The feature image of a scene with Valentine Boudreaux, Lain Arbor, and River Gray and all of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from fetish site Mondo Fetiche. The inclusion of a visual here is not an assertion of a model’s gender or orientation. If you’re a photographer or model and think your work would be a good fit for NSFW Sunday, please email carolyn at autostraddle dot com.
Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Julia Foery for Mondo Fetiche
Has the pandemic changed sex for the better?:
“In a time when touch has been so limited, some people have been moving toward a future full of bold new pleasures. Alex Jenny, a therapist based in Chicago, told me she joined a nude-sharing group chat, started an OnlyFans page, and began having sex online. In Virginia, where I live, one friend sauntered over to a lover’s doorstep one night wearing a mask and nitrile gloves, picked up a Speedo sealed in a ziplock bag, went home to do a photoshoot in the swimwear, and sent his beau the photos and videos. Many people are reimagining their own boundaries, thinking of this period of virtual intimacies, of distance and little physical contact, not as a lack but instead as a sort of edge play through sexual self-discovery.”
Ashley Paige and Ava D’Amore for Mondo Fetiche
At Electric Literature, Megan Stories writes about Macho Sluts and the harm in very narrow narratives about sex:
“[A particular kind of harm] comes from focusing on the story of what sex is supposed to be without examining how it actually feels. The kind that comes from telling very narrow stories about what eroticism is rather than acknowledge its breadth and potential. […]
We tell ourselves so many stories about what sex is and what it is supposed to be. The anti-pornography feminists in resistance to whom Califia wrote Macho Sluts insisted that BDSM was violent, dangerous, misogyny incarnate, while rarely applying the same scrutiny to vanilla lesbian sex. The good ’90s liberals around whom I came of age claimed that sex was a beautiful expression of love but never once suggested I notice how my body felt imagining or doing it. I have so often felt alone, even within queer communities, in a reality that does not match these stories.”
Amazon Maddox and Francisco St. Laurent for for Mondo Fetiche
Hot vax summer was vastly overstated. Is anyone surprised?
The five types of personal boundaries are physical, emotional, sexual, time, and material. Here’s more about them and how to set them.
Love languages are partly about repetition.
Sex education in the U.S. is broken, but it doesn’t have to be.
Mistress Datura and Vanniall for Mondo Fetiche
Here’s how to tell a friend their partner sucks after you’ve made sure you’re not simply jealous:
“Screenshot texts they’ve sent you complaining or worrying about bad behavior and use their own words to show them what they’re going through. People in bad relationships have an incredible habit of glossing over the icky parts, forgiving, forgetting, and sticking with the rose-colored glasses. It’s not unheard of for someone to be crying over their boyfriend’s lack of interest in them on a Friday night, and then posting a picture of them out at brunch the next day. Everyone copes in different ways, but if your friend is forced to confront the reality of their own sad comments to you, you might have a breakthrough.”
Comprehensive sex education is so fucking important. I never really even learned anything useful in sex ed from school. All I ever really got was, ok, cis man puts penis in cis woman’s vagina. BOOM baby egg, sperm, baby after nine months. I learned that I had vaginismus from watching Lily on ‘Sex Education’ and then reading an article you guys posted some months ago. I learned about self pleasure, cunnalingus, clits, the fact that gender doesn’t equal genitalia, consent, asexuality, all on my own time. Mostly from Autostraddle and the movies/television/books. You guys were literally my sex ed teachers. (And I mean, you guys are awesome sex ed teachers, thank you for that, but seriously, other people should know about this stuff too.)
Loved the Macho Sluts article!
What the queer community is now does not represent how I feel. It doesn’t make me feel liberated, included or even loved. It just adds to my isolation, self hatred and anxiety.
People lied. It doesn’t get better. It just gets worse.