All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from model Mars, shot by Randy Contello. The inclusion of a visual here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual 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!

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ Trans users are getting banned from Tinder:

“Despite adding more gender-inclusive settings to its app over a year ago, Tinder is now facing accusations of transphobia. Many transgender Tinder users took to Twitter to reveal that they have been banned from the popular dating app for ‘violating [Tinder’s] Terms of Service or Community Guidelines in some way.’ No further explanation was provided by Tinder.

Twitter user Tahlia Rene was one of many who posted her exchange with Tinder and expressed that the reason she was banned from the app was due to ‘mass men reporting me for being trans.’”

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ The worst way to break up with someone is to string them along for months while being totally obtuse about your feelings to them and if you’re being honest about it, to yourself. The best way to break up with someone is to be honest and direct:

“There’s a formula for a ‘good’ breakup — and it involves honest communication. ‘There’s a fine line between letting someone down easily and stringing them along because you don’t want to hurt them,’ says Andrea Bonior, PhD, a psychologist and author. ‘You may think that by not making plans with them, you’re sending a partner a clear signal. But by not clearly saying that you want to stop seeing them, you’re wasting their time.’ In fact, you’re prolonging their rejection because they have no idea what’s going on. That lack of clarity can lead to some pretty hurt feelings — something that should never be the goal at the end of the relationship.

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ “Nothing hurls a woman beyond heartache like a roadtrip.”

+ We know sex hair when we see it: “Why are we so obsessed with this look? Perhaps because it looks powerful, conveys sexual agency and seems to take little effort. It’s not a hair disaster, and still fits into the constraints of conventional beauty standards. It’s wild, but not too wild, and at the same time, it’s intimate; having tousled, ‘just had sex and rolled out of bed’ hair reveals a part of us that we normally wouldn’t show to the public.”

+ Robin Wilson-Beattie is a sex educator teaching BDSM to people with disabilities.

+ Photographer Kenzie Crash, previously featured in the NSFW Sunday, has a 2018 calendar of neon queers that’s relevant to your interests.

+ Star Wars sex toys? Why not.

+ Here’s what getting your nipples pierced feels like.

+ Pussypedia is a free online English and Spanish resource that’s all about the vagina, including trans-spectrum vaginas. On Kickstarter, the creators note: “In a vacuum of information, most of what we learn about our bodies comes from the very advertisers trying to sell us things that not only do we not need, but also actively damage us. […] The good resources on the internet — we don’t deny that they exist — are hard to find. We want to change that.”

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ Sometimes you don’t get the talk. At Self, Meredith Talusan discusses coming out when you live somewhere conservative, figuring out sex in a culture that doesn’t want to talk about it, why all sex education should be trans-inclusive and more:

“Sex ed is not even gay and lesbian sensitive. There’s this notion that the way that queer people have sex is already too adult for high school, which I think is total bullshit. The ways that we as a community intuitively want to have sex is viewed as not suitable for minors, which I think is really terrible. It contributes to this entire perception of queer and trans sex as alternative, when it’s only alternative in the sense that more people have heterosexual sex.

If I were an administrator designing a trans curriculum, I would just have a separate unit on how queer people have sex, and a separate unit on how trans people have sex. Even if there are no queer or trans people in your classroom, people who are straight need to really understand that gay sex is just a form of sex, nothing more, nothing less.”

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ Let go of worrying so much about when someone will text you back:

“First, remove your ego from the equation. ‘That’s where a lot of the anxiety comes from,’ Engler says. ‘The ego is what gets you saying things like, ‘Oh, they didn’t text back because they didn’t like me.’ In reality, the reason they’re not texting back could have nothing to do with you.’ She says that by removing yourself and your actions as a factor in why they’re not texting back, you’ll cut through your anxiety. ‘The term ‘jumping to conclusions’ is used in cognitive distortion, meaning that we create these stories in our minds that might not have anything to do with reality,’ Kitley says.”

Mars shot by Randy Contello

+ The photos in this week’s NSFW Sunday are of Mars, a self-taught internationally published makeup artist and model who identifies as pansexual and is based our of New York City, shot by Randy Contello. Find Mars on her instagram @lonewolfbeauty or her website.

On making queer smut with her body, Mars says:

“The first time I made queer smut with my body was only a few months after I realized that I am pansexual. I had been unsure of my sexuality for a long time and I never felt like I had fit into any of the labels-when I had done that shoot my understanding of my sexuality was still so new I felt like I was hiding in my body.

This time I felt like I was blooming. I feel really at home within my body and with my sexuality now. It’s been about two years since that first shoot and I’ve had a lot of time to discover myself; I still have plenty of questions about my identity but I’m not afraid to explore them anymore.

This photo series makes me feel powerful. I was nervous beforehand because at the time we scheduled the shoot I had been dealing with somethings and didn’t feel all that confident. love these photos. I wanted to do this series to take ownership of my sexuality and my body. I grew up in a normie area upstate and sometimes I still society pressures but this photo series is just raw me. My body isn’t really edited, nor is my face and I feel so beautiful and powerful.

I want to keep doing photo series like this because they feel like I’m taking ownership. It doesn’t matter who’s touched me in the past, who’s hurt me, who’s made fun of me because now I realize that my body is mine and that I am me; These photos feel like a fuck you to those people.”

And on queer representation, she says:

“I want queer representation to help change society and our education system. I want kids to stop being made fun of when they’re just trying to discover themselves.I want their to be classes on gender and sexuality in middle school or high school and gender neutral bathrooms in all schools. I want to see our generation make a change in how our community is viewed in society. I wish that I could’ve felt at home and this comfortable in my body when I was younger, and I hope we can provide resources, changes or accommodations for younger generations so when they start exploring their identity they don’y have to question if society will accept them or not; I want the future generations to feel safe.”

Mars shot by Randy Contello

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