Tag: sex educator

#MySexPositivity by Angel Noir

This self-help Kinkster and leather champion understands how sexual and gender stereotypes can constrain our minds and fear our authentic selves. Her workshops function to breakdown shame and help people discover and play with sexual creativity in safe, holistic ways. Angel Noir believes that sex positivity is fundamentally collaborative. It will not continue to progress as a community and philosophy without support from each other.

1) Identify one or two trends, or influential people in the Sex Positive community that you identify with (or are inspired by) and those trends which you relate to not-so-much.

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Narrowing down my answer to this question is by far the hardest part of this interview! There are so many exciting sex positive folks and trends right now that it is difficult to choose only one or two! One of my very favorite projects ever is The Gender Book. It allows one to easily discuss gender and breaking free of stereotypes with a wide array of age groups and even provides colorful visual aids. It’s inspiring and easily relate-able. Within the Kink community, I’ve been able to play with gender identity and explore my own expression. I have found great freedom within androgyny as it subverts and transcends simplistic binary, masculine/feminine categories.

I’ve also been inspired by Kali Williams and her work on informed consent and sexuality education accessibility. Erotication is an amazing body of work. Her collaborative site showcases a host of educators I admire in one smart package and gives me hope for a future that includes safe options for exploring sexuality without the threat of being ostracized.

2) How do you define “sex positivity” for yourself and your work? In other words, what is your primary passion and how do you distinguish your writings and interests from other branches of thought within the sex positive movement?

I believe that everyone should have the right to love and explore their sexuality in the ways that feel right to them without fear of judgment provided there are no consent violations. We have a lot of work to do to break down the many cultural stereotypes that shroud sexuality in shame and secrecy. It’s my goal to support any work that serves that agenda and this is an ever present goal in my own work. Every mind control workshop I conduct or behavior modification program I craft spends at least some time examining each participant’s motivations to ensure that my work is being used in ways that promote this version of sex positivity. Sexual freedom and the responsibility it entails seems to me a logical part of human evolution. It seems equally obvious that we all must work together to evolve.

3) What directions do you think sex positivity will take within the next 5 – 10 years? Or what topics and with what platforms would you like to see sex positivity develop more thoroughly within the next 5 – 10 years?

For me, there are four areas which I watch closely and feel strongly about: Polyamory, Kink, Consent awareness, and sex workers’ rights.

I would love to see far more acceptance of polyamory, the decriminalization of kink, and a serious shift away from the rape culture we currently live in. I believe we have the capacity to accept and embrace the importance of companionship and create safer more fulfilling career options for sex workers. In general, I support the growth of activism that promotes abandoning shame and embracing our authentic sexual selves.

Angel Noir is a sex positive activist, kink and sexuality educator, and neuroplasticity warrior. She is the titleholder for Miss Virginia Unlimited Leather 2014 and is working towards releasing a book on erotic mind control. Her central goal in life is the creation of mutually beneficial interactions and relationships with other self aware, sex positive individuals. Angel Noir spent her early life immersed in a kink-charged environment. This helped mold her views on the horrors of sexual shame that society perpetuates. To overcome her own demons she harnessed the power of neuroplasticity and is now reprogramming the parts of her personality that don’t suit the person she wants to be.

Opinions shared are the author’s own. Want to participate in this interview series? What is your sex positivity?

January 20, 2014
Gwenn’s Condom Research and Personal Use

There’s been a lot of talk in the past 12 months about women’s preferred contraceptive methods. With the coining of the “Pull Out Generation” and the launch of the ACA’s (Affordable Care Act) contraception mandate, much of this talk has been centered around birth control. This is an important discussion that pleases many sex educators: it’s about applying informed choices to people’s lifestyles and relationships, and determining the method that best suits that person’s circumstances.

However, hardly any time in this discussion has attended to those women who use the simple condom as their primary contraception. Even less attention is given to STI testing and prevention. These important topics have been swept aside and treated as a separate issue that seemingly doesn’t apply to long-term sexual relationships.

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I spoke with a woman who fits within that cohort of condom-using relationships. Gwenn Barringer is part of the well known sexual health and HIV activist duo, Shawn and Gwenn. Gwenn wrote her Master’s thesis about condom usage in short term and long term relationships among college women. Now she is a public speaker and vlogger busy busting HIV ignorance. Her approach? Using her 15+ years sexual relationship with her HIV positive partner, Shawn, to teach others about sexual health.

