Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Feature image via/of NaiJackEllen.
DJ Tonik via doidroid
+ If you’ve ever wondered about whether you can get/give STIs via sex toys, Refinery 29 has the answer:
“You should never assume that if you wait long enough, they’ll disappear. Everything from HPV to gonorrhea, chlamydia, and HIV can be transferred by sharing sex toys. Even bacterial vaginosis, which isn’t an STD but rather just an infection (that can cause serious itching) linked to an imbalance of bacteria in the vagina, can be transferred on your toys. And, if bodily fluids or blood are on the toy, syphilis and hepatitis C can be transferred, too. Scary stuff!
The good news is that if you simply clean your gadgets after each use, you don’t ever have to worry about giving or getting something gross. Washing (the good, old-fashioned way, with soap and hot water) is all you really need to do.”
via womenofcolor.tumblr.com
+ OKCupid will start letting you pick from more genders and sexualities.
+ Virtual reality porn is starting to exist.
+ Dirty emoji.
via
+ Babeland is doing a pre-Black Friday Sale and you can get 30% off the Je Joue Mimi Soft, the Jimmyjane Form 2 and the Jopen Vanity Vr.16.
+ Rookie answered some questions about bisexuality, including feeling like you’re missing out if you’ve only slept with dudes, bi-phobia, identifying as a sex weirdo and legitimizing your sexual desire all on your own:
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your sexual desires are only legit when they become sexual experiences. Most people know they are straight long before they indulge in any hetero sexy time, if they ever indulge at all. Just like you already know you desire women, please understand that it doesn’t make you a fraud or a poseur if you’re happily dating a man. Your sexuality isn’t defined by whomever you happen to be dating at the moment. (See: Anna Paquin throwing down during a Larry King Now interview.)”
via womenofcolor
+ At the Toast, Yana Tallon-Hicks, who you may know from her guide to how to have lesbian anal sex, writes about the practice of being in an open relationship and the nonconstructive narratives around non-monogamy:
“Sure, you can read Taormino’s book and totally agree with her theories: I don’t own my partner! She’s her own person! Society can’t put me in a box! Then one night you find yourself at home, cleaning up dog vomit after a tough work shift, while your girlfriend’s off with her other partner Hot Motorcycle Guy — and in your jealous, puppy-puke-ridden mind, they couldn’t possibly be doing anything other than feeding each other expensive steaks before having simultaneous orgasms at sunset. Suddenly monogamy starts looking real nice.
The most common pitfalls in open relationships exist in the big ol’ gap between people’s expectations of non-monogamy in theory, and the hard reality of non-monogamy in practice.”
sandy bottoms via isabeldresler
+ Persistent genital arousal disorder sounds terrible.
+ Some dude scientists think vaginas should smell like peaches, probably because of the patriarchy.
+ Do not ask your activity partner to not watch porn, that is silly unless it’s kinky.
+ Antidepressants might impact your sex life.
via alt-and-black
+ The sex toy — excuse me, “sexual wellness — industry has become super huge:
“Sex toys are a big business that has been rebranded “sexual wellness.” U.S. revenues are estimated at $15 billion and the business site, the Street, projects sales to grow to $52 billion in 2020. The sex-toy industry has changed over the last decade, driven by a change in cultural values and the anonymity of the Internet. Sex-toy outlets have shifted from retail shops serving the raincoat crowd to online sites catering to every whim and price point. The hard-scrabble sex-positive activists who started San Francisco’s Good Vibration, Babeland in Seattle and the Pleasure Chest in New York have given way to Amazon, which offers an estimated 60,000 products, and Silicon Valley-backed ventures and crowdfunding fantasies.
Sex toys are a growth market attracting an ever-growing customer base as well as smart high-tech product designers and ever-clever investors looking for the next hot opportunity. And nothing is hotter than sex.”
via suicidegirls
+ And even though the industry has a ton of money and sex toys are expensive, you still shouldn’t buy counterfeits.
