About.com Sexuality

When does art become child porn?

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:15:48 +0000

I'm just catching up on my reading and really enjoyed Laura Cumming's calm and thoughtful piece in the Guardian about the Tate Modern's recent decision to remove Richard Prince's re-photographed image of a naked underage Brooke Shields.

Cumming's draws no conclusions, but some of her other examples are shocking (like the Australian who was convicted of possessing child pornography after he was found to have images of Bart and Lisa Simpson having sex) and she does a nice job of providing an historic context without letting anyone off the hook for explaining their thinking today.

I'm currently making my way through Alan Moore's fantastic 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, which is more colorful in tone, but provides a similarly reasonable approach rarely found on and or off line.

Read More - Guardian: When does art become child porn?

When does art become child porn? originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at 19:15:48.

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Doing It Decent - Hearing Your Parents Having Sex

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:08:51 +0000

Every other week Doing It Decent considers the ethics of a sexual situation from our readers. Grappling with a touchy sexual ethics issue? Send an email to sexuality.guide@about.com, and be sure to put DID in the subject line. All questions will be posted anonymously with identifying information removed.

This week's question:

Hearing Your Parents Having Sex

My question is actually OPPOSITE of your last column about the lady hearing her son. I am 26 years old and a single mother of a 4 and a half-year-old son. Because of special circumstances my parents asked me to move back home to help them out with their mortgage. So as the good daughter that I consider myself to be, I agreed. My parents are not that old, both in their late forties, but regardless what their age...they are my parents! What I am getting to is that me and my sister hear them having sex and we have been since we were younger! Now I know that sex is good, natural, and that no matter what age you are everyone is entitled to enjoy it...but these are MY parents!! What can I do? Is it ok if I tell my parents that we can hear them? Luckily my son has not been awake to hear them but what am I going to say to him the day he does? To make matters worse my grandmother is visiting! If we can hear my mother I am absolutely sure she can hear them! I feel embarrassed for my mother and I don't know if this is normal! PLEASE help!

I'm not sure this is, strictly speaking, an ethical dilemma, but it's a dilemma nonetheless, and I think it exemplifies how ethics can make thinking about sex so exciting (you know, except for the part where you're not that excited to be hearing your parents have sex...but I'll get to that, promise).

First, let me address the "normal" question. I should say that I don't find normal to be a word that has any use when we talk about sex. If by normal you mean do couples in their late forties have loud sex, or is it a healthy thing to do, my answer is a resounding yes. It sounds to me like part of you would like to hear that this is weird or gross, but it's likely neither. If anyone (blood relatives or no) is intentionally imposing their sexual activity on you, that's unethical and possibly dangerous.

But it sounds like they don't know you can hear them, in which case there's nothing fundamentally wrong with what they are doing. But, this isn't to say that it might not be inconsiderate, and that you don't have good grounds to say something about it. But let's take one giant ethical step back for a minute.

Acting ethically requires that we consider a situation from many perspectives; that we try to put ourselves in other shoes. Sexual ethics are often complicated by our inability to do just this (putting on other people's sex shoes can feel sometimes too intimate). For your situation, try to put yourself in your parents' shoes. Do you think they would want to know? Do you think they would behave differently if they knew you could hear them having sex?

And here's a slightly more complex question; if you think they would change their behavior, do you think in the end they would be happier for it? It's possible that they are blissfully unaware of the noise they are making. It's also possible that they are completely aware of it, but as you say, feel that sex is healthy and there's nothing wrong with making noise in response to passion and joy.

While this should by no means be your final measure, I'd ask you to compare the displeasure you feel at hearing your parents have sex with the pleasure their sex life seems to be bringing them. Does considering this change your next move?

These are difficult questions even when we aren't talking about our own parents. And the fact that sex is so segregated from the rest of our lives means that we don't engage in as much creative sexual thinking as we probably should, or as we need to in order to navigate sexual ethics.

But to offer one answer to your question, I do think you have at least one concretely ethical issue to deal with: You moved into their house upon their request, as a favor to them. Doing so does establish some responsibility on their part to make sure that your life is unduly burdened by the move. Asking them, for example, to time their sex so you don't have to hear it, could be a completely reasonable request. If the situation is causing you serious stress then I think it's entirely appropriate to ask. Simply bringing it to your mother's attention may have the desired effect.

