Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
via girls-in-underwear.tumblr.com
+ Everyone is having sex with their ex. According to a recent study, 53% of respondents reported sleeping with an ex:
“We can conjecture day and night about who and what is to blame for backsliding, but part of hooking up with your ex, and the attendant psychological and emotional baggage, is a comfort thing. Our old jeans are a hell of a lot easier to fit into than our new ones, and so is intercourse that doesn’t involve the vulnerable, ‘This is what I like, touch me here,’ period that a new relationship requires. New hook-ups take a frightening, stomach-churning amount of guesswork and investment, so ex-sex feels ideal for the risk-adverse. Need a quick lay? Call an ex, the boxed-cake-mix version of intimacy.”
The Daily Mail also has arguments for sleeping with your ex, and Jezebel has arguments against, if you’re in a pros-cons place right now.
Sasha Mallory, via 50 queer women with outrageously good hair
+ In a response to all “women today” trend pieces, Jill Fillpovic argues that courtship is dead but dating is awesome:
“Why this yearning for a past that, if it ever even existed, was only around for a short time? I suspect it’s because rules, in many ways, are easier than freedom. Clearly delineated roles, no matter how suffocating, are simpler to navigate than a wide-open plain of choices and options.
Choices and options mean responsibility and possibility. They mean taking the reins of your own life. They mean things might sometimes be harder, but that the rewards might also be greater – might, might not.
That’s terrifying.”
photo via sexinart.com (© 2013 Fifteen Photography. All Rights Reserved. — with Nicholas Wong and Bettina Banks.)
+ Artist Lauren at crowcrowcrow reviews The Hitachi Magic Wand , The Wall Banger’s Deluxe Beaver and the Vanity Vr7 Wave by Jopen.
+ This smut writing manifesto is the single best defence of erotica ever:
“Our libidinal drives are not some bright new user option, but an essential part of our beings, an inborn riot of wants and counter wants that we can never control entirely. And because, as a writer, I’m interested in the loss of control, in the danger of forbidden thought and feeling, it strikes me as utterly foolish – just from a practical perspective – not to write about sex. Why skip over the part almost guaranteed to teach you something new about yourself?”
+ The next time someone asks you about how lesbians or trans* people have sex (and it’s actually worth responding), you should send them this:
“KRISTA: Yeah, it’s like, whoa, there’s no dick—what do we do for sex?! Ohhhh, we must go down on each other. That must be what lesbians call ‘sex.’ Hahaha isn’t that cute, the lesbians think they’re having sex. That’s bullshit, of course—lesbians have sex in lots of different ways. We use our fingers and mouths and bodies and sometimes toys, but we are definitely having sex during all of it. I promise.”
+ Paige Cohen writes about watching Desert Hearts and getting over her fear of sexy women slash internalized homophobia:
“The sex in Desert Hearts is slow and awkward. Yes, they are beautiful, sexy and naked, but they are also overwhelmed and self-conscious. They are just as vulnerable as they are excited because, in a way, it is a first time for both of them. The scene is filled with extreme close-ups. I could literally see the sweat gathered on their arms and backs. The director forced me to look directly at the women the same way that I once looked at my girlfriend, only this time there was no one there telling me it was okay and I allowed myself to look without fear of a consequence. When I watched that day, I wasn’t frightened. I observed the curves of their shins and thighs, the damp hairs on backs of their necks. I didn’t cringe or close my eyes when Cay’s tongue circled Vivian’s breast. When I watched, I saw so much more than sexualized lesbians. I saw people who had desires and fears that I could identify with, and at the time, I needed to know that those people really did exist.”
via lesb0.tumblr.com
+ Talking about porn in relationships can be hard:
“Although I have no doubt plenty of these couples exist for whom deciding what porn to watch is as simple as figuring out which Korean joint to grab dinner from, those couples are likely not the norm. So what about the rest of us? What if only one person is into the idea and the other person isn’t? What if you’ve always treated porn use (or the absence of it) as a totally private issue that’s none of your business? What if one person tries to broach the subject and the other person is a jerk about it? And a million other possible variables.
Porn may be ubiquitous, but it still isn’t easy to talk about in relationships. Talking about porn means talking about masturbation, which is talking about a private fantasy life, which is not the sort of thing most of us are taught to get chatty about.”
