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Why Do Bi Women Keep Sleeping With Men?

By Katie Simon

“If I liked women, I’d never date a man again,” my friend Caroline said to me after a recent breakup. Bemoaning the straight dating scene, she seemed genuinely confused as to why someone bisexual—like me—would date men at all. And, really, what was stopping me from never sleeping with a guy again? It’s an amazing idea in theory: none of the misogyny, more orgasms. And yet, time and time again, I returned to them.

I’m not alone: As many as 88% of bi people are in opposite-sex partnerships. But why? One obvious answer is that it’s a numbers game: There are more straight men in the dating pool than women or nonbinary folks who date women. But a lot more is at play too.

For one thing, bi women, like everyone else, are influenced by heteronormativity, the social construct that asserts the default sexual orientation is straight—and any other relationships are abnormal or inferior. As Emily May, an AASECT-certified sex therapist, tells me: “How many of us grew up with Disney movies that told us we’d find Prince Charming, not Princess Charming? From the moment we could spell crush, society’s been nudging us toward that classic boy-meets-girl storyline.” Like many straight women, many bi women have ingrained ideas about everything from sex requiring penetration from a penis to kids needing a mom and a dad. Indeed, the pressures and standards of heteronormativity can compel bi people to hide our identities in many contexts so that we often show up in opposite-sex dating scenarios passing for straight.

NYU sexuality professor Taylor Orlandoni explains that the way bi women come out can also affect who we sleep with. “Today, queer women are engaging more frequently with identity-centered pathways, wondering and later self-realizing their queer identity, then taking the time to disclose their identity to family or friends—all before they ever have a same-sex experience,” she says. Because the way we define our sexuality is more about processing and noticing than enacting, Orlandoni notes that it tends to take bi women years longer than our lesbian counterparts to hit sexuality milestones like coming out or having a first queer sexual experience. While many of us will identify as bi, for a long time we’ll only act on our feelings toward men—a limbo period I’ve seen countless bi friends wrestle with.

And then there’s the matter of what happens when bi women do seek out same-sex relationships. The same heteronormative forces that can lead us to suppress our queerness can also complicate making inroads with other women. Edward Reese, a bi, nonbinary sexuality expert for the Taimi dating app, puts it to me this way: “Sapphic romance is still not a mainstream topic. It’s highly influenced by misogynistic and porn stereotypes, and representation in the media is lacking. So women don’t know how to act around other women and establish a connection with them, even when there are places to meet online and offline.” Reese adds that places to meet up in the real world, like lesbian bars, are slowly disappearing—and it takes chutzpah to actually follow through after meeting someone on an app.

Picking up on dating cues can be tough for bi women too. Saba Harouni, LMFT, says that not only have we been “steeped” in a heteronormative world, but we’ve also been socialized in heterosexual dating norms—meaning we may not necessarily know how to express interest in women and nonbinary folks. “Bisexual women may have a much more difficult time reading cues from other women or knowing how to initiate sexual or romantic relationships with women,” Harouni says. It can be tough to tell the difference between a queer woman hitting on you and a straight woman just giving you a compliment.

Still other bi women encounter the opposite problem: One person I spoke to, Yannis, likes to meet dates organically—out in the world—but she finds herself only chatting with men. “I think that’s likely because I usually present as more feminine or straight passing, as the kids say,” she says. “It’s not always a bad thing, but it makes it harder to connect with other queer girls in the wild.” Yannis’s dilemma is shared by many other bi folks: We either struggle to identify women as queer or struggle to be identified as queer ourselves.

Further complicating matters: Sofie Roos, a bi sexologist and relationship therapist, shares that in her experience both personally and professionally, many lesbians actively avoid dating bi women. Why? Lesbians who see bi women on dating apps may assume we are merely bi curious, with one foot rooted firmly in heterosexuality. (And to those who are bi curious: Roos recommends being straightforward to keep people from getting their feelings hurt. Some women like sleeping with newbies!)

A survey by dating app Her has also found that 48.3% of bisexuals are assumed to be straight or gay based on their partner. It’s another misperception that forces us to educate the world—and sometimes even our own partners—about our identities in order not to lose them. As therapist Emily May explains, “It’s like, ‘You’re bi, but are you really bi if you’re with a dude?’ The short answer: Yes, you are. But the pressure of having to constantly prove your queerness can be exhausting.”

I’ve dated enough men that some people assume I’m straight, and though I try to be forward about my sexual orientation when it’s relevant, I know that my identity is not up for debate. Bi women have nothing to prove, to ourselves or anybody else.

While certain factors affect who we date and how we navigate dating, Reese also reminds me that love simply isn’t logical—people “look for their soulmates and like-minded individuals. It can happen between a man and a woman, as well as between two women.” I like Reese’s perspective on our choices (or lack thereof): There shouldn’t be pressure to apply rules or reason to love. Ultimately, like relationships between people of any sexual orientation, it’s up to luck.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

— The far-right blueprint would severely limit reproductive autonomy and access to reproductive healthcare, while turning back the clock on hard-won gains, both domestically and globally.

People attend the Our Bodies Our Lives Rally for Reproductive Freedom at the Bayfront Amphitheater on Sept. 14, 2024, in Miami. The rally was held to advocate for the passage of Amendment 4, which will be on Florida’s ballot, which would protect the right to abortion in the state.

By , and

Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework, by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The plan’s far-reaching recommendations would severely limit reproductive autonomy and access to reproductive healthcare, while turning back the clock on hard-won gains, both domestically and globally. This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.

1. Threats to Medication Abortion

Project 2025 proposes several strategies for restricting—and ultimately eliminating—access to mifepristone, an extremely safe and effective medication used in the most common regimen for medication abortion in the United States.

  • The plan proposes reinstating medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone that require in-person dispensing and limit who can prescribe and receive the medication. By effectively ending telehealth provision of the method, these restrictions would limit access to the method for anyone who faces barriers to reaching a brick-and-mortar clinic, including individuals receiving telehealth care (under the protection of shield laws) in states where abortion is banned.
  • It also recommends revoking mifepristone’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, which would remove the drug from the market entirely. Nearly two-thirds of all abortions provided by clinicians are medication abortions, and the vast majority of them use the combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol. Although use of misoprostol alone is also safe and effective, it is unclear how widely this regimen would be offered by providers, or taken up by patients, if mifepristone were no longer available.
  • Decreasing access to medication abortion by either mechanism could in turn increase demand for procedural care, placing additional strain on clinics and increasing wait time for patients.
  • Project 2025 suggests that a hostile administration could bypass the FDA and effectively ban medication abortion—and potentially all abortions—through enforcement of the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law that prohibits mailing anything “intended for producing abortion.” The law could be used to prevent the distribution of medication and supplies needed for abortion care and if applied broadly, it could result in a nationwide total abortion ban.

2. Broader Attacks on Abortion Access

Project 2025 also seeks to dismantle U.S. abortion access in a number of other ways.

  • The plan calls on Congress to codify into law the Hyde and Weldon Amendments, harmful policies that limit access to abortion care in the United States by restricting the use of federal funds for abortion care and coverage.
  • It also proposes a full audit of Hyde compliance, including reviewing Biden administration executive actions and Medicaid-managed care in “pro-abortion states.” These investigations may suggest an intention to retaliate against states where state Medicaid funds are used—entirely legally—to provide abortion care. In reality, the documented violations of the Hyde Amendment involve the opposite: states refusing to cover abortion care under circumstances where Medicaid coverage is mandated.

3. Denying Access to Abortion Care in Emergency Situations

Project 2025 calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to dismantle the abortion protections provided under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal policy that outlines requirements for emergency departments that receive Medicare funds.

  • The plan recommends rescinding Biden administration guidance from 2022 stating that people needing abortion care as part of emergency treatment are entitled to that care under federal law, even in states where abortion is banned. It would also end investigations into cases where patients’ rights were violated by denial of necessary emergency abortion care.
  • Further, it seeks to eliminate injunctions against states that have violated EMTALA and recommends that the Department of Justice withdraw from all ongoing litigation where it is currently defending the right to emergency abortion care.
  • Refusal to enforce EMTALA’s protections for abortion care puts pregnant people’s lives in jeopardy, by forcing providers to risk criminal charges if they perform potentially lifesaving abortion care.

4. Increasing Misinformation, Disinformation and Stigma

Project 2025 aims to implement a broad anti-sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda across the government—including by changing the mandate of key agencies and rewording policies to stigmatize and delegitimize sexual and reproductive health terms and concepts.

