Certain words I dread (“We need to schedule two more dental appointments”) while others I would kill to hear (“Ann Coulter’s physician confirms sex-change operation”).

And then there are statements that defy imagination, such as; “My husband gave me the greatest birthday present last night — a public flogging.” I actually overheard one of my exotic dance students say these exact words last week.

Now, I’m not exactly unfamiliar with the BDSM scene. My education began a few years ago, while browsing the aisles of my favorite sex shop. A man came up to me and asked, “Are you a Dom or a Sub?” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was in a food and wine kind of mood, so I replied, “Dom,” thinking that he wanted to know if I was a champagne or sandwich kind of girl.

It wasn’t long before the light went on. In fact, it was pretty hard to miss the point as he trailed after me in the store, whispering in a plaintive, hopeful...

This week the NSRC highlighted the California’s Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8. However, there are a lot of other important stories happening this week that speak volumes about the state of sexuality in the United States. Here are a few issues we find important, and we hope you’ll read more about.

California’s impending budget cuts literally threaten the lives of Californian’s living with HIV/AIDS.  An East Bay facility that treats low-income people living with HIV/AIDS closed its doors this past week, and it’s likely that impeding budget cuts will threaten HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment through out the state.

Obama’s nomination of federal judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter has the entire blog world speculating about her positions on numerous issues related to sexuality. RH Reality check reviews her record on abortion, and the Guardian and Pandagon.net...

Originally posted on RH Reality Check

By Heather Corinna

Maya asks:

It seems as if girls at my school are very experienced sexually. They all talk about hooking up, giving head, getting head, getting fingered, and all that sort of thing. I, having never even kissed a boy or had a boyfriend, feel a bit left behind. I wanted to know if most girls my age, 15 (like on average), have had sexual experience like this.

Heather replies:

Maya,

I think it's so important to try not to get hung up on the idea that what other people are doing (or not) sexually has any relevance to what we do or don't do. I completely get wanting to have some idea of where we're at with where others are at, but with something as personal and diverse as sexuality, it's a good idea not to put too much stock in the sex lives of others when it comes to our own sex lives and how we feel about them.

One thing anyone who works in the study of sexuality or sexual health knows is that self-reporting (what people anecdotally say to others about themselves, rather than what we can find out based on measurable things like pregnancy or STI rates) when it comes to sexuality is notoriously unreliable, especially between young people. So often,

How do you know an issue is serious and deserves greater attention? Well, when Jon Stewart makes fun of it on the Daily Show, of course. This clip is hilarious, and it also goes a long way towards recognizing seniors as sexual beings, showing that some aging adults are already getting involved in promoting healthier behaviors--and exposing that some elders definitely need some educational advice (especially when it comes to the dreaded disease cunnilinguism), before they die from herpes.

This spring, the National Sexuality Resource Center is delving into an exciting new project, rounding out our commitment to healthy sexuality throughout the lifespan by examining the sexuality needs of aging adults. A fantastic team of MPH interns from SF State's Health Education department are right now developing a pilot needs assessment looking at how elders in assisted living programs are or are not supported in terms of sexual health.

Seniors are having sex: as Stacy Lindau’s groundbreaking 2007 study(published in the New England Journal of Medicine) revealed, most people ages 57 to 85 think of sexuality as an important part of life and the frequency of sexual activity, for those who are active, declines only slightly from the 50s to the early 70s (Lindau , 2007). According to the CDC, the proportion of older HIV-positive individuals in the US has climbed...

This summer, Dr. Héctor Carrillo joins the 2009 Summer Institute as featured faculty.

The majority of research that discusses HIV risk, sexuality, and race seems to follow a linear formula that connects one’s sexuality and race to risky behaviors and subsequent vulnerability to HIV. Dr. Héctor Carrillo’s research however, adds an understanding of cultural context with regards to sexuality in Mexico that complicates the idea of what labels like ‘gay’ or ‘risk’ mean in different environments. What happens when men who have sex with other men, and because they are not gay or bisexual, do not believe themselves to be at risk for HIV because they do not claim a gay identity? One of Dr. Carrillo’s recent studies ‘Trayectos’, which means trajectory or path, follows the ever-changing context of sexuality as individuals move across the Mexican-US border in what he and others call...

When I think back on my favorite teachers, I realize they all share one trait in common – they listen. Summer Institute featured lecturer Cathy Cohen has made listening a radical methodology for studying sexual attitudes and behaviors, so know doubt she will be a great teacher who you won’t want to miss this summer at the Summer Institute on Race, Gender, and Sexuality! Dr. Cohen is perhaps most famous for her books The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics and Women Transforming Politics: An Alternative Reader, but her research illustrates that she will be an excellent teacher because she listens, and most importantly she listens to youth and young adults of color.

