Tag: Sex Education

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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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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↩!

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An important piece is missing from the reproductive freedom debate

— Comprehensive sex education

By Meg Bartlett-Chase

During the recent debate with Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance alluded once again to the myth of “post-birth abortions” when he referenced his (mis)understanding of Minnesota’s reproductive health care laws. He claimed that Walz signed a bill that allows “a doctor who presides over an abortion, where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late term abortion.”

Vance seemingly referred to the 2023 Legislature’s repeal of the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act.” The new law now allows parents to hold and show love to their infants born with fetal abnormalities often incompatible with life, while no longer mandating doctors perform medical interventions that have no chance of success.

This follows the presidential debate during which Donald Trump repeated his claim that abortions are being performed post-birth. While moderator Linsey Davis quickly fact-checked, “There is no state in the country where it is legal to kill a baby after it was born,” there remain voters who believe these harmful myths about abortion care. While fear and misplaced trust play a role, insufficient sex education policies lay the foundation that allows such persistent misunderstanding of pregnancy and abortion.

Thirty states require sex education, but 17 of them mandate an abstinence-only approach. Just three states both require sex education and establish that the education must be comprehensive (e.g., curriculum inclusive of a wide range of sexual, gender and relationship heath topics not limited to abstinence).

Unfortunately, Minnesota is not one of them — our state laws currently require only that schools teach sex education; that it is “technically accurate”; and that it covers abstinence.

Across the country, the state of sex education is not an accident.

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, opposition to abortion rights has gone hand in hand with dismantling sex education in public schools. It began with the 1970’s emergence of the Christian right in backlash to the era’s sexual revolution, and it’s continued to current day Project 2025. In each case, anti-abortion sentiments have accompanied restrictions on sex education under the umbrella of “family values.” These values often resulted in support for abstinence-only sex education, which prevents youth from accessing information about sexuality and pregnancy that does not involve waiting to have sex until marriage.

Anti-abortion advocates know that increased understanding of sex, reproduction and pregnancy encourages support for reproductive freedoms. Twenty-five states have either banned abortion or restricted it beyond what Roe v. Wade allowed before its fall in 2022. Meanwhile, in 2024, over 450 bills have been introduced around the country intending to restrict or remove sex education content or instruction from schools. Many of the states where the most restrictive sex education bills have been introduced — and passed — are states with abortion bans and restrictions.

The purposeful attacks on sex education in schools is exceptionally upsetting considering the consistent findings that high quality sex education reduces rates of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, while also improving social/emotional learning, increasing media literacy, and developing skills for preventing partner violence and fostering healthy relationships.

But anti-abortion politicians aren’t the only ones who realize this connection. Researchers presenting at the 2024 Southern Political Science Association Conference shared that knowledge about pregnancy “is significantly associated with more (pro-abortion rights) attitudes.” That relationship proved strong across study participants’ political beliefs and religious identities — both of which are often presented as main sources of abortion rights opinions.

Lack of pregnancy knowledge allows space for anti-abortion activists to frame abortion as a moral issue instead of a health care necessity. Take Ed Martin, a Republican Party platform leader at the 2024 RNC, who previously claimed on his podcast, Pro America, that “No abortion is ever performed to save the life of the mother — none, zero, zilch.” This rhetoric negates all the health complications of pregnancy, as well as the life-saving care required to treat them. The complexity and risks of pregnancy — like ectopic pregnancies that cannot be safely carried to term or preexisting health issues made more deadly by the bodily changes of growing a fetus — are too great to legislate in a way that allows true care for any and all who need, and yes choose, to access it.

Despite its widespread support, sex education is rarely included in the advocacy of reproductive rights organizations. Abortion rights are popular in this country, but not as popular as school-based sex education. While 67% of Americans support legal abortion in most or all cases, nearly 89% of Americans — and 90% of parents — believe sexual health education should be in schools. Notably, when Black women lead on abortion rights, they more often advocate for reproductive as well as parenting justice that includes sex education advocacy. The rest of us should take note.

This means taking a broader view of what advocating for reproductive rights looks like. Our methods for supporting pro-abortion rights candidates and organizations appear clear, but supporting sex education in our communities, states, and country requires a slightly different approach.

Education policies come from federal funding and standards, state laws, educational department standards, and local school districts. As the election looms and the school year has begun, consider the candidates at every level — especially the school board — on your ballot. While candidates and advocates are much more openly discussing abortion, sex education remains laden with the perception of controversy and stigma.

We can advance access to sexual health information that students need and deserve by talking about sex education and pushing candidates to do the same. This could be at school board meetings, town halls, caucuses, or by contacting candidates directly. Organizations like Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, or SIECUS, and state-based nonprofits provide opportunities to use your voice for true reproductive freedom that can only come from informed and sexually literate communities.

Ensuring reproductive rights for future generations requires more than fighting for abortion access today. It means advocating for sex education policies that will prevent us from falling into traps of disinformation for decades to come.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How sex cemented (and stigmatized) the gay community

— The history of discrimination and persecution against the LGBTQ+ community led many people to seek safe meeting spaces

A march for LGBTQ+ rights in New York City in 1994, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

By Álex Maroño Porto

Nico is a 30-year-old American who moved to Pamplona, in the north of Spain, to study. During his interview with EL PAÍS, he prefers that his real name not be revealed. For Nico, sex and romantic love don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. After coming out in 2019, he gradually adopted a prosexual vision that largely involves relationships between queer men — those whose gender identities or sexual orientation differ from the norm.

“Sex isn’t just what we’ve been protecting for centuries through religious and cultural norms, as something meant only for procreation,” he explains over the phone. “Sex isn’t something that should be set aside when we talk about queerness: it’s something central to us.”