  • The plan proposes changing the Department of Health and Human Services into the Department of Life, complete with an anti-abortion task force to replace the existing Reproductive Healthcare Task Force and a newly created position of “Special Representative for Domestic Women’s Health” to lead anti-abortion policy efforts across agencies.
  • It recommends deleting all terms related to gender, gender equality, reproductive health, reproductive rights, abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity from all legislation, federal rules, agency regulations, contracts, agency websites and grants. Likewise, it encourages the use of U.S. influence at the United Nations to remove language “promoting abortion” from U.N. documents, policy statements and technical literature.
  • Project 2025 uses charged, medically inaccurate anti-abortion rhetoric—including language falsely portraying abortion as unsafe—to break down support for abortion rights and bolster efforts to criminalize providers, misuse laws and regulations meant to protect against discrimination, and ultimately cut off access to abortion care.
  • The agenda also uses the false implication that abortion is unsafe to justify proposals to increase pregnancy and abortion surveillance at the federal level. The plan suggests mandated reporting of abortions—as well as of miscarriages and stillbirths—by all states (using denial of federal funding streams as means of enforcement). The potential weaponization of this data collection by a hostile administration poses an immediate threat to abortion providers and patients, and it paves the way for increased criminalization of pregnancy outcomes other than abortion.
  • Project 2025 seeks to redefine basic sexual health education as “pornography”—and then to make pornography illegal—and also recommends replacing comprehensive sex education with abstinence-only curricula.

5. Weaponization of Federal Medicaid Dollars

Project 2025 calls for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to encourage states to eliminate all Planned Parenthood facilities from their state Medicaid programs, as some states have attempted in the past. It also suggests that CMS create a new regulation that would disqualify abortion providers nationwide.

  • This would have disastrous effects on access to basic health care services, particularly family planning, with other safety-net providers unable to increase their capacity to fill the gap that would be left if federal funding were pulled from Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers.
  • The agenda also makes baseless claims that some states are violating the Weldon Amendment by requiring coverage of abortion care in private insurance plans. Project 2025 calls for withdrawing partial Medicaid funds from these states in retaliation—a weaponization of funding that provides crucial health insurance for people with low incomes.

6. Attacks on Contraception

Project 2025 seeks to severely undermine two cornerstones of U.S. contraceptive provision: Title X, the national publicly funded family planning program, and the federal contraceptive coverage guarantee of the Affordable Care Act.

  • The plan proposes reinstating the harmful “domestic gag rule,” which would prohibit health care providers who receive Title X funding from providing abortion referrals and would require them to be physically and financially separated from any abortion-related activities, including counseling. Within about a year of this policy going into effect in 2019 (before it was rescinded in 2021), hundreds of clinics left the program and the number of patients served dropped by 2.4 million.
  • Project 2025 goes further and recommends legislation that would prohibit Title X funding from going to entities that perform or help fund abortion care. Legislating such a policy makes it harder to reverse in the future (compared with administrative rulemaking); it would also disqualify providers who meet the gag rule’s already stringent requirements.
  • In addition, the plan calls for broadening the contraceptive coverage guarantee’s existing religious and moral exemptions to make it easier for any employer—including large, for-profit corporations—to exclude contraceptive coverage from their employees’ health plan. Such exemptions deny people reproductive autonomy and access to needed health care, while over a decade of evidence show that the coverage guarantee reduced patients’ costs and helped them to use the birth control method of their choice and to use it effectively.

7. Impact on Reproductive Health Worldwide

Project 2025 also seeks to leverage U.S. influence to undermine sexual and reproductive health and rights globally, including by cutting U.S. financial support to countries and initiatives.

  • It proposes immediately reinstating the global gag rule, which would prevent non-U.S. NGOs from receiving U.S. government global health assistance if they used their own, non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services, information, counseling, referrals or advocacy. Past iterations of the rule have detrimentally impacted reproductive health outcomes, systems and services by decreasing access to contraceptive services and leading to clinic closures.
  • Project 2025 wants to take the policy further and have it apply to all U.S. foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid.
  • The plan also proposes blocking funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) which provides a wide range of critical sexual and reproductive health services to women and girls globally. When funding to UNFPA was withheld by the Trump-Pence administration, it caused a significant disruption to service delivery.
  • Project 2025 wants to impose its anti-rights ideology at the United Nations, too. It suggests expanding on the Trump-Pence administration’s Geneva Consensus Declaration on Women’s Health and Protection of the Family, an anti-rights, anti-abortion, anti-gender joint statement that undermines human rights (although that declaration was nonbinding and was never adopted by the U.N.).

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why We Need to Prioritize Pleasure-Centric Approaches in Sex Education

— The risk-reduction framework that guides most U.S. sex ed focuses almost exclusively on avoiding unintended pregnancy and STDs—overlooking other critical topics such as healthy relationships, consent and pleasure.

By and

In her essay collection Pleasure Activism, activist adrienne maree brown writes, “Pleasure activism asserts that we all need and deserve pleasure and that our social structures must reflect this. … Pleasure activism acts from an analysis that pleasure is a natural, safe and liberated part of life—and that we can offer each other tools and education to make sure sex, desire, connection, and other pleasures aren’t life-threatening or harming, but life-enriching.”

With a new school year in full swing and elections around the corner, it’s only normal that we’re feeling anxious about what could happen this fall. This is especially true for young people, whose sexual and reproductive freedom hangs in the balance as we face abortion bans, attacks on trans care, birth control and more. But what’s a better antidote for anxiety, than empowering youth with pleasure-centric tools and resources that allow them to reclaim control of their bodily autonomy?

Pleasure-inclusive sex education increases sexual self-esteem, sexual self-confidence and safe choices.

As the coordinator of a Youth Health Promoters program at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, I meet throughout the year with a cohort of highly trained, high school-aged peer educators who facilitate evidence-based sexuality trainings to community partners and organizations. I encourage them to be agents of sex education amongst their peers in a way that feels accessible, shame-free and moves away from a ‘good versus bad’ binary thinking. In this role, I have real-time knowledge of the kind of methods that resonate with youth the most.

Talking about sex in a judgment-free and positive environment that makes participants feel empowered rather than ashamed or guilty, is far more effective than talking about infections or the risk of an unwanted pregnancy. When youth are immersed in a hyper-sexualized digital world and have unlimited access to information at their fingertips, the power of peer-to-peer training—paired with evidence-based knowledge and studies—could help them filter through all of it and build better discernment for a healthier sex life.

Despite being considered a leading state for sexual and reproductive health access, New York lags tremendously when it comes to comprehensive sex education.

  • According to a 2022 ACLU report, about 50 percent of high school students in New York reported engaging in sexual intercourse, and of these, only 11 percent reported using a prevention method to protect against unplanned pregnancy and STIs.
  • Teenagers ages 15 to 19 represent more than 50 percent of new STI cases in New York state, and 10 percent of New York teenagers report experiencing physical dating violence.
  • Comprehensive sex ed is not a requirement in most public school curriculums, and the few that do have them are often outdated, inaccurate and stigmatizing.

This lack of nuance and initiative is largely due to an approach that emphasizes abstinence and decenters pleasure.

According to a 2022 systemic review done by The Pleasure Project and The World Health Organization, pleasure-inclusive and -centric sex education increases sexual self-esteem, sexual self-confidence and safe choices. The review found that sexual health programs that include sexual desire: (1.) improve knowledge and attitudes around sex and (2.) increase condom use, which has direct implications for reductions in HIV and STIs. Developing sexual confidence can also prevent dating and sexual violence.

Pleasure-centric sex ed also helps create a more inclusive classroom environment for students who already face a myriad of biases when it comes to their sexuality and gender: LGBTQ+ students, BIPOC students, or students with learning or developmental disabilities. And if a systemic review isn’t enough, according to new nationwide polling commissioned by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, over 9 in 10 adults think it’s important for young people to have access to age-appropriate sex education that covers a wide range of topics.

When our sex education curriculums are already so precarious, we must think about effective approaches to comprehensive sex ed—which has proven more effective than abstinence programs and risk-focused messaging—and how we can ensure those approaches are prioritized in our classrooms.

While other aspects of comprehensive sex education are just as important—such as teaching youth about sexually transmitted infections, testing and treatment, or the different options for birth control—having a pleasure-centric approach empowers young people to make informed decisions and exhibit autonomy in how they engage with pleasure and sex, if at all.

