Archive for the 'sexuality education' Category
Sin City and Sex Ed
I am currently in Vegas for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality annual conference.
It’s always so interesting to me when I come to these things how “different” I am. I mean, there are very few people here with tattoos, most are sex therapists, marriage/family therapists, or college professors (now, I’d LOVE to teach at a college, but I’m not there yet). Very few people here teach direct to adults or college students outside of a classroom setting. Very few people teach directly about pleasure and how to improve sexual skills. Very people people know much about kink play and/or how to talk about it.
Now, this is not to say that other forms of sex education aren’t important. The more types of sex ed and ways to reach people about learning about sexuality, the better. However, at these events, the reactions I get when people find out what I do makes me feel more alienated” and that I’m not “enough,” not a “real sex educator. I don’t know how Charlie Glickman does it.
Add to that the technology aspect. I was told my live tweeting of the presentations (and my reactions to said presentations) made people uncomfortable, that people thought I was breaking the confidentiality (don’t share participants names/identify info) agreement. Why people assumed I was doing that (versus no one else in the room), I have no idea. I’ve tweeted at Sex 2.0 2009, Sex 2.0 2010, AASECT 2010, all with no issues. But here, it makes me even more an outsider, someone who doesn’t fit in the community. I ended up feeling incredibly attacked the way that it was framed, and wound up spending the latter half of the last day in tears, missing the last plenary as I tried to collect myself.
What makes someone a good sex educator? What makes someone a “real” sex educator? What makes someone a sex professional? And who is anyone to make that distinction.
I love my work. I love changing people’s lives. I love watching people’s eyes light up during my classes, seeing break-throughs during my sex coaching, and getting emails of thanks, or those seeking advice. I will not apologize for the type of work I do, or the fact that I use technology to reach out to even more people. However, maybe this is a sign that I don’t belong in these associations or societies, if I am made to feel less than simply because of the technology provided to me that I choose to use, or because of the type of education I choose to provide.
I am a sex educator, almost every moment of every day. However, here in Sin City, as I sit outside trying to collect myself, I feel small. I feel like an outcast. I feel like a black sheep. It’s grad school all over again. And I don’t know if it is healthy for me to continue to place myself in such situations.
-Essin’ Em
3 comments
E-Lust #21
Photo courtesy of Evocative Abyss
Welcome to e[lust] - Your source for sexual intelligence and inspirations of lust from the smartest & sexiest bloggers! Whether you’re looking for hot steamy smut, thought-provoking opinions or expert information, you’re going to find it here. Want to be included in e[lust] #22? Start with the rules, check out the schedule and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!
Important e[lust] update: e[lust] will be going on hiatus for the holidays. The editions for November and December would both occur around the holidays and I know I’ll be short on both submissions and judges as well as personal time. e[lust] #22 will return in January, with ample advance warning, so please make sure you’re subscribed for updates!
~ Featured Post (Lilly’s Pick) ~
D/s Without the D/s? – This is one of those situations in a real time D/s relationship where much of the “fun” aspects of the D/s needs to be stuffed in the closet for a bit. And for us, it’s not a great time to be either a masochist or a sadist. We can deal with that.
~ e[lust] Editress ~
Yes, Jelly Sex Toys Can be Dangerous – Even if a jelly rubber toy says “phthalate-free”, it still can contain toxic chemicals that can cause skin reactions in some people. These toys are still non-porous and can harbor dirt and bacteria because they cannot be sanitized.
~ This Week’s Top Three Posts ~
Unfortunately, this edition has no Top Three picks as I didn’t have enough volunteer judges. If you’d like to volunteer to help, visit this page to find out more info and ensure that the Top Three picks continue.
See also: Pleasurists #101 and #100 for all your sex toy review needs.
All blogs that have a submission in this edition must re-post this digest from tip-to-toe on their blogs within 7 days. Re-posting the photo is optional and the use of the “read more…” tag is allowable after this point. Thank you, and enjoy!
Sex News, Interviews, Politics & Humor
A Modest Proposal: Should Ginger & Cooper Fuck?
Life in spanking after 30: part 2
Erotic Writing
I Still Don’t Know How You Taste
New Erotic Story For The Holidays – Tinsel Temptation
Kink & Fetish
A space to hate and rage and be angry (photo story)
Does liking Helmut Newton equal a fetish?
The Sacred Swinger Holiday: Halloween!
the most amazing night with HIM
Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships
All Roads Lead to Acceptance… I hope!
Dear boyfriend, I love you. And your cock.