Dissatisfied with popular perceptions of Black youth and concerned by they way those perceptions were employed in outreach programs, Dr. Cohen tried something radical. She started the Black Youth Project and set out to listen to young adults, allowing them to express their own opinions. She wanted to understand young adults’ attitudes, their experiences, and learn how they understand the world around them.  By asking youtn of multiple racial identities about their beliefs she shattered myths about Black youth and empowered young adult voices to drown out the stereotypes.

Quite an interesting article on the science of sexual identity in Mother Jones. 

I’m a little disappointed that I’m just now seeing this article, but the timing is great – I just found out that I’ll be teaching Sexual Diversity in the fall!  The article, a little long and slow to load, is well worth the read.  It speaks to the ambivalence I believe many sexuality scholars, advocates, and just everyday people have about our understanding about the origins of sexual orientation.  We have moved away from “sexual preference”, dismissing any allusions to choice, toward “sexual orientation”.  We’ve all heard the anti-choice argument: “Why would anyone choose to be gay, putting up with all of the homophobia and other nonsense.”  It’s a valid point: most of us are simply “oriented” toward certain people romantically and/or sexually.

However, there are some competing claims that we must reconcile.  Sexuality is fluid.  Sexuality is innate.  Sexuality is socially constructed.  Before the creation of the “homosexual” and “heterosexual”...

Hand jobs are funny.

I remember one lover asking me for a hand job and there was a hint of shame and excitement in his voice that'd I'd never heard from him before. While Men are rarely shy to ask for a blow job, there's something about asking for the "hand treatment" that inevitably feels forbidden and slightly juvenile. It's like "third base", just one step away from finally getting to "do it."

In some ways it's the least intimate and clumsy of the sex acts: lot's of flopping and fumbling, searching for that sweet spot: finding her clit than losing it, hitting that moan-worthy part of his head and having a carpal tunnel moment and losing the momentum and starting all over again-NO!!!!!! Must...achieve...happy...ending....

But while hand jobs do seem very middle school, it can also be a very grown up challenge. Foreign hand vs. native hand...Native hand knows the territory and has lot's of experience but foreign may have some tricks up it's sleeve: covert tactics such as sucking, kissing, biting.

Place your bets folks! It's a tough call. What do you think about hand jobs?

this blog was originally written by Anna Rose Steiner

I've settled into my hotel and made a trip up to campus to make sure everything is set for tomorrow.  In less than twenty four hours, I've been amazed at how much sexuality-related stuff has crossed my path.

First, soon after landing, I checked my email and had received a message and an attachment regarding a new report released from the Texas Freedom Network called Just Say Don't Know: A Report on Sexuality Education in Texas Public Schools.  Not surprisingly, the findings show how abstinence-only education programs are failing students and families in Texas.  And that most of the information students are receiving is distorted or completely wrong. This report was released yesterday and I can't wait to discuss at the training in the days to come - what amazing timing! It's almost like we planned it.

Second,on my way to the University of Texas campus this morning where I was meeting my former adviser and mentor, I was searching for something on the radio to listen to during the drive when I heard someone talking about the "warning signs" that parents whould watch out for if they are concerned that their child may be "considering a homosexual lifestyle."  There's too much to go into, but my two favorite things were A)...

For live updates from Austin, follow southernliz on twitter!

Barbecue, Tex-Mex, South by Southwest (live music in general), wildflowers, margaritas, technology, the Longhorns, and George W. Bush (unfortunately) are just a few of the things that most people think about when they think about Austin.  It's a bustling, growing city nestled up to the Hill Country on the west and to rolling plains on the east.  Ask anyone about Austin and they'll tell you that it's a liberal oasis in the middle of a conservative wasteland.  If they're from there, they'll probably tell you it's the only place in Texas they would live (but they might give San Antonio a chance).  If they've never been, they'll tell you it's some place that they'd like to visit and have heard it's a pretty great place.  It never fails when I've been with someone on their first visit, they always say that they're surprised at how green it is (too many Wile E. Coyotes and Westerns have given a false generalization to a very large and diverse - demographically and geographically - state).  It's also the place that I'm most likely to identify as home when anyone asks me where I'm from. 

I'm traveling to Austin this week for the first time ever for work rather than to visit family and friends and to eat some long...

In the mid-1990s, the international conventions on sexuality shifted to discuss sexuality as a human right.  The specific details of such a claim are unknown to me, but that is a powerful statement: sexuality is a human right.  Unfortunately, looking in the US, we can see that certain opportunities are constructed as unalienable rights, yet there exists an entire system that unevenly distributes access to such rights - some do not even have access to those rights.  I will use suffrage as an example: in theory, all US citizens have the right to vote.  In practice, there are barriers in place that make that right less accessible for some (new identification guidelines, etc) and inaccessible to others (many ex-felons have lost their right to vote). 