What Does Pleasure-Centric Sex Ed Look Like?

Prioritizing pleasure-centric approaches in our classrooms could look like creating a curriculum that talks about masturbation as a healthy and safe way to explore sexuality. Contrary to a regressive belief that sex ed encourages young people to have sex, using the classroom to debunk all the myths associated with masturbation, does just the opposite: It allows young people to explore pleasure and preferences in their own bodies, without having to resort to a partner or a source outside of themselves.

By asking students to reflect on what’s important for them in relationships and encouraging effective communication around play, orgasms, preferences, consent or connection, we create an environment where any question is valid, where body parts and accurate terms are openly discussed, and where young people can resort to each other for fact-based information. When comprehensive sex education is pleasure-centric, it emphasizes that sexual activity should be pleasure-focused.

This year alone, at least 135 bills related to sex education have been introduced or implemented across the U.S., a majority of which would place more extreme restrictions on sex education in public schools and further digress our relationship with pleasure. At a time when sex education is increasingly under attack, not talking about sex gives the power away to anti-progress agents who are committed to tearing apart our reproductive rights and controlling our bodies.

By centering peer-to-peer conversations on what makes us feel good—physically, mentally and emotionally—we establish a culture where joy, freedom and autonomy are prioritized and healthier schools, communities and relationships are created.

In the words of adrienne maree brown: “We are in a time of fertile ground for learning how we align our pleasures with our values … and getting into a practice of saying an orgasmic yes together.”

We must make sure all of us—not only our youth—have the correct skills to navigate the ebbs and flows of our sexual and reproductive futures. But what better place to start, than in our classrooms?

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What is Plato’s Symposium, the classic book drawn into the Gender Queer culture wars?

Plato’s Symposium, Anselm Feuerbach, 1869

By

It was probably inevitable, but is deeply sad, that Plato’s Symposium (circa 380 BCE), has been drawn into the culture wars. A dialogue of great complexity and elegance, the book is one of the principal sources of the Greek philosopher’s views on love and beauty.

There are also darker political undertones of the decline of Athenian democracy, surrounding the character of Alcibiades who crashes the drinking party the book depicts. There is a lot going on in The Symposium, and a lot we can learn from.

An illustration of a sexual fantasy inspired by The Symposium features in Maia Kobabe’s graphic-novel memoir Gender Queer. This week, the federal court ordered the Australian classification review board to review its assessment of Gender Queer, finding it had ignored, overlooked or misunderstood public submissions for the book to be censored.

Rightwing activist Bernard Gaynor had applied to the board to review the classification of the book. Gaynor’s barrister, Bret Walker SC, argued in court there had been a “broadbrush dismissal” of submissions the board claimed were anti-LGBTQ+ when many submissions objected to what they saw as “paedophilic” depictions of a man having sex with a minor – an image portraying Plato’s Symposium.

Plato’s work comes from a different culture to our own. This was a culture in which, at least among aristocratic males, there were norms around sexual morality that are not our own.

In this context, as Michel Foucault has shown in The History of Sexuality, there were norms surrounding same-sex relationships between elder and younger men that many contemporaries will find deeply morally problematic. But this does not detract from the book’s importance, nor does it exhaust the work’s content.

Far from it.

Love, beauty, and Plato

The Symposium, as its title reflects, is a dialogue between seven leading figures in Athens, set in the controversial year 416 BCE. This was the year in which Athens, spurred on by the charismatic, hawkish demagogue, Alcibiades, sent its navy fatefully to invade the Italian city of Syracuse.

Cover of The Symposium

Alcibiades was, around this time, withdrawn from his command of the fleet: accused of desecrating sacred statues on the night before the fleet’s departure, and of impiously staging religious mysteries.

The party in The Symposium soon becomes a setting for the leading participants to each give speeches on the nature of love. Probably the most famous is that of the comic playwright, Aristophanes.

He argues human beings were, initially, unlikely round figures who developed the hubris to challenge the Gods. As a result, we were chopped in half and became sexed beings. Each of us was thus condemned to seeking our lost “other half” through sexual love.

The hero-philosopher Socrates’s speech is similarly colourful. It features him reminiscing on a youthful visit to an exotic priestess, Diotima, who taught him everything he knows about love.

Love, suggests Socrates, (rather wonderfully), is the longing to give birth to beauty. It is tied to the human longing for immortality. We are drawn by the beauty of others to try to unite with them, physically and spiritually. At first, the beautiful form of the body attracts us. But then it becomes the beauty of their souls, if love is more than lust or illusion.

Love inspires us, Plato is stressing, to give birth to new things. For most of us, this means physical offspring, who will perpetuate our name and memory.

But love can move people to beautiful speeches, beautiful works of art, even beautiful laws to govern cities. The philosopher, we are told, ultimately seeks Beauty itself, an unchanging eternal reality in which all earthly, beautiful things only imperfectly participate.

Sexual desire

This is hardly highly erotic material, in any ordinary sense. And yet, when the drunken Alcibiades comes bursting in to interrupt Socrates, accompanied by flute girls and a band of revellers, sexual desire is brought back into the frame.

A bust of a bearded man.
Plato, copy of a portrait made by Silanion circa 370 BC.

Alcibiades, who has lived a life of popular adulation and sexual promiscuity, launches into a speech describing his attempts to seduce Socrates, the ugly, old philosopher. For Socrates is the only man or woman who has ever said “no” to his advances, even, once, when Alcibiades was sleeping right beside him.

This knock back drives Alcibiades crazy. And yet, it impresses him. Socrates is ugly on the outside, he says. Yet, inside his soul, for those who love him, there are secret treasures, (agalmata in the Greek). And he would do anything to possess such hidden beauties.

This is a text rich in images, comedy, and deep insights into the human experience. Yes, Plato’s characters accept the norms of that time surrounding homosexual love. The opening speech, by Phaedrus (a character who comes up in another dialogue on love), celebrates the power of such love, for instance in armies, wherein men will fight more vigorously to protect their beloved. (In Greek culture, the manly Achilles’ love for Patrocles, which is such a theme in Homer’s Iliad, was considered exemplary.)

The second speaker, the rather sleazy Pausanius, makes a case more directly for the nobility of sexual love affairs between older men and young, beautiful adolescent males. In what is arguably special pleading, Pausanius tells the group that

the older man brings to the match his wisdom and his virtue, while the younger nobly seeks to acquire these with a view to his better education.

We don’t need to be convinced. But this is the second speech of seven, and hardly Plato’s final word on love. As shown by the dialogue of Phaedrus, Plato is clearly interested in the elevating capacities of romantic love: the ways that, whether same-sex or heterosexual, it can inspire and elevate people.

In such a view, notably, he is something of an exception among the ancient philosophers, most of whom are decidedly more suspicious about the tendency of romantic love to get people to lose their heads.

For Plato, when human beings fall in love, they can be moved outside of their own egoism, if only to serve their beloved, and then the children the union can bring.

The connection of even sexual love with our responsiveness to beauty shows for Platonists that we are not just animals, without a spiritual dimension. Even the lowliest person is still moved by beauty, and can be inspired by its pursuit to improve themselves.

A different moral message

The big message of the dialogue then is not lasciviousness. When Socrates knocks back Alcibiades’ attempt to seduce him physically, he tells him he would nevertheless be happy to meet with him, to continue discussing virtue and how he can become a better person.

Alcibiades has no interest in this, instead turning from trying to conquer Socrates to trying to conquer the known world. As some readers will know, he soon enough defects to Sparta, seduces its queen and betrays his home city, before defecting to Persia, as related by Thucydides and Xenophon.

If moralists want to find a message in The Symposium, it might be this. The person who can conceive no greater love than them self and their own beauty, is no friend to ordinary standards of civics, or, indeed, good and evil.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Seven Ways to Love Better

— Reading some 200,000 love stories has taught me a few lessons about love and life. Here are the ones that help me most.

By Daniel Jones

Two decades ago, on Oct. 31, 2004, a short note appeared on the front page of this newspaper along with stories about Yasir Arafat’s health and the looming election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. It read: “Modern Love: Introducing a new weekly column about love and relationships. Today, Steve Friedman says he is just fine after getting dumped. Just fine. Really.”