Having Great Goddamned Expectations
If You Google it, I will Answer #9
I Don’t Know If I’ve Ever Been Really Loved By a Hand That’s Touched Me
No commentsAnger On Labiaplasty
I got an email, assumably from someone’s agent (I’m not quite sure), promoting an article about labiaplasty. For those of you who don’t know, this is plastic surgery on the labia. To make them look like some fictional, non-existant norm.
Let me reiterate what I say in every god damn class I teach. Vulvas are like snowflakes; each is unique, and beautiful just the way it is. I hold up Vivianne, my vulva puppet, and explain that sometimes the outer lips are biggers, but sometimes the inner lips are bigger. Sometimes the lips (either set, or even both) can be uneven.
There is NO reason, aside from a painful accident, to EVER, EVER EVER. Get labia plasty. Period. You are beautiful just the way YOU are(or your partner/friend/lover is beautiful just the way THEY are). Some of these surgeries require epic amounts of money, time, recovery, sometimes being put under…and sometimes, (often) the clients are still not happy with their vulvas.
Well, it turns out this article is PRO-Labiaplasty. Someone, somewhere, put me on a press list for fucking PRO genital mutilation articles…because that’s what non-emergency labiaplasty is. Genital mutiliation. The end. So I wrote back, asking if they had send me this because how atrocious and ridiculous this article was, supporting women cutting up their genitals to have some sort of “perfect” or “ideal” vulva that just doesn’t even exist.
Her answer?
This article was sent with the belief that women are allowed to do what they want with their vaginas and that there are far more atrocious things that can be done to them than labiaplasty. That said, we find the article and subject matter interesting, and wanted to pass it along.
Thanks,
Amanda Z***********
Globalpost
THERE ARE FAR MORE ATROCIOUS THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE TO THEM OTHER THAN LABIAPLASTY. Um. What? I mean, if you’re going to count sexual assault, then yet. It doesn’t happen specifically to a vulva though — it happens to the whole person. I can honestly not think of anything worse happening to a vulva specifically than having it cut up. For not reason other than some non-existant ideal. Possibly losing most/all sensation in said lips.
I’m sorry, but while I support everyone’s right to make personal choices, I do not support our society telling vulva owners that they aren’t good enough, and so need to cut up their area of pleasure to appeal to some made up, bull shit standard.
The article itself, in the Global Post, did have one redeeming paragraph (out of two freaking pages talking about porn stars vulvas (NOT vaginas, btw) being the models for women who come in wanting vulva surgery because they want to look “perfect.’ The paragraph?
Virginia Braun, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Auckland, has also railed against the trend.
“We came to believe that, despite claims that they are about empowering women and improving women’s sexual pleasure, these surgeries were being recommended out of a misogynist disregard for women’s genital diversity and a willingness to exploit women’s lack of knowledge and confidence about their genitals,” she wrote in a study called “The ‘Designer Vagina’ and the pathologisation of female genital diversity: Interventions for change,” published in Radical Psychology earlier this year.
Otherwise, fuck this. Anyone who tells me that their are many worse things that can happen to ANYTHING is making excuses and creating a hierarchy of oppression.
Well, she sure did give me something to write about, although I’m sure it’s not the way she expected.
Love every vulva. Irregardless. The end.
-Essin’ Em
3 commentsPart of How Sex Ed Saved My Life
Excerpt from ShannaKatz.com…
When I was 10 or so, I discovered the wonders of the internet. It was back in the mid-90s, before most people had access, but my father was a computer scientist, and I was rocking out on Mosaic, way before IE or Eathlink or Netscape or AOL made their brands so popular. I didn’t use it for much, as there wasn’t that much info out there pertaining to me, but I did have an email, and learned how to search.
Around the late 90s, I was in my “oh em gee, want to learn everything possible about puberty and sex” and after my parents exhausted the info available at the local library, I was lucky enough to discover Scarleteen. It was still quite young back then, but it was knowledge, and that was something I was desperately hungry for. More importantly, it was more than just information; it was interactive. I could learn from older teens, from educators, from people my age. I became obsessive about checking the forums every day. It was a way for me to connect, to get information, to teach myself about sexuality, to have my questions answered, and to get to know my body.
I didn’t really get any sort of sex education from school until I was a Junior in High School (age 14), and accidentally ended up in a Parenting and Child Development class (amusing, since I definitely didn’t want and don’t want children). In that class, we spent a good week or two on birth control and contraception. I got 100% on every assignment, and impressed the teacher, as I already had learned most of this info from Scarleteen.
