Category: s.e.x.

Manscaping

Posted by helenboyd – December 29, 2011

Honestly, I understand why people are starting to turn to ’70s porn: now everyone looks like (a) a child, (b) a plucked chicken, or (3) some kind of weird sea organism.

Robert, a 25-year-old investment manager from Massachusetts, trims his pubes with an electric razor—“the kind that barbers use for shaving heads,” he says. Just as he prefers a woman to be groomed when he performs oral sex (“the less hair, the better”), he imagines girls don’t want a bush in their mouths either.

How downright egalitarian.

Still, if genitals unframed by pubic hair are your thing, this decade’s for you.

Take Me There

Posted by helenboyd – September 23, 2011

Tristan Taormino’s Take Me There:Trans and Genderqueer Erotica is on sale! I’ve got a piece in this one, as do many others.

Dessert.

Posted by helenboyd – July 31, 2011

Dan Savage’s Family Values

Posted by helenboyd – July 4, 2011

I”m sure plenty have already seen Mark Oppenheimer’s NYT column about infidelity; in it, he talks a lot about Dan Savage, who I love (and whose show I was on back in January). Despite how angry people are about the transphobic way he talked about the dilemma’s of a trans person’s relationship with her wife & son, I can’t really disagree with it, either. (Although I’d add, too, that sometimes children and wives are transphobic; still, giving loved ones a little while to get used to the idea would be great, and may preserve some familiar relationships that will not sustain a very speedy transition.)

Still, that’s hardly what’s interesting to me about this column. First off, he said it a few years ago, & Savage has been sucking a  little less on trans issues. He is, in my opinion, someone who could have been an amazing ally if he weren’t shouted at every second he said something stupid (but not necessarily hateful). He is, in my opinion, one of the people we lost with the overuse of the word transphobic, a la Christine Burns.

But what’s more interesting to me is the way this article paints him as something like a conservative. Really… Dan Savage? But yes: he’s always been pro nuclear family, that’s for sure. He’s opinionated in ways only ex-Catholics can be (she says, securely seated in her glass house). But that idea that someone could be considered conservative even as they suggest that perhaps nonmonogamy should be on the table for heterosexual marriage kind of blows my mind. I don’t disagree. I think in plenty of cases, nonmonogamy makes perfect sense. I’ve been learning a lot more about it – not just from friends who practice it, but from Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up as well, and I was in a relationship during my 20s that wasn’t monogamous. But still: I sorta kinda love the idea of Savage being seen as conservative because he is advocating nonmonogamy in order to preserve marriages, because being married/partnered for life is a conservative value whether you’re gay or kinky or not.

And that’s the kind of thing that makes my feminist hackles rise.

Because Coontz – who Oppenheimer mentions and quotes – has said elsewhere that in happy marriages, both people benefit. But in unhappy marriages, men continue to benefit, but women do much, much worse in terms of their health. Even a miserable wife feeds her husband vegetables, she once cleverly concluded in her Marriage, A History. (It’s a great book, absolutely 100% worth reading.)

So the idea of preserving a marriage simply because preserving marriage is what you’re supposed to do strikes me as kind of wrong-headed and — well, sexist. It’s not like Savage will have been the first gay man to give out sexist advice unthinkingly, but it’s still a surprise.

Pro Choice

Posted by helenboyd – July 1, 2011

Due to an emergency injunction, there is now one Planned Parenthood clinic that will remain open in Kansas. The plan, of course, was for there to be none.

I know there are a lot of people who think it should be that way, or who think that maybe that’s for the best. Most of us don’t like abortion. All of us, actually.I’ve never, ever met anyone who is “pro abortion”.

The deciding factor for me was that women who had money and means have always gotten abortions. It’s the poor women who can’t. Morality should not be bought so dearly. If women can get abortions quickly and easily, they get first term abortions. The more expensive and the further away the clinic, the more likely they will get 2nd term abortions. The more birth control they have access to, the more likely they won’t get pregnant.

