Good Clean Reads

Making Love Sustainable was fortunate to have been able to sit down and chat recently with Emily Lindin, founder of the UnSlut Project, author of UnSlut: A Diary and a Memoir, and director of a recently released documentary, UnSlut. We’d been eager to talk with Emily because of the important work she has been doing to help women and girls speak up about sexual bullying and shaming. We believe this...

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” –Steven Covey

Usually, when people leave each other they cite irreconcilable differences. What they don’t realize is that the things that end up feeling so big and unworkable all start out being little things. Annoying habits that don’t change, emotional insecurities that play into blame and shame,...

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.

Recently I watched Emily Nagoski’s Ted Talk “Unlocking the Door to Your Authentic Sexual Wellbeing.” Whether or not you believe you have such a metaphorical door to “unlock,” I highly recommend Emily’s talk — she’s funny, engaging, and supports her claims about sex with science.

At the start of her talk, Emily shares feedback she received from students in a 1000-level sexuality course she taught...

Today is President’s Day in the US, which means most of us are at work and post offices are closed — you can put off mailing your income taxes for another day. The holiday doesn’t give you a good excuse for putting off starting your taxes, but don’t panic: in this post we’re going to suggest that you relax. We’re also going to suggest a way of practicing relaxation that meditators have been using...

“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it…” -Herman Hesse

Here is the sad truth about sex in many long-term partnerships; it is either the glue that keeps the relationship strong or the...

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...

“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.”  -Albert Schweitzer

 

I have been lonely in my marriage for decades. Yet to be fair, I have felt lonely for as long as I can remember. Like many people, I believed that getting married would be a cure for the pervasive sense of loneliness with which I grew up. It’s hard to know whether my loneliness is like other character traits,...

When it’s only you who takes your pants off at night, genital hygiene can seem like a big waste of time — because who’s going to know? Having another person to clean up for can be incredibly motivating, especially when that other person’s tongue might end up between your thighs. (See this post if you need a reminder of how intricate pre-sex rituals can get.) But when there isn’t anyone...