So began my long, strange trip editing Modern Love, talking to strangers every week about the most intimate details of their romantic, familial and platonic entanglements — and then publishing their stories for hundreds of thousands or even millions of readers.

I never dreamed I would still be doing this job 20 years and some 200,000 submissions later, but it has been a wonderful run. Over time, with the help of my colleague, Miya Lee, Modern Love has grown to include a podcast, books, live performances, another weekly column of 100-word Tiny Love Stories, and television shows in the United States, India, Japan and the Netherlands.

Modern Love began the same year as Facebook, three years before iPhones, eight years before Tinder, and 11 years before same-sex marriage became legal nationwide. The world has changed a lot in two decades, and my life changed, too. When this column started, I was 41, married for 12 years, with two children in grade school. Now I am 61, separated for three years, my two children having long left home for jobs and lives of their own.

I published hundreds of stories about separation, divorce, online dating and blended families without ever thinking they might one day apply to me.

I read tens of thousands of essays about the death of a loved one without having experienced that myself — until earlier this year when my father died.

Millions of readers have been helped by the many raw and inspiring stories of people trying to grow and change after a relationship’s end. Now those stories are helping me.

Recently I joked to my friend and Modern Love podcast host Anna Martin that this column has become like a 401(k) plan for me — only it’s an annuity of life lessons. For all these years I poured my ideas, skills and heart into this column, and now it’s giving back, not in dollars but in hard-earned wisdom. Good thing there’s no penalty for early withdrawals.

Here I present — with gratitude to this column’s wise, brave and generous writers — the seven lessons that have helped me most.

Love is more like a basketball than a vase.

Relationships involve conflicts that can lead either to intimacy or distance, to bonding or rupturing, depending on how you handle them. How you negotiate conflict may prove to be the single most important indicator of your compatibility.

I have never been comfortable with conflict, but I’m trying to get better at it. Which is why Thomas Hooven’s 2013 essay, “Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting,” affected me so deeply. Thomas was like me in many ways, thinking a romantic relationship was supposed to be a refuge from conflict, not a source of it. He and his fiancée had both emerged from difficult childhoods to find peace with each other, but anything other than peace felt threatening.

His fiancée, perhaps sensing the fragility of this dynamic, broke off their engagement just three weeks before their wedding, devastating him.

Off Thomas went to his medical residency in pediatrics, which became his boot camp in learning the complexities and dark corners of love. He emerged more fully human, and stronger.

“By the time I met my wife,” he writes, “I was a changed man and a real doctor. And our love developed differently from any I had experienced before. Less like a crystal vase, more like a basketball, our relationship is made for bouncing — for the good and sometimes rough play that modern professional lives generate. We do have fights (oh, yes, we do), but they do not threaten our foundation. They deepen it.”

The most popular Modern Love article of all time, “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love,” has been read by more than 75 million people. Nothing I have (or will ever) put out into the world will effect more positive change than that short article.

My hope is that most readers absorbed the simple truth that being curious about people you meet is far more seductive than talking about your accomplishments. The most common complaint I hear (by far) about bad first dates is of people droning on about themselves and not asking questions. So skip the self-promotion. Be curious instead. If you need prompts, here are 36 of them.

Be present, especially with your loved ones.

My son is 26, but when he was a little boy, I used to read to him every night, the two of us curled up in a big chair, as I had done with my daughter before him. In his case, though, I had read his favorite books so many times that he learned to recite them from memory as I flipped the pages, even though he didn’t yet know how to read.

I wish I could go back to that time. The paradox of early parenthood is that it can be as stressful as it is joyful, and you often need to push yourself to relax into those precious moments.

Chris Huntington, in his essay, “Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss,” writes about a having a similar routine with his son, with the twist that every night they also share their best and worst moments of the day. One night, preoccupied with his litany of worries, Chris realizes something is missing, and says, “We forgot to do best and worst moments. What was your best moment of the day?”

“This is, Daddy,” his son says, nudging his chin into his father’s shoulder. “This is.”

Tears sprung from my eyes the first time I read that line, and I never forgot its lesson: Be in the moment. Stop thinking about the future or the past, about what may or may not happen, and put away your phone. If a child in your lap asks about the best part of your day, say, “This is.”

Write well, love well.

The editor in me has noticed over time that the qualities of good personal writing — honesty, generosity, open-mindedness, curiosity, humor and humility — are the same as the qualities of someone with whom you would want to have a relationship.

Likewise, the qualities of bad personal writing — dishonesty, withholding, blame, pettiness, dismissiveness and egotism — are the same as the qualities of someone with whom you would not want to have a relationship.

This does not mean that good writers have good relationships or that bad writers have bad relationships. It does mean that you should strive to be honest, generous, open-minded, curious, funny and humble both in writing and in love.

Always lead with empathy.

This is simple to state, hard to practice. But I think often of a former Canadian soldier, Benjamin Hertwig, whose essay, “In the Waiting Room of Estranged Spouses,” chronicles his discovery that his wife was having an affair.

They separate, and in seeking help, Benjamin finds himself in a psychologist’s waiting room with the wife of his ex’s lover, a woman named Catherine. Incredibly, she has an appointment to see the same psychologist around the same time for the same reason. Catherine has a toddler son, and Benjamin ends up hanging out with them and feeling close to the boy. But he remains angry and bitter about the affair.

One day he encounters his ex-wife’s lover in the grocery store, a man he has hated and had nightmares about. But nothing much happens. The other guy meekly asks if he wants to have a beer and talk about it, which Benjamin scoffs at. But as he writes, “I couldn’t summon any real anger. He was just a young boy’s tired father. He wasn’t even unkind.”

“In the months that followed,” he continues, “thinking of my ex-wife’s lover as that sweet boy’s father was somehow very helpful for me. I had held Catherine’s boy, felt the good weight of his body, and eventually I learned that it’s hard to hate a person when that person was a part of bringing something good into the world.”

A compatibility question on a dating app asks if you would choose to live forever if you could. Many people say yes, which always surprises me: Have they considered what living forever would mean? Nothing that’s limitless can be precious. Life and love are fleeting, which is why we hold onto them so dearly.

This point was driven home by Alisha Gorder in “One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please,” in which she writes about the flower shop where she worked in Portland, Ore. Alisha ruminates on the meaning of flowers at special occasions — weddings, funerals — and how they lose their petals and shrivel so quickly. Why do we treasure flowers, she wonders? Why not something that lasts?

Then Alisha tells us what this story is really about, that her high school boyfriend died by suicide when she was 18, leaving her to make sense of who he was and what they had together. She finds solace in understanding that it’s not that flowers (and love) are beautiful and fleeting; they’re beautiful because they are fleeting. Meaning we must cherish them in the moment, knowing they can’t last. As she puts it, upon seeing a wash of flower petals littering the ground: “How startlingly beautiful impermanence can be.”

There is no rule that a relationship must last a certain amount of time to count as a “success,” just as one that ends hasn’t necessarily “failed.” Every relationship we have, short or long, can be good, essential, even transformative, and have lasting value.

In “The 12-Hour Goodbye,” Miriam Johnson was struggling to get over a breakup. Her boyfriend was leaving her for reasons she couldn’t understand, despite the two of them talking it through for 12 straight hours. She thought they had been so good together. Their relationship had stoked in her a passion to pursue work involving animal welfare. After their split, she stumbled into an opportunity to do so, which helped her restart her life. But she couldn’t get over her ex.

“It’s been a year since we broke up,” she says to her therapist. “I thought my dream job and exercise would heal me, but I still think about him every day. What more can I do to let go?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” her therapist replies. “It’s not about getting over and letting go. It’s about honoring what happened. You met a person who awoke something in you. A fire ignited. The work is to be grateful. Grateful every day that someone crossed your path and left a mark on you.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Stories That Changed Lives

— For 20 years, Modern Love has recorded people’s lives. The column has also had real-life reverberations on readers.

By Miya Lee

“So what have you learned about love?” people often ask when they find out I’m an editor of Modern Love.

“Oh, you know,” I say, “a lot.” Or, “Most clichés are accurate.” Or I delay, promising, “I’ll tell you later.”

In case we don’t meet again, I’ll tell you now: After 10 years of participating in this unique and precious work alongside my thoughtful boss, Daniel Jones, I’ve learned that love is like a form of energy — sustenance as integral to our existence as food, sunshine and the air we breathe.

And, like energy, I believe love is indestructible, constantly transferred between people, passed down from one generation to the next, durable through time and even death.