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is anyone else underwhelmed about okcupid’s new gender/orientation options?? they’re not available to most people and they include “sapiosexual” as a valid orientation, which I guess is probably meant to be funny and quirky in the same way that “space camp” is an education option but it’s still super ableist.
But I saw an xojane headline that says “Okcupid Explodes The Gender Binary With Their New Options,” so I guess we should just be thanking them for single handedly exploding the binary :)
I doubt it. I’m sure it’s there cause some people legitimately identify that way. Like demisexual…it sort of makes me want to roll my eyes.
Why does demisexuality make you want to roll your eyes? I’m legitimately confused.
It doesn’t seem sensible to you that some people have a sexual attraction that only warms up to a very small amount of people or during outside-of-the-ordinary circumstances?
It takes me a long time to truly desire sex with anyone and that, combined with my anxiety, has made finding a relationship extremely challenging. I always felt like there was something wrong with me, felt guilty about not being able to give a partner what they wanted, and tended to end relationships before they really began because telling a partner that it might be months before I was comfortable having sex was so humiliating (I’ve tried just pretending, but doing anything sexual when you’re not aroused is awful).
I was discussing this with my sister when she told me about demisexuality. Looking it up and reading about other people who have had experiences similar to mine has been extremely meaningful to me and helped me to let go of a lot of shame about my sexuality. I suppose you think it’s trendy, but beleive me, it isn’t. Knowing that I am not going to be rapidly sexually available makes me less appealing to the majority of the population and if I could change it I would.
I don’t identify as “demisexual,” and I am CERTAINLY not “rapidly sexually avaliable,” and honestly, I’m pretty offended that you seem to think that everyone who’s not “demisexual” is. Like, seriously? Sure, some women enjoy sex enough that they’ll do it pretty quickly into a relationship (if it even becomes a relationship). And I have friends that do that and like it. But the majority of the people I know, and I dare say the majority of women period, are not “rapidly sexually available” and that’s a pretty shitty, inaccurate assumption that you’re not entitled to make.
You can identify however the hell you want to, but don’t make ignorant, straight up false, arrogant assumptions about other women.
I can’t be sure what Dialethia meant exactly by ‘rapidly’, but the several months she mentions before feeling like sex in a relationship is certainly much less common than the opposite.
I’m sure many people (possibly you) feel and act the same way without identifying as demisexual, but I’m not sure why it is offensive to assume the majority of women feel like having sex sooner than several months in a relationship?
Also, I’m sure this will be available to everyone eventually. It appears to be in a Beta stage.
I definitely remember seeing people on OKcupid who wrote somewhere on their profile that they were sapiosexual. I group it with the people who have the list of grammatical requirements for anyone who messages them. But if they are sapiosexual or grammatically-correctosexual, good for them for knowing what they want.
I really like the change overall. I am tempted to reactivate my account, change my sexual orientation to queer, and then deactivate it again.
There is more to that peach story! The founder is a 20-year-old woman whose product-in-development was misrepresented in a presentation (by the dude scientists), and she doesn’t want to make anyone’s vagina smell like fruit:
http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/sweet-peach-founder-speaks.html
Thanks for that link! The actual product, as it’s intended, sounds really interesting!
I was terrified that antidepressants would ruin my sex life… But they didn’t! In fact, if anything, my sex life got better because I’m not as much of an anxious ruminating mess.
So there’s hope :)
My ex girlfriend used to always wear fruity lotion around her vagina and I daresay it was really nice. I guess that makes me a bad person.
They’ve had fruit scented/flavored condoms for forever. I don’t see what the big difference is.
Is OKCupid also going to let you sort through the new genders and sexualities for the ones you want to see?
Re Lotion: No, that sounds like such a sweet memory :)
Re OkCupid: I’m hoping they do. If transphobic douches elected to avoid trans people (particularly women) and/or gender identities they consider ‘trends’, they would do everyone a great service, since we can’t do the opposite.
