Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Ming Xi
+ Eleven sex experts discussed what they wish they’d known about sex sooner. Joshua Rosenberger, an assistant professor of global and community health, said:
“People need to understand that sex is fun — fun and funny. Sometimes it’s awkward, sometimes it doesn’t go off as planned. There is so much pressure around sex about what its supposed to look and feel like that it can lead people to feel disappointed.
I can only imagine telling people, “It’s OK to laugh during sex.” It’s supposed to be serious business, but sometimes it’s not that serious! Sometimes it’s really funny.”
+ At Oh Joy Sex Toy, guest cartoonist Amanda Lafrenais talked about misadventures with dildos.
+ If you have a PlayStation 4, you probably watch more porn than someone with an Xbox One.
+ More women are getting labiaplasty, everything is terrible. (Link goes to the Daily Mail, so get ready for that I guess.)
+ At Nerve, a professional submissive talks about work.
+ January 5 is allegedly when dating sites get the most traffic, as everyone is freezing all the time and looking to make out now that the holidays are over and while the weird social pressure of Valentine’s is still far away:
“The best time to find your perfect match is on Jan. 5 at 8:57 p.m., research from Match.com shows. That’s the exact minute the most people will be browsing online dating profiles all year, according to the report.
‘New year, new beau! It’s that time of year, everybody sort of wants the slate cleaned of that last bad date or dating fatigue,’ Whitney Casey, Match.com’s ‘relationship expert’ […] told the Daily News.”
+ Relatedly, there are a bunch of ways you can make your online dating profile not suck, including using flattering lighting, talking about your hobbies and interests and using correct grammar:
“DON’T make spelling mistakes. If you drop a “teh”, “ur”, “cuz”, “dont”, “b4”, “im”, or “u” in a message, you will be 13% less likely to get a reply. If you are a straight man, be especially wary of these shortcuts — for men, the response rate drops by 27%.”
via pink taco lovers
+ Everyone feels feelings in the same places in their bodies in their heads, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, and laid out in neat body maps:
“The mapping exercise produced what you might expect: an angry hot-head, a happy person lighting up all the way through their fingers and toes, a depressed figurine that was literally blue (meaning they felt little sensation in their limbs). Almost all of the emotions generated changes in the head area, suggesting smiling, frowning, or skin temperature changes, while feelings like joy and anger saw upticks in the limbs—perhaps because you’re ready to hug, or punch, your interlocutor. Meanwhile, “sensations in the digestive system and around the throat region were mainly found in disgust,” the authors wrote. It’s worth noting that the bodily sensations weren’t blood flow, heat, or anything else that could be measured objectively—they were based solely on physical twinges subjects said they experienced.”
photo by Christian Carrera via Christain Carrera
+ America! Stop being scandalized by sexual pleasure:
“Questioning the stories we tell ourselves about sex frees us from having to squeeze into any Silver Slipper sexual ideal. To unlearn shame culture we must teach something else. To break the chains of purity vs. perversion, performance vs. pathology binaries, change the conversation. Let’s start with the elephant in the room, America’s unspoken taboo: pleasure. Talking sexual pleasure can be tough when most conflate pleasure with hedonism and selfishness. But sex is not only fun. While most of the animal kingdom does it solely for procreation, sex for pleasure is what makes us human.”
Sarah Shahi for Esquire
Feature image by Nzurianne.
All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email bren [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.
That article on ‘designer vaginas’ reminds me of a conversation I had to have with (not one, but multiple) guy friends over the years. Most recently, I had a friend come to me to ask me questions after he had sex with his girlfriend for the first time, and he thought there was something wrong with her because her lady bits didn’t look like other girls he has been sexual with before, and he started comparing her to girls he’s seen in porn/magazines/tv. He was genuinely *shocked* that, yes, vaginas come in all different shapes and sizes! There is no “normal” standard! It makes me so sad that there is such a warped perception of what women’s bodies are supposed to look like, and it seems to be getting worse, not better. BODY POSITIVITY ALL THE WAY.
Firsts, just wanted to say Carmen love! I started to stare at the Sarah picture and think, where do I know her from? Oops. :O
Seconds, Shannon, have you checked out Livejournal’s Everybodies project under the VaginaPagina page? They have such a wonderful way of showing women in different ways and cultures. Super positive.
Also, also, also…Bo & Lauren! ♥
LOST GIRL FTW!!!
I can get a girl off in 60 seconds flat. With my EYES CLOSED.
Granted, that girl is me, but it stil counts.
SARAH SHAHI!!! yes thank you. <3 <3 <3
Okay I totally read “Elven sex experts” and all of a sudden Tauriel was in my mind.
WTF LABIAPLASTY OH GOD NO
Is that Sarah Shahi picture part of a new issue of Esquire? Please tell me yes so I can go buy it.