Joan Didion was correct when she wrote: “Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Spend two minutes in the Modern Love submission inbox, and you will appreciate life’s fragility. Loved ones suddenly dying or becoming sick; deciding post-affair that they’re done with a two-decade marriage and don’t want any custody of the kids; or revealing a family secret that upends everything.

Just as common, however, are happy happenstances. Falling in love with a man who grew up on the same block as you and worked in the same building, but whom you didn’t meet until a chance midlife encounter. Talking to a stranger on the train who provides sage, unsolicited advice. Or witnessing a hawk — the likes of which you’ve never seen in your neighborhood — swoop down the day you and your wife visit the man who received your late daughter’s organs.

Many therapists insist that we routinely devise narratives about our lives. With Modern Love, I am always struck by a writer’s capacity to take a bad circumstance (or even an ordinary one) and turn it into a profoundly moving, wise or funny story.

Loving — and writing about love — involves choice. The choice to create meaning from raw experience. The choice to be bold and vulnerable, to reach outside yourself, to try to communicate and commune. As bell hooks wrote: “When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.”

Below are eight accounts of how the Modern Love column reverberated in readers’ lives — how people around the world chose to move against alienation and instead see themselves in a stranger.

An orange illustration of a mother and son sitting on a giant piece of pizza floating in space.

“As [my son and I] got our slices of pizza … I began a series of proclamations. ‘I will love you whoever you are. I will love you whatever you choose. I will respect the choices you make.’ He looked at me with eyes wide open, as if wondering if he could believe me … ‘You’re only starting to figure out who you’re going to be,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to be held back by what others think of you. You don’t have to match the people who love you.’”

In 2017 I read “Finding God in a Hot Slice of Pizza” from my flat in London. Though I couldn’t relate to the identity crisis of leaving an orthodox religion, I very much related to the trepidation involved in telling someone something that upends how “things should be,” when in my youth I came out to my family as gay.

I always felt from my mum what the author said to her son that day in the pizzeria. My mum lived in Canada (where I am originally from), and sharing newspaper articles over email was a way we stayed connected before she died last December. I sent her this column the day it was published, thanking her for being the type of parent who loved me unconditionally, always letting me choose what kind of person to be (and pizza to eat).

— Luke Costello, 39, London, Modern Love reader for 15 years

A blue and white illustration of storks carrying babies. One stork has just a blanket, no baby.

“Going to the hospital for a stillbirth is the photographic negative of going for a live birth. You carry the overnight bag, check into a room in the maternity ward and so on. But they put a marker on your door to alert the nurse-midwives that, in this room, things are different.”

“My First Son, a Pure Memory,” was published when I was 12 weeks pregnant with our first child. I had learned earlier that week that our daughter had a very high chance of anencephaly. I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation until the doctor asked if I had brought anyone with me to the appointment — I hadn’t. My husband came quickly, but the devastation had already hit me: Our baby was unlikely to survive.

The article was like a blueprint for our next few weeks. Tests were run, diagnosis confirmed, decisions made. I returned to this author’s words time and again.

What I learned most from these lines was empathy. Knowing that someone else had walked this same, very scary path gave me a sense of comfort, which I was then able to pass on to others. Our daughter Abigail was born still on Oct. 16, 2008.

— Margo Bassett, 46, Minneapolis, Modern Love reader for 20 years

An illustration of a man crouched over a crevasse with a woman clinging to him from below.

“When he swept my body under, pinned me down, I felt the fright I knew all too well and did not care to know again. Then that memory crackled, like a glitch in the matrix, a program being overwritten by another … Wedged under him, as the old dread rose and then subsided in my chest, I realized he had really done it. Like an oyster, he had taken the painful grit of my past into the sanctuary of his embrace and smoothed it over into a pearl he was presenting to me.”

This essay, “Pinned Under the Bodies of Men,” took me by surprise as it articulated exactly the vague and sometimes specific fear so many women, including me, feel about physical intimacy with men. Her tribute to her husband — about how one man loving you with his whole being can transform your fear and pain into healing — gives me hope. Having read this, I feel now that maybe there are good loving men out there. Jerrine Tan, thank you so much.

— Suzanne Taylor, 57, Toronto, Modern Love reader for “probably a decade”

An illustration of a woman using a large leaf blower to blow away her husband and his extra clothes.

“Here’s the thing about marriage. We commit to sticking together for richer or poorer, through sickness and health and during good times and bad, assuming that the tough times are the stress test. But what if it’s the opposite? What if the hard times bring out our best and make us focus on what’s important, while the danger zone is when we grow so complacent that we can afford to obsess over a neglected shirt for eight months?”

When I find myself frustrated over the mundane (my husband didn’t clean up coffee grounds, didn’t put ice in the kids’ drinks and tracked in dust from his many garage projects), I think of the shirt in this gem of a Modern Love column. I think of how he’s supported me through a double mastectomy, my father’s death and a tough career situation. I smile at myself the way the author must have and realize that the very fact I have time to be annoyed by coffee grounds means life is A-OK! And then I sweep them up because I have the world’s best husband and, after all, I’m standing right there with a broom.

— Valerie Charles, 44, Kansas City, Mo., Modern Love reader for 15 years

An illustration of a woman looking at caterpillar in a field.

“I’m now 59 with Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. I still don’t have a partner, but I’ve fallen desperately in love with life. … I use each day to soak up the world’s splendor. ‘Not yet,’ I whisper to the heavens. ‘I love it here.’”

I was unprepared to navigate my life after the sudden, traumatizing death of my husband of more than 30 years to Covid. There were months, perhaps years, of despair, endless weeks of insomnia, numerous empty bottles of hard liquor that bore witness to my life’s downward spiral. Grieving is not for the weak. Grieving in a global pandemic that took your loved one is almost intolerable.

Seeing joy in my loved ones’ smiles, noticing nature’s vibrant, ever-changing beauty, hearing a child’s laugh and feeling butterflies when experiencing my “first kiss” after my last “first kiss” in 1986, are reminders that living a deep and meaningful life also includes sorrow and pain. Clare Cory’s Tiny Love Story reminds me that everyone is facing a battle. Our power to savor the gift of existence reaffirms my choice to forge on and continue writing my life’s story.

— Ellynmarie Theep, 63, Barnet, Vt., Modern Love reader for “five plus years”

An illustration of a woman reading a book with a dog looking over her shoulder.

“Some 24 years ago, I fed my child their first meal of solid food, a teaspoon of Gerber rice cereal flakes mixed with breast milk. Today, I spoon homemade cơm and cá kho between their chapped lips, as they murmur gratitude. Their arms are immobile to protect the line of sutures across their chest … They had top surgery so they can be who they feel deep in their soul. I cook Vietnamese food for their recovery so I can assure them they will always be my child.”

I remember taking a screenshot of “They Will Always Be My Child” long before acknowledging to myself that I want top surgery, too. The story parallels much of my own life, and when I read it now, I imagine it from my own mother’s perspective. When she fed me my first meal after adopting me from China. Her watching the countless tennis matches I played in high school and college. While I haven’t had top surgery yet, it’s comforting to realize that my mom would care for me like the mother who wrote the story.

— Lin Robertson, 26, Sacramento, Modern Love reader for “5+ years”

An illustration of a man and woman cut up by a number of horizontal lines.

“By not calling someone, say, ‘my boyfriend,’ he actually becomes something else, something indefinable. And what we have together becomes intangible. And if it’s intangible it can never end because officially there’s nothing to end. And if it never ends, there’s no real closure, no opportunity to move on.”

Almost 10 years after this essay was written, I still refer to people as being someone’s “Jeremy”: A person who is ill-defined — neither a friend nor a lover. It can seem preferable to be a part of something than nothing at all, but when I was going through a bad breakup (with someone I never actually dated), my friend told me, “Just because he never did anything horrible doesn’t mean you should be with him.”

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that it’s better to take a chance on getting rejected. If not, your relationship will always be in limbo, partially created in your head.

— Victoria Yang, 26, Manhattan, N.Y., Modern Love reader “since college in 2016”

An illustration of a woman reaching for another woman who is falling into a vortex.

“Grief is exactly as painful as you think it will be, but with time you will learn to love your sadness because of the tiny shoots of joy and gratitude that sprout around it, like new growth on scorched earth. … As the sun set in fiery streaks over the mountains, I drove back to my family. When a farmer waved at me from inside a beat-up pickup, I thought about the comfort of sturdy, unglamorous things, my marriage among them.”