High school was hard for me. I graduated at 16, so I was always about 2-3 years younger than most of my peers, and that caused endless taunting and worse, being ignored. I had my inner circle of friends, of course, but more importantly, I had the knowledge that on Scarleteen, I was equal. My questions and answers were just as valid as a popular cheerleader, or another braniac. To me, sex education was my great equalizer. I might not be cool, or popular, or the social ideal of beautiful, but because I had information that no one else had, I was still interesting. I might get teased, but people still wanted what I had (knowledge) and so I wasn’t the brunt of as much hate as I might have been.
Click here to read the rest of How Sex Ed Saved My Life.
1 commentBloggers Who Make You Think: Nominations
I’m creating a list. A list of sex/relationship/LGBTQ/kink/social justice/feminist/humanist bloggers who have put up at least one post that has made you stop for a moment and think. Perhaps it was about sex and gender, or about your views of relationships, or some privilege you have that you hadn’t realized that you had yet. It can be anything that made you think, analyse, re-examine, say “oh!” — whatever it is that made you stop for a moment and step outside of your own view of the world.
Often, sex bloggers get boxed into a, well, a box. We’re suppoed to write reviews, erotica, and post pictures. Lots of people who are called “sex bloggers” don’t even identify as such. However, just because someone isn’t writing about the sex they are having, but rather about navigating relationships, combating sexual violence or struggling with gender, this doesn’t mean they they aren’t an amazing blogger that can really make you think.
This list is for all bloggers who write in the field of sexuality and social justice. When posted, it will not have a numberical order — rather, it will just be in alphabetical order, because I don’t know how you can really judge the quality of someone’s writing, as everyone has such a different style.
The few rules:
*Please don’t nominate yourself.
*Blog must have at least 15 posts on it, preferrably at least 6 months old (younger blogs often disappear, and then many of the list links are dead).
*Please comment with: The blog URL, the blogger’s online name, and at least ONE link to a post that made you think. You don’t need to explain why, but please include at least one think-worthy post.
*You can nominate up to 10 bloggers. Please do one comment per blogger, for ease of actually creating the list.
*Bloggers must be somehow related to the fields of sex, sexuality, relationships, parenting, kink, poly, monogamy, social justice, equality, etc.
You have until November 30th at 11:59pm to nominate. Feel free to post about this on your blog, tweet/facebook about it, ask to be nominated, just remember that you cannot nominate yourself. Please grab the button above (made by the AMAZING Dangerous Lilly) — just please host it yourself (thanks!).
And so it begins…
-Essin’ Em
51 commentsThe Scarleteen Blog Carvinal
I support sex education. Obviously. And I’ll be participating in this carnival over on ShannaKatz.com this Friday. However, I think it’s important that EVERY share their stories of sex education (good, bad and non-existant), and support this amazing resource that provides FREE sex education and answers to questions for teens, youth, and anyone that needs information. I donated to support Scarleteen – what about you?
-Essin’ Em
The Scarleteen Sex-Ed Blog Carnival is set to run October 15th through November 15th and we’d love if if you’d take part. We’re featuring posts about your experiences with sexuality education and the importance of the kind of positive, inclusive and trustworthy information Scarleteen provides to young people.
***Find a list of participants and banners for use on your site here!***
We probably don’t need to tell you how important good, accessible sexuality education is, nor how important a safe space for young people to talk about sexuality is, particularly in light of the tragic events in the last month that showed too clearly how some young people are still all too unsupported, and many young people’s lives could be improved or saved if the level of sexual education they receive was more compassionate, truthful and positive.
Throughout the month expect to see posts from a selection of amazing writers from the sex-positive, feminist and skeptical blogosphere. Also, Heather Corinna will be publishing advice columns written by herself and guest authors every day of the month on Scarleteen.
Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998, and has the longest tenure of any sex education resource for young people online. We have consistently provided free, inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and one-on-one support to millions, and have never shied away from discussing sexuality as more than merely posing potential risks, but as posing potential benefits, something rarely seen in young adult sex education. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have never stopped working hard to sustain, refine and expand it.
What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget typically lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are and have always been fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.
You also might not know Scarleteen is primarily funded by people who care deeply about teens having this kind of vital and valuable service; individuals like you and your readers who want better for young people than what they get in schools, on the street or from initiatives whose aim is to intentionally use fearmongering, bias and misinformation about sexuality to try to scare or intimidate young people into serving their own personal, political or religious agendas.
What Scarleteen Needs: Last year, Scarleteen needed increased donations in order to get through the end of 2009 and into 2010, in large part because private donations for a few years previous had been so low and left us in a very financially precarious position. We increased our financial goals to reflect the need for a minimum annual operating budget of $70,000. Thanks to generous contributions from our supporters in response to that appeal, while we were not able to reach that level, we were able to raise what we needed to not only get through 2009, but were able to use the funds wisely to sustain the organization through 2010. Our goal now is to continue to work toward that annual operating budget. Ideally, we would like to see a minimum of $20,000 in individual donations each year to combine with funding from private grants. In order for that to happen, we need for current donors to keep giving, and we also also need to cultivate new donors.
This minimum budget is exceptionally cost-effective for the level of service we provide, especially compared to other organizations and initiatives whose budgets are far higher, including those which do not match our reach and our level of direct-service. If you would like more details about our budget and expenses, just contact us via email and we’ll gladly share that information with you.
Unlike many other organizations often in a bind because they are solely or highly reliant on foundation or public funding, Scarleteen has always been primarily supported by generous individuals like yourself and small community groups. While this requires we operate at a far smaller budget than other similar organizations, it also allows for a high level of freedom and autonomy and the ability to best provide young people with what they want, rather than seeking to create or adapt content and services primarily to suit what funders want. This approach to funding also allows our staff to put nearly all of our time, energy and money into directly serving youth, rather than into grant seeking, writing, schmoozing and administrating.
We’re asking for your help in either giving a donation of your own or encouraging your readers, colleagues, friends and family to donate. Given our visibility, tenure and traffic, with your help, meeting our goal should not be particularly challenging. A $100 donation can pay half of our server bill for a month, or half the monthly cost of the text-in service, or can fund any kind of use of the site, including one-on-one counsel and care, for around 10,000 of our daily users. However, we very much appreciate donations at any level.
We’d be grateful if you’d share our appeal with your own networks to broaden ours, and let the people who care about you know why you care so much about us. We’d love it if you’d Tweet about your post, share it via Facebook or add a link to your emails. Please feel free to quote from this email or from information given in the links below.
Some links to use in your blog post:
- Scarleteen’s main page
- Scarleteen’s about page
- Scarleteen’s support page (information about Scarleteen’s mission and fiscal needs)
- Scarleteen’s donate now page (PayPal donation buttons and alternate ways to donate)
- AAG’s list of all carnival participants and banners to use on your website
Off to Colorado
I’m heading back to the land of my dreams, Colorado, for a long weekend. What shall this weekend entail?
*Hopefully cooler air. Arizona is still pretty frakking hot.
*Doing a sex toy party for my sister’s sorority and visiting the new Fascinations store in Colorado Springs.
*Doing an on air interview with Lewis and Floodwax Thursday morning.
*Teaching What’s Up with the Butt: Anal Sex 101 on Thursday night, for free, at 7pm, at the Fascinations in Aurora.
*Visiting with my moose!
*Seeing my BFF.
*Solidifying plans with the celebration of love venue for next year.
*Seeing the family..and such.
See you on the flip side!
-Essin’ Em
2 commentsSex Blogger Calendar Picture Reveal
We’re now allowed to show our pictures from the Sex Blogger Calendar 2011, and I love love love this picture. Thanks to Marty Carstens for taking this fabulous photo of me and Valerie (Vivianne the Vulva’s smaller cousin), to all of those people and companies who worked to put it on, and all of the other hot and sexy models who came together to raise money for sexual freedom!
Calendars are now available online — click here to buy your own! With Nina Hartley on the cover, and Jiz Lee in January (I’m in June), it’ll be a great way to celebrate the new year, and they make great, social justice oriented presents for the holiday season. Just saying…
-Essin’ Em
1 commentAwesome Sexuality Stickers
Fascinations has made a bunch of awesome stickers, many of which have sayings of mine of them. Here is a mock up of one of them — we gave all of them out at the Rainbows Festival this weekend and they were incredibly popular. How awesome is this?
HNT: Folsom
The above picture is my outfit that I wore for Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco last weekend. It’s an amazing outfit, period. I found the skirt on sale for $5 at Target, the hose as a two-pack (the other are much tighter weave, and are leopard print fishnet!) for $7, and then of course, my favorite fire corset and rainbow zebra shoes, coming together for an incredibly hot outfit. I love it.
I had a blast at Folsom, although it was quite hot, and there was far too much walking involved for a poor little femme using a cane. Maybe if I go again in the future, I’ll get me some ponies to pull me around.
My demo went great. About 45-50 people in the audience, two lovely demo bottoms, and lots of fantabulous queer energy made for a VERY fun “kinky games people play” demo at the Venus Playground. Plus, I got to see Madison Young, Mollena, Garnet Joyce, and other fabulous sex positive pervs…and then I finished off the day dancing with an old friend from Philly, and the love of her life. I give that a good thumbs up.
And now, I’m off to New York!
Happy HNT everyone!
-Essin’ Em
4 comments
