“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” -Frank Herbert
We 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...
“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...
“The only thing about masturbation to be ashamed of is doing it badly.” -Sigmund Freud
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...
“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 ofemotional 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: Can men and women be friends 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 Sallytried to answer these questions. Their answers? No, to the first question. After all,...
I had this roommate once who was really into “hitting on girls.” We were recently out of college, and he hadn’t hit on girls much in college, but now we were young men living in Boston and he’d discovered that this was something he could do, hitting on girls. It became his project. He had a group of (male) friends who he would talk to about the best ways to hit on girls, and then they would go out...
“Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.” -Thomas Fuller
For many years when my parents used to send me gifts, I tried to make light of the many ridiculous, worthless bargains that made their way to my door in the holiday season. It wasn’t the gift itself, but the reflection of how invisible I felt with them. Worse still, the holiday dinners where my ancestry...
“Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.” —Robert Henri
If ever there was a cliché to take to heart when it comes to our relationships, especially in these weeks before our annual holiday reunions, it is this age-old mandate to “try and try again.”
“Our two greatest challenges, are figuring out better treatments for the 40,000 women who die of breast cancer every year, and at same time, figure out who, on the other end of the spectrum, is getting exposed to needless toxicity.” -Dr. Eric Winer
The human breast is a beautiful adaptation, which is singular in the animal world. While other mammals only have enlarged breasts during nursing,...
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” –Proverbs 4:23
It would have been my friend Janice’s 60thbirthday this month. She was a multi-talented artist, a compassionate friend, a devoted mother and a godmother to my first daughter. This year marks the second anniversary of her death, which began with breast cancer. As the pink ribbons fly this month, we all have...