It is my intention here to raise the following question about sexuality: though we may construct it as a human right, even a human need that must be satisfied, is it really a privilege that some enjoy and others don't?  For several reasons, I would say it is a privilege.  Pulling from the notion of intersectionality (the interlocking of systems of oppression, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, class, age, ability), I would argue that there are many who are free to enjoy and explore their sexual selves without (many) limitations, while there are others who face many limitations, and others are completely robbed of free...

This weekend, Bloomington, Indiana celebrated its sixth annual http://pridefilmfestival.org/.  I had the pleasure of attending, now for the second year in a row.  Besides seeing great films, both short and full-length, mainstream and indie, the festival reminds me that Bloomington is as gay-friendly as many of its members claims it to be.  Without seeing a mass of fellow queer people, I often forget, namely because I am surrounded by heterosexuals during the week.  But I digress.

The shorts are usually cute or arouse a chuckle, but it is the feature films that really move me.  This year's "moving" films include XXY, La Nouveau Monde, and Were the World Mine.  The first deals with the troubles faced by a young intersexed girl, particularly surrounding her choice or her parents' choice regarding the gender she would live in for the rest of her life.  The second addresses some of the concerns that arise for same-gender couples that become parents, namely the contradiction they face between their own family and the biological-link required of families in mainstream discourse of family.  These a good films!

But, what most moved me was Were the World...

Nobody hates doing this more than me, but I have to bring up a recent episode of the Tyra Banks show (sorry, I know).  This brilliant installment centered on what Tyra referred to as “Gay for Pay,” and featured numerous heterosexual men in heterosexual relationships (some married, some not) who worked in the gay porn industry, i.e., were “gay for pay.”  For what amounted to one very long hour, Tyra and her horrified audience went back and forth over whether the men were really straight, and calling them out as gay or bisexual. Their reasoning; no real straight man would ever engage in same sex behavior, or god forbid, allow themselves to be aroused by any form of homosexuality, under any circumstances.  What was especially infuriating was that if these had been heterosexually identified women up on stage, first off, there wouldn’t have been a show to begin with, and secondly, I doubt people would have questioned their sexuality to the extent they did the men. 

Society may have come along way in terms of our sexual rights and freedoms, but in many ways, it is still as restrictive as ever. Particularly when it comes to male sexuality, the...

Continuing the fine tradition of highlighting innovative sex products (see blogs on Gpod, sex and iPhone, and iGasm), we wanted to highlight a new toy on the market – a cyberdildonics device called RealTouch (caution: explicit content, not work-place friendly). It is also known as a “treadmill for your penis.”  What differentiates this cyberdildonics device from other run-of-the-mill penile treadmills is its ability to sync its action to your favorite porn movies.

The ad campaign features two segments – for straight and gay males. All you have to do is connect the Realtouch to your computer, start your favorite video (presumably bought from RealTouch) and experience near-live action within 5 feet of your computer. Here are some of my favorite features:

• Live out your wildest sexual fantasies while you deepest desires unfold on the screen in front of you.
• Let’s you break all of the rules without breaking any...

Every week we search the net for breaking news on sexuality. We realize that our readers might be interested in these off-beat stories, so here they are.

This week's Champions of Marginal Sexuality Stories include:Dwarf's Penis Stuck in Vacuum Cleaner - some very strong glue to blame.

Woman Sets Ex-Husband's Penis on Fire - vodka and forced habitation to blame.

Camel Kills Woman While Trying to Have Sex - a very large and over-eager birthday present camel to blame

Man Robs a Bookie With a Vibrator - drug habit and awesome acting skills are at work

A new survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has found that 22% of teen girls have posted nude or semi-nude pictures online. Most important findings from the survey are below.

Also check out research that was published in our own Sexuality Research and Social Policy Journal - Journalist or Panderer? Framing Underage Webcam Sites - which talks about new technologies changing social relationships and view of teen's sexuality.

Survey Findings:(Full survey summary is here).

• One in five teen girls (22%)—and 11% of teen girls ages 13-16 years old—say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves.
• One-third (33%) of teen boys and one-quarter (25%) of teen girls say they have had nude/semi-nude images—originally meant to be private—shared with them.
• The survey of 1,280 teens and young adults indicates that 15% of teens who have sent sexually suggestive content such as text messages, email, photographs or video say they have done so with someone they only know online.
• Teen girls are not the only ones sharing sexually explicit...