In closing, I'm glad you included in your letter that you know sex is healthy and everyone is entitled to sexual pleasure on their own terms. I think it would be a nice thing to say to your parents as well, to make it clear that you don't actually want to put a damper on their sex life, you'd just rather not be involved in it, and currently you feel more involved than you want to. Let us know how it turns out.

Got a question of sexual ethics?

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Doing It Decent - Hearing Your Parents Having Sex originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 01:08:51.

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Possible Treatment for Erectile Dysfunction Resulting from Priapism

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:01:38 +0000

Much more than a comedic story arc on your favorite hospital drama, priapism is a serious condition that remains a mystery to scientists and a curse for people who experience it. Recently researchers at the The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, with the help of some enzyme deficient mice, have discovered something that could lead to a better understanding of priapism, and to a preventative treatment for erectile dysfunction that often results from it.

Primarily associated with men, priapism refers to prolonged erections lasting at least four hours, and usually more than six, in the absence of sexual stimulation. In men priapism is associated with penile fibrosis (hard lumps on the penis that can be painful, cause the penis to bend, and contribute to erectile dysfunction). When it occurs, it's considered a urological emergency. Women experience priapism as well, but reports are much rarer.

The cause of priapism is unknown as is the precise relationship between prolonged erections and penile fibrosis. About 40% of men with sickle cell disease experience priapism, and when there is research in this area, sickle cell is often a disease of interest.

The research, which is reported online in the journal of The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology started with an unexpected discovery. Researchers noticed that some of their lab mice were having prolonged erections and penile fibrosis. There wasn't any sexual stimulation (it wasn't one of those kinds of laboratories) so researchers considered the causes. What they discovered was that the mice in question had elevated levels of adenosine. When they reduced the levels of this molecule, using an enzyme called ADA, they were able to reduce the penile fibrosis both in mice with sickle cell and mice that were adenosine deficient.

Taking this research to human populations shouldn't be such a leap as the drug they used to treat the mice is already approved for humans for treatment of Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (known in popular culture as the "Bubble Boy Disease"). This doesn't represent a cure for priapism, or as yet offer an answer to its cause, but it may be an important preventative treatment for a difficult long-term consequence of priapism in men.

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Possible Treatment for Erectile Dysfunction Resulting from Priapism originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 00:01:38.

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The Next Generation of Home Parties

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:32:27 +0000

Change comes to retail sex slowly. I got my first job in a sex shop in 1987 and over the almost quarter century I've been in the industry there's been a major change in the way retail sex shops present and provide services to customers. Much of the change has been superficial, but some of it hasn't. And what's most exciting about these changes is that they have come on the one hand from sexually progressive people entering the industry and on the other from consumers who are becoming more and more empowered to demand and expect quality products and good customer service.

I haven't seen the same kind of change in the sex toy home party business. The biggest companies have cleaned up their act, a lot. They have smarter marketing material and full time publicists. They offer a fascinating mix of language co-opted from both second and third wave feminist discourse around sexuality and like so many pink ribbon marketers, they've discovered the value of topics like sexuality and cancer. But looking through their catalogs they still sell the same old crappy products at prices well above any reputable sex shop. And most still rely on tired gender and sex stereotypes that may make people feel comfortable at first, but ultimately fail consumers and sales reps alike.

Love U Parties is a new home party company promising to do things differently. There's one reason to believe in that promise and trust they'll deliver. And that's the company president, Ducky Doolittle. Ducky has looked at the sex toy industry from just about every angle. She's been a retailer, a home party salesperson, a trainer, and a consultant. She's also an author, foster care activist, and my number one choice for anti-establishment motivational speaker of the year.

Sometime between unwrapping her new support staff and recording voice mail greetings, I asked Ducky to answer a few questions about how she plans to change the industry and the world with Love U.

You mentioned to me that direct sales and home party companies have been around for 150 years, and I know that even before home parties there were romantic product salesmen going from town to town with a "magic" suitcase. What do you think it is about sex toys and home parties that is such a good fit?

The number one way we learn anything in life, whether it's sex or politics or religion, is through gossip. The truth is that each and every one of us is a sex educator. We have to educate ourselves, our parents, our friends. It's just a matter of how well informed you choose to be.

