Frightening stories on the effects of boys growing up in "pornland"

Yikes! A friend just sent me a link to this article with stories from girls, mostly from Australia - poor them - in my experience Australian men can be sexist to begin with, but it seems that perhaps things have gotten even worse in the Aussie male department since I lived in Whistler which was crawling with them. At any rate it paints a pretty bleak  picture of the sexual landscape of young women. http://www.collectiveshout.org/growing_up_in_pornland_girls_have_had_it_with_porn_conditioned_boys

Is there such a thing as Feminist Porn?

I have been teaching lately and trying to weave in more info about the potential impacts of watching porn as I have been learning about how there are people, according to an English study, approximately 1 in 4 young men in Britain who can't maintain an erection without porn after growing up with it. I heard that on a CBC Ideas podcast called porn generation, which I would encourage others interested in this to take a listen to. Another stat I heard recently was that 1 in three women watches porn (or at least those are the ones who will admit it). So I wondered what is the feminist stance on pornography? Is all porn bad? Where can a person go to find "good" porn and as Lacie Green points out in this video, how much is too much? Studies claim that "moderate use" of porn does not seem to have negative or lasting impacts on the brain, but how much is moderate? Once a week? Once a month? Once a day? Once a year??? There is so much research yet to be done, and fortunately there is a new porn Journal which aims to study some of these questions and more and in the mean time, I am pleased to have stumbled across the feminist porn awards which give a good run down of porn that may have some value, or at the very least be less full of the shocking de-humanizing and mysoginist images that are the mainstay of free, cheap internet porn like red tube porn hub. I was pleased to see when scrolling through their list of award winners, films by Dr. Carol Queen, who writes the sex advice column for Bust Magazine which I quite like. So anyways, lots of questions about the future of our brains, the future of porn, and the beginning of a quest to find porn that might just be able to be educational, and not just a degrading shame fest that leaves us feeling not much better that a scrunched up ball of kleenex by the end. I also really loved the movie Don Jon as it deals with these themes in a really clever way.

Son, It's OK if You Don't Get Laid Tonight.

Here is a link to a great letter written by a mom to her teenage son. Can you imagine if all parents actually had these kinds of conversations with their kids!? It would put me out of a job!! I also really like this cartoon which, like the tea example I posted a while back, shows some great metaphors for consent.

http://angieup.tumblr.com/post/64577581035/son-its-okay-if-you-dont-get-laid-tonight

Norway Is Waaaay Ahead, as Usual.

A friend just sent me a video, one of many amazing ones coming from Norway's Newton's Puberty series. This lady's Line Jansrud is my new inspiration. Her hair is a lot like mine too, and while the videos are more graphic than I could ever be in a classroom, they are very informative, fun, cute and shame free! Here is a nice little article that sums up some of what this amazing sex educator get's into. http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/248465/norway-puberty-sex-ed-tv-show/

Intersex Folks

Someone sent me this fabulous little short film. I think it does a great job at clarifying what this manifestation of biological sex means. I will probably use this in some of my future sex ed classes as people are often confused about this.

Desire vs. Intimacy

This is a great Ted Talk a friend told me about from the author of "Mating in Captivity". I have often thought about how the idea of the nuclear family has led us to expect our partners to fulfill every need we have, when in fact that is the role of an entire social network (and I don't mean Facebook). I like how she tackles this topic and reminds us that in order for relationships to survive we need our own worlds and we need to be able to fulfill ourselves lest we devolve into co-dependence. She is a brilliant woman and after watching this I downloaded the audiobook version, which she reads in her amazing french accent. Hope you enjoy this, good food for thought.

The Genderbread person - the gender spectrum brilliantly explained in pictures.

Came across this wonderful info graphic recently and have been sharing it with all kinds of people in hopes of helping to shed light on the many facets of sexuality that kids, and all of us sometimes have a hard time grasping. I like how this speaks to the fact that there are spectrums of all these aspects of gender, and while a majority may appear to fall into one end or the other, in fact it's all pretty nuanced. One in 1000 babies is born intersex, with a mix of male and female genitals and more and more people are speaking up about the fact that their biology does not necessarily line up with their venter identity, or how they think about themselves. Despite being a country that is fairly progressive in terms of it's laws on homosexual marriage etc, we still hear "that's so gay" and I still have kids telling me "it just means happy". No it doesn't kid, so let's talk more about what it does mean.

Porn Sex V.S. Real Sex, the Differences explained with food

A great video that helps us get real about some of what we see, versus the reality, with great british narration. Good facts too. I showed this to some grade 10 girls this week and one said it may have ruined Nutella for her...so be warned.

Icebergs of Filth...