Heterosexual culture has been marked by monogamy as almost the only acceptable relationship model. But LGBTQ+ peoples have had more freedom when it comes to exploring their emotional bonds. For queer men, sex has been able to serve as a catalyst for community formation. It’s a practice that — due to its visibility and its break with the established order — has been the object of intense social persecution, even today. In the United States, for example, four states prohibited sexual relations between people of the same sex until 2003, under the so-called “sodomy laws.” And, just two years ago, Iran publicly executed two men for engaging in a sexual relationship with each other.

Among queer men, the meaning of sex goes beyond the time spent with another person — or other people — in a bed. Or in the bathrooms of a nightclub. Or even outdoors. The importance of sex for the community has a clear historical trajectory. One of the reasons was the repression of homosexuality, says Gabriel J. Martín, a psychologist and author of several books on LGBTQ+ topics. When queer spaces didn’t exist due to institutional criminalization, sex with strangers became a safe way to satisfy desire.

“It was preferable that these were anonymous encounters, because — as it was prohibited — if the other person was arrested, at no time could they give you up [to the authorities], because they didn’t know who you were,” Martín writes to EL PAÍS via WhatsApp.

In the 1970s, with the emergence of the Gay Liberation Movement, sex laid the foundation for the nascent queer community. Men began to build what would become a social movement forged, in part, through sexual relations.

Philip Hammack is a professor of psychology at the University of California. During a phone conversation with EL PAÍS, he explains that the growing number of queer spaces — especially after the Stonewall riots in 1969, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City — was essential. “All that furtive sex that happened in bathrooms and in hidden spaces could be integrated into real institutions: gay bars, saunas and sex clubs,” Hammack notes. He’s the co-editor of The Story of Sexual Identity: Narrative Perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life Course (2009).

The HIV epidemic put an end to these prosexual attitudes. While the importance of sex between queer men never disappeared, the social openness of the 1970s was replaced by the rejection of the prosexual vision that characterized that era. “Sex became linked to disease,” says Michael Bronski, a professor at Harvard University and author of A Queer History of the United States (2011). “We spent years trying to figure out how to avoid that and how to separate it completely in our imagination.”

Hammock recalls how, in the 15 years from the first cases in 1981 to the approval of antiretroviral treatments, a positive diagnosis meant — in large part — a condemnation. Although condoms and non-penetrative sex greatly reduced the chances of infection, moralistic discourse prevailed: sex and promiscuity took on a sordid meaning. You could try to be gay, but only within the margins of heteronormative respectability.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis — known as PrEP — changed everything. The World Health Organization began recommending its use in mid-2014. This treatment, adopted in countries such as the United States and Spain in recent years, prevents HIV infection by 99%. This success has brought non-normative sexual relations back to the center of the LGBTQ+ conversation. Thanks to this extra barrier of protection, queer men “can finally fulfill their desires free from the anxiety of possible death,” Hammack concludes. Sex has recovered its historical place as a relational tool, causing a cultural revolution that has socially legitimized sexual practices beyond the traditional relational model of monogamy.

Gay liberation movement
Two members of the Gay Liberation Movement in New York in 1970.

Excluded from the institution of marriage until recently, LGBTQ+ people have explored sexual relationships more freely than their straight counterparts. This is especially the case with women, Bronski says. And these non-monogamous ways of relating are more present in mainstream conversation than ever before. A 2021 study by Chapman University and the Kinsey Institute found that people who identify as gay or bisexual have practiced consensual non-monogamy more frequently than heterosexuals.

According to Christopher Stults, a professor at Baruch College, open relationships are, in some cases, the metropolitan queer standard… at least in large American cities. Eric Anderson, a professor at the University of Winchester and author of The Monogamy Gap (2011), believes that the monogamous ideal still marks LGBTQ+ relationships, although it’s an unsustainable utopia in the long term. “Men have more sexual desire than women; they always want more sexual partners,” he explains over the phone. In a two-man couple, he emphasizes, time leads to non-monogamous patterns, even if “they never acknowledge that they’re in an open relationship because of the stigma.”

In any case, relationships between gay men don’t seem to be marked by the search for sex with others. According to a study published in 2018 in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45.3% of queer men who were in a relationship were in a monogamous relationship. Tyrel Starks, a professor of psychology at Hunter College and co-author of the study, says that replacing the monogamous sexual standard with a single alternative reduces the diversity of relational patterns among queer men.

“If we declare that monogamy belongs to heterosexuals, in a way, we’re accepting a rather homophobic narrative,” he tells EL PAÍS over the phone. For some queer men, the importance of sex lies in forging community with others or satisfying a sexual appetite, while for others, it’s a way to be intimate with a single partner. Any “rigid normative structure” regarding queer sex “is potentially problematic.”

The sexual openness that characterizes queer men implies accepting diversity in the multiple meanings of sex… so long as one’s own terms are clear. “We will continue to explore the possibilities that feelings and sexual desire offer us,” Martín adds. “We’re the advance guard; whatever is happening with [LGBTQ+ people] right now in relation to sexuality will happen with the heterosexual population in two decades.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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5 reasons why abortion is health care

— Access to safe abortion care has a real impact on people’s lives and health, from preventing unsafe abortions and complications to upholding bodily autonomy.

A patient speaks with a midwife at Chingussura health center in Beira, where MSF connects hard-to-reach communities with safe abortion care and other sexual and reproductive health services.

At Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), we consider safe abortion care a critical part of our sexual and reproductive health care services—one that can save lives and support the well-being of our patients.

Our teams around the world work in countries with varying laws and cultural views on abortion. Every day, MSF staff see firsthand how access to safe abortion care has a real impact on people’s lives and health.  Anyone who seeks an abortion—no matter their reason—is deserving of high-quality and dignified care. When patients can access safe abortion care in their communities, the risk of complications related to unsafely induced abortion significantly decreases. There are instances in which safe abortion care is medically necessary to preserve an individual’s health and well-being, or even save their life. As health providers, MSF is committed to upholding medical ethics and person-centered care, which includes access to safe abortion.