A home party situation is beautiful because people are being invited into a friend's home for a fun light-hearted conversation. Traditionally this is the way women would teach other how to can peaches and all sorts of little life skills! Home parties are the perfect place for these kinds of conversations.

A lot of times what you end up with is friends teaching each other about their own bodies. We lay the foundations for people to open up and have great conversations, and it's the product that allows us to do that.

To me the toys are teaching tools. They give a person a fun, legitimate way to take control of their bodies, their sex lives, and their consciousness. It's hard to get someone to take action through talk alone, but send someone home with a set of Kegel Wellness Balls, and then they have a tangible reminder that they need to care for their kegel muscles. And a fun way to do it. It's like a perfect orchestration of living well.

So one of my pet peeves is when sex shops (or home party companies) call their salespeople sex educators. How do you feel about it, and how do you talk about what happens at Love U parties?

What we do isn't sex therapy and it's not sex counseling. All it is inspiring smart conversations in your community and breaking the isolation around sexuality. People feel so elated when they can have a great smart conversation around sexuality.

I appreciate what you're saying, I think you're an idealist. There are know-it-all "experts" but they are the exception. The training and culture of our company has a lot to do with the way we work. My work is rooted in sincerity and recognizing that I don't know everything. We ask people open-ended questions because a lot of times the answer is already in them. As the president of Love U I hope I'll attract like-minded people.

These people are educators, again, and the question is how informed you want to be.

You've said the home party industry is ready for a new model. How is what Love U does different from what's already out there?

We're clear and transparent about how we work, I want people to know what they're buying into. Our profit margin is better than most companies. And very importantly, the products we carry are better. We tried to go environmentally friendly, toys that are rechargeable, not the ones that deteriorate in their toy box over a year.

We have way fewer products than other companies but that's because we're picky.

As an individual and a sex educator one of the things that has really helped me is that I'm allergic to everything. I've had allergic reactions to poorly made toys, lubricants, massage oils, so I am very aware of products are made of. So we developed Love U Lubes. The toys are carefully picked - all to meet my standards. There are so many products out there with questionable ingredients. If I can't put it on my skin, it's not in the product line.

For a long time the industry was anchored in shame around sexuality. These parties were talked about as if they were dirty little secrets. I'd rather have people feel beautiful, empowered, and smart for having parties. Parties were talked about as something for laughs or something dirty. In reality the women running these parties are so much more than the "dildo lady" they often get called. I think it's time for less superficiality and more consciousness. You can do all this and it's still so much fun. When I'm giving parties I'm rolling on the floor laughing, but you can do it without making fun of people's bodies or their experiences or their genders.

What do you mean by "they're more than the dildo lady" I would think being the dildo lady would be pretty good?

I remember my first direct sales company convention, I didn't know this world existed because in New York we've got a number of good sex toy stores. But when you get outside a metropolitan area there are these people doing subversive grass roots sex education and retailing combination, and I walked into the room and suddenly realized a store could never reach the places these people are reaching, and I realized their power. I also realized that the more training they had the better. These are important people. It became my mission to help home party reps understand their potential.

There was a woman who I met at a conference who was quiet as a mouse, and obviously not taking care of herself. I helped her via email and over the course of a couple of months the personal growth I saw in this woman was beautiful. The next time I saw her I didn't recognize her. In her was a wealth of empathy, desire, and passion. She signed on because she needed the money but then realized that she is beautiful and does have the capacity to change other people's lives.

The personal growth people experience when they work in this field is profound. I hear it over and over again. I signed on for a car payment, for food in the fridge, to pay off debt. They sign on, but then they are awestruck. They go through a transformation with their bodies, with their friends, in their relationships. They might realize they aren't in the healthiest relationships. They realize that they can't have the same conversations with their partners that they are telling customers to have with their partners, and that's a problem. They may bond deeper with their partner. Consultants always experience personal transformation. And how that transformation takes place is unique to each person.

I know you've been more on the training side of things for a while but I also know you're a total commie at heart. Now that you're the president of a company, are you going back to the trenches?

I am! For our first three months I'm doing parties and 40% of every sale is sent to the Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program (where I'm a proud volunteer). So book a party with me while you can, and you're really partying with a purpose.