Paula Grisel by Karl Rothenberger
+ PSA: Victoria’s Secret underwear has been found to contain phthalates, a toxic chemical used in the manufacturing process (and also found in jelly sex toys, which is why you should never ever use them). They’re going to work on it, though.
debbie van der putten via debbievanderputten.wordpress.com
+ So, Belle & Sebastian have apparently written a song about being a Suicide Girl, which’s unexpected. Then there’s this video of two girls laughing and taking pictures of each other that you might enjoy:
http://vimeo.com/17135848
+ Wouldn’t it be great if all sex ed taught you how to find and draw your clitoris.
+ Violet Blue enjoyed The Boxer Rebellion: The Runner: “This video (Hannah May and Andrea Chovanova) is gorgeous and sexy, but not exempt from emotional grittiness – I really love it, but wanted to warn you that it’s got a jagged ending.”
via dyke-lesbian-photographies.tumblr.com
+ Feminist sex writer Susie Bright will donate her archives to the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell:
“‘I’ve admired Cornell’s archives of GLBT history for years — really, it’s one of the world’s finest when it comes to sexual representation, and the range of erotic and sexual identity in full flower,’ Bright said. ‘The ‘On Our Backs’ legacy — the hundreds of women we published who took such great risks, and our thousands of readers who had their lives changed by this vision of lesbian sexual self-determination — deserve the perfect spot.”
Disclaimer: All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email our tech director at cee [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.
Second to last photo. Oh my.
Is that the same as next to last? Clearly I forgot how to think. And/or type and write. Which is a problem. That said, I was a Zwickler fellow at Cornell’s R&M archive this past Sept.–shout out to the HSC and kudos to her for gifting her papers.
Yeah, second to last and next to last are the same I think. If you really want to be exact, you can just say “penultimate” ;)
ha! that made me smile
Hmm, I always thought that penultimate was the same as “last”. Parsing the word, it totally make sense. Autostraddle comments section: educational!
I had abstinence-only sex education so sex-ed that even mentioned a clitoris would’ve been preferable to what I had. That said, the book discussed in that article would have made me So Uncomfortable when I was a kid. Although I have not read it, the parts discussed in the article seemed to talk down to kids about sex and use kind of cutesy language. Yuck.
Also, maybe this is weird to say, but in the screenshots used I found the font of that book pretty condescending. Like it was specifically being silly for teh kidz. As a child, I could sense when I wasn’t being taken seriously and I HATED IT. So while I appreciate the impulse to create a children’s book with better sexual information, this book would not have done it for me when I was younger.
i had awesome sex ed that told us ten million things but none of those things were that a thing called a clitoris existed, i think i learned that when i was ~19
I live in Indiana where all they gave us was a one-time sex-ed class that involved showing a video on how the reproductive organs work. And yet there was still no mention of the clitoris in that video. I didn’t find out what one was until I started watching porn as a teen.
yeah that. plus pictures of the worst possible std outbreaks around. hooray for associating fear, disease, and death with sex! ohhhh indiana.
I had one of those sex/bodies for kids books and it mentioned menstruation and masturbation in one sentence that made it sound as though both were something you could choose to do… pretty sure my super body-positive mom was confused as to why I thought for WAY too long that I could just decide not to have my period ’cause I didn’t want bio-babies…
I can’t even with the gorgeous people everywhere. Just googled Debbie Van Der Putten and wow. Stunning. <3
All of the photos. Just… all of the photos. Amazing.
I’m gonna add Desert of the Heart to my reading list! Exciting!
I’m pretty sure sex ed never even mentioned the word clitoris. All I remember was a bunch of brightly coloured diagrams that were quickly glossed over, and then a bunch of stuff about fallopian tubes (because of course, that’s all I think about when I think about sex, those gosh darn fallopian tubes).
At my schools, Sex Ed wasn’t sex ed at all. It was Reproduction Ed. Big difference.
Desert Hearts is an amazing movie, and I think Netflix has it on streaming right now!
All I have to comment right now is I think I need to research just who Sasha Mallory is, because she looks immense in that picture, oh my!
Sasha Mallory is a dancer who came in 2nd place on season 8 of So You Think You Can Dance. She was their first out female contestant. She is currently on tour with Madonna. Autostraddle should interview her.
oh, autostraddle, if you interviewed sasha i would love you forever. not like i don’t already.
She may be out but it was never even mentioned on the show.
…not that I’m obsessed with SYTYCD or anything…
Yