Cory Silverberg's Blog, page 7

My Trans Boyfriend, My Transphobic Friends, and Me

What do you do when your sex problem is entirely not of your own making? How can you make change in your own life when what's getting in the way is really the world, which is surprisingly resistant to change (surprising given that change remains one of the few constants in the galaxy)?

These are heady questions, and not the sort of philosophical quandaries that you want to throw back at someone who is emailing you for help.

But it's what came to mind a few weeks back when I was trying to writ...

Let Sexual Freedom Ring

Next week an unusual collection of academics, educators, activists, lawyers, and health care professionals will be converging in D.C. It's not the people themselves that are unusual. What is unusual is the reason for their convergence. It's the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance's fourth annual Sexual Freedom Summit, a four-day exploration of sexual freedom as a basic human right, one that seems to be denied and suppressed at every turn in the U.S.

Each year the summit has offered a genuinely...

Thinking About Intersex

Last week I wrote about a new study which provides further documentation of how diverse the category of sex is, far beyond male and female. I realized that I wrote the whole piece without using the term intersex, even though that term, the bodies it is often applied to, and the people who sometimes choose to use it to describe themselves, are all intimately connected to the study itself.

I didn't use it because it's a word with a lot of history (even though it's common use is relatively new)...

Near the Edge of Sexual Ambiguity

It's rare to find poetry in a press release.

But I pulled the above phrase, which is so evocative and rich, describing as it does, not our bodies but a moment during fetal development before sex assignment; I mean just think about it: What does that edge look like? What happens when you peer over it? Who is teetering there? Are they worried about falling off, are they waiting to jump, or are they happy living on the edge? This is clearly the stuff of poetry and humanity) from a Case Western R...

2013 World Sexual Health Day

In 2010 the World Association for Sexual Health (formerly known as the World Association of Sexology or WAS) established September 4th as World Sexual Health Day. Each year they choose a theme and invite their member organizations to participate by creating local events meant to get people talking and thinking about sexual health. This years theme is sexual rights, and their slogan is "To achieve sexual health, picture yourself owning your sexual rights."

More than 35 countries have particip...

Leave Off the Last S for Sex

If you lived in New York in the late 80s or early 90s you might remember the radio and TV ads from Dial-a-Mattress, a company that offered low prices on brand name mattresses delivered right to your door. Their toll free number was 1-800-Mattres, and they became famous for their slogan "leave off the last S for savings."

I'm not sure what it says about my brain, but those ads were the first thing that came to mind when someone sent me a link to a consumer review article which rates mattress t...

Speaking Up About Hookup Culture

There are so many ways that social and cultural silence and shame around sex impacts our lives. I feel its weight in every conversation I have with someone who is struggling with an aspect of their bodies, gender, or sexuality. But I see it too in the public conversations we have about sex, and in so much of the nonsense and misinformation the news and entertainment media gets away with presenting to us as sexual fact.

Every few years there's a new reason to panic about sex. The panic is usua...

What's the Problem Germany Is Trying to Solve with its New Sex Designation?

I've been reading some of the media and blogger coverage of the announcement that starting November 1st parents of some children in Germany will have the option of leaving sex assignment as "indeterminate" on their newborns birth certificates. For whatever reason I also decided to read some of the comments which follow these stories.

Given that a big part of of the problem this legislation is trying to address has to do with the constant conflating of sex and gender, it's disappointing that s...

Crowdfunding for Sexuality Related Projects

While the practice of asking several people for money so that you can do something which, on your own, you'd never be able to afford, is not new, the branding of crowdfunding, and the financial success of companies who facilitate it online are.

And both the branding and bottom lines are so rosy that new crowd funding sites are popping up each year.

I had a very successful experience with crowdfunding on Kickstarter in 2012 both in terms of money (we raised 690% of our goal and became the most...

Sex After a Heart Attack: What Women Want to Know, and What Women Want Their Doctors to Know

Our inability to talk about sex stymies us at every turn. Take heart attacks. Having an enjoyable sex life reduces ones risk of a heart attack. Once you've had a heart attack you're more likely to have another. And the lack of opportunity to get information about the safety of having sex after a heart attack means more of us either don't resume sex, or when we do, we do so with increased fear and anxiety (not two of the great aphrodisiacs).

So you'd think that the thing to do, if you're a doc...