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The Next Generation of Home Parties originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 16:32:27.

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The Ethics of Choice, Revisited

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:03:33 +0000

I wish I could be in New York next Tuesday for this talk. There are so many ways that disability studies, and more broadly my colleagues, friends and partners with disabilities, have blown my mind around issues like sexuality, gender, and embodiment. One of my earliest "aha" moments (which to be honest felt more like an "oh sh-t" moment) was hearing Pat Israel, a Canadian disability activist, talk about her struggle to identify as disabled, feminist and pro-choice. The position of so many feminist health organizations, that a woman's right to choose must be absolute and unquestioned, serves many important functions. But it also sends a clear message to people who live with disabilities (and those of us who can't imagine our lives without them in it); you're lives aren't worth the bother of having to question our beliefs, get on board or get lost.

I don't know either the person presenting or the discussant, but I'm glad to see it's happening under the auspices of the Columbia University Seminar on Disability Studies, and that it's at least in an accessible space with ASL interpretation provided. All these things suggest the organizers are welcoming as many people as can to come to the table to talk. From the flyer:

The Ethics of Choice, Revisited

Rachel Adams, Ph.D Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Discussant: Marsha Hurst, Narrative Medicine, Columbia University

This presentation is a response to an article by Rayna Rapp called "The Ethics of Choice," which was published in Ms. magazine in 1983. Rapp's article is about the difficult decision to have an abortion after learning that the fetus she was carrying had Down syndrome. This seminar will explore how questions about reproductive choice have become all the more complicated in light of more tolerant ideas about disability, as well as the development of genetic testing designed to detect and eliminate "defective" fetuses. Professor Adams argues that disability shows us the limits of reproductive choice. Women who chose not to undergo prenatal testing or to bear a child despite a prenatal diagnosis of a disease or disability are often subject to the disapproval and abuse of medical practitioners. Feminists fought hard for the right to reproductive freedom and now we must urge healthcare professionals to respect the choices made by all women, and not simply those they agree with.

Date: Tuesday November 10th
Time: 5-6:30pm
Location: Satow Room, Lerner Hall (5th Floor)
RSVP: dsseminar@gmail.com

Seminar is Free & Open to the Public

Wheelchair Accessible Venue and Sign Language Interpretation will be provided

To request parking, please contact Colleen Lewis 212.854.2388
If you require other disability accommodations, please contact Columbia's Office of Disability Services at 212 854 2388 at least one week in advance.

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The Ethics of Choice, Revisited originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 16:03:33.

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Youth, Sex, and Technology Conference

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:27:49 +0000

The call for proposals for the third annual Sex:Tech Conference focusing on youth, sexual health, and technology is almost over and as a regular attendee (and proud ISIS board member) I'm wondering if you've thought enough about what you might bring to Sex:Tech. One of the reasons the conference is so great is that there are always things and people you wouldn't expect and you don't get to meet or hear from at other conferences. I know the planning committee is open to unique proposals ("unique" in this context means more than just "no power point" just as "sexual health" means more than just "absence of disease").

So if you work or live anywhere near the intersection of youth, sexual health, and technology, and if you have a passion for sharing, check out the site and submit a proposal.

Sex:Tech 2010 Call for Presentations

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Youth, Sex, and Technology Conference originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 00:27:49.

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What�s Missing in the Search for Female Viagra

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:01:51 +0000

Terry Allen has a short but pointed rant in In These Times on what she calls "restless vagina syndrome" otherwise known as female sexual dysfunction, and it's supposed cure, which thanks to an uncritical media has been constructed as the hunt for a female Viagra.

There's so much to be depressed about the tenor of most public conversations about what constitutes female sexual dysfunction and how women who are genuinely distressed by some aspect of their sex lives can best be helped. There's an equal amount to be depressed about in the quality of much of the research that gets offered up in defense of what John Bancroft refers to as :

a classic example of starting with some preconceived, and non-evidence based diagnostic categorization for women's sexual dysfunctions, based on the male model

What's missing for me (and it's missing even in Bancroft's insightful quote) is any explicit discussion of what most of these conversations are really about; gender. Biomedical and most quantitative social science sex research continues to bury its head deep in the sand, denying what many other disciplines are now unpacking; that a binary notion of gender is fundamentally flawed and that the male/female dichotomy is rarely if ever a complicated enough lens through which to understand any human experience. Instead, to those searching for a female Viagra there are men, there are women, and the twain shall only meet when we put them in the proper configuration and get them hard and wet enough to merge for precisely 2.36 minutes, 1.5 times a week. Actually now that I write it, it does sound a little hot.

