Why does spanking (or holding hands, or oral sex, or masturbation, or gentle love-making) make one person feel alive, while it makes another person feel dreadful? Or to put it another way, when both Mary and Sally say “spanking makes me feel dirty,” why does one smile approvingly and the other frown disapprovingly? Sexuality is [...]
We know there’s porn and we know there are gay people. But is there “gay porn?” Or is it simply porn featuring people of the same gender having sex together? If it’s “gay porn,” then we would be surprised to find straight people looking at it. If it’s porn featuring same-gender sex, however, then we’d [...]
Reviewed and enjoyed by David S. Hall, Ph.D. As this Journal’s publisher, I receive many books and films to review. I tend to shy away from books and films about religion except in my role as an educator. I need to expose my students to the wider view of sexuality held by the world’s religions….
As a sex therapist, I see men every week who don’t get erect when they want to. They often describe themselves as having ED or erectile dysfunction. I say, “So, you don’t get erect when you want to. Let’s call it that.” Conceptualizing their situation as ED is frequently part of the problem. They think [...]
The Mormon Church has clarified its position on homosexuality, saying that gays and lesbians are almost human. That’s not my self-indulgent hyperbole, that’s their straightforward theological position, although with different words. They now talk about the need for compassion toward anyone who experiences same-sex attraction. After all, says their manipulative new website, “The attraction itself [...]
People are always asking me about sexual communication–how to do it, when to do it, where to do it. If I only have 60 seconds (radio talk show, stranger on a bicycle), I mostly respond with some version of “just do it in whatever way feels comfortable—as long as it works.” If you have a [...]
California just became the first state to ban conversion “therapy” for minors. That’s “therapy” which attempts to “cure” people of homosexuality, same-gender desire, or gender non-conformity, “converting” them to heterosexuality and “normal” gender behavior. My regular readers know that I have been a licensed psychotherapist for 32 years—about 35,000 sessions with men, women, teens, and [...]
People get involved in sex work for all kinds of reasons, but most often, out of life circumstance and a need to support themselves and their families. This need to seek safety and security is universal, and it says something about how deeply felt it is, given the level of stigma sex workers endure as…
For years, I’ve been saying that the PTC website is a valuable tool for pre-teens looking for raunchy TV. PTC helpfully charts the upcoming week’s TV shows with special tags warning (or guiding) viewers about where they can find “gratuitous sex,” (what about artistically necessary sex?) “explicit dialogue” (Hey Mabel, how about some gratuitous sex?), [...]
Pornography is not meant to be sex education. It’s fiction, period. Nevertheless, with the enforced ignorance of abstinence-only sex “education,” most families’ and couples’ discomfort discussing sex seriously, and mainstream Christianity’s taboos about sexual reality, most people find themselves needing more information about sexuality. If they’re fortunate, they manage to find a smart book or [...]
Sex work refers to a wide range of activity where sexual interaction is explicitly exchanged for something of value.
WSFA firmly believes that human beings possess a fundamental right to develop and express their sexuality.
Sexual Health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well being in relation to sexuality.
Sexuality and faith are two of the most deeply important and deeply personal aspects of human identity.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are entitled to the realization of the full spectrum of their human rights.
Civil rights are one sub-set of human rights that exist equal to and interdependent with multiple fundamental human rights.
Grounded in the human rights framework, reproductive justice refers to all of the conditions necessary for all people to enjoy reproductive freedom.
Every human being deserves access to medically accurate and inclusive information about sex and sexuality.
