About.com Sexuality

Participate in National Day of Listening, Record a Conversation about Sexuality and Gender

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:01:50 +0000

StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening has designated November 27 a National Day of Listening. They are encouraging everyone to take one hour on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to sit down and record a conversation with someone important to you. Their website has tips on how to do the technical part and they also offer suggestions on questions you might want to ask.

I'm a big fan of StoryCorps, and usually stop what I'm doing when it comes on NPR. But I'm always keenly aware of the stories I don't hear on those StoryCorps moments, and how many of them have to do with sexuality and gender. Our experiences of our sexual selves and our experience of gender is intimately linked to how we experience the rest of the world. These are stories that say so much about the unique time and place we live in. These are stories that should be archived for history as much as stories about loved one's lost to war, schoolyard triumphs, work, and family life. In fact sex is in all these stories too, only it rarely gets spoken about.

Which brings me to this. I think it would be great if at least some of us who participate on Friday decided to take a risk and ask at least a few questions about sex and/or gender. You could even make your whole conversation about it, but that might be too much for this first year.

If you're game, but not sure where to start, I thought I'd offer my own question generator below. If you're reading these questions and bristling at the idea of asking a friend, family member, or partner any of them, it's hard for me to make an argument here, but I promise that there is little that is as powerful as letting someone talk about their feelings about sexuality. It takes good listening skills and compassion, but the payoff is worth it. Remember, these are only suggestions.

National Day of Listening, Sex & Gender Questions

How did you learn about sex? Who was the first person to talk to you about sex? Do you remember what they told you?

What do you remember about learning about your body as a child?

How was nudity dealt with or talked about in your family?

How did you learn what it means to be a man/a woman?

Can you remember (and tell me about) a time when you felt you didn't live up to others expectations of you as a man/a woman?

Can you describe a time in your life when you felt happiest sexually?

How important is sex in your life?

Who was your first crush? What do you remember about how that felt?

What do you remember about your first great love?

Do you remember anyone in your family talking to you about sex? What did they say?

Can you remember what you thought about sex before you ever had it?

Do you remember how you felt after the first time you had sex?

Do you remember the names that you first learned for going to the bathroom?

Do you remember the names that you first learned for your body parts?

How would you define pleasure?

How do you think people should treat each other when it comes to sexual and gender differences? What do you notice about how people actually do treat each other?

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Participate in National Day of Listening, Record a Conversation about Sexuality and Gender originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 00:01:50.

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New Online Course on Sexuality, Disability, and Rights

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:15:30 +0000

I just had a chance to talk briefly with Caroline Earle from CREA about what sounds like a great new project. It's an online course offering training in disability, sexuality and rights for people working in development, health and rights NGOs and social activists. Who could this training be good for? Caroline gave the example of someone working in an HIV/AIDS clinic who would certainly be aware of how HIV impacts people's lives, but might not have made the connection to disability and get how powerful (for both individuals and organizations trying to make change) linking sexuality, gender, and disability can be as sites of political struggle.

This is such a needed training. I find that in even the most sexually progressive organizations there is still a general lack of acknowledgment of disability rights in general and folks living with disabilities in particular. And on the other side, it's often hard to get disability rights groups to take up sexual rights as part of their mandate.

The training is entirely online and they seem committed to using as accessible technologies and formats as possible. It's nine weeks and will take about five hours a week, but people can work, to some extent, at their own pace. Each week offers a power point and lecture notes, readings, and activities/assignments.

It sounds like a great primer for anyone interested in opening up the work they and/or their organization does and shifting away from a model of exclusion (which, lets face it, is how most organizations function if you identify as disabled). I also love that assignments will focus on helping each participant find ways to bring what they are learning back to their organization in a really practical and concrete way.

Lastly, it's only $50! And they offer a fee waiver if you or your agency simply has no money at all. I've been part of workshops and courses like this in the past, but always in person and always when I had the time and money to attend. Two privileges a lot of folks working around sex and disability don't have.

The course developed out of a panel at a conference called Disabled Queer Women Working Together for Our Sexual Rights and the format of doing an online course came from CREA collaborator and one of the course instructors Janet Price.

The deadline for signing up is December 18th. The course runs from February 1 to April 1, 2010.