1. Abortion is a common health procedure worldwide

More than half of all unintended pregnancies in the world end in abortion, whether spontaneously (referred to as miscarriage) or as the result of a deliberate intervention. People all over the world seek abortions when they do not wish to be pregnant. Chances are, someone close to you has had an abortion.

  • 73 million induced abortions occur around the world each year
  • 45 percent of abortions worldwide are unsafe, the vast majority in low- and middle-income countries
  • Abortion is common: 6 in 10 unintended pregnancies end in abortion, and 3 in 10 out of all pregnancies
  • MSF provided 54,500 consultations for safe abortion care around the world in 2023
  • Policy restrictions, health inequities, stigma, and misperceptions can inhibit access to safe abortion care
  • Unsafe abortion is a significant contributor to maternal mortality worldwide, causing an estimated 22,800 – 31,000 deaths each year

Safe abortion care

An abortion is considered safe if the person providing or supporting the abortion is trained and an evidence-based method that is appropriate to the pregnancy duration is used. MSF’s medical projects provide abortion in alignment with these criteria. In general, MSF personnel use medication abortion or manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) to provide care. These methods are extremely safe and effective in ending a pregnancy. In fact, abortion is safer than many common health services, including a shot of penicillin and tooth extraction.

MSF also supports self-managed abortion. This refers to a method in which an individual takes abortion medications outside of a medical setting. Self-managed abortion is just as safe and effective as a facility-based approach if the person has access to accurate information, quality medications, and respectful support throughout the process, if desired. It also increases access to safe abortion care for marginalized and underrepresented people, and those who live far away from health care facilities. Self-care interventions like self-managed abortion uphold patient’s bodily autonomy and support them to make decisions about and take the lead in their own care.

For more information on the methods utilized by MSF to provide safe abortion care, you can visit our medical guidelines: medicalguidelines.msf.org.

A safe abortion with pills is over 95 percent effective and is extremely safe, with less than a 1 percent chance of severe complications. Mozambique 2023

2. Safe abortion care saves lives

Pregnant people in crisis-affected settings are at greater risk of experiencing adverse health outcomes. In some cases, abortion is necessary to save the person’s life or preserve their health.

Lifesaving care

“A few years ago, I was on assignment with MSF in a country where access to abortion is heavily restricted. One night a woman came in, bleeding heavily, with a life-threatening pregnancy complication.

“The team gathered to discuss the best way to help our patient. In order to save her life, we needed to help her end the pregnancy safely. Not everyone on the team agreed with abortion. But despite our different values and convictions, we were united by a fundamental truth: that we were all there to save this patient’s life and limit her suffering.

 

When people are denied access to safe abortion care, they are at higher risk of resorting to unsafe methods that can lead to severe or life-threatening complications. Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal mortality, causing an estimated 22,800—31,000 maternal deaths per year, worldwide.

What makes an abortion unsafe

According to the World Health Organization, an abortion is unsafe if the person providing the abortion does not have the necessary skills or if the abortion takes place in an environment that does not meet minimal medical standards.

Health consequences of unsafe abortions

Safe abortion care is not resource-intensive to provide. When safe abortion is legal and accessible, complications are rare and generally do not require complex treatment.

However, complications due to unsafely induced abortion require emergency care to prevent long-term health consequences and death. At MSF, we regularly see patients experiencing severe and life-threatening conditions and injuries due to unsafe abortion, including severe hemorrhage, sepsis (severe general infection), poisoning, uterine perforation, or damage to other internal organs. Some patients die before arriving at a hospital; others need major surgery to survive, and some are left permanently disabled.

Resorting to unsafe abortion

“There were two young girls from the same family—both 15 years old and pregnant. They wanted to continue with their schooling. So, after getting advice from their friends, they secretly went into the bush looking for traditional herbs.

“They prepared the herbs and drank them, thinking that this remedy would cause an abortion. The girls began to have abdominal complications. Their bellies became swollen. They were in pain. They were crying.

“Their parents took them to the hospital. Both girls died within minutes of each other. They died as a result of poisoning from the traditional plants they used to induce abortion. This happens a lot here.

3. Legal and policy barriers to abortion negatively affect people’s health and well-being

Laws and policies restricting or banning access to safe abortion do not reduce abortion-seeking behavior, nor do they affect the need for care, or protect people from complications related to unsafe abortion.

The impact of abortion-related legal and policy restrictions on patients’ health

In contexts when abortion is illegal or otherwise restricted through laws or policies, individuals carrying an unintended pregnancy may have no choice but to resort to unsafe abortion methods. When abortion is criminalized, individuals are less likely to seek timely medical attention if complications occur due to fears of prosecution. In one year, MSF treated more than 2,800 cases of unsafely induced abortion in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A study of MSF health facilities in DRC found that women and girls experiencing abortion-related complications delayed accessing care due to fears of legal and societal repercussions.

The criminalization of abortion has broader harmful implications for health providers and personnel as it may also impede sexual and reproductive health service delivery more generally. A study by MSF and partners on unsafe abortion morbidity and mortality in Nigeria found that providers working in contexts restrictive toward safe abortion care could be cautious to support access to other sexual and reproductive health services. Among providers surveyed in Nigeria, 79 percent reported that they would seek spousal consent before providing patients with contraception, and 60 of providers would seek parental consent for contraception if the patient was a minor. When asked the same question about post-abortion care—92 percent of providers said they would seek spousal consent, and 88 percent said they would seek parental consent if the patient was a minor.

