As anyone who’s been a regular reader of my stuff will know, I’m a big fan of consent. Of course, very few people will come out and say that they’re not. But for me, consent is one of the three supports for sex-positivity, the other two being pleasure and well-being. I firmly believe that the […]

This comment on another post has had me thinking. It’s in response to something I wrote about an anti-porn conference and the commenter is trying to make a point about “green sex” or “sustainable sex.” I like the motivation behind it, but I think he’s missing the mark. Here’s what he offered: For a positive […]

This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine. The NY Times has an opinion piece up the other day by Ross Douthat, Why Monogamy Matters, which highlights what happens when people who don’t think all that clearly about sex write about sex. Douthat starts with the recent research from the Centers for Disease Control […]

You might already know this, but I like to geek out about language. In my experience and observation, our language both reflects and shapes how we think and feel. I also believe that we can only think clearly about something to the degree that we have a language for it. Plus, interpersonal friction often arises […]

One of the big debates that comes up over and over in sex education is the role and effectiveness of the strategy of harm reduction. And part of why it’s tricky is that a lot of people have so many judgments and opinions about sexual practices that it’s hard to have a reasonable discussion. When […]

I recently ran across a fascinating article: Why rejection hurts: A common neural alarm system for physical and social pain. According to the authors, physical pain and social pain (which happens when social relationships are threatened, damaged or lost) are both processed in the same part of the brain. It seems that the anterior cingulate […]

Margaret Brooks, the noted anti-sex work activist who thinks that arresting sex workers somehow protects them (because hundreds of years of evidence isn’t enough to show that it always makes things much worse for them), is at it again. Citizens Against Trafficking just released a statement from her that’s full of scare quotes, misinformation, and […]