So that's one complaint, and it's a personal one to be sure. But there's something more important missing from the discussion, which is the lived experience of sexual confusion, frustration, and pain that many of us do experience. Of course the story that those searching for drugs tell us is that all they want to do is make our lives better. Too bad they rarely bother to actually ask us what we want. They define a sexual problem not by how much it bothers us, they define it by an number, how many times we have sex, how many times we orgasm, how often we think about sex.

I understand and appreciate individuals who get frustrated by the kind of politicizing I'm engaging in here. They just want help, and if a drug company can offer it, they'll take it. The problem is that the help being offered isn't going to address the complex experience being presented.

It's a lie that Viagra improves your sex life. Viagra doesn't improve your sex life. It doesn't make sex better or make men want to have sex more. It just gives them erections. Anything else that happens is you.

The lie in the promise of a female Viagra, that a pill can make someone want sex, is the same lie for male Viagra, it's just that their marketing campaigns mesh so well with our own fears and ignorance about sex that we'd rather take the lie than deal with the truth.

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What�s Missing in the Search for Female Viagra originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 00:01:51.

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Sex and Disability Conference

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:01:13 +0000

Petra Boynton, who has a shiny new look to her blog, recently posted about what sounds like a great one day conference on sex and disability for health care professionals put on by the Royal Society of Medicine and the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance, called Disability: Sex, relationships and pleasure. It may not seem like a big deal, but just the fact that they got the word pleasure in the title of a conference that's being sponsored by a medical association is, in fact, a big deal. It looks like a good mix of people who are providing services and folks living with disabilities talking about their experiences around sex.

It's not the same thing as being in a room full of people screwing with everything you know about sex, gender, and bodies, but if you don't live near London and are looking for a little virtual inspiration, here are some of the sites I'm following these days covering disability, gender, sex, bodies, and more:

SexAbility Blog
This group blog describes itself as "a blog dedicated to the issues of Sexuality and Disability and...anything in the least bit related to it, political and personal and the personal that is political! Rants, musings, ramblings, braggings, articles, a hodgepodge of things, with a Queer' slant."

The Deal with Disability
This is a new project from a blogger with a long-standing commitment to talking about sex and disability, and it's awesome. Eva writes (and shoots video) about everyday interactions and negotiations she has both with non-disabled folks and people living with disabilities. The videos are angering and funny and ridiculous and all sorts of other things, but above all they are rich with meaning about how we humans interact with each other and how much of that interaction often goes without comment. Here's the place to comment on it. I find the tone of the blog to be an accessible balance of pissed off and good will. Everyone's invited to this conversation, as long as you're willing to learn something.

Sins Invalid
See this recent interview I did with Sins Invalid artistic director Patricia Berne. You missed the 2009 show, but there's plenty of stuff on their website to keep you enthralled.

FWD/Forward
(feminists with disabilities) for a way forward
I first came across this site in the strangest of ways, but was so happy I did. In their mandate they only single out sexuality in terms of writing about the disparities in sexual abuse targeted at women with disabilities, but they've already got one great primer post about sexual pleasure and disability, and it's hard to imagine a group of writers engaging disability and feminism not turning their considerably talents toward sexuality. One of the things I love most about the site is how well integrated the individual bloggers other work is, so you can easily go from an article about sexuality to a critique of Glee to a discussion of how difficult it is to build a website that's accessible for a really broad range of users. It's a brand new site but I still managed to get sucked in for the past hour, and then pulled myself away only because I had to get some work done.

More Sex and Disability Websites, Books, and Resources

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Sex and Disability Conference originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 00:01:13.

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Sex Toy Review - Better Than Chocolate

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:01:12 +0000

Vibrator lovers will appreciate Better Than Chocolate (buy direct) for it's quality, functionality, and power.