If a health provider has to evaluate legal and criminal risks before providing a patient with care, the resulting delay could be dangerous for the patient’s health and well-being, especially in emergencies. Restrictive laws and policies on abortion worsen health equities by creating barriers to safe abortion care that disproportionately impact marginalized and underrepresented people.

Restrictive laws and policies on abortion worsen health equities by creating barriers to safe abortion care that disproportionately impact marginalized and underrepresented people.

In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedent recognizing abortion access as a constitutional right set by Roe v. Wade in 1973. MSF is concerned that the loss of the constitutional right to abortion in the US will lead to terrible health outcomes for all people who can become pregnant, particularly people of color and those with limited resources to access care in states where abortion is not restricted.

Although decriminalization and the elimination of legal and policy restrictions to abortion are important steps, they do not alone guarantee the availability of safe abortion care, particularly in places in which abortion was previously legally prohibited or heavily restricted. Health systems respond slowly and inconsistently to change and persisting knowledge gaps and resistance from health workers may hinder access to safe abortion care. In some cases, people may not be aware of their options for safe abortion care or how to access it. In Colombia, for example, despite significant decriminalization of abortion over a decade ago, MSF teams working in the port cities of Buenaventura and Tumaco have found general ignorance about the current scope of safe abortion care, including among health care workers.

Safe abortion should be legal and regulated like any other medical procedure to ensure that all people have access to essential care.

4. Abortion is an essential component of sexual and reproductive health

Access to safe abortion care is a critical, lifesaving part of sexual and reproductive health care, one that safely supports patients who do not wish to be pregnant. In the settings where MSF works, safe abortion care is an effective intervention to prevent maternal mortality and suffering.

Sexual and reproductive health services at MSF

Providing sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion care and post-abortion care, has long been part of our health programming. In 2023, MSF teams around the world provided 54,500 consultations for safe abortion care, the majority in African countries, along with 31,000 consultations for post-abortion care, most taking place in Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, and Bangladesh.

In addition to providing safe abortion and post-abortion care, MSF provides contraceptive counseling and access to a range of contraceptive methods. Our projects provide a variety of contraceptive methods to help patients prevent unintended pregnancy and/or STI transmission. MSF aims to provide the full range of contraceptives, including implants, intrauterine devices, injectables, oral contraceptive pills, condoms, and emergency contraception.

Even when individuals have access to contraception, they can still experience an unintended pregnancy and require access to safe abortion care.

Access to quality contraceptive care, including accurate information and a mix of methods, can be an important and positive force in the lives of patients, their families, and communities. At the same time, increasing access to contraceptives must always be accompanied by respect for contraceptive autonomy, wherein patients are supported in their decision regarding whether to use contraception, which methods to use or not use, when to use them, and when to not use them. This means that we support patients to decide for themselves what they want regarding contraceptive use and help them achieve that.

Contraception is not, however, a replacement for safe abortion care. Even when individuals have access to contraception, they can still experience an unintended pregnancy and require access to safe abortion care. As part of our commitment to medical ethics and patient-centered care, MSF provides a range of sexual and reproductive health services to meet the needs of our patients.

5. Abortion is a matter of bodily autonomy

MSF recognizes that it is not the role of health providers to scrutinize the reasons why someone might seek an abortion.

We respect our patients’ decisions and provide them with accurate and comprehensive information, so they can make informed decisions about their own bodies. Regardless of what these decisions are, it is our responsibility to provide them with safe and high-quality care.

We know that there are often serious and detrimental consequences on people’s lives when they are denied access to abortion. Supporting abortion as health care is a powerful way to prevent poor outcomes and improve people’s well-being.  Anyone who seeks an abortion—no matter their reason—is deserving of high-quality and dignified care.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The Sexual Revolution Has Been Great

— For Men

By Charles Runels, MD

During the month of September, Sexual Health Awareness Month, it may help to notice something: Men and their doctors have significantly more options to help with sexual function than do women and their clinicians. Moreover, the education of physicians regarding the examination and treatment of women for sexual dysfunction has been and remains, even now in 2024, much less thorough than for men.

Not convinced? Let’s take a quick tour.

The New Sexual Revolution and the Growing Anger

photo of Newsweek 50 Shade edition

Around the time of the release of the book and movie 50 Shades of Grey, Newsweek put the cultural sensation on its cover.

I bought the magazine at the airport and, while waiting for my plane, showed the story to a woman sitting next to me. “What do you think — is this the new ‘sexual revolution’?” I asked her.

She glanced at the cover and answered as accurately as if she had written the article: “In the ’60s, it became okay for women to have sex; now, it’s okay for women to demand good sex.”

I would add to that: Women are demanding good sex, and they want to define for themselves what “good” means.

That social revolution rages, still.

You would think that the demand would bring a corresponding response in clinical medicine. You would be wrong. Although efforts in some sectors are heroic, overall, the results are lagging the forward movement of women wanting better sex.

The Lag in Sexual Education

To examine the progression of the education of physicians regarding the treatment of female sexual dysfunction (FSD), Codispoti and colleagues examined the curricula of seven medical schools in and around Chicago. They found the following: Only one institution identified all anatomic components of the clitoris — one! Four of the seven discussed the physiology of the female orgasm. Only three of the seven highlighted the prevalence and epidemiology of FSD or the treatments for FSD. Only one of the seven explained how to do a genitourinary physical exam specific to assessing FSD.

When assessing obstetrics and gynecology clinical materials, sexual pleasure, arousal, and libido were not included anywhere in the curricula.

I have been teaching physicians about the therapies I developed (over 5000 clinicians in 50-plus countries over the past 14 years). During those sessions, I often stop the class and ask, “Who in here was taught how to retract the foreskin and examine the penis for phimosis?”

All hands will go up.

Then I will ask, “Who in here was taught in medical school how to retract the clitoral hood and examine the clitoris for phimosis?”

