“He brought up the fact he likes to rape little boys…He’s telling me how he likes to use a knife on them.” -Cpl Travis Schouten
What happens when the core sexual attraction of men to women is so tainted with terror that it disappears? It’s practically science fiction to imagine living in a culture that has so effectively terrorized the natural desire for sexual union between men and women, one...
“Perhaps if we weren’t still so consumed with guilt and shame about sex, neither watching nor performing in these films would carry the weight it does…” -Candida Royalle
Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry whose content consumes as much as 20% of internet traffic. As entertainment goes, its revenue beats out all forms of professional sports combined. It is a behemoth industry that...
“I hate having to ‘wind myself up’ to do it,” said a Flibanserin participant, “It makes me feel broken.”
Last night was a beautiful warm summer evening, the nearly full moon peeking in and out from behind the clouds and I found myself in the midst of a sing-along with thousands of other fans paying our last tribute to the iconic American satirist, Garrison Keillor. He was leading the crowd at...
“The hunger to belong is not merely a desire to be attached to something. It is rather sensing that great transformation and discovery become possible when belonging is sheltered and true.” -John O’Donahue
The experience of belonging, of feeling at home, is at once surprising and yet also so full of ease that it seems like it has always been. It is surprising because feeling deeply a part of...
This is the third in a four-part series. Here are parts one and two.
“We had a Jacuzzi every night—we had a private Jacuzzi—we’d sit on the edge, we had big bamboo and palms, and the moon was out the whole time,” Kerry said. “At the end of each day of the retreat, we’d just sit there and philosophize and share our stories. You [addressing Jan] and your ex-husband, and your other ex-husband, and I...
This is part two of a four-part series. For part one, click here.One fact is that it’s normal to fall in love. Look at history, tally the liaisons among people who are gone, and see that this is true. What is unusual is for a person to fall in love outside of the script with which she is most at ease socially, the one that tells her where she fits, which relationships she can establish, what is...
When she was 70, Jan Adrian fell in love with a woman. She’d had two marriages, to men, and had been single for years when she met Kerry, the woman who is now her partner.
At the time they met, “I was not actively looking for anybody,” Jan said. Nevertheless, she found someone, fell in love, and began a relationship—with a woman, for the first time in her life.
“The truth is the only thing worth having, and, in a civilized life, like ours, where so many risks are removed, facing it is almost the only courageous thing left to do. “~E.V. Lucas
I wonder if someday, hackers will be thought of as modern day Robin Hoods, where the wealth that they are redistributing is the truth. The recent hack of Ashley Madison and Established Menhas struck a cultural...
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” -Robert Heinlein
Momentously. Fantastically. Stupendously… We are now all in it together. Hooray! Everyone can now be legally married- if only the right to marriage was sufficient for sustaining marital bliss. But alas, making a life together that works over time remains one of the elusive goals for our...
My father has always been a quiet, introspective man. Though he says little, the things he says say a lot. His presence around the words he chooses to speak say even more.
But my father is a lot more than just quiet and introspective. He’s generous. He’s kind. He’s hardworking and he’s curious about the world. Ever a reader, my father, for as long as I can remember, spends his evenings after...
“…that a boy is, in large part, hard wired to be who he is. We can’t change who he is. We can teach him how to develop who he is with confidence, and toward a direction that contributes to our world.” -Michael Gurian
Boys are different than girls and, fundamentally so, from the moment of conception. Beginning with earliest brain development, evolving into core function, what makes the male...
“I’m not doing this to be interesting. I’m doing this to live.” -Caitlyn Jenner
I have been following Bruce Jenner’s transition since it first appeared in People magazine months ago. Emerging from the Kardashian empire, it seemed like just another press stunt, but the recent Vanity Fair cover of Bruce’s total transformation into Caitlyn at age 65 is actually nothing short of stupendous courage....