You can find more information, download the course brochure and application form at the top of the CREA homepage (it's small, and easy to miss).

Related - Sex & Disability on About.com

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New Online Course on Sexuality, Disability, and Rights originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 19:15:30.

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Meet Your New Experimental Sex Drug: Flibanserin

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:01:12 +0000

Pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) is looking to create a lot of pre-emptive buzz for its gamble on the female sex drug market, flibanserin. Flibanserin is being developed as a non-hormonal treatment for low sexual desire in women, a market that's thought to be more financially lucrative than even the $2 billion dollar erectile dysfunction market.

On Monday they orchestrated several media releases, webcasts, and a presentation at a major sexual medicine conference in Europe, all to release data from Phase III trials on pre-menopausal women labeled with low sex drive (also known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD). The next few days and weeks will reveal how effective this first of many blitzes is likely to be.

All of this has everything to do with marketing and little to do with science. The data hasn't been released and no breakthroughs have been discovered. Still it's an opportunity to get a little more acquainted with a drug that changes brain chemistry and they hope will change, or direct, the global conversation on female sexuality.

Defining Sexual Desire
Sexual desire is a difficult thing to define, as even researchers involved in the flibanserin studies acknowledge. The model presented by BI researchers involves breaking down desire into three elements, which include:

Drive, referring to spontaneous sexual interest that is somehow biological or hardwired (what that actually looks like is only a guess).

Belief & values, including social, cultural, ethnic, religious, and other factors that impact how often we might feel sexual desire, how intensely we feel it, and how comfortable we are with it.

Motivation, which considers all the psychological and interpersonal factors creating a willingness to be sexual and feel sexual desire.

The pitch from BI researchers is that while good treatments exist for low sexual desire caused by beliefs, values, and motivation, we don't have anything to treat the drive component (which they call the "biologic" component). They believe that flibanserin treats the drive component of sexual desire.

How It Works
What they don't know is how flibanserin is supposed to achieve this. They know that the drug reduces serotonin levels, and their current guess is that it impacts sexual desire by reducing inhibitory effects in the brain (basically it's removing whatever is stopping you from feeling desire). But this is just a guess.

What It Does
On Monday November 15 the company did a major media push, releasing some of the data from their clinical trials with pre-menopausal women who had been diagnosed with HSDD. They released data at a sexual medicine conference, through media releases, and via phone/webcasts (one of which I listened in on). Here's a summary of what they have released:

BI conducted several studies in North America and Europe involving over 5,000 pre-menopausal women who had been diagnosed with HSDD. In their publicity campaign, they focus on the North American studies (more on that below) and included just over 1300 women. The average age was 35 and most of the women were married and the average length of relationships was over 10 years.

The women were assessed for both desire and distress caused by desire and then followed for 6 months. Every day the women were asked to record their subjective evaluation of their own sexual desire and their sexual activities, defined as Satisfying Sexual Events (SSEs). One particularly nice aspect of the study was that sexual events weren't defined solely as intercourse or orgasm. An SSE was defined as sexual intercourse, oral sex, masturbation or genital stimulation by the partner, which was subjectively evaluated by the woman as satisfying (with prompts like gratifying, fulfilling, satisfactory and/or successful).

Comparing the women taking daily doses of flibanserin with women taking a placebo, the pooled data show: Women taking flibanserin increased their SSEs by 1.7 per month while on the drug. Women taking the placebo had 1 more satisfying sexual event per month while taking the placebo.

Women taking flibanserin reported an increase in sexual desire and a reduction in distress about sexual desire. Women taking the placebo also reported increase desire and decreased distress, but the difference between the two groups was statistically significant.

Notably, in the European study there wasn't a significant increase in sexually satisfying events.

Questions Remain
To be fair, BI hasn't completed it's research. At the same time they are making the calculated business decision to get publicity for this data, so it also seems fair to start raising questions now about what they are reporting.

They haven't offered any rationale for why the drug produced statistically significant results in the "biologic" component in North American but not in Europe. I suspect the answer to that question may be messy as it would likely refer back to non-"biologic" elements of sexual desire, thus pointing out a problem with the premise of the research.