Not once has anyone raised a hand.

The Sex Remedies Gap

When I first published research offering support for using platelet-rich plasma to improve sexual function in women, women had not one drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of sexual dysfunction — none. Men had over 20. Today, men have a growing number of FDA-approved drugs for erectile dysfunction, including the “fils“; women have three.

Women have access to only one FDA-approved medication that primarily affects the genitalia: prasterone. This drug is indicated only for the treatment of pain in postmenopausal women. It does not directly enhance desire or improve orgasms. Said another way, although the incidence of sexual dysfunction is higher in premenopausal women than in other groups, they do not have a single approved medication designed to improve the function of their genitalia.

The other two of the three available drugs — flibanserin and bremelanotide — primarily affect the brain and could accurately be called psychoactive agents. They are available only for premenopausal women to improve desire. Flibanserin resulted in one extra sexual encounter per month on average, and patients are advised to avoid alcohol while using the drug. The other can make you vomit.

I do think all three of these treatments can be of great help to some women. I am not advising their disappearance. But in contrast to what is available to men, they are woefully inadequate.

Historical Perspective

In 1980, the medical establishment believed “most instances of acquired impotence are psychogenic.” Then, with the accidental discovery of the benefits of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors , we realized that most cases of male sexual dysfunction involve the vasculature of the genitalia, not the neuroses of the brain. Yet, our two FDA-approved drugs for women with sexual dysfunction are designed to affect the brain. Women have nothing but off-label therapies to improve the function of the genitalia.

Despite the fact research supports the use of testosterone in women for both libido and orgasm, and despite the fact millions of women are treated with testosterone off-label for the benefit of sexual function, the only widely used FDA-approved class of drugs for women that affects testosterone — birth control pills, by blocking pituitary hormone production (the way they prevent pregnancy) — lowers the production of testosterone.

One might wonder, considering our expanded understanding of the endocrinology of both men and women, at the irony of why it is acceptable to lower the testosterone level of an adolescent girl knowingly, as if her development did not require the hormone (such would never be acceptable in an adolescent male unless sexual transitioning were the goal); yet, we are fearful of giving testosterone to grown women who can no longer make it.

Premenopausal Women: An Orphan Population

The concept of “orphan populations” can partially explain the gap in available therapies between men and women.

Women of childbearing age are risky to study; so, with testosterone, for example, it is safer and cheaper for pharmaceutical companies to prove the benefits for men and ride the profits from the off-label use for women. I don’t mean to condemn the manufacturers of testosterone, only to point out the phenomenon of why up to 30% of the prescriptions written by a primary care physician are off-label; off-label use is common among cardiologists (46%); up to 90% of children in the hospital receive at least one off-label drug; and approval of drugs for premenopausal women is more expensive than approval of drugs for men.

What Can Be Done?

The regrettable situation does not reflect evil intent on the part of regulators, educators, or physicians. But the gap between what women want and what medical education and the pharmaceutical-regulatory complex are providing is intolerably wide.

First, I would recommend a standard, required curriculum for the study of female sexual anatomy and function be established and widely adopted by medical schools. The reproductive system contains different components and a different purpose from the orgasm system, with modest overlap. Both systems should be taught in every medical school.

Second, physicians should be required to undergo a course in understanding their own sexuality. Research demonstrates doctors will avoid conversations about sex, and it seems to me this could be secondary to being uncomfortable with their own sexuality. After all, to talk with a patient about sex, you cannot be fearful of where the conversation may lead.

Third, the FDA might reconsider the requirements for the approval of drugs for FSD. Currently, to approve a drug for men, an objective finding — ie, an erection — can be sufficient. However, a higher bar, “satisfaction,” which is subjective, must be obtained with women.

Regenerative therapies have proved helpful but are not yet widely adopted; more grant money for the study of regenerative therapies would be a good start here.

Finally, by the definition of FSD, a woman must be psychologically distressed. The idea of sex is not pleasure alone. Sexual function affects family relationships, emotional health, confidence, even sleep, as well as the emotional well-being of the children who live in the house. Saying women are wonderfully and mysteriously made may be poetic, but it is not an excuse for not learning more and closing the gaps.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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10 things you need to know about sex and dating at university

By Serena Smith

Freshers’ week is nigh: as I write this, hordes of 18-year-olds are likely raiding their parents’ drawers for knives and forks, panic-buying overpriced clothes from Urban Outfitters, and fruitlessly trying to identify their future flatmates via a number of impenetrable Facebook Freshers’ groups.

If you are one of these lucky incoming students: good luck! While you’re probably excited at the prospect of moving somewhere where there’s a bit more to do than get drunk on a park bench and traipse around a desolate ‘retail park’, it’s also totally normal to feel anxious as Freshers’ week looms.

The first few weeks of university have a reputation for being fun, a little chaotic, and, yes, prime time for casual sex. But if you’re panicked at the thought of having to navigate it all, don’t fret – we’ve compiled a handy list of our ten best tips for how to approach dating, sex, and relationships in your first year of university.

DO BREAK UP WITH YOUR SIXTH FORM PARTNER

I’m sorry, but they are not the love of your life. Yes, even if you lost your virginity to them; even if the train between Leeds and Nottingham is only two hours long; even if you’ve already planned your one-year anniversary dinner at Pizza Express. If you don’t heed this warning, you will break up two years down the line and be forever haunted by the realisation that you a) blew your shot with the hot guy you met at the student union bar who now has a beautiful girlfriend and b) wasted £692 on Trainline tickets to Nottingham.