It’s not really that hard to understand. Most of us don’t want to see second term abortions because the mother’s health is at risk and the whole conversation about when life starts gets more complicated. But you can’t force people to only get 1st term abortions if they don’t provide them with the means to do so.

Keep abortion legal and safe (which means keeping it local and inexpensive).

What a Lineup!

Posted by helenboyd – June 16, 2011

Tristan Taormino edited an anthology of trans erotica called Take Me There & wow is it some list of authors:

Kate Bornstein (@KateBornstein), author and editor of many books including Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, which just won a Lambda Literary Award! 

Patrick Califia (@PatrickCalifia), world-renowned writer, activist, and sex radical, author of dozens of books including Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex

S. Bear Bergman (@SBearBergman), co-editor of Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation and author of Butch is a Noun and The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, which just went into its second printing

Ivan Coyote (@IvanCoyote), author of Missed Her and one of my personal faves, Closer to Spiderman, who is currently touring all over Canada

Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl, currently at work on a new book

Laura Antoniou (@lantoniou), author of the groundbreaking series The Marketplace, which was the first SM erotica series featuring a transman as the romantic hero. She wrote a story especially for this book all about Chris Parker!

Helen Boyd (@helen_of_boyd), author of She’s Not the Man I Married and My Husband Betty

Sandra McDonald, author of the Lambda Literary Award winner, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories

Rachel Kramer Bussel (@Raquelita), queen of erotica whose latest anthology is Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex

Toni Amato, co-editor of Pinned Down by Pronouns and frequent Best Lesbian Erotica contributor

Gina de Vries, genderqueer femme, Paisan pervert, writer, performer, cultural worker, activist, editor of Becoming: Young Ideas on Gender, Identity, and Sexuality

Rahne Alexander (@foucauldian_ho), musician, multimedia artist, guitarist and vocalist in the bands The Oops and The Degenerettes

Giselle Renarde (@GiselleRenarde), erotica writer and editor of Future Histories: Transgendered Sci-Fi Erotica

Alicia E. Goranson, playwright, screenwriter, and author of Supervillianz

Rachel K. Zall, poet, performing artist, activist and author of The Oxygen Catastrophe

Tobi Hill-Meyer (@Tobitastic), activist, filmmaker, writer, and Feminist Porn Award winner

Shawna Virago, singer/songwriter and activist

Andrea Zanin (@sexgeekAZ), organizer, educator, and writer

Sinclair Sexsmith (@mrsexsmith), creator of The Sugarbutch Chronicles and frequent Best Lesbian Erotica contributor

Skian McGuire, one of my favorite erotica writers ever

Arden Hill, writer and poet

Anna Watson, writer and creator of The Femme Bibliography Project

 

It comes out in October but you can pre-order it now. There’s more info in TT’s blogpost about it if you’re not yet convinced (but honestly, with a list like that, you really should be!)

Bisexuality Survey

Posted by helenboyd – June 15, 2011

A group at Penn State are doing research into bisexuality and infidelity:

My name is Krysta Kolbe, I work with Dr. Cory R. Scherer, we are a research team from Penn State University who are interested in learning about how bisexuals react to infidelity. This survey is being conducted for research purposes. There is a lot of research that has been done on how heterosexual and homosexuals react to potential infidelity but practically none concerning bisexuals and we are asking your help by please sharing the survey at the link below with your bisexual associates, friends, co-workers, students, and loved ones. Participants will be asked to think about their reactions to infidelity and give some demographic information. Also understand that they will be asked to answer some questions about their attitudes and themselves. It should take no more than five minutes to complete the questionnaire. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate. Your participation in this research is confidential. Feel free to share the link below with any and all bisexual individuals who want to participate in the survey. Thank you for your help in the quest to better understand ourselves through science!

You can contact me at klk5177@psu.edu or Dr. Scherer at crs15@psu.edu with questions, complaints or concerns about this research. You can stop at any time. You do not have to answer any questions you do not want to answer.

