Cory Silverberg's Blog, page 12

Inspired Sex Education - 6 Questions for Scarleteen

Last year over five million people, mostly between the ages of 16 and 21, accessed the services of Scarleteen, an article on sexual orientation, getting help about consent on the discussion boards, accessing their live help via text message, and old fashioned email too. The site runs on sex ed smarts, passion, a lot of volunteerism, and a very small amount of money. Last year they did what they did with a budget of $45,000.

It's fundraising time, and in addition to giving some money I though...

Sex Toy Review: How Do You Have Sex with a Cupcake?

There was a time when sex toys were shocking, I think, to most people. They were the add-on sales in adult bookstores, the novelties that looked and felt a bit sketchy, like so many potentially risky one night stands do. They weren't health care products they didn't win design awards, and their spokespeople looked more like this and less like this.

Things change. Well some things change. I don't think our collective shame around sexual desire has changed much. And while sex toys may now be c...

My First Condom

I grew up using condoms. I can't remember a time when I didn't know what condoms were for. Mind you, the first 20 or 30 times I used a condom I was alone. I did go through a short period of abstaining from condom use, though not from masturbation. By the time I got to have sex with another person condoms were a part of my sex life like seat belts were a part of driving. It felt weird to be doing one thing without putting on the other.

I would have been 10 or 11 years old when I came across a...

A Different Kind of Sexual Performance

Last month I was complaining about performance as a poor metaphor for sex. But no sooner had I finished my rant then a friend and college, Karen B.K. Chan, sent me a video she produced for the SexEd Project.

The video, called Jam, imagines sex as performance in an entirely different way than we usually think of it. And it's brilliant. You can check it out at the link below, and if you happen to be in New York City, the video is part of an exhibition at the Cuchuifritos Gallery called SexEd:...

The Last Thing on My Mind

Last week I received an email from a woman who wasn't thinking about sex. Or at least she told me that sex was the last thing on her mind. She explained that living with a very busy body and mind (she included fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, chronic back pain and colitis among the things she has been diagnosed with) meant that she couldn't imagine having sex and that she was now worried about her husband of 16 years whom she loved and with whom she used to have very good sex.

I pointed out...

Sexual Craft, Just in Time for Valentine's Day

When you work in the sex toy industry the week leading up to Valentine's Day is your busiest time of the year (with Christmas as a close second). As it gets closer to the 14th customers get more desperate. By the end people will buy anything. If you work in the sex toy industry and also have a problem with capitalism and unbridled consumerism, it's a confusing time.

This was the position I found myself in for over 20 years working at sex toy stores. And while I miss the rush, the secrets shar...

My Smutty Valentine

The Best Valentine's Gift Money Can Buy

I spent over 20 years helping people buy Valentine's gifts that would get them laid. The angry capitalist machine turns sweet and erotic one day a year, conveying us with deceptive tenderness into bed and telling us to get down to business.

I'm not immune, of course, and for both personal and professional reasons I'm always on the lookout for a great Valentine's Day gift. This year I found something kind of perfect. It's something that will turn you on...

Is It Me, or Is Our Relationship Churning?

A recent study, reported in the Journal of Adolescent Research, caught my eye. It was a term in the title of the article that I had never heard before: "Relationship Churning in Emerging Adulthood: On/Off Relationships and Sex With an Ex."

Relationship churning? What could that mean? I had, literally, a gut response, remembering all those times when I couldn't figure out if was still in, or completely out, of a relationship. Did that slammed door denote the end of something or was it like a s...

Your Favorite Sexual Metaphor

The headline read "Drug abuse impairs sexual performance in men even after rehabilitation." It was at the top of a short press release describing a study that assessed the "sexual performance" of 605 men, most of whom had been diagnosed with some sort of drug addiction. We learn that four areas of "sexual performance" were evaluated: sexual desire, sexual satisfaction, sexual arousal, and orgasm. The term "sexual performance" appears 6 times in a 267 word press release. It appears 0 times in...

Sexologist Sylvia Hacker, October 19, 1922 - January 13, 2013

Thanks to Carol Queen for sharing with me the news of the passing of Sylvia Hacker. I didn't know Sylvia, but while reading a bit about her life and work realized that I own one of her books, What Every Teenager Really Wants to Know About Sex, which she wrote with her daughter in 1993.

Sylvia got her bachelor of science degree from Brooklyn College in 1922 and her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1975, her dissertation research addressed what for her was the question that started her in...