Over email, we talked about Gwenn’s research findings on the likelihood of condom use in “trusting” relationships. We connected her thesis to her personal life and the contraception strategies that she’s chosen. First, Gwenn lays out the terms of her research and main findings:

Yes, Gwenn found that women in shorter relationships depended on condoms more than women in long term commitments. This wasn’t a big surprise. What was striking was deciphering the meaning of “short” and “long-term”. Gwenn states, “I found across the literature that a short term relationship was defined as 3 weeks or less, and therefore a long term relationship was defined as more than 3 weeks. This is what I used in my study to define relationship length, so when we are talking about condom use being decreased in long tern relationships, we are talking about a month or so.”

Gwenn continues: “My findings had a lot to do with the vague notion of trust. Women felt like they trusted their partners at the magic 3 week mark. I wish I had more time back then to go further with the trust notion but that was beyond my scope at the time. I do find anecdotally that college women feel that time spent with a partner equates to trust. And while I understand this, I try to encourage STI testing as a trusting experience.”

Gwen makes a key point- notions of trust and sexual health are intrinsically linked. This is a fairly general statement because what “trust” actually means varies from person to person. But all contraceptive methods- all consensual sexual acts -involve degrees of trust. “Pulling out” relies on a partner to be in control of his climax. Condoms are also about partner cooperation and protecting each other.

However, when it comes to public discourse around birth control in long term (heterosexual) commitments, male condoms are often portrayed as unpopular. In fact, some people struggle with getting their partner to use a condom because the other views it as a symbol of distrust in their relationship. Gwenn responds to this contradiction:

“As far as my thoughts on the condom paradox of trust, I do think that is an interesting observation. I feel like it has to do with trust but also has a lot to do with breaking some fantasies that people have about new partners. When you are in a new relationship often times it seems like everything is perfect and magical. Thinking about or discussing a condom inserts the realities of life into that which isn’t always fun.”

We ended the interview by Gwenn reflecting on the prevention regime Shawn and her practice. She is quick to debunk the notion that condoms connote distrust and non-commitment.

“My own relationship has an incredible deal of trust. I don’t think you can really be in a healthy relationship without trust and I certainly don’t think you can be in a serodiscordant relationship without a great deal of trust. That trust for Shawn and I came out of much communication about sex before we ever had sex.”

“Our prevention strategy is condoms each time we have sex. When we first were together, I was also on hormonal birth control but discontinued that (for reasons not related to Shawn’s status or our sex life) about 6 years ago. So we are also using condoms at this point as pregnancy prevention as well. We have discussed the issue of Shawn’s “infectiousness” due to his undetectable viral load and while we haven’t made any major changes to our sex life because of that, we do feel another level of security because we know it would be highly unlikely for him to transmit HIV to me even if there were a break or slip.”

There is no single birth control that suits everyone. However, condoms remain the only birth control that prevents STI infection. The issue of transmission should not be glossed over when discussing contraceptive methods. Furthermore, the conversation needs to include and represent serodiscordant couples and relationships in which both or one partner carries STIs.

You can read and watch more of Gwenn at her blog and YouTube Channel, Shawn and Gwenn.

January 16, 2014
#MySexPositivity with Ashley Manta

See sex positivity through the eyes of empowerment guru, Ashley Manta, and you’ll start to redefine your weakness for strength. By a personalized, “be yourself” approach to sexuality & gender, her work unveils taboo topics like STIs, sexual violence and body confidence. Adaptive and progressive as the sex positive community may be, Manta argues that it lags behind in the way of STI awareness and prevention. Words like ”clean” and “dirty” are not in this teacher’s vocabulary; “vulva owner” and “body safe dildos” are.

1) Identify one or two trends, or influential people in the Sex Positive community that you identify with (or are inspired by) and those trends which you relate to not-so-much.

One of the trends that I love in the sex positive community right now is the emphasis on collaboration over competition. For a long time, sex educators and bloggers were operating from a model of scarcity where there must be a finite number of potential readers or audiences and thus we must push each other down to get our message out. Now we are supporting one another in every possible way. I first noticed this when I attended Tristan Taormino’s “Sex Educator Boot Camp” at CatalystCon East in March. She pointed out that we’re all in this together and by supporting each other, we’re creating a thriving community. Doing something as simple as keeping a blog roll or a “sex positive resources” page on one’s website is enough to show visitors “hey, I’m not the only game in town and I want you to find a voice that really resonates with you.” I would always prefer that someone hire me because they vibe with me and not because they think I’m the only option they have. There are so many amazing educators with different experiences who bring rich conversations to any audience. I want people to experience all of them, not just me.