As an oncologist, I routinely witness — and experience — grief and loss. I often return to Michelle DuBarry’s words as a source of wisdom and comfort. While grappling with the death of a patient, I think about learning to love the sadness that accumulates within me. When I see my patients receive meticulous care and unwavering support from their families at the end of their lives, I think about the beauty of “sturdy, unglamorous” love. My gratitude to Ms. DuBarry for sharing her wise story with us.

— Neha Verma, 31, Baltimore, Modern Love reader for 10 years

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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My Body Doesn’t Belong to You

— In this essay from 2017, a young woman offers powerful testimony about the damaging effects of men’s possessiveness over women’s bodies.

By Heather Burtman

When the stranger yelled at me from his car window, I was carrying my Zamioculcas zamiifolia, a large tropical plant I had just bought at a greenhouse. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I don’t think he was complimenting my plant.

His words, whatever they were, brought to mind all of the derogatory comments and crude propositions I had heard before, from different car windows and different men: all of the comments about my body and suggestions for what I could do with it. It was as if, once I turned 16, my body no longer belonged to me but to the world at large and to certain men who drove their cars past it.

When I was a little girl, playing shirtless in my family’s garden, my body felt as if it belonged only to me. We had a rectangle-shaped yard out of which we would dig a smaller rectangle, and this dark patch of soil would become our garden. At 5, 6 and 7 years old, my siblings and I laughed as we shook out fat chunks of grass and produced a shower of dirt that went up our noses and down our chests.

I liked the way the dirt felt, all freshly dug, against my skin, and I asked my mother to bury me in it the way she sometimes did at the beach. She buried me halfway, and I smiled and posed for a picture. I liked being that way: a bare, muddy torso with a handful of seeds that I thought might grow carrots and yield a future in which my body was my body. And your body was your body.

Nakedness was swimming in the bay as the sunlight dimmed behind the apple trees, and when we walked down the street and men smiled at us, they didn’t mean it like that.

During my senior year of high school, I went in for my second bra-fitting at J.C. Penney, where the fitter sniffed a little in disapproval when telling me my cup size, as if she were thinking, “How dare you grow those.”

I was now the keeper of this secret: There are sizes beyond DD. You can be an H, for example. That is British sizing. Or a K. That is American sizing. The British make better bras. I was the girl with the big breasts. There were jokes, compliments from female friends, promises that my future boyfriend or husband or lover would have plenty to be happy about.

There were men who ogled. Men who asked, “Are those real?”

I had no answer. I didn’t remember consciously deciding about their size or doing anything about it.

Around then I realized that, in this world, there would be many instances when my body would not feel like my body. When I was in a club and a man grabbed my buttocks and then my hands, trying to pull me in to dance. You can say no 100 times, and he will still pull.

There is the knot of your hands and his, and the harder you pull away, the harder he pulls closer. It is like a game to him, like one of those colorful woven tubes that trap your fingers when you exert opposing forces.

If you are lucky, your friends will yell at him until he lets go. You will stand there stunned, suddenly realizing how sticky the dance floor is, also wondering if they have nice-smelling hand soap in the bathroom, hand soap that smells like summer air, being young, outside. But that is the smell of another world entirely, one that no longer seems to exist.

When I walk to work, and men smile at me along the way, they don’t have nice smiles anymore. “What’s your name?” they say. “Come on, sweetheart, tell me your name.”

They follow me, their footsteps like trees falling. I can feel it in the air, their need to take something from me. It has nothing to do with me in particular, with me as an individual. It has nothing to do with how I was once a fearless, naked gardener with a blue plastic teapot and a collection of Ravensburger puzzles.

If I were to tell them my name, would they remember it? Would they invite me out to a nice dinner and listen as I told them stories about my childhood? Would this be true love?

I can picture the scene now. I’m at brunch with my girlfriends at a place that serves bottomless Bloody Marys and slightly overcooked eggs. After Round 3, we find ourselves on the usual subject: how we met our significant others.

My girlfriends lean in a little closer and say: “Oh Heather, please tell the story again. Tell us how you and Lyle met.”

“Well,” I begin, taking one last sip of Bloody Mary. “I was walking down the street when Lyle drove by and yelled, ‘Hey, baby!’ and asked me to have sex with him. And I thought, ‘This one’s a keeper.’”

Such behavior is not about me. It’s not about love. It’s not even about sex. It is about fear and power. What certain men gain from feeding on such things, I do not know, and I do not want to know.

While traveling in France one year, I held onto my friend’s arm as a man followed us for maybe half a mile, yelling I know not what. There was the glittering river, the stone bridge, the creperie closed for the night. Only the fear really existed.

“We can take him,” I whispered to her. “I mean, if anything happens.”

We marched forward, eyeing the distance between the hunted and the hunter. I was too scared to think and uncertain of how one even got a hold of the police out there.

In Connecticut one day, a man drove past me only to turn around and come back.

“Oh, my God,” I thought. “He came back.” I felt the fear descending upon me the way a colorful parachute does in a childhood game of cat and mouse. He talked, he laughed, he watched me try not to blink. I always blinked. What is the verb? To savor. To luxuriate in torturing another. Sadism.

If someone does this to you, do not give in to the temptation to smile. I tell myself to be the strong woman my mother taught me to be and not smile, but I almost always do.

One man said to me: “Do you know who I am? I am Don Juan, and I am the best lover in the world. See for yourself.”

And I thought: Good for you, sir. Good for you. I smiled at him, laughed even.

Another man on another day stood on the sidewalk in front of me as dusk was falling. He was with his friends, and he reached out his arms and pulled me toward him. And what did I do? “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ve got to go.” Sweet smile. Walk, don’t run. They smell fear. They chase.

I will never be 6 again. I no longer remember what it is like to bask shirtless with a garden against my skin, or for someone to take a picture of my naked torso that they will actually develop at Walgreens. I am 24, and my body makes life dangerous for me. My breasts, my hips, the way I walk. Any woman’s breasts, any woman’s hips, the way any woman walks.

It’s all somehow too tempting. Our full lips or thin lips. Our necks exposed beneath cropped hair, or our long hair, or the split ends we pick at while sitting on the bus. Our pierced or unpierced ears. The infinite circle of belly button winking beneath our shirts. We look too good in our T-shirts and jeans. We look too good bundled up in our coats, carrying houseplants down the street.

When we walk home to our apartments late at night, we carry our keys spread out between our fingers, and we jump at the shadows of shadows. In the daylight, we pretend we were never afraid.

A couple of years ago, in the warmth of summer, I stood naked on a dock, and my body was my body. My two girlfriends were standing naked beside me, and their bodies were their bodies. Our breasts were our breasts. Our clothes were our clothes that we had chosen to wear and chosen to take off, leaving them in warm heaps on the chilled wood next to the damp footprints, which were also ours.

When we jumped into the water, we chose to jump in. The weeds brushed against our bodies obliviously, encircling our fingers and toes and hips with no knowledge of or care about which was which.

We splashed water with our fists and yelled, but if we were afraid, it was only of fish. That thought made us laugh. We saluted the dark, starry, silent sky, and it did not so much as whistle or wink back.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Shakespeare’s Obsession With Queer Desire

William Shakespeare Memorial Statue at Westminster Abbey in London, England.

By Will Tosh

Where should we look for an LGBTQ+ icon from the Elizabethan age? How about the playwright Christopher Marlowe, a dissident who scorned those “that love not tobacco and boys” and wrote a historical tragedy about England’s queer king Edward II? Or have you heard of Moll Frith, the gender-nonconforming cutpurse and entertainer who was so famous that their story was told on the public stage in The Roaring Girl (1611)? Both are indisputable queer stars of the period. But let’s not overlook the era’s presiding genius. If we want to find the greatest Elizabethan artist of same-sex feeling we need to head straight to the top of the pile: my standout queer hero is William Shakespeare.

Such a statement merits some historical qualification about terminology (“queer” is of course a modern umbrella term for the broad spectrum of same-sex desires), and you might now be expecting firm evidence of his—and in effect his characters’—queerness. But looking for the equivalent of a smoking gun in arguments about Shakespeare’s sexuality is a hollow pursuit. This wasn’t a time of cut-and-dried sexual identities.

