Hi! My name is Grace, and I am a graydemi ace. I'm what I've previously called an "IAMsexual" who has a lot of sex, just not likely the kind you're imagining. Re-imagining sex as acts that de-center the mainstream idea of sex feels important to understanding how I navigate my relational world. Let me provide you with a scene of what my "IAMsexual" world of sex looks like. We … [Read more...]
5 Ways To Discuss Your HIV Status Without Stigmatizing HIV-Positive People
In queer communities especially, so much effort is made to get tested regularly and know our HIV status. These are important and necessary campaigns so that those who engage in sexual practices can make informed decisions and negotiate potential risks accordingly. There have been great efforts made to normalize STI testing, and I see the effects when my friends post about it on … [Read more...]
10 Excuses People Give To Avoid Using Condoms — And Why That’s Unacceptable
Condoms are imperfect. This is perfectly okay to admit. What is not okay is ignoring the potential consequences of not using them. For most people, condoms are the most effective readily available method of STI and pregnancy prevention. Whether by malice, selfishness, or ignorance, many prefer to not use them, even when they should. They also discourage their partners from … [Read more...]
9 Keys for Dealing With Gender Dysphoria This Trans Awareness Week
I’ve always had a hard time with gender dysphoria. Identifying it has been half the struggle. For most of my life it was unnameable, and unqualifiably sad -- a deep ache in the pit of my belly that I had learned to ignore. When it reared its head I saw it as dysfunctional, and my self-image was tainted by that view. My dysphoria was difficult to identify because I am … [Read more...]
3 Steps Toward Good Sex Beyond the Binary: Having Sex With a Non-Binary Person, Even When That Person Is You
Gender is a spectrum, which means that between and outside of the constructs of male and female, there exists an entire range of gender identities. We often speak of “transgender” and “cisgender” identities: “cisgender” indicating that one’s gender matches the gender they were assigned at birth, and “transgender” indicating that one’s gender does not. However, we still often … [Read more...]
Why I’m Wary of Being Friends With You When None of Your Friends Are Marginalized
One day I was grappling with shame and self-consciousness over my tendency to take stock of the kinds of people new people in my life surround themselves with. I was thinking about this in relation to bodies and, specifically, race and fatness. Until that moment I had internalized this behavior as unnecessary, judgmental, and even shallow. But I had a realization that allowed … [Read more...]
Struggling With Sexual Dysfunction in Your Marriage? You’re Not Alone
For some of us, there is no amount of self-love or body-positive work that will inspire passion and sexual chemistry in our partners. For many of us, our partners simply don’t find touching our bodies desirable and aren’t capable of manufacturing that sensation. It’s not about us, though it unquestionably has a huge impact on us. Dressing provocatively, engaging in … [Read more...]
How I Confronted My Internalized Anti-Blackness as a Queer Black Man
Desire, oooh like fire... come on, baby, light my fire I used to lip sync for my life with these lyrics when I was a boy. I had no idea what En Vogue was referring to when they sang “Desire,” but that never stopped me from getting into the song. You could say En Vogue was my introduction to the concept of desire. I felt desire for the first time years later as a teenager. My … [Read more...]
Reclaiming My Eroticism After Sexual Assault
Content note: This article discusses sexual violence at length. After my rape, I thought of my body as a series of open wounds and wounded openings sutured together. I had to learn how to rewrite the poems, the stories, the words I wrapped around my flesh. After certain types of trauma, sometimes the only way we can see our bodies is as spaces for harm, spaces for … [Read more...]
What I Learned From Never Experiencing “Romantic” Love
When I was very young, I had the same dreams and expectations that many girls of my 1950s generation in my social class had: that I would start dating in high school, go to college and eventually meet “the love of my life,” fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t have what I always thought of as romantic love in my life, … [Read more...]
7 Things I Teach My Kids About Consent, Sexual Harassment, and Assault
During a crowded bus journey, my daughter's shrill four-year-old voice piped up clearly and succinctly above the hum of the ongoing conversation: "I want to have sex with [insert classmate here]." A silence, not unlike the one pervading the moment before the conductor raises his baton, fell in anticipation of my reply. And on behalf of all the sex-positive parents, I swallowed … [Read more...]
Hot Sex After 50: 3 Myths and 3 Truths
As a longtime sex coach in my mid-50s, I find myself in a constant state of speaking truth to power when it comes to sex and aging. How is hot sex after 50 different from hot sex after 40? Or 20? How is it different from hot sex in the aftermath of divorce? Or during the hottest love affair of our lives? The point is: hot sex matters. It generates and releases energy. It … [Read more...]
7 Microaggressions Trans People Face in Health and Mental Healthcare Settings
Note: This piece first appeared on the website Lighthouse and is reprinted here by permission. Lighthouse is a startup that matches LGBTQ people with nearby LGBTQ-affirming therapists and doctors. We asked a gender-nonconforming therapist how healthcare providers can become trans-competent and avoid unintentionally harming patients. Whether in an emergency room, a therapy … [Read more...]
3 Reasons We Need To Be Critical of Compulsory Sex Positivity in Queer Spaces
Sex positivity often acts as an implicit — or sometimes explicit — foundation of leftist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ spaces for completely valid reasons. As women and queers, sex has been the driving force behind both our oppression and the spaces we create to separate, heal, and liberate us from our oppression. Sexualized spaces for socializing predate our modern understanding of … [Read more...]
