Cory Silverberg's Blog, page 26

Long Weekend Sex Readings

If you're looking for some sexual labor day reading, here's what's on my desk and in my lap(top):

Tiny Nibbles - Online Semen and Robo-Sperm

Thomas Roche talks about Canada's straight shooting on sperm exports, and where a non-breeder can find the land of milk and honey, online.

Racialicious - Conversations on Love, Sex, and Interracial Dating

A wonderful counterpoint to the mainstream media's superficial dealings with race and dating, editors have convened a series of panels broken down...

When World's Collide: Masturbation and Partnered Sex

Last week's sex question was from a reader who could only orgasm with their vibrator but who wanted to have orgasms with their partner.

One aspect of this reader's experience that I wasn't able to get into enough last week was the very common disconnect many of us have between our solo sex and our partner sex lives when we are in relationships. Take a minute now to think about a time when you've been in a committed relationship. How did being in that relationship change not only the...

Not Yet Hysterical for Hysteria

If you haven't yet seen it, the trailer for Hysteria, a film ostensibly about the invention of the vibrator, was released last week in anticipation of its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival next month. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal (who has an outstanding track record when it comes to masturbation in movies) and Hugh Dancy. Even before production began I recall reading in several places that the film was inspired by, or based on, Rachel Maines book The Technology of Orgasm

...

Sexual Conundrum of the Week: I Only Orgasm When I Do This

This week's sex question immediately brings to mind the old joke: A man goes to his doctor and says "Doc, it hurts when I bend my arm like this." The doctor takes a look at the man and says "Stop bending it like that."

Sex with vibrators can be kind of like that joke. If you're used to your vibrator and especially if it was the first way you experienced orgasm, you may have difficulty having orgasms with a partner. But in almost all cases, if you can orgasm with a vibrator you can do it...

Infidelity and War

In 2007 I was on a conference call with a group of people organizing a one day symposium focusing on sexual health issues for American service members.  I'm Canadian, and come from a long line of pacifists, so while I know people who have friends and family in the military, my direct experience and knowledge was limited.  One of the people on the call was a minister who was also a veteran of the Vietnam War.  Near the end of the call he said something simple and clear.  He said that once you ...

New Prostate Cancer Research and the Politics of Sexual Side Effects

USA Today reported this week on new prostate cancer research linking specific genetic markers to different outcomes for people with prostate cancer. The researchers studied the DNA of over 1,300 American and 2,900 Swedish men who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. They then compared 'bio-markers' with the outcome of the cancer in the hopes of developing diagnostic tests which can give doctors a better idea of how aggressive prostate cancer might be for a individual.

This could be...

Sex Question of the Week: Why Am I Obsessed with Sex?

One of the challenges of answering questions sent in by email is not being able to get immediate clarification on the language people use in asking their question. Recently I got an email from an About.com reader which was ostensibly about how important I think sex is, or at least how important I think it should be in a person's life. But the author of the letter used the word "obsessed" to describe how much they think about sex. As it turns out I recently started reading about clinical...

Blues Festival Ignores Blues Legacy, Cancels Candye Kane

I just read the news that Candye Kane's performance at an Alabama blues festival was cancelled because organizers were uncomfortable with Kane being an out bisexual, former sex worker, who has for years been an activist around issues of marginalization and violence of folks based on orientation, identity, and embodiment. Kane explains what happens on her Facebook page.

Apparently the organizers of the Shelby Blues & BBQ Festival in Pelham, Alabama are unfamiliar with the history of blues...

400 Words Between Fact and F*#@ed Up

Last week Beth Haller (blogger extraordinaire, and the author of Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media) sent me a link to an article in Australia's Daily Telegraph. The headline read

"Tax Pays for Disabled Sex Sessions"

and the article was what you'd expect from a tabloid rag run by News Corp. (a nonsensical, inflammatory rant that misrepresents almost every detail of what they pretend to be reporting on).

Once or twice a year some media outlet runs a...

Sex Question of the Week: Help, My Son Is Into BDSM

Here's an exercise in creative thinking:

First, take a few minutes and think about what you do for a living (even if right now your full time job is looking for work or just surviving unemployment). Think about all you know about it, and what it's like both day to day, and year after year.

Now, think about what most people know about what you do for a living. Think about conversations you've had, or overheard, or read, about your work life. Think about how what you do every day is...