But that doesn’t mean queer desire is a modern invention. For too long, debates about the erotic lives (and erotic imaginations) of esteemed historical figures have been conducted in the manner of a prosecution: great men and women are always straight until proven gay—and that proof had better sweep aside any reasonable doubt.

But we’ve grown out of criminal prosecution of queer desire in our own time, and as we shed some of the chilly inheritances of 18th and 19th century attitudes to sex and gender, we might be surprised by what we find in the more distant past. While early modern England was certainly no queer utopia, Shakespeare’s culture and society made much more space for the articulation of same-sex desire than we might expect.

English law constrained people’s sex lives in complex ways. The Buggery Act of 1533 outlawed “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery committed with mankind or beast,” but also laid down stringent evidentiary requirements for prosecution: the full act had to be independently witnessed for the actor or their partner to be convicted in court. The number of people successfully prosecuted for consensual sodomy in Shakespeare’s lifetime was, therefore, vanishingly small. Barely anyone was labelled a “sodomite” by law during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. And nothing else on the queer sexual menu fell under that statute—all other forms of illicit erotic coupling, from kissing to non-penetrative sex, were transgressive by religion and custom, but not law.

While the Church of England was aggressively hostile to queer sexuality of all kinds, the actual instruments of religious doctrine—the ecclesiastical magistracy, also known as the ‘Bawdy Courts’—were mostly overburdened with dealing with the consequences of straight fornication. Very few men or women found themselves facing the parish courts charged with same-sex misconduct, for all that preachers in the pulpit liked to thunder against “the use that nature abhorreth.”

It was in this vacuum of surveillance and punishment that Shakespeare wrote some of his most stirringly homoerotic work. His same-sex love sonnets (first published in 1609) were a radical queering of the form, an innovation that Shakespeare borrowed from his contemporary Richard Barnfield, whose own homoerotic collection appeared in 1595. Shakespeare’s narrator explores his passionate, compulsive desire for a “lovely boy” across 126 poems. If there’s a characteristic mood to Shakespeare’s dozens of queer sonnets, it’s yearning. The speaker’s desire is erotic, chivalric, metaphysical, semi-religious, self-abasing, teasing and sometimes joltingly coarse: in Sonnet 20 Shakespeare jokes that the boy’s penis serves the same purpose as a woman’s vagina, a sexual part designed to entice and excite other men.

Shakespeare investigated the broad range of homoerotic affect in his plays. Male same-sex relations existed on a scale that stretched from the civic-minded platonic friendship of men of affairs such as Brutus and Cassius (Julius Caesar) to something altogether, well, hornier in nature. In Twelfth Night Shakespeare depicted an intensely eroticised queer relationship between Sebastian (twin brother to shipwrecked Viola) and the sea-captain Antonio. The two men experience a whirlwind romance that engenders a “desire, / More sharp than filed steel” between the grizzled sea-dog and the epicene youngster. And despite his society’s suspicion of female sexuality, Shakespeare understood that women harboured queer desire that was just as powerful as men’s. In The Two Noble Kinsmen (co-written with John Fletcher) the heroine Emilia recalls her devotion to a long-dead female lover. As she admits, the passion in “true love [be]tween maid and maid may be / More than in sex dividual” (i.e., between the two sexes).

Classical influence was never far away. Shakespeare’s first published work, the erotic poem Venus and Adonis, drew its story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a treasure trove of polymorphous desire and kink sexuality. Shakespeare rewrote Ovid’s brief account of the young huntsman’s resistance to the Goddess of Love into a thousand line mini-epic that invited his mostly-male readership to imagine themselves in the role of Venus the rough seducer, compelling the limpidly pretty Adonis to give in to her desires (a fantasy that also gave heteroerotic pleasure to female readers).

Homoerotic material was easy to find in the bookstalls, but the real center of queer culture in Shakespeare’s London was the playhouse. The all-male stage was a recognized site of transgressive eroticism. For some observers this was a catastrophe: the anti-theatrical campaigner William Prynne, writing some years after Shakespeare’s death, castigated “men’s putting on of women’s apparel” as a “preparative” to the “most abominable, unnatural sin of Sodom.” But the majority of theatregoers either thought otherwise, or didn’t mind. Boy actors, like actresses of the Restoration stage, attracted devoted followers and sexualised attention from men that must often have been unwelcome.

Dramatists willingly exploited the homoerotic energies of the early modern theatre. The playwright John Lyly was probably the first to leverage the queer theatricality of the boy-playing-a-girl-disguised-as-a-boy trope, in which the real body of the young male actor was incorporated into the romantic narrative on stage. Shakespeare learned from Lyly: his disguised heroines (in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Cymbeline) all have moments when they reflect on the erotic confusion caused by their layered performance of gender.

Perhaps because of such storylines, the early modern playhouse acquired a reputation as a site of gender nonconformity for performers and audience members alike. In 1617 a satirist claimed to be horrified at the sight of “a woman of the masculine gender” taking a seat in the Blackfriars; the debates that erupted in the early seventeenth century about the behaviour of allegedly masculine women and effeminate men on the streets of London identified the theatre as a contributing factor to these social transgressions.

Ultimately, whether or not Shakespeare would have described himself as gay, straight, bi, or any other modern sexual identity isn’t really the point (and is, in any case, a redundant speculation: he didn’t have access to those terms). More compelling is the realization that Shakespeare was artistically obsessed with queer desire, imbuing his plays and poems with a homoerotic dynamic that clearly found a gratified audience.

Some Shakespeare fans today will resist the urge to draw an association between the feelings in his work, and the feelings the man harbored in his own soul (and it is true that he was not, as far as we know, afflicted with murderous desire for the crown of Scotland, for instance). But it’s exciting to think about  the possibility—the likelihood—that Shakespeare’s queer interest arose out of queer emotion—that his queer art was born from a queer artistic self.

It’s time to make space for Shakespeare in the queer chorus line of history, a cast we’re still populating as scholars and biographers look back at past lives and ask fresh questions about the way our ancestors understood desire, sexuality and identity. Old dead gays won’t have looked or sounded precisely like the gloriously rich range of people in the LGBTQIA+ communities today, but our shared histories of queer feeling trace a powerful line back into the past. And looking back, we find Shakespeare.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Six Signs You Should Go To Sex Therapy

— Psycho-Sexologist and host of Audible’s ‘Sex Therapy’ podcast, Chantelle Otten, on how it could improve your life.

By Chantelle Otten

If your sex life feels like it’s missing something—be it connection, pleasure, or understanding—it might be time to consider sex therapy. Often misunderstood, sex therapy is a powerful, judgement-free space that’s all about fostering deeper connections, improving communication, and embracing sexual confidence. No one knows this quite like psycho-sexologist and relationship expert Chantelle Otten, whose Audible Original podcast Sex Therapy takes listeners inside her sessions with anonymous, real-life patients. Whether you’re seeking guidance about mismatched libidos or simply after a better understanding of your body and needs, scroll on for the key signs that sex therapy could help you unlock a more fulfilling, empowered sexual life, according to Chantelle.

sex therapy 101

How can sex therapy contribute to one’s overall emotional wellbeing and personal growth?

Sex therapy can have a profound impact on emotional wellbeing and personal growth. Our sexuality is deeply connected to how we feel about ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. When we’re able to explore and understand our desires, boundaries, and experiences without shame, it opens up space for greater self-awareness and confidence.

Through sex therapy, people can work through feelings of insecurity, past trauma, or relationship challenges that might be holding them back. By addressing these issues, they often find that not only does their sexual health improve, but so does their overall sense of self. It’s about giving people the tools to connect more deeply—with themselves and with others—leading to more fulfilling relationships, better communication, and ultimately, personal growth.

It’s empowering to realise that sexual health is an integral part of emotional wellbeing, and therapy helps people embrace that in a healthy, balanced way.

What are some common misconceptions about sex therapy that might deter people from seeking help?

One of the most common misconceptions about sex therapy is that it’s only for people with extreme issues or dysfunctions, but that’s far from the truth. Sex therapy is for anyone who wants to improve their relationship with their sexual self or their partner. People often assume they’ll be judged, or that it will be awkward, but it’s really about creating a safe, supportive space where they can explore their concerns without fear or shame.

Another misconception is that sex therapy is purely focused on the mechanics of sex. In reality, so much of what we work on is emotional—communication, self-esteem, intimacy, and understanding how past experiences shape current dynamics. It’s about the whole person, not just the physical aspect of sex.