But there's much more to Better Than Chocolate for sex toy nerds. The touch pad user interface represents an important theoretical shift in how we play with sex toys. It's kind of a kinesthetic onomatopoeia wherein the motion the user makes to control the vibrator mimics a classic self-pleasuring movement.

Well worth checking out for both theory and practice!

Read the complete review - Better Than Chocolate

_{Photo of Better Than Chocolate Courtesy of Nomi Tang}

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Sex Toy Review - Better Than Chocolate originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 00:01:12.

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Doing It Decent - If They Don�t Ask, Do You Tell?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:01:49 +0000

Every other week Doing It Decent considers the ethics of a sexual situation from our readers. Grappling with a touchy sexual ethics issue? Here's how to send in a question to Doing It Decent. Send an email to sexuality.guide@about.com, and be sure to put DID in the subject line. All questions will be posted anonymously with identifying information removed.

This week's question:

If They Don't Ask, Do You Tell?

I'm dating a girl I'm really into and think it could be serious. We've started talking about our sexual pasts and I almost told her about a few drunken fooling around situations with other guys. I've never told any of my girlfriends about it, but I've also never been this serious about a girlfriend before. The problem is that I know her family is super religious and I think she might freak out. If I think she might be the one, is it wrong for me not to tell?

Ethics doesn't offer simple answers, and the ethical dilemma you raise is one that ethicists (the professionals and the rest of us) have been debating for years. To borrow a term your girlfriend's parents might appreciate, your question is really about the sin of omission. In your case, is it wrong not to tell a partner about a past sexual experience?

We might begin by asking what right your girlfriend has to knowing about your sexual past at all. The process of revealing ones sexual past is one that takes time and I'm not aware of a specific societal expectation with regards to how much detail and when. One way of thinking about this would hold that the answer depends on the nature of your relationship. You describe it as serious, but more specifically have either of you declared intentions or desires for a particular kind of commitment? It seems reasonable to think that how much you disclose depends on whether you're planning on spending a few hours, a few months, or the rest of your life together. On the other hand, since no one can predict the future of a relationship, should your current assessment of its "seriousness" be the measure of how much to share?

Let's get back to the sin of omission concept. You've said that you think she might freak out. The question is whether or not your ethical responsibility changes based on your guessing that she may not be comfortable with people who have same sex experiences. There's no right answer here.

Would you feel different if you knew for sure that she had a problem with this. What if she said to you "I'd never want to be in a relationship with someone who has slept with other guys". Would that make you feel like you'd want to, or have to, tell her about these hook ups? If your answer is yes, you can always ask her a hypothetical question. Just be careful with hypotheticals. If she's in love with you and you're in love with her, her real answer may differ from her hypothetical one.

Because we live in a homophobic society, which means we've all got a little homophobia in us, I think you also need to keep one eye on how your understanding of guy/guy sex is influencing your thinking.

Let me propose something you might find radical. The fact that you had these experiences with guys doesn't necessarily mean anything. It doesn't mean you're gay or bisexual or questioning. It doesn't mean you'll have sex with a man again (or that you won't). It is you who give meaning and context to it. You've pulled these experiences out of all others from your past, and it's worth asking why. For example, if your past experiences also include group sex, or sex with your best friend's mother, but you haven't disclosed those, why are you not worried about that lack of disclosure? There's no question that guys having sex with guys is treated differently in our society, but that doesn't mean you have to treat it differently also.

While I don't think there's an ethical duty to disclose your complete sexual history I would argue that it's reasonable for someone in a committed relationship to expect to understand how their partner thinks about themselves sexually, and how they identify. Of course this will change over time, and even from situation to situation. A partner needs to understand and make room for that. But some level of intimate disclosure is a reasonable expectation.

If you agree with this then it follows that you accepts a responsibility to think about how you make sense of your sexuality in the here and now, and how important these guy/guy experiences you've pulled out are to you.

Ultimately, if you feel that by not telling your girlfriend about it, you're hiding part of yourself, or pretending to be something you aren't, whether ethical or not, I'd say it's a bad move and one that's not likely to end in a healthy and happy relationship.

Got a question of sexual ethics?

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Doing It Decent - If They Don�t Ask, Do You Tell? originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 00:01:49.

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