Good Clean Reads

If the first doubt that most people have about their sexual lives is whether they are “normal,” then the new 2. 0 dating and sex app version of connecting has only accelerated this doubt. Arguably, the driver to the ever-expanding array of choices in meeting a mate online is desire. Desire for sex certainly, but also, and maybe more importantly, desire for all the parts of a relationship that make sex good. Rarely does the twenty-minute hookup satisfy us. Instead we are often left wondering what happened and who it was for. Likewise, although we are easily addicted to...

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” MLK, Jr.

All of the things in life that we have no language for recede from view. And yet our inability to express the feelings and experiences that happen to us don’t make those feelings disappear entirely. Instead they take up residence in our body, manifesting in everything from anxiety attacks to unexplained physical...

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. "-Frank HerbertWe often confuse the idea of doing whatever we want with true freedom. Following our every whim without a sense of responsibility for the consequences is not really freedom, but rather a poor facsimile that ends up entrapping us in unintended patterns of damaged relationships and long-term emotional scarring. Perhaps there is nowhere that this kind of misunderstanding about freedom creates more havoc than with our sexual selves.

“I was not only told that I was assaulted, I was told that because I couldn’t remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, and almost broke me.” –Stanford Rape Survivor

Sexual assault is so common that it occurs every two minutes in this country to one in six women (and one in 33 men). Until this week, it’s rampant existence has remained largely out...

It’s been over 20 years since May was named National Masturbation Month by a group of hip sex stores in response to the firing of then Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for suggesting that masturbation would be a healthy addition to educational curriculum. It was a reasonable suggestion given the cloak of shame and secrecy that masturbation has long carried, being derided and not considered “real sex”. And yet, solo sex is, without question, the most common of all sexual acts on the planet and arguably one of the safest. Masturbation has long been referred to as the cornerstone of partnered sexual capacity.

“One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” -Sigmund Freud

Last week I shared the revelations about how what I have been forcing myself to forget has caught up to me. I decided that I had to start remembering differently; so now, one week in to this new agreement with myself in my marriage, a few things have come clear. The thing is that the remedy is not...

"…the nearly $2 billion spent on abstinence only education over the past quarter-century may as well have been set on fire…”  Peggy Orenstein

Sexual health is a conversation that has been subverted for far too long. The conversations that we avoid and push underground become tainted with our own darkness and the longer that they remain out of reach, the more distorted they become. Sexual hygiene...

Love is scary.

There, I said what we’ve all been thinking. Sometimes, love is so scary that it’s easier to choose not to have it. Padded behind layers and layers of emotional armor, we defend our choice of not investing in love with myriad excuses — I’m too busy for a partner, I like being single, I’ve looked, I swear, but I can’t find anyone I’d want to be with…

Recently, I was at a documentary...

Every few months, it seems someone starts up the never-ending discussion again: How close is too close when it comes to friendships between men and women without sex getting in the way? And can you still be friends with your opposite sex friends after you're in a relationship? (Or same-sex if in a same-sex relationship?)In the 80s, When Harry Met Sally tried to answer these questions. Their answers? No, to the first question. After all, Harry and Sally always kind of have a thing for each other.