Sex-Negative Education and the Spectre of Rape

Another story to add to the chorus of voices on why abstinence-only policies promote rape. Here’s my take: when you teach adults and children sex-negative messages, sex becomes an undifferentiated mass of “wrong.”  If all sex is wrong, then why try to tease out good from bad, pleasurable from painful?  When students are taught not [...]

Momentum Con Recap

I’m happy to say that I had an amazing weekend at Momentum, thanks to our fabulous organizers Tess & Diva, a truly excellent group of presenters, and a great crowd of attendees overall.  It felt so good to be in a sex-positive, mostly safe space for a weekend, and I feel about a hundred times [...]

Let’s Talk About Sex

So far, Momentum has been very encouraging. The keynote panel really energized me to get out there as a sex educator and not be afraid of being young or the new kid on the block on this community. I also was pleased to hear some discussion of queerness and gender. Talk about anonymity was very [...]

See You in Silver Spring!

I’m off for the weekend, first to a full workday, and then to Momentum! Hope to see you there, but if not, I’ll be liveblogging the con as much as possible from my iPod @sexpositiveblog. And if you’re local but haven’t signed up yet, Tristan Taormino and Susie Bright’s “Multigenerational Feminist Pornographers Mouth Off” is [...]

Rethinking Vaginal Penetration

Note: This post contains very explicit language below the cut. I read a couple of sexuality books recently, and they got me thinking.  One, the Hite Report, stirred up a lot of negative emotions in me, ranging from frustration at the heteronormativity of the whole thing to uncertainty about my own body and responses.  The [...]

Gender and Sexual Scripts

I’ve recently been thinking about my history of sex with male-identified individuals with penises and trying to pin down my limits and hesitance when it comes to sex with such individuals in the future.  It may be irrelevant–after all, I don’t even have many cis-gendered male friends–but I am curious because for me it’s sort [...]

Relationship Questions: Lessons from Polyamory

One thing I’ve seen a lot around the feminist blogosphere, when talking about relationships, is an emphasis on communication and honesty.  No big surprise here, though feminist bloggers tend to take it a little further than Seventeen magazine, borrowing from the BDSM community, anti-rape activists, and other groups to promote a communication style that’s a [...]

Meta Thoughts on Sex Education

One of the things I would absolutely love to happen in my life is to become a sex educator in a full-time, professional capacity. I mentioned this to a coworker the other day and she responded “oh!  me too.”  Another coworker agreed.  When I asked what they were interested in, specifically, Coworker A mentioned AIDS [...]

Momentum: Feminism, Sexuality, Relationships, and New Media

Exciting Announcement time!  I’m going to be presenting at Momentum, a sure-to-be-exciting convention taking place April 1-3, 2011 in Washington (technically, Silver Spring).  The theme of the convention is feminism, sexuality, relationships, and new media, and I will be doing a session on the potential of new media for polyamory, as well as participating in [...]

A Hymen Primer

I’ve learned some interesting things recently about the hymen, and surfing around sexuality sites and blogs, I’m realizing that many sex positive, feminist bloggers and activists appear to be as in the dark as I was about the hymen.  So!  Time to change that. 1. The hymen does not “break.” I think most feminist, sex-positive [...]