After the six month study there were participants who stopped taking the drug reported that their sexual desire did not diminish. Whether this suggests that the drug is having a permanent effect on brain chemistry, or that brain chemistry is not in fact a significant factor in most cases of low sexual desire remains to be explained.

Finally, I was interested to hear one of the researchers say that most women in the study reported that their low sexual desire crept up on them over a period of time. If, as the researchers argue, problems with low desire are drive related, hard-wired or biological, why would they appear slowly? Are they suggesting there are precipitating factors influencing low sexual desire? If so, would effective treatment not want to address those factors before they go altering the brain chemistry of otherwise healthy women? One consideration in a low desire creep may be age, but these studies were of pre-menopausal women with an average age of 35. These seem like pretty important questions to consider.

What What We Don't Know
Currently the only safety data we have is for women who have been on flibanserin for six months. They have been following women for over a year (after the studies are done women are given the option of continuing on the drug) but haven't released data on those women. In a telephone media presentation researchers propose that no significant safety risk is expected to emerge. This seems a little like hubris given the "unexpected" discoveries of risks associated with long term use of SSRIs, which weren't found in clinical testing.

We also don't know when flibanserin would be an appropriate treatment. Is it meant to be a first line treatment or used only when safer, more proven treatment options have been exhausted? Once the media and a splashy BI advertising campaign create the myth of a pill that'll make you want sex, how prepared are physicians going to be to explain the actual complicated nature of desire, never mind finding the time to do it versus the time it takes to write a prescription.

The Bottom Line (for now):
In truth, it's much too early to be evaluating the potential benefit versus harm of flibanserin. It's a smart strategy on the part of pharmaceutical companies to generate press for a drug that's not yet approved as a way of mobilizing a lazy media, generating a public buzz and setting the terms of the public discussion on the topic. Unfortunately what's good for business isn't always good for public health.

Related - Bloomberg News: Desire Drug May Prove Sex Really Is All in Her Head

Boehringer Ingelheim Press Release - Boehringer Ingelheim Announces Pivotal Phase III Data of Flibanserin in Pre-Menopausal Women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder

Guardian Comment is Free - Pill-popping approach to female libido

Neuroskpetic - One Pill Makes Your Libido Larger

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Meet Your New Experimental Sex Drug: Flibanserin originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 00:01:12.

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High Doses of Commonly Used Chemical Linked to Male Sexual Dysfunction

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:01:27 +0000

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical primarily used in plastic production (it's in everything from baby bottles to the inside of food and drink containers to sex toys). Its use is so common that in one study of BPA levels in the U.S. adult population, it showed up in more than 90% of urine samples. The main human health concern about BPA is its impact on reproductive health and reproductive systems. There are also environmental concerns about the amount of BPA that is seeping into the water system and its negative effect on both plants and fish.

So far research has looked at BPA exposure in animals and BPA levels in humans, but hasn't offered direct evidence for a link between levels of BPA and sexual or reproductive harm in humans. A study published this month in the journal Human Reproduction has done just that.

The study compared workers who were exposed to high levels of BPA in a factory with workers who had no such exposure. They found that those exposed had a significant increase in sexual dysfunction, specifically reduced sexual desire, erectile difficulty, ejaculation difficulty and a reduction in sexual satisfaction. They also found that the greater the exposure, the higher the risk of sexual dysfunction.

The researchers point out that this study needs to be replicated and that the levels of BPA exposure in this study is around 10 times higher than what most men are exposed to, two factors which call for some caution in interpreting these results.

There's a secondary sexual link to this story, which is that BPA is likely used in the manufacturing of many sex toys. As always, it's hard to get information from the major manufacturers about what's in their toys, but the Danish Environmental Protection Agency report on sex toys did find levels of BPA in some of the sex toys they sampled. If it is in sex toys the next question would be if, and how, BPA could migrate from the toy to the person during use. The answer may be that it doesn't, the problem for me is that I doubt testing sex toys is high on anyone's list. Maybe knowing that almost 50% of adults have used a sex toy might push this consumer product group a bit further onto health researcher's and government radar. Maybe.

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High Doses of Commonly Used Chemical Linked to Male Sexual Dysfunction originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 00:01:27.