Take the survey!

Seriously.

Posted by helenboyd – June 6, 2011

Despite all the jokes about Weiner’s penis, the whole thing kind of makes me sad. Not just because he lied & used bad judgement: you can’t follow politics for 12 minutes without running into that; shoot, you can’t live 12 years without running into that. It’s more that I wish we could talk about politics instead of morality in this country. Not because morality isn’t important – it is – but the older I get, the more exhausting it is to hear the rounds of moralizing by professed Christians (who seem to forget that whole “cast the first stone” business) and by non-Christians who are mostly only critical of the guy’s logistical failings.

Sexting, I fear, falls into a gray area for most (monogamous) couples. Maybe that’s the kind of thing more people should talk about. Honestly, the whole thing just makes me a little more tired and a little more sad.

Still, it’s not like he voted against his politics. I prefer liars over hypocrites, but maybe that’s just me. That is, there’s a huge difference for me in guys who vote against civil rights for LGBTQ people who then go off seeking out anonymous same sex sex in public bathrooms. Just sayin’.

So, politicians: don’t lie. As a general rule, it’s kind of up there with don’t invade Russia in winter.

Two Tune Tuesday: [Insert Clever Euphemism Here]

Posted by helenboyd – May 17, 2011


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones

I’ve been researching some for a class I’m teaching next year on sexuality, and was reading a few things about autosexuality, and I wondered, with all those songs about sex, are there any about self-pleasure? These are the few I thought of. And no, “Turning Japanese” doesn’t count; I never bought that argument & The Vapors have said it wasn’t, too. “Dancing with Myself” doesn’t count either (because it’s about a Japanese disco) and even Berry’s “Dingaling” seems more about his bits than about what he’s doing with them. So, others? There are certainly references to masturbation – like in Prince’s “Darling Nikki” – but that isn’t what the song is actually about.

Interesting that the only ones I could come up with are written/performed by women, no? I wouldn’t have expected that.

For the record, masturbation & autosexuality aren’t the same thing. Masturbation is a way to practice autosexuality, but plenty of people who are other kinds of -sexuals also masturbate. Hope that helps. I had to add the Jack Off Jill version of The Divinyls because — well, they’ve got the whole idea built into their name.

Maybe Not Pap Smears…

Posted by helenboyd – April 23, 2011

… but you can definitely buy a vibrator at a drugstore near you these days, thanks to the lines manufactures by Trojan (of the condom, not the horse).

Still, I prefer places like Babeland and The Tool Shed because it was the woman-friendly stores that made this all possible in the first place.

Heartthrob of the Year = Trans!

Posted by helenboyd – April 20, 2011

It turns out that the lovely porn star Drew Deveaux – who just won Heartthrob of the Year at the Feminist Porn Awards – is out & trans.

How fucking cool.

Help for Nina Hartley

Posted by helenboyd – April 11, 2011

Our lovely friend Nina Hartley is having an upcoming surgery and needs some recovery time she can’t afford alone. Friends have set up a website helping her gather the funds to manage it all.

If you’re a fan, do help her out by donating.

Sex Educator Uninvted by OSU

Posted by helenboyd – January 20, 2011

Award-winning author, columnist, sex educator, and filmmaker Tristan Taormino was set to be the keynote speaker at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex conference, scheduled for February 15-16, 2011. Yesterday, she was uninvited by a university representative, who cited her resume and website as the reason.

On October 28, 2010, organizers of the OSU Modern Sex conference booked Taormino to give the keynote talk; they confirmed the date and agreed to fees, and Tristan’s management received a first draft of the contract on November 1. That contract was incomplete and sent back to OSU for revisions. As with many negotiations, the contract was pending as all the paperwork got done, but in late December, OSU again confirmed Tristan’s appearance and conference organizers told her manager to purchase airline tickets, for which OSU would  reimburse her.

