This morning on twitter, I saw a tweet from a blog I like to follow, @afterellen (news and media by/about lesbian and bi women) that read ‘The only “Playboy" playmate to ever come out as gay is reportedly engaged to a man’. The subsequent article describes how this particular model came out in 2004 as a lesbian, and began to publish, speak, and do activist work around LGBT issues. The article cites the New York posts description of her recent engagement to a man. Stephanie Adams states that she will “retire from being a public persona so that we can settle down and have children ... Life is good ... I have no regrets for anything.”

Maybe this is the sexuality studies student in me, or the fact that I have friends that identify in fluid and plural ways, but, what’s the big deal? I wanted to write about this post after I read Gabe’s blog describing the comment section from an AOL story about a 77 year old trans woman, also a veteran, that finally got the gender confirmation surgery she had been wanting. Both of these articles deal with the story at hand well-enough for online news...

With Halloween right around the corner, I’d been seeing a video made by the satirical news source, The Onion, circulate widely on facebook. The video discusses how to find a masculine Halloween costume for your effeminate son. To start with, I promise that I get that this is a joke, I know that. Part of me thinks the video is hilarious, but part of me cringes when I watch it. Another side of me laughs at the part that’s cringing, and yet another cringes at the part of me laughing. Grad school warps your sense of humor in new and suprising ways. Anyway, the video highlights ways to quote “hide your effeminate son” with masculine costumes. Does your son prance around too much? Put him in a robot outfit that restricts movement and hides his high voice with robot sounds! Long lashes and curly hair? Prevent him from twirling his locks, and blinking visibly, with an animal suit that covers him head to toe! Is a vampire the right choice, after all, they are flashy dressers? Yes, of course it is! They dress like that to seduce women.

In watching this video, several messages are being conveyed. For example, whether or not someone is going to take this seriously, it’s clear that feminine boys are something you should hide/change. Also, the feminine boy might be gay, so...

Think back to the hands-on learning you might’ve had in elementary school. What was it about the pictures, shapes, colors, and physical actions involved in putting things together that made those connections so clear? Is it a coincidence that the foundational knowledge we acquire during those early years, so integral to the rest of life-long learning, is the result of making meaningful connections between concepts? How is it that we might lose those skills through our years of continued career and interest specialization? Literally playing with ideas, moving them around, connecting them, grouping and regrouping, and trying out new links, proves to be incredibly useful when conceptualizing sex education models, something I had the opportunity to try out in class this week.

With that in mind, the question we were asked revolved around some of the current ways people learn about sex in the United States? What are the relationships between religion, culture, family, privilege and environment for instance, and what do those things have to do with the way we learn about sex? By using the graphical representation of concept mapping, connecting concepts with other concepts through linking words to create meaningful statements, these...

This past weekend, I volunteered during the Folsom Street Fair at the transmen4men (tm4m) booth sponsored by Eros, TRANS:THRIVE, and Trannywood Pictures. Tm4m is a discussion, event, and resource program for transmen who play with men. A call for volunteers went out a few weeks ago and I’d been looking forward to participating ever since. All in all, the event was really fun. I spent most of the time handing out flyers promoting tm4m. On the flyer was a sexy cartoon transguy with the words ‘Top 5 reasons to fuck a transguy’ (that’s another blog entirely). When I handed out the flyer, I received lots of positive responses like “I only need one” and “Hell yeah!” What I wasn’t ready for, or rather, was naïve enough to think that at a sex positive space like the Folsom Street Fair wouldn’t occur, were the disgusted looks and inappropriate questions from some people. Mostly, once I handed someone a flyer, they’d read it, and maybe look back and smile, laugh, or give a thumbs up. Others took the flyer and read it, then scrutinized me with some the rudest stares I’ve ever encountered. Most of the stares, and subsequent questions, revolved around...

So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do once I graduate with this masters degree in sexuality studies. In thinking about that, I start to wonder what the ‘do’ would look like. Do I want to go for a PhD? Some sort of post grad fellowship? Or try and start working in the field? Keeping in mind each of these potential avenues, and the fact that they are of course not mutually exclusive or related in any linear sense, what role does ‘sex ed’ play in each of them? In each of these capacities, I think that I want my place in them to reflect a need for sexuality education to also occur outside of the K-12 classroom.

When I think about pursuing a PhD, I think about being both a product of sexuality education and the ways that with a PhD, and the research and teaching I’d be doing, how I could influence and change the field of sexuality. I’ve been living and doing sexuality education in one way or another for my whole life, and this is the point where I can potentially have more of an influence on the current conversations around sexuality education. As a naïve grad student, I do hope that I can have some positive impact on the academy, and translate that to the future of my own ways of teaching, writing, and researching.

What about a fellowship of some sort, a program...

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...

Part of my work at the NSRC yesterday involved answering some questions from the Golden Gate Xpress, the student newspaper at SFSU.

I was intimidated at first with the idea of actually having to answer someone's questions about sex, but as Chris (my NSRC boss) explained, this was part of the future that I wanted working in sexuality. The piece for the newspaper was on the benefits for a college student to have a healthy/active sex life. With all the work I've done in the MA program so far, of course my first thoughts turn to, what students? Are we talking about the middle class majority able to afford college? Are we talking about students that are sexual minorities? Are we talking about the ablebodied definitions surrounding what it means to be active and healthy?

I didn't have the answers to these questions so, I tried to apply the holistic sexual literacy message I embrace here at the NSRC. I tried to the answer the questions with a sense of humor, figuring the audience would appreciate a laugh. However, upon receiving feedback, I was hit with a reality check which I greatly appreciated. It seems I have a thing for exclamation points. Guilty as charged. 

I'm not the one writing the column, the journalist is. He came asking questions, looking for expert opinions, and I was meant to supply that. I was essentially doing the job for him, writing up a cute little college sex column, when all he wanted were answers to his questions...

Though my internship with the NSRC doesn’t involve a blue dress or political scandal (at least not yet) it has been one of the highlights of my first semester as a sexuality studies master’s student. I balked at the idea of applying when the opportunity first came up. Along with serving tables, reading and writing for three graduate courses, and trying to not turn into a social recluse, did I really want to file papers for a semester? No, of course not! What I did want to do was gain practical experience, network (a foggy concept) with other professionals, take a break from hard core theory, and enjoy myself. Once I was over my initial fear, thought about it seriously and applied, I was actually looking very forward to seeing what it was like to work in the field of sexuality.

One of the first tasks I was presented with as the new ‘Education and Training’ intern was helping coordinate a trip to San Juan for the