The story of Little Red Riding Hood has been retold so many times, I have trouble remembering the original, Brothers Grimm, version. It’s a perfectly concise and effective way to teach a double-lesson: one for the younger children, about the dangers of the world around them – listen to mommy, don’t talk to strangers, or […]
We’ve all inherited many misconceptions about the erotic, causing so much fear and guilt. Some are based on old taboos; others on unrealistic expectations. They are like demons hovering over us, heckling and harassing us. And they’re not as easy to get rid of as we’d like, especially when you’re not quite sure what they […]
In 1994, Pat Califia committed her thoughts on gender, sexuality, censorship, kink, prostitution, safer sex, and leather to print in a book titled Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. As an outspoken, self-identified leather dyke, Califia took on laymen and academics alike for “white-washing” and “sanitizing” sex and its transformative and radical abilities. She […]
Very few people have been given healthy approval, support and respectful privacy to self-pleasure. On the contrary, most people have vivid memories of being overtly shamed at a young age by others about the natural discovery of sexual self-stimulation. Just a few short decades ago, the ignorance and shaming of masturbation in the medical field […]
By Kat Stamoulis
This year the 2011 Alternatives Sexualities Conference was held in Washington, DC, having moved from its previous homes in Chicago and San Francisco. I was in attendance at the conference, hosted by CARAS, not as a researcher or a clinician in the field, but as an undergraduate student with a passion for human sexuality as well as an active member of the kink scene.
By Sarah Sloane
Everybody has to start somewhere. For most of us, we begin to present classes and workshops because we’re known for a particular skill set or a certain type of knowledge, and we teach what we know. Eventually, though, many of us come to the conclusion that we don’t want to just teach the same thing, over and over
Bridging Gender in the Classical World
By Bex vanKoot
Transgenderism in Myth, Part One
In our modern North American mythology, gender is often characterized as clear cut. A man has a penis, a woman has a vagina; these physical characteristics, we are told, define our existence, our priorities, our bodies and our minds, our roles in life and in love.
By Bex vanKoot
We all serve something. Whether we spend our hours serving a lover, a family, a job, a country, an ideal or even ourselves, we all serve. It is what we serve that defines our lives. I serve love, and not just any love, but sacred, abundant, unconditional love.