On Tuesday, January 18, 2011, Steven Leider, Director of the Office of LGBT Outreach and Services contacted Colten Tognazzini, Tristan Taormino’s manager, to say that the conference had come up short on funding. Tognazzini told him that since the travel was booked and the time reserved, they could work with whatever budget they did have. Leider said that would not be possible: “We have to cancel Ms. Taormino’s appearance due to a lack of funding. It has been decided that OSU cannot pay Ms. Taormino with general fee dollars, because of the content of her resume and website.” At OSU, ‘general fee dollars’ include taxpayer dollars given to the University by the Oregon State Legislature to defray various costs. They differ from ‘student activity dollars,’ which are part of every student’s tuition and help fund student groups and activities.

Taormino’s resume includes her seven books on sex and relationships, the 18 anthologies she has edited, numerous television appearances from CNN to The Discovery Channel, and her award-winning adult films. She was a columnist for The Village Voice for nearly ten years and has given more than 75 lectures at top colleges and universities including Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Brown, NYU and Columbia. Her website, puckerup.com , includes sex education information, advice, and information about the films she directs for Vivid Entertainment, one of the largest adult companies in the country. More→

Myths of Male Orgasm

Posted by helenboyd – December 26, 2010

Why not link to a post about male orgasm for Boxing Day? Too much eggnog & so too drunk to fcuk, as as the Dead Kennedys used to sing… or maybe that itch isn’t getting scratched in the ways it needs to.

I will add one other “myth” about male sexuality that I find most people don’t realize: plenty of heterosexual men want less sex than their female partners. Lots of them need trust, and love, and commitment to get turned on and to get off.

That is, as Sarah Sloane points out, we all tend to think of ourselves as gendered sexually, when mostly we’re just individuals with different hormone levels, libidos, attitudes about sexuality, ways that we use/desire sexuality, intimacy & orgasm (which are, of course, three different things, & do not always exist together). Some attitudes & aptitudes are encourage more in men and women, and vice versa, but all of us should expect not to live up the “superhero” versions of our sexualities as presented by – well, porn, Cosmo, romance novels, etc.

Sex Survey: Women, Trans

Posted by helenboyd – December 15, 2010

Here’s an interesting survey that is trans friendly and asks good questions. I took it.

Welcome Jezebels

Posted by helenboyd – October 17, 2010

Welcome to anyone who’s coming over from my post on Jezebel and the F*cking While Feminist series that’s been happening over there all weekend.

The comments posted over there did make me want to clarify a few things:

I was talking about celibacy & monogamy as ways to be feminist *in addition to* being slutty, liking casual sex, BDSM, or whatever else you do that turns you on. What upsets me is that sometimes it seems like you somehow can’t be seen as a sex positive feminist if you don’t like those things, as if choosing to be monogamous or celibate or being vanilla perforce means you’re denying your sexuality. It doesn’t. Sometimes it just means you’re not fucking anyone right now.

I can certainly see how my “just anyone” might imply slut shaming, but I certainly didn’t intend that. Some sluts are picky. Some aren’t. However you like it.

My starting point is safe, sane & consensual. Perhaps I should have made that clear. That would imply:

(1) I was talking about a willing vulnerability, or choosing to be vulnerable, with someone you trust;

(2) imagining turning someone into a sweaty, exhausted mess who WANTED to be turned into a sweaty exhausted mess by you;

(3) it doesn’t matter whether or not you actually could do that (is there anyone in the world who could seduce anyone?!); I was trying to get at the powerful feeling you have when you imagine you could, &

(4) the implication that imagining fucking someone automatically implies either ogling or rape kind of blew me away. I’m talking about something that’s going on in your head and which you are exactly not broadcasting, sharing, or indulging.

In a sense what I was getting at is that acknowledging your own desire and feeling empowered by it is entirely feminist, whether or not you’re actually indulging that desire with anyone but yourself.

