Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
+ Today is the last day of International Strap-On Week! Did you celebrate. I hope you did.
+ Dildos are old:
“The first known dildo recovered by paleontologists dates to the Paleolithic era. Made of siltstone and polished to a high gloss, the debate rages on about whether its primary purpose was for religious ritual or personal pleasure. To my mind, this debate has more to do with puritanical paleontologists who can’t conceive of a society where religion and sexuality commingle. The fact remains that dildos made of carved stone or bone were widely discovered among normal personal artifacts like combs and sewing needles. I imagine this eventually led to the invention of nightstands, and nightstand drawers.”
+ HappyPlayTime, a new app to , has sparked an ongoing conversation about female masturbation. Ann Friedman writes about whether female masturbation is the last sexual taboo:
“The notion that women enjoy sex has not yet achieved scientific or cultural acceptance. To social conservatives, it seems downright dangerous. What’s left to hold our society and nuclear family structure together if even women like sex more than they like babies? There’s no purer example of this than a woman enjoying the pleasure of her own company. And so it remains taboo.”
+ While Daisy Buchanan argues HappyPlayTime might not solve problems itself, the conversation around it has the potential to:
“In itself, the app might not be the answer to the problem that it sets out to solve – but I hope that it will start the conversations that eventually allow all women to enjoy their sexuality freely and fearlessly. Masturbation gives women agency. It delivers us from the world in which sex is something people perform or are threatened with, and allows us to experience desire and pleasure without becoming vulnerable. Sex is used everywhere from advertising to intimidation – sometimes female sexual pleasure doesn’t even seem to be on the agenda. When we masturbate, we can please ourselves exclusively without hurting anyone.”
+ Porn Studies, the first peer-reviewed academic journal about porn, has been the subject of a lot of debate since it was announced several weeks ago. Callie Beusman argues that this level of debate is exactly why the journal is important:
“The current state of confusion surrounding the effects of pornography upon the human psyche is exactly why there needs to be a porn studies academic journal — preferably one that represents the entire spectrum of attitudes and beliefs towards the medium. It’s obvious that ignoring porn won’t make it go away. In the words of Ms. Smith, ‘If you want people to be honest or to tell you things about their engagements with pornography, you have to be prepared to listen. I am politically motivated about the fact that people who look at porn are not all lizard people.’”
+Sex educator and writer Twanna Hines of Funky Brown Chick talked to Essence about her sex life. Watch the related Google hangout roundtable.
+ Last week, right here on Autostraddle, a really fantastic gallery of girls using their hands when no bra is available happened, and if you missed it, you should catch it. We’ve also got a Queer Your Tech about masturbation!
+ You could also watch a super cut of Game of Thrones sex scenes if you wanted. (Winter is coming.)
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