I’m just hoping it doesn’t lead to the assholes targeting people.
I hope it doesn’t either. When I read the the comments the first one I noticed was a woman expressing the fear she get hate email no matter which label she chose. It would be a no win situation and that’s horrible.
The link to the non-monogamy article is http://the-toast.net/2014/11/18/clopen-relationships-love-advice-polyamorous-monogamist/
Tried to blockquote, failed so hard. Lolsob. Take 2:
“Do not ask your activity partner to not watch porn, that is silly unless it’s kinky.”
And from the original “Bitch” article:
“Firstly, I think porn is fine to watch, and it’s borderline weird to ask someone to not watch it if that’s something they like. … I think it is a bit controlling and misguided. … I would feel so bummed if someone I was dating tried to hold dominion over my personal (non-cheaterly) time.”
Such judgment, many universally prescriptive. Why is it a given that everyone must be okay with their partner watching porn? Why is it a given that porn, by definition, is not cheating?
Porn is just part of masturbating. You can do it without it sure. But it’s no different than using a vibrator or reading erotica. It’s strikes me as controlling to interfere in someone’s personal relaxation.
I would worry that a partner asking me to give up porn has some incompatible personal boundaries and values around sexuality.
While porn is a part of masturbating for many folks, that is not an inherent truth. It is quite possible to be totally fine with one’s partner getting off but not fine with them using porn to do so.
Sure, a partner asking YOU to give up porn has some incompatible boundaries/values around sexuality… with YOU. All I’m saying is that there is nothing universally controlling about asking one’s partner not to use porn, any more than delineating any other mutually negotiated boundaries in a relationship.
What would be the reason for someone forbidding their partner from viewing any porn?
The two reasons I can think of are:
1) The person cannot handle their partner feeling at all turned on by anyone else. I would not want to be in a relationship with someone who felt this way because it is inevitable that I will encounter other people I experience some attraction to, and surely such a partner would not want me ever looking at the Lesbosexy Sunday pictures!
2) The person is uncomfortable with the porn industry. If a partner felt this way, I would think they needed to see better porn.
If a partner had some other reason for forbidding porn-viewing, then maybe I would be ok with that. I have no opposition to avoiding porn, but I am uncomfortable with the reasons someone might have for making such a stipulation.
Asking someone not to actively get off to porn is not asking them never to be attracted to others any more than asking someone not to have sex with others is asking them never to be attracted to anyone else.
And asking someone to not get off to Lesbosexy Sunday is not the same as asking them not to look at it.
Or 3) the partner’s masturbating habits were having a negative impact on the couple’s sex life, but that’s about the masturbation more than the porn itself.
I’m glad someone else brought this up. I mean, I dunno… I don’t think I would be comfortable with my partner watching pornography. I don’t, and I’d rather find someone else who doesn’t. I have a lot of problems with the industry and I don’t think a handful of “good” companies will change that.
I think it’s different from written/drawn erotica, too, because there are actual real human beings involved and I dunno. I would just rather date someone who doesn’t, just like I’d rather date someone who doesn’t smoke.
I guess that whatever the agreement between you and your partner(s) is what goes. Like, the other commenters in this thread probably wouldn’t be the right partners if you don’t like the porn ;) But just like every relationship has its boundaries regarding monogamy, so does every relationship have its boundaries involving other things.
And ideally that boundary should be explicit!
Thank you! That’s all I’m really saying. It just seems that there’s a weird taboo around putting limits on porn specifically. There are many things that, when unilaterally demanded, represent controlling behavior, but when bilaterally negotiated, represent mutually agreed-upon limits.
I’m glad OkCupid has finally added “asexual” so I can stop explaining it to random people who message me. Hopefully there will be a way to filter for people who include it, so I don’t worry that people are messaging me with the wrong idea.
YES! I’m buying “Opening Up”, the recommended reading for open relationships & poly thangs. I ordered The Ethical Slut too, although the reviews are less savory. Anyone read either or have other resource suggestions?