Quarantine had just begun, and I clung to the two-week deadline with certainty. Surely, an entire civilization couldn’t remain closed for more than 14 days?
As weeks stumbled into months, I searched the internet for positive ways to work on myself. I figured this was the best distraction from uncertainty.
That’s how I found The Science of Well-Being, a virtual course offered by Yale University. When I saw that enrollment was free (and it still is) I signed up, hoping to gain some wisdom on how to psychologically survive a global health crisis.
By week four of the class, I discovered an exercise that didn’t just help me enjoy my life again. It is a practice that can revolutionize anyone’s sex life. It’s called “savoring”, and it only takes a few seconds to practice this shift in attention, purpose, and clarity for what really matters to you. …
Tribadism, or dry humping, is one of the first sex acts that many of us gravitated towards as kids. Providing our younger selves with the first delicious taste of sexual stimulation.
I know of many people who began their sexual journey by practicing tribadism with a pillow or stuffed animal.
I once saw a play where the main character would rub her clit against a staircase banister when her parents weren’t home.
I even know a Dominatrix whose male submissive begs to rub his erect penis against specific objects while she watches. …
I was sitting on a park bench when I discovered that my brain is my biggest sex organ.
I remember closing my book and looking between my legs. Of course, I was wearing jeans so all I saw were the inseams of my pants.
For most of my life, I thought the pelvis housed humanity’s biggest sex organs. And as a sex scholar, I devoted a lot of research to how our private parts work. While I kept my mind…in mind…it was never my main focus. …
There’s a reason we call it a “sex life”. Life, like your journey with sex, will always be changing, challenging, and rewarding.
When we think about improving areas of our lives, like relationships or entrepreneurship, it’s not uncommon to reach for a personal development book on the subject. We understand that we need to feed our minds positive, empowering information to unlock the next level of success or fulfillment. This couldn’t be more true for sex, especially considering that a humans biggest sex organ is their brain.
“The biggest sexual organ is the brain […] sex straddles the physical, psychological and physiological; and so the impact of our thoughts and feelings can absolutely change our sexual…
I’m a hyperactive, creative woman which makes it hard for me to achieve stillness. (Hey Headspace, I’m still on lesson one!) When I began understanding the benefits of tranquillity, I desperately tried meditation any way I could, only to find that normative styles of meditation weren’t working for me.
I realized that I needed activities with “meditative rhythms” to ease me into a habit of stillness. Everything is a muscle, and working out new muscles can be easy for one person and cumbersome for another.
Being an infant to stillness inspired me to think outside the box. I found that when I weaved feminine rituals into my stillness education, I was inspired to quiet my mind. Now, I have seven go-to activities that train me to be still while connecting me to my femininity. …
“It’s been a while.” A dreaded phrase that feels like an admission of guilt. Between life, companionship, work, and family we somehow blame ourselves for letting stress override pleasure — especially if we’re the “planner” in the relationship.
When this happens it's important to take a step back and objectively look at the curveballs rolling through your life.
It even helps to write down everything that is outside of your control right now. This can release self-blame and take the pressure off of you (or your partner) to “save the sex”. With a kinder perspective in mind, we can discover what we do control and use this knowledge to rekindle arousal. …
Empowered casual sex is more than just prevention. Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental, and social wellbeing, and it requires the respect and protection of certain human rights during sex and sexual encounters.
If you were hired for a job, you would have expectations about how you should be treated. In committed relationships, there are standards we assume our partner(s) will respect. Enter casual sex, a relationship style with ambiguous ethics where it’s not uncommon for your lover to turn into a ghost.
In the world of casual affairs, it’s “normal” to have low expectations about how you’ll be treated as long as you get laid. The problem is, it’s harder to become aroused when we don’t feel appreciated. It is also difficult to relax and feel safe if you don’t speak up about your needs or wants (like asking your partner to get an STI test before you become intimate). …
Porn, like any other industry, must stay relevant. In doing so, the old adage “art imitates life” takes on a whole new meaning. Producing porn with coronavirus plotlines might seem tactless, but this isn’t the first time producers stepped over the line to give us content that we eagerly consume. Border patrol porn continues to be popular despite Trump’s controversial deportation policies and incest porn is one of the most successful x-rated genres of all time.
Given the trends in taboo porn, it isn’t surprising to see that COVID-19 smut is being produced and that some videos are notably widespread. …
For the first time in over a year, I found myself downloading Bumble. Quarantine was dragging across the globe in an ugly trend, and I leaned on the enigmatic “situationship” to get me through isolation.
A “situationship” is a sexual and (or) romantic relationship without normative labels. To some, it’s a dreaded limbo. For others, it provides the freedom to explore new relationship styles and sexual passions. Wherever you land on the spectrum of situation, one thing is for sure. A situationship is the ambiguous sibling of “dating” and “friends with benefits”.
Over the last year, I’ve noticed many friends create new dating patterns. We have fewer expectations and remain grateful that technology allows us to reach new people. Despite being on house arrest, romance is still possible — it’s just situational. …
The acronym STD stands for “sexually transmitted disease”. As our culture grows in sex-positive ways, the term disease had begun to be replaced by the word infection.
“We used to call them STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) but we don’t anymore because when we get an infection through sexual contact, we don’t always experience symptoms and the infection may not develop into a disease.” [source]
The word disease is intense. It can be the precursor to another ominous ‘D’ word. I should know my mother died from a disease (cancer) and one of my friends is living with a chronic disease that many people misunderstand as a death sentence (HIV). Yet, when it comes to medical conditions that are sexually transmitted the word “infection” tends to be more accurate. …