DON’T BECOME OBSESSED WITH THE FIRST PERSON (MAN) WHO IS NICE TO YOU

For those heading to uni already single, I get it; teenage boys are cruel and you’ve probably spent the last few years internalising the idea that you are ugly and freakish and fundamentally unlovable. But the first man to treat you with a modicum of respect probably isn’t the love of your life either. If anything he’s probably a mental narcissist who’s sniffed out how insecure you are and is planning on putting you through the ringer with some seriously fucked-up mind games (it’s not like I have firsthand experience of this or anything haha).

Then again, maybe this is a canon event for anyone with cripplingly low self-esteem, so go for it if you want, I guess. Character building etc x

Fanciable people are everywhere at uni: keep your eyes peeled and your heart open

DO FALL IN LOVE WITH EVERYONE

None of this is to say you ought to swear off dating during your first year of university: conversely, this is the perfect time to sow your wild oats. Try to find romance everywhere. Allow yourself to be delusional with it: why not kid yourself into thinking the fit guy in your English seminar is hopelessly in love with you because he said your thoughts on Heart of Darkness were “interesting”? Why not fantasise about the myriad ways you could possibly introduce yourself to the sweet-looking girl you always walk past in the library? Fanciable people are everywhere at uni: keep your eyes peeled and your heart open.

You might never shag – let alone speak to – most of these people, but that’s half the fun. “Fantasy love is much better than reality love” or whatever Andy Warhol said.

DO SHAG YOUR FRIENDS

Listen. Maybe this is bad advice, but I don’t care. You can’t say you think everyone on Hinge is ugly and narcissistic and then write off lovely Matt from the film society because ‘it would be weird’ because you’re ‘like brother and sister’. You are not like brother and sister: you met three weeks ago and have probably both fantasised about shagging one another. Get drunk and have a little kiss at least. Life’s too short.

(One caveat: do not shag your first-year flatmate. People repeat this advice for a reason.)

DO BUY A VIBRATOR

You don’t have to worry about your mum intercepting your Lovehoney parcel or hearing the muffled buzz of a bullet through your bedroom wall any longer – enjoy the freedom!

DON’T ‘FORGET’ TO CHANGE YOUR BED SHEETS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR FIRST TERM

This one is largely aimed at all the straight, male freshers of the world. It’s not nice to bring someone back to your room and expect them to get into sheets which reek of must and semen.

And while we’re on the topic, don’t be afraid to inject some personality into your room too. It doesn’t have to be Architectural Digest-worthy but most women will think you’re a serial killer if the only ‘decoration’ in your bedroom is a PS5 perched atop a sad pile of the textbooks needed for your course. Get a plant, at least.

DON’T BE WEIRD ABOUT CASUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Having casual sex with someone doesn’t mean you’ve got carte blanche to treat them like a sex toy with an annoying human appendage. Don’t bolt out the door as soon as you’ve wiped the cum off your thighs: stay for a glass of water and a cuddle and maybe an episode of something. Smile if you walk past them on campus. Reply to their texts in a timely manner. It’s not hard.

Having casual sex with someone doesn’t mean you’ve got carte blanche to treat them like a sex toy with an annoying human appendage

DO BE SAFE

On a more serious note, do use condoms and try to remember to carry them with you (whether you have a dick or not).

Plus, if you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to consider some form of long-term contraception if you’re worried about an unplanned pregnancy (PSA for anyone with prudish parents: they don’t need to know. You’re an adult. It’s your business, not theirs).

If you have had unprotected sex, get tested: you can access STI and STD testing at a local sexual health clinic or GP surgery. You can also order free and discreet tests online. If you’re worried about an unplanned pregnancy, you can also get the morning after pill from most sexual health clinics, GP surgeries, or pharmacies. You may also be able to get the it for free on the NHS, but you may have to pay at pharmacies like Boots. Men: if any of your sexual partners has to pay for the morning after pill, don’t be a dick – split the cost with them.

DON’T DITCH YOUR FRIENDS FOR A PARTNER

Not because you’ll have no shoulder to cry on if things go south with your partner – more because it’s just a shitty thing to do to your friends. Your mates will carry you through uni, and if you’ve got good ones, they’ll carry you through post-grad life too. Don’t treat them like they’re playing second fiddle to your partner.

DO HAVE FUN

Navigating love and sex at uni is not easy by any means. One day you will probably find yourself sobbing into your McDonald’s order over a man who doesn’t care if you live or die. You will probably call one of your Hinge matches while drunk and say something so toe-curlingly embarrassing that the next day you’ll look into the logistics of transferring to the University of Strathclyde. You will probably break someone’s heart too. But university is probably the first and last time in your life where you will be parachuted into the midst of a ready-made community of hot, interesting people, with all the time in the world to go on dates, have sex, and, yes, even fall in love. Make the most of it.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Labeling Instructions

— Why the Rise of Sexual, Romantic and Gender Identities is a Good Thing

Young people are claiming a host of sexual, romantic and gender identities, and these brave new words can provide us with some important answers about who we are.

By Gabrielle Bauer

Do you know what aroace means? Greyromantic? Or cupiosexual? When the boomer generation was growing up, they had three common labels to choose from: straight, gay and bisexual. As the 1990s drew to a close, transgender people began seeking shelter under the same umbrella, and the LGBT acronym was born.

Life never stands still. Today’s young people are carving out increasingly specific sexual, romantic and gender niches. They may feel no sexual attraction toward other people (asexual). They can crave sexual contact, but lack sexual attraction (cupiosexual) or the desire for a romantic connection (aromantic). Maybe they see themselves as alterous, with feelings that fall somewhere between romantic and platonic, or simply as gender-variant or nonconforming, refusing to let traditional concepts of men and women define them. In one way or another, they don’t fit society’s old shoes.

In tandem with the split between sexual and romantic attraction, sex and gender are now understood to be distinct. Transgender individuals have a strong and persistent sense their gender doesn’t match their biological sex, while the term cisgender describes people whose sex and gender align; the kaleidoscope of gender variance includes nonbinary people, who don’t see themselves as exclusively male or female. And, of course, gender-variant individuals can experience the full range of sexual and romantic orientations.