Sex Ed with Ashley on FB

A trend that I’m less crazy about is the “consent is sexy” messaging. As a sexual assault survivor and someone who has done extensive work in sexual violence prevention, I appreciate the intention of the message. It’s a catchy phrase and it does get people talking about consent, which is a good thing. My concern is that it’s an oversimplification. Consent is not always sexy—sometimes it’s downright awkward. Having a conversation about boundaries, STI testing, and other pre-sex talking points can be incredibly difficult. That does not make it any less necessary. I think it’s important to let people know that these conversations can be challenging and that good sexual communication takes practice. “Consent is sexy” can make it sound like having an explicit talk about boundaries is akin to an aphrodisiac. It’s just not that simple. I worry that people will hear that message, make an attempt to start the conversation, and then become discouraged when it gets awkward. I would like to see more nuances in discussions about consent rather than trying to boil it down to a catch phrase.

2) How do you define “sex positivity” for yourself and your work? In other words, what is your primary passion and how do you distinguish your writings and interests from other branches of thought within the sex positive movement?

As a sex educator, I categorize my work as sex positive because I take a “no-shaming” approach to education. I believe sexuality is healthy, normal, and entirely optional. Rather than take a “sex is awesome everyone should do it” stance, I prefer to communicate a “be yourself” message. I would hate to alienate people who are asexual or not at a sexual point in their lives. At the same time, I make every attempt to celebrate sexuality in those who do choose to be sexual. I also believe sex positivity means sexual inclusivity, so I try to make my language about gender and sexuality as broad as possible. That means saying “vulva owners” instead of “women” and “how to please your partner” instead of “how to please your man.” We live in an incredibly heteronormative, ableist, and cisgender normative culture and I want my writing and teaching to model inclusivity.

My primary passion is teaching. I believe that by sharing my experiences, I give others permission to do the same. My friend and colleague Kate McCombs calls it “being a beacon of permission.” I would like to take sexuality out of the realm of giggles and whispers and bring it into daily conversation. I’m a huge fan of Brene Brown’s work, which emphasizes vulnerability as being the key to connection (TedTalk video). As much as appropriate, I try to model that in my writing and teaching. I use my birth name instead of a pseudonym, share my story of being a sexual assault survivor, and write about living with Herpes and struggling with body confidence. I’ve learned to embrace discomfort and “lean in” to awkward conversations, because those are the ones that tend to bring the deepest connections with others.

3) What directions do you think sex positivity will take within the next 5 – 10 years? Or what topics and with what platforms would you like to see sex positivity develop more thoroughly within the next 5 – 10 years?

When I think about how much things have changed in just the past 5 years, I get so excited about the future! One of the things I see happening in the sex positive movement is a greater reliance on technology for getting the message out to the world. Social media, video chat, webinars—these tools are going to bring sex positivity to a greater audience than ever before. I believe we’re going to get to a point where distance is no longer a barrier to bringing an educator into a classroom.

As more information begins to disseminate among the general population, I think there will be a trend toward body safe materials in sex toys and products. Currently the sex toy industry is completely unregulated, and I think with a growing awareness of the dangers of chemicals in certain types of toys, there will be a push for more regulation or oversight.

I would love to see the notions of “clean” and “dirty” disappear from conversations about STIs. This is an incredibly stigmatizing way to talk about having or not having an STI. Because it starts at an institutional level (not those words specifically but the emphasis on “STIs are bad”), I’d like to see Public Health and Sex Positive communities take a different approach to prevention and management. That will eventually trickle down into social norms. Having an STI is not the end of the world. Being ignorant about STIs is dangerous. There are consequences to not treating something like Chlamydia. That’s why we need to raise awareness and encourage testing. At the same time, I think we’re going to start realizing that STIs are part of being sexually active. The prevalence of HPV is skyrocketing and more than 20% of the US population has Herpes. I don’t think that shaming people who have an STI is going to aid in prevention. If anything, it makes people less likely to talk about it. I think we need education about STIs and barrier options and greater access to testing and treatment.

A project that tackles STI stigma is The Herpes Opportunity. Recommended by Ashley.

Opinions shared are the author’s own. Want to participate in this interview series? What is your sex positivity?

December 4, 2013