Lastly, some people worry that coming to sex therapy means something is “wrong” with them, but it’s really about growth and empowerment. Seeking help is a positive, proactive step towards better understanding and enhancing your sexual health and relationships.

In what ways can sex therapy address issues beyond sex?

Sex therapy can actually address a wide range of issues that extend beyond just the physical aspects of sex. A lot of the work we do is centred around emotional connection, self-esteem, communication, and intimacy. For example, many people come in thinking their concerns are purely sexual, but often it’s linked to stress, anxiety, or unresolved emotional trauma. By working through these underlying issues, we can help people feel more secure in themselves and their relationships, which has a ripple effect on their overall wellbeing.

We also explore relationship dynamics—how partners interact, communicate, and express their needs. These skills translate into other areas of life, like building stronger emotional resilience and improving self-awareness. It’s about learning to connect with yourself and others in a more meaningful, authentic way, which ultimately enhances both your sexual and emotional life. So while the focus might start with sex, the impact of therapy can be much broader.

How does sex therapy integrate with other forms of therapy or counselling to provide a well-rounded approach to mental health?

Sex therapy often works hand-in-hand with other forms of therapy or counselling, creating a more holistic approach to mental health. Our sexual wellbeing is deeply intertwined with our emotional, psychological, and relational health, so it’s important to treat the whole person. If a client is already working with a psychologist or counsellor, sex therapy can complement that by focusing specifically on the sexual and relational aspects of their life.

For instance, if someone is dealing with anxiety, depression, or trauma, those issues often impact their sexual experiences or how they connect with a partner. In sex therapy, we can work through those concerns in a way that addresses both the emotional and sexual sides of things. By integrating approaches, we create a safe, cohesive space where clients can explore all aspects of their mental health without compartmentalising one part of their life from another. It’s all about treating the person as a whole, not just focusing on isolated symptoms.

What role does open communication play in the success of sex therapy, and how is this cultivated in sessions?

Open communication is absolutely essential to the success of sex therapy. So much of the work we do revolves around helping people feel comfortable enough to express their needs, desires, and boundaries—often for the first time. In therapy, we create a space where clients feel safe to talk openly without fear of judgement or shame, which is key to making progress.

In sessions, this is cultivated by encouraging honest, non-confrontational dialogue. We explore how to communicate clearly and compassionately with both yourself and your partner. For couples, it’s about learning how to listen and express themselves in a way that strengthens the relationship, rather than causing misunderstandings. We also talk about practical strategies, like using “I” statements or slowing down conversations to really understand what each person is saying.

Over time, these communication tools become part of the client’s daily life, not just in the therapy room. The more open and honest you can be, the deeper the connection you can build with your partner—and with yourself.

How can individuals or couples know when it’s the right time to seek sex therapy?

The right time to seek sex therapy isn’t just when you’re facing issues—it’s also when you want to learn more about sex, explore new sides of your sexual self, or deepen your connection with your partner. Sex therapy can be an empowering space to explore the fun side of things, gain valuable education, and understand more about your desires and boundaries. Whether you’re curious about enhancing intimacy, improving communication, or just wanting to feel more confident in your sexual experiences, therapy can help.

Of course, if communication around intimacy starts breaking down, or you’re noticing recurring issues like mismatched libidos or sexual dysfunction, that’s a sign it might be time to explore things further. But even if you’re not dealing with big concerns, sex therapy is also about growth, education, and discovering what feels good for you.

It’s all about taking a proactive step, whether it’s to resolve an issue or simply to learn and grow in your sexual wellbeing.

What are some of the most significant barriers people face when considering sex therapy, and how can they be overcome?

One of the biggest barriers people face when considering sex therapy is the fear of judgement or shame. Talking about sex can feel vulnerable, and many people worry that their concerns will be seen as abnormal or embarrassing. To overcome this, it’s important to remember that sex therapists are trained to create a safe, non-judgmental space where these topics are handled with sensitivity and care. Everyone’s experiences and challenges are valid, and seeking support is a positive step towards growth.

Another common barrier is the misconception that sex therapy is only for people with major issues. Many people think they need to wait until something goes seriously wrong to seek help. In reality, sex therapy is for anyone looking to improve their sexual health, whether that’s addressing concerns or simply learning more about sex and intimacy. Normalising therapy as part of a healthy lifestyle can make it easier to take that first step.

Lastly, some people might feel hesitant due to cultural or societal taboos around sex. Overcoming this involves recognising that sexual health is just as important as physical or mental health, and that seeking help is a way to enhance overall wellbeing. The more we talk openly about sexual health, the less intimidating it becomes.

How has the field of sex therapy evolved in recent years?

The field of sex therapy has evolved significantly in recent years, becoming much more inclusive, open, and attuned to the complexities of human sexuality. There’s a greater emphasis now on recognising the diversity of sexual experiences, from different sexual orientations and gender identities to non-traditional relationship structures like polyamory or open relationships. This shift has made therapy more accessible and welcoming to a broader range of people.

We’re also seeing more integration of mental health and sexual health, recognising that these two are deeply connected. Conversations around anxiety, trauma, and body image are often part of sex therapy now, as people understand that emotional wellbeing plays a huge role in sexual satisfaction and connection.

Another big change is the move towards normalising sex therapy as not just a last resort, but as a proactive and educational resource. More people are seeking therapy to enhance their sexual experiences, improve communication, and explore pleasure—not just to address problems. The field is growing to reflect the understanding that sexual health is a key part of overall well being, and that’s been a really exciting development.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Breaking the virginity myth

— How gender shapes the double standard

By Radhya Comar

Already-chewed gum, tape that has lost its stickiness and an unwrapped lollipop are not just random remnants of an office dustbin but a collection of metaphors. These metaphors compare women who have been sexually active before marriage to objects that have lost their purpose—essentially, trash. This striking comparison highlights the harsh reality of gender norms surrounding sexual activity. Such metaphors have often been used to discourage women from engaging in premarital sex to preserve their virginity.

Of course, not all figures of speech take such a reductive view of women’s bodies. In the opening scene of the acclaimed TV show Jane the Virgin, a young Jane holds a white rose. Her grandmother instructs her to crumple the flower and then try to restore it, using the wrinkled petals as a warning that she can “never go back” once her virginity is lost. Although roses generally symbolize beauty and femininity, this ritual still reduces women to mere objects and frames sex as inherently destructive.

This notion is one that many women carry into adulthood. Virginity is often seen as a valuable asset, while sex is perceived as something that diminishes that value. This belief can prevent women from exploring their sexuality and can limit access to comprehensive sexual education. Topics such as consent, STDs and contraception are less likely to be discussed when sex is regarded as inherently taboo. When a woman’s sexual status is considered integral to her worth, there may also be pressure to prove one’s virginity—an impossible task given that, biologically, virginity does not exist.

Many mistakenly believe that virginity is linked to the hymen, a thin tissue at the opening of the vagina. This misconception stems from the widespread idea that a woman’s first experience of penetration results in the hymen breaking and bleeding, serving as a sort of “virginity test.” However, for many, the hymen can break without any noticeable symptoms. A 2004 study of sexually active young women concluded that there were “no identifiable changes to the hymenal tissue” in 52 per cent of participants. Despite this, the myth persists, and women around the world may feel pressured to prove their so-called purity.

Although men face no equivalent virginity test, purity culture still influences their sexual identity. It is not only women who grow up with the idea that sex affects their value as human beings. When men internalize such beliefs, they may find themselves reducing both their own and others’ worth to sexual history. This attitude can affect even those who do not engage in sexual activities; numerous men admit to feeling shame and anxiety over not having had sex.

Even though virginity is now widely recognized as a social construct, the idea still impacts many individuals today. For women, purity culture often pressures them to preserve their virginity. For men, the dynamics of hookup culture can push them in the opposite direction. The push and pull between these two can have disastrous consequences. While a man may be ridiculed for inexperience, a woman may feel shunned for promiscuity. Both circumstances feed into purity culture, hindering individuals from seeking the support they require. In other words, it can prevent both men and women from asking questions about safe sex and consent. Moreover, the concept of virginity can force individuals to focus on the aftermath rather than the experience itself.  These stigmas that can be carried over time, eventually turning into generational cycles which condemn sexuality as a whole.

Navigating the concept of virginity can be just as tricky as navigating relationships or sexuality itself. However, it reflects our relationship with ourselves—our thoughts, feelings, desires, and ultimately, our choices.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!