I admitted to Lucia O’Sullivan, a University of New Brunswick psychology professor in Fredericton, who specializes in sexual relationships, that I had trouble understanding the nonbinary designation. Doesn’t every human have different combinations of gender-typical and gender-variant traits? “Ah, but you still consider yourself a woman, right?” she asked me. I agreed. “That’s the difference,” she said. “It’s not a question of behaviours or traits, but of identity. Nonbinary people will tell you they don’t feel either male or female.” On the flip side, you can enjoy romantic comedies and wear nail polish, but feel very much like a man. In short, your gender expression (how you behave) doesn’t dictate your gender identity (how you feel inside).

Increasingly, people affirm and telegraph their gender identity by specifying their pronouns (such as she/her, he/him or they/them) in professional profiles, email signatures or upon meeting new people. This can get complicated for gender-fluid people, who lack a fixed sense of gender and may change pronouns in sync with their shifting identity or use gender-neutral pronouns such as they/them. Canadian actor Elliot Page, who came out as transgender and nonbinary in 2020, uses both “he” and “they,” or what are called rolling pronouns; although he presents as masculine, they identify as nonbinary, so both pronouns apply.

Gender identity has turned political in both Canada and the U.S., spawning heated opinions and divisive policies. In some parts of our country, if a child wants to change their name and pronoun, the school must inform their parents. Some people applaud these policies, while others argue children should have the right to make these choices without involving parents who may be hostile to their decision. Between the noisy polarities lies a messy middle – people doing their best to understand the social shifts and possibly struggling to keep up. To cut through the confusion, it helps to remember pronouns are simply meant to express how people feel inside.

A Generous Umbrella

All told, about nine per cent of people stand somewhere under the LGBT+ umbrella, according to a 2023 IPSOS survey of 22,500 adults in 30 countries. The Q, for queer or questioning, came along to cover people who fall outside sexual and gender norms and those still exploring their identities, with the + added for good measure. Some people use expanded acronyms like LGBTQIA2S, which includes intersex, asexual and two-spirit people, a term used by some Indigenous people to describe gender variance.

If studies are any indication, this group encompasses significantly more young people than older ones. The IPSOS survey found gen-Zers about twice as likely as millennials and four times as likely as gen-Xers and boomers to place their sexual orientation outside the heterosexual norm. Similar findings emerged in a 2022 Statistics Canada report on LGBTQ2+ people aged 15 and over, which drew on the results of a 2018 survey. Of the estimated one million people (four per cent of the population) who claimed an LGBTQ2+ identity, 58.4 per cent were under 35 and 16.5 per cent were 55 or older. Clearly, young people are defining themselves in increasingly expansive ways.

Why is this important? These young people are our children, our friends’ children, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren and their friends. We meet them when we volunteer at an animal shelter or go to a music festival. To connect with them, we need to understand them. Just as importantly, these new labels, so foreign when they first reach our ears, can help us understand ourselves. If, for example, we felt different from our peers during adolescence but couldn’t put a finger on why, these brave new words can give us some answers.

The Great Divide

Many of us grew up conflating romantic and sexual attraction: If we had a crush on someone, it meant we lusted after them. In recent years, formal studies of asexuality have laid this presumption to rest. Dr. Anthony Bogaert, a health sciences professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., has devoted a large part of his career to researching the one per cent (more, in some studies) who call themselves asexual. He discovered that many asexuals still want intimate relationships; they crave the closeness and the romance, just not the sex.

“If you’re romantically attracted to someone, you feel a deep emotional bond to that individual and there may be some urge for physical connection, like hugging or holding hands or curling up together,” Bogaert explains, adding that “sexual and romantic attraction represent distinct processes in the brain.” Indeed, in a 2020 analysis of seven asexual studies, led by University of British Columbia, Vancouver, researchers determined 74 per cent of 4,032 subjects experienced romantic attraction. A person may also feel sexual but not romantic attraction, though Bogaert told me this combination is quite rare.

Rebecca Stuart, 39, exemplifies the self-discovery that often accompanies a mixed sexual and romantic orientation. “I waited for my big sexual awakening, which never came,” says Stuart, who lives in Guelph, Ont. She did “a bunch of work to ensure I was sex positive.” She wondered if she was a repressed lesbian. She even explored kink in hopes of finding her “thing.” While she didn’t initially identify as asexual because “my junk works,” she came to embrace the orientation as she learned more about it.  Stuart, who is married, also sees herself as heteroromantic. “From high school on, I had romantic feelings toward guys.”

People who feel neither sexual nor romantic attraction sometimes shorten their label to aroace. Greysexuals and greyromantics, meanwhile, experience their respective attractions only sporadically, while demisexuals and demiromantics only feel it once they’ve established an emotional connection. These nuances remind us that, in the enigmatic realm of human attraction, diversity rules the day.

So what’s the difference between asexuality as an orientation and low sexual desire, which some experts view as a disorder? Dr. Lori Brotto, director of the Sexual Health Laboratory at UBC, offered a clarification. “Asexuals don’t report distress about their lack of attraction, and even if offered treatment to kindle desire, they’re generally not interested. It’s just who they are.” Sexual people, on the other hand, experience lack of desire as a loss they would love to reverse.

Labelling Logic

As society continues to refine concepts of sexuality, people are exploring the nuances of their attractions and creating labels to match. Pansexuals, for instance, are attracted to people without any regard for their sex or gender. Gynosexuals respond sexually to femininity in all its forms, as opposed to lesbians, who feel a pull toward people of the same sex.

Shades of grey also exist within the gender realm. People who call themselves agender don’t connect to any gender at all, an identity that differs subtly from nonbinary. Pangender individuals experience parts of many genders, while omnigender describes people who contain all genders.