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Sex Toy Review � The Sqweel

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:33 +0000

An unusual vibrator which creates a feeling of being touched not vibrated, Sqweel was developed out of a design-a-sex-toy contest run by LoveHoney, one of the UK's biggest and hardest working online sex shops. I've seen contests like this before but have never heard of a company taking the winning design all the way to market*.

The Sqweel is a seriously fun toy. It offers what the old tongue vibrator always promised but never delivered; a genuine alternative to buzzing, thumping, whirring vibrators, and one that feels as if you're being touched in a way you've never been touched before. It's a good idea that was translated into a thoughtful and functional design, and far surpassed my expectations for delivering a lot of pleasure in a little package.

*In writing a review of something called the Sqweel, I was obligated to get one pig reference in. I'm done now.

Read the full review of the Sqweel

_{Photo of Sqweel Courtesy of LoveHoney}

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Sex Toy Review � The Sqweel originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 00:01:33.

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Record, Rap, Sing for Smarter, Safer Sex

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:01:04 +0000

15 and Counting is a campaign developed by the International Planned Parenthood Federation to push governments to meet a commitment made in Cairo in 1994 to provide universal access to services and information on reproductive and sexual health. 179 governments signed on to do this by 2015. The campaign is like an early alarm clock, reminding everyone that they only have five years left.

One of their projects is a music competition. They've teamed up with Dopetracks, a free music collaboration network, and are getting people to record 15 and counting inspired tracks. Tracks that feature gem lines like "you gotta learn you can burn from some great sex/ wait your turn there ain't no such thing as late sex."

This stuff always runs the risk of being cheesy or preachy. But it is great to hear explicit talk about sex that is a little less performative, while still being all about the performance.

Check it Out : 15 and Counting Dopetracks Competition

Record, Rap, Sing for Smarter, Safer Sex originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 00:01:04.

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New Research on Lubricant Use During Intercourse

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:00:20 +0000

Debby Herbenick is presenting on lubricant use during intercourse at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia. For many years Debby and her colleagues at the Center for Sexual Health Promotion and Indiana University have been doing an important job of playing sex research catch-up; looking at topics of direct relevance to people's sex lives that, for a variety of reasons, have long been ignored by sex researchers. Every time I read one of their studies I'm left with a hundred questions, which for me is always the sign of good research.

One study involved 2,453 women who tracked their own use of water-based or silicone-based lubricants during sexual activity. Some of the findings include:

70% of women said that using a lubricant made sex feel very pleasurable
65% said it made sex feel more comfortable
In most cases it was a partner who applied the lubricant
The most common reason given for using lubricant was to reduce the risk of vaginal tearing (22%) and to make sex more comfortable (21.8%)
Reported side effects (pain or tearing) were rare

A second study of 1,834 men specifically asked about the use of lubricants during vaginal intercourse. According to a prepared release the study involved "8,876 coital events", and findings include:

46.8% of the events involved the use of a latex condom
24.7% involved the use of a lubricant
Lube was most frequently applied on the outside tip of the condom after it's on the penis
Lube was used more often during intercourse with a spouse than a non-committed partner
Lube was used more often when a female partner used Nuva Ring, IUD, or spermicidal foam for birth control

The research hasn't been published yet so there's likely more data forthcoming, but I was surprised there was no mention from participants of using lubricant to reduce the risk of a condom breaking. I feel like that's something educators commonly say, and wonder whether my perception is wrong, or what it means that it may not be in the minds of people when they are thinking of why use lube. Also, selfishly, I'd love to know which lubricants were used in the study and if they collected data about which lubricants people used prior to the studies, and comments about the reasons why they choose one brand over another. Currently I don't know of any user satisfaction data on lubricants that isn't just marketing.

Both studies were supported by the Patty Brisben Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable organization that was set up by the owner of one of the largest sex toy home party companies in the U.S. It's wonderful to see a company in this industry investing in research related to sexual pleasure and health which will eventually benefit those who have supported them by buying sex toys and lubricant. It's rare, and hopefully other companies will take Patty's lead. It's also an opportunity to be mindful of the relationship between funding and research, particularly as products for sexual pleasure become increasingly mainstream and more integrated into sexual health product lines.

New Research on Lubricant Use During Intercourse originally appeared on About.com Sexuality on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 08:00:20.

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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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