A friend just showed me this video, which I thought was a great conversation starter about pornography. I don't know that I think that all porn is always bad for all people, but I agree with pretty much everything that Russel has to say about this and am interested in what others think about this too. He also manages to do it in such a candid, funny and honest way and I appreciate him being honest about his own experience as a man and how he feels he has been shaped by his own porn consumption and the ubiquity of soft core porn in mainstream media (on billboards, in magazines, on the internet, an even in movies like 50 shades of Grey). He also quotes some research that has demonstrated the impacts this has started to have, especially on adolescents.

My New Favourite Podcast "Death, Sex, Money" (Who'da Thunk It???)

Check this out. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/deathsexmoney/

the Science and languages of my favourite four letter word

Continuing from the Crushes post, here is one about Love.

I listened a while ago to this great Radiolab episode all about Love and how it works, at least in as much as we even CAN understand it. I also wanted to share this fantastic video about a love competition that takes brain imaging of people to try to test their various experiences of love. It's super interesting and made me feel really happy and think about the importance of meditation and sending out those good loving vibes, not just to our romantic partners, but to all kinds of folks. It also shows how good this is for the person doing the loving. I feel like I may have posted this video before but it's worth a re-post as it kind of touches on the idea of loving kindness meditation, which I have been trying to get back into since the fall. My aunt gave me a great book a while back called "Awake in the Wild" and in it one of the meditations is a guided loving kinds meditation. The idea is to think about the plants and animals and progressively the people and send them the following thoughts:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy.
May you live with ease.

I have been trying to remember to do this.

I was in a Kindergarten class in a month or so ago and I was buoyed by the lesson I learnt there about love. The teacher asked the children "can you tell Alicia about the different kinds of hearts that we have?" The children politely answered "We have a muscle heart and a feeling heart" then they went on to tell me about how in their class they also talked a lot about all the different kinds of love that there are. For example, there was friend love, teacher love, parent love, brother or sister love, love for a pet etc etc etc. I was so impressed. The English language is hard on love, we have just one word and it isn't enough, not nearly enough to capture the spectrum of feelings that could easily fall under this kaleidoscopic umbrella. Yet it's all we have. This didn't deter this magical kindergarten teacher and her students. More power to them.

Soon after I read a post from a friend called "I Love you NBD. (No Big Deal)". It also made me think about how bound many of us are by what we think love means and the inherent attachments and stress on doing wrong to each other with our feelings. I also recently read a book called "the ethical slut" which I would highly recommend as it gives a very nuanced and insightful look into open and honest communication which is of value in any and all relationships. It really helped me think about jealousy and possessiveness in ways that have been hugely helpful.

On a separate but related note, in my very limited forays into learning about the Haida language I have noticed that in the SHIP glossary, there are multiple words for different kinds of k'uuga or love. Baby talk love guuga, so in love you can't sit still ling.xaal, and many more that I can't actually spell using this keyboard. Makes me very curious into this language and more importantly the culture behind it. I think we have so much to learn from the Haida and other world views that are not founded so much on resource extraction, efficiencies and industrialism.

some great (sex) resolutions/advice for 2014

Ah the new year. I'm staying away from making a bunch of resolutions, but have been seeing some great recommendations...Just read a fantastic article on Vice about how to have better sex in 2014. Some of the more down to earth ad-Vice I've ever seen form them.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/how-to-have-better-sex-in-2014 

Also, a great little diddy from Laci Green.

Great new book By Naomi Wolf, plus lots of great lady part art

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/23/naomi-wolf-vagina/

Sex and relationships in Long Term Care facilities

Just saw this great video posted by a colleague about sex and relationships in long term care facilities.

I did a presentation a month back for my course which was about the need for comprehensive policies for care homes which are sex positive and encourage relationships and sexual health in the clients that live there. Here is a link to the guidelines we used as the backbone of our presentation.

I also learned about this book called "naked at our age" which is about sex and aging. I ordered it and have yet to read it, but hear it is quite good, full of stories of juicy romances in later life.

How much internet use is for porn?

Here's an article from Forbes that did the research...Turns out it's only about 4% of all websites and about 13% of all web searches are porn related. Not so much after all.

Tantra Video showing different position

This is a Tantric video, showing (without any nudity) the various positions that can be pleasurable for men and women and how to move between them smoothly. The couple teaching are a man/woman duo . Enjoy!

Sex Ed in Schools a report from Ontario

We are lucky inCanada that we have some pretty great standards when it comes to Sex Ed in our Schools. Unfortunately Teachers are not given ANY training in how to do sex ed, and since this is a touchy subject sex Ed often get's glossed over, or not taught at all. Fortunately though there are standards, and there is training (like the awesome training I am doing) which can help us deliver high quality, research based Body Science and Sex ed for all ages. Here is a link to a look in the what is happening in Ontario with regards to Sex ed, and what parents and students want.
https://www.ophea.net/sites/default/files/pdfs/advocacy/ADV_SexEdReportFINAL_31MY13.pdf