With the profusion of identities described and dissected online, it’s no surprise young people seek to fine-tune their own labels. “In terms of sexuality, my preferences have never been based on the person’s body parts or looks overall,” writes one member of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network Facebook group. “If our personalities don’t sync and I don’t feel I can be my authentic self (and same you), then there’s no real relationship to start with. So how do I identify? I am a sapio-demi-ace.”

When I first encountered posts like this, some of the microlabels struck me as forced, even a little silly, but the experts I interviewed melted my skepticism. “The labels can help you find your tribe, to feel like you’re seen,” O’Sullivan explains. Her son Jack, 16, throws in a young person’s perspective. “There can be a lot of stigma to experiencing attraction or gender in a different way. Young people always worry there is something wrong with them. When they suddenly find this identity that perfectly describes how they feel, they feel very validated.”

As O’Sullivan points out, an individual who identifies as aroace but seeks a mate to build a life with, perhaps including children, may “have a hard time finding a like-minded partner in the wild.” The labels are a shorthand they can use, often online, to connect with people who share their inclinations.

Aha! moments happen to older people, too, like American comedian and Let’s Make a Deal host Wayne Brady, 52, who came out as pansexual in 2023. Even boomers like me can gain insight from the new microlabels. When I was 12, giant posters of celebrities like Donovan and Paul Newman sprang up on my friends’ bedroom walls. Who were these men? Why didn’t they stir me as they clearly stirred my friends? It’s only now, more than a half-century later, that I have the vocabulary to describe my difference. While I can respond sexually to men and women, pop stars and strangers have never done it for me; the emotional connection has to come first. That would make me both bi- and demisexual. At the same time, I have never been able to picture myself in a lesbian romance. Heteroromantic, then.

Even if the terms don’t resonate with you, O’Sullivan cautions against making light of them. “It’s important to understand that young people aren’t using the labels for attention, even if they shift over time,” she says. “They’re just giving you a snapshot of who they are right now.”

If a youth entrusts you with such personal information, Bogaert invites you to “show understanding and interest, and maybe ask some questions.” Later on, “you can do research to find out more.” Above all, remember that “claiming an identity helps transmute shame into pride” – and who wouldn’t want that for the young people we love?

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Men Are Openly Admitting The One Thing They Wish Women Understood Better About Their Sexual Needs

— “Sometimes, I wanna be the pillow princess.”

By Raven Ishak

“Men, what’s one thing you wish women understood better about male sexuality?”

1.”Lack of erection does not equal lack of interest.”

2.”I want to be seduced. Don’t take for granted that I’m always 100% ready to go at the drop of a hat. Sometimes, I wanna be the pillow princess.”

“I’ve told women this, and it blows their mind. So many beautiful women have never once thought about how to seduce a man past dressing cute. They’re like, ‘Well, I’m here!’”

3.”We like our partners to communicate what they like and don’t. Communication is sexy.”

4.”Don’t use sex as a reward system. I want you to want it because you like it, not as a treat or chore or whatever.”

“Yes! I’ve told my wife more than once that ‘transactional’ sex or offers of sex are a complete turnoff.

Flirting with me while I’m doing something and saying I should come find you once I’m done? That shit is amazing. Telling me if I do task ‘X’, then we might have sex later makes me feel like you really have no interest in affection.”

5.”If I’m not constantly messaging you, it’s not because I don’t care, it’s that I feel secure about us and want to save any news for some quality time in person — not a constant, distracting stream of largely meaningless messages.”

6.”As someone with severe performance anxiety, if I haven’t had sex in a while, it can be very hard to get it up. It’s not that I’m not turned on, and it’s not that you’re anything less than gorgeous; it’s just that my anxiety is preventing me from getting an erection at this moment, and the more I think about it, the worse it’ll get. Just let me go down on you for a while, and we’ll see if it happens. Lol.”

7.”Not all men are like a light switch and are ready to get right to the action immediately. Intimacy and foreplay are a core part of the experience.”

8.”I just wanna be a little spoon once in a while. That shit feels nice.”

“My partner and I usually cuddle for a bit, then turn over and sleep back to back when we’re ready for actual sleep. Sometimes I wake up, and she’s on me like a jetpack, and it just feels so good in my heart.”

9.”There’s a huge difference between orgasm as a physical release (i.e., one-night stand, masturbating) and an orgasm with someone you are emotionally close to. I can jerk off a bunch of times in between having sex, but I need to have sex with my partner in order to be emotionally and mentally fulfilled.”

10.”We can have body image problems. You grew up looking at models who starved themselves to look that way. We grew up looking at action heroes with 0% bodyfat, steroid inflated muscles, who are so dehydrated they can smell water. The body standards for us were just as unrealistic and unhealthy, and it’s nice to hear that we don’t have to be that to be attractive.”

11.”Do not be a people-pleaser in the bedroom. I’d be so hurt to find out I don’t actually know what you like. I am trusting when you give me a ‘hell yes, I love that,’ you’re being honest. It can result in this really frustrating, shameful outcome of knowing you can’t satisfy her but also don’t even know what you’re doing wrong. I can handle reality if I’m not making you cum. I want to improve, so even if you want to tap out or I’m too tired, I want to continue improving. I want to make you feel good, too.”

12.”Blue balls is not a serious condition. Don’t let anyone pressure you into sex, especially with that as an excuse.”

“Or to continue sex, you no longer consent to. There’s no rule that says you have to finish what you start. Consent is revocable by either party at any time.”

13.And finally, “I just want back scratches. You’re only allowed to stay near me because of your nails. I’ll pay for it. But you need to pay the toll. A little to the left. Down. Down. Left. Riiiiiiight theeeeere.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!