Feature image of Aviva Romelli and Selphie Labrys in Crash Pad Series episode 216. All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are courtesy of Crash Pad Series. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If you’re a photographer or model and think your work would be a good fit for NSFW Sunday, please email carolyn at autostraddle dot com.
Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
+ Relationship structures can be complicated no matter where they come from. At Bitch, adrienne maree brown writes:
“Some versions of nonmonogamy work better for me, such as being in love with people who encourage my crushes, being in relationships that are transparent about desiring other people, and being respected for desiring multiple genders, but I also recognize and honor that nonmonogamy is not for everyone. I rarely get jealous. While this inherent absence of jealousy makes nonmonogamy easier for me, it is not a requirement. I know lots of people who experience and navigate jealousy in open relationship structures by naming and being gentle with it. There is no shame in jealousy.
With time, I’ve learned that under the layers of socialization—and jealousy—there’s deeper wiring that says yes to one, or yes to two, or yes to many. And relationships should be formed around that yes rather than what society or books say should happen.”
+ Self-sabotage “is what happens when we say we want something but then do everything we can to ensure we won’t have it,” writes Lori Gottleib at the Cut:
“Self-sabotage is essentially a stress response to emotional danger, much the way that our bodies have a stress response to physical danger […] But — and here’s the key — just as we don’t consciously control the surge in adrenaline when we see a bear, we don’t consciously control our behaviors when faced with a primal fear (fear of engulfment, fear of rejection, fear of failure, etc.).
Instead, we do what we can to protect ourselves from the perceived threat. We might do this passively by procrastinating, ‘being lazy,’ doing a half-assed job, or not taking steps to achieve a goal such as meeting good people to date. We might do this actively by sending a drunken email to our boss, plagiarizing a paper we’re perfectly capable of writing, turning down a promising opportunity for flimsy reasons, overeating to avoid intimacy, messing up on a project, acting irresponsibly, or dooming a relationship through any number of get-me-out-of-here behaviors: cheating, picking fights, repeatedly asking for reassurance then rejecting it.”
+ “If everyone just picked up someone in a bar and got laid occasionally instead of hooking up semi-permanently with people they will wildly outgrow, would the world be a better place?”
+ The world would also be a better place if the Babadong, which is exactly what it sounds like, Indiegogo campaign really got off the ground.
+ What do you do when you’re fighting with a partner and still have to attend an event together?
+ How do cities rank on arbitrary sex-related scales?
+ Can you take antidepressants and still have a sex life?
+ Waiting for someone to text you back sucks.
+ A new exhibition at New York’s Museum of Sex collects the work of women who explore sexuality, desire, and the female gaze in their art, with a particular focus on self-discovery and non-normative sexual expression. At the Cut, Dayna Evans reports:
“‘There has long been a conventional approach to exploring sexuality,’ Lissa Rivera, an artist and co-curator of the exhibit told the Cut by phone, ‘and we really wanted to show a wide variety of reflections on self discovery and different types of sexual expression, ones that are maybe unusual or not thought as often.’
The results of that exploration are works that show women’s bodies in ways they are rarely seen in public: bent and contorted; naked and crouched; staring directly at the viewer in defiance.”
