yet, but in designing and teaching classes in anthropology, gender studies, and folklore programs, I emphasize many basic themes and topics in sex education, such as […]