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Tag: sex positive

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Relationships

Read Come Together

  • Post author By Tracy Durnell
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Read Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Relationships

In Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, PhD, provided science-backed lessons that revolutionized the way we think about women’s sexuality. Now, in Come Together, Nagoski takes on a fundamentally misunderstood subject: sex in long-term relationships.

Nagoski breaks down the myths many of us have been taught about sex—for instance, the belief that sexual satisfaction and desire are highest at the beginning of a relationship and that they will inevitably decline the longer that relationship lasts. Nagoski assures us that’s not true.

So, what is true? Come Together isn’t about how much we want sex, or how often we’re having it; it’s about whether we like the sex we’re having. Nagoski breaks down the obstacles that impede us from enjoying sex—from stress and body image, to relationship difficulties and gendered beliefs about how sex “should” be—and presents the best ways to overcome them. You’ll learn:
• that “spontaneous desire” is not the kind of desire to strive for if you want to have great sex for decades
• vocabulary for talking with partners about ways to get in “the mood” and how to not take it personally when “the mood” is nowhere to be found
• how to understand your own and your partner’s “emotional floorplan,” so that you have a blueprint for how to get to a sexy state of mind

With her signature insight, humor, and empathy, Nagoski shows us what great sex can look like, how to create it in our own lives, and what to do when struggles arise.

If you’re just going to read one of Nagoski’s books, read Come as You Are.

This book is more about relationships than sex directly. There are a couple chapters getting into how gender norms influence our (sexual) expectations and actions. The section on positive and negative mental / emotional spaces was interesting and complements the ideas from Come As You Are, but I didn’t find them to be well enough explained.

Continue reading “Read Come Together”
Categories
Culture Society The Internet

Escaping corporate mindsets on the indie web

Liked NSFW on the IndieWeb by Paul WatsonPaul Watson (lazaruscorporation.co.uk)

If you can’t find certain types of content in the curated collections of links on IndieWeb sites because the curators have adopted wholesale the corporate rules of “what is allowed” then the IndieWeb is just going to be a pallid reflection of the CorporateWeb, but with far less clout.

I also notice people don’t swear much on their blogs. I have cut back on cussing in my writing myself, more from fear of sounding strident than causing offense — as a woman in patriarchal society, expressing strong emotion can undercut my argument — but I do believe in the power of a perfectly placed “fuck.” And our society is fucked up enough to deserve the vocal, even vulgar expression of our dissatisfaction — because I think what’s disgusting is not “profanity,” but allowing schoolchildren to go hungry and razing encampments to make homeless people invisible again.

 

See also:

Who is the internet for? Or, the culture war over adult content

The obscenity of women’s pleasure

Article pairing: normalize sex

Categories
Art and Design Culture Political Commentary Society

Article pairing: normalize sex

  • Post author By Tracy Durnell
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https://twitter.com/gvaughnjoy/status/1527073416133627904

Sex can serve a valuable narrative function. I think of Watchmen: Dan’s literal impotence in the face of nuclear annihilation, and his virility when he reclaims his agency and takes action, pointless though it may be. Doctor Manhattan’s failure to understand Laurie’s needs as he divides himself to continue his work while they’re making love. These scenes are core to the emotional story, to the characters’ choices and thus the plot. I read a book about writing sex scenes that suggests the characters should have sex in a way that only they could, that reflects where they are in their relationship and each of their arcs. Is she scared of admitting their connection and pushes for a quick fuck, while he keeps the pace slow to keep her from denying there’s more between them than physical attraction? Does she struggle with trusting others, and he says just the wrong thing after they make love?

A lot of the sex we see in movies isn’t used thoughtfully; Hollywood is bad at including romance in stories that aren’t primarily love stories (like action adventure) — it’s not actually enough for two hot people to spend time interacting if there’s no reason for them to like each other besides proximity and adrenaline, and it feels forced for them to bone — at that point the sex is more serving the wish fulfillment / hero gets the girl narrative. So we need better sex in our stories — which honestly probably means longer sex scenes (more foreplay or more afterglow) to allow screentime for characterization and meaning.

Federal judge rules that employers can refuse to cover PrEP

It’s hard to see this and not think that the cruelty is the point. What abomination of a person would deny anyone protection against HIV? Someone who thinks anyone who gets HIV deserves it 🙃

(There’s a lot of other things going on with this particular bad decision — health care shouldn’t be tied to employment, businesses aren’t people and cannot hold beliefs and shouldn’t have the same rights as people, it is not religious freedom to impose your beliefs on others or harm them because of your beliefs — but let’s not get into that here. We’re talking sex.)

The hatred and fear of gay and trans people is growing more aggressive. Religious extremists play off the public’s transphobia and discomfort with sex, gambling that few will come to the defense of queer folks when all LGBTQIA+ people and allies are painted as pedos. But this is only possible when people are skeeved out by other humans having sex, especially sex that’s different than the sex they have, and especially sex that’s for pleasure only. Our society doesn’t value “non-productive” activities in any form. This also ties in with the gross conservative obsession with people having more babies: “sex is for procreation!” No. Sex is normal and healthy behavior for consenting adults who aren’t trying to get pregnant.

We are not subject to the strictures of anyone else’s controlling, shaming religion. This is not a Christian nation and religious extremists cannot impose their moral judgements on everyone else. (Unless they steal power and exert fascism on us.) We need to normalize healthy, safe, consensual, pleasurable sex between partners of all kinds: straight, gay, old, fat, disabled. Let’s tackle all the -phobias and -isms 👏 (Asexuality too, another queer identity religious extremists hate — show healthy relationships without sex.) And that means including sex in our stories, visual and written. There’s a reason conservatives come so hard for books: stories have power.