(& Thanks, CollegeBookworm & a few others, for getting it.)

(Not) F*cking While Feminist

Posted by helenboyd – October 17, 2010

Sometimes I get the feeling that being either celibate or monogamous is somehow not feminist & that bugs the hell out of me. Joan or Arc was celibate after all; the whole idea of feminism, I thought, was to value your autonomy and power as a woman – and sometimes that means choosing NOT to share your sexuality and vulnerability because doing so might make you feel less than. In other words: I find it far more feminist to get myself to my 5th orgasm than to have mediocre sex with someone who can’t seem to figure out what to do with a clitoris, and I worry, when it comes to young women, that people believe you can’t be feminist if you’re not fucking anyone but yourself.

I’ve rarely liked one night stands or casual sex of whatever kind. More power to you if you do; it’s probably a lot easier to get off with someone else. The hottest sex I’ve had throughout my life is with someone I’ve got a deep simpatico with, an intense connection, and that doesn’t necessarily mean someone I can have meaningful conversation with; sometimes it’s just there, in the charge that comes every time your eyes meet.

I hate the idea of some patriarchal Christian Cult of Prudery owning celibacy; those were the guys who put Joan of Arc to death, after all. But to me there’s a huge difference between repressing your sexual desire because Your Daddy Says So (whether that Daddy is the Big Man in the Sky or your actual father) and acknowledging your desire but not necessarily doing anything with it. Being able to enjoy your sexual self even when you’re not fucking is the feminist bit – it’s about having desire, celebrating desire, your power and hotness and vulnerability. It’s that feeling of power-in-reverse, walking around with the inscrutability of Mona Lisa, knowing, as you run around doing your mundane errands or going to classes that you could turn anyone you choose into a sweaty, exhausted, happy mess.

That doesn’t mean sluts don’t rock. They do. Sometimes, though, you’re the only one in your life whose worth your effort.

Choosing being the keyword.

It’s that other story about Catherine the Great’s sexual predilections that always appealed to me: she had her ladies in waiting “try out” potential lovers for her so she didn’t waste her time with a dud. (& It’s my best guess that it was one of the duds who started the horse rumor.) She wouldn’t fuck just anyone. Most of us don’t have ladies in waiting to serve this useful function, however, so instead, maybe, we just choose to be picky.

Bye Bi

Posted by helenboyd – September 23, 2010

I almost missed it, but happy Celebrate Bisexuality day!
(Honestly, shouldn’t bisexuals get two days?)

Mismatched Libidos, Redux

Posted by helenboyd – July 26, 2010

There’s been a lot of this going around, so maybe, in fits & starts, people are getting more used to the idea of even talking about mismatched libidos. I do workshops on the topic at Dark Odyssey and other sex-positive places, and I’ve always found Dan Savage’s “leave” a little harsh. That said, one of the things I always mentioned in my workshops is that if sex is the top of your priority list, & you want a lot of it, or certain kinds of it, don’t bother torturing anyone who has a lower libido/less adventurous style. That is, if there’s anywhere that compromise is going to be key, sex is is it, & if you’re not wiling to compromise, and even occasionally stand on top of your libido, then Savage’s advice is exactly right.

But most of us can compromise pretty significantly with sex if we’re having a lot of other itches scratched. Where the line is between self-denial and reasonable compromise is tricky no matter the issue, and while I know they might take away my High Libido Club card for this, sometimes there are things that are more important than sex. (& Sometimes, there aren’t, which is often the part the low libido types don’t understand.)

Passing Pat Dye

Posted by helenboyd – July 12, 2010

Skip the Makeup has a good blog post up about Pat Dye, the 31 year old who has allegedly pursued and seduced a 15 year old girl.

That’s the huge problem: not the gender, but the age gap. Impersonating a minor to have sex with a minor is criminal.

Being trans or clocked for the gender you’re not is not a crime, or immoral, or anything like that.

So maybe let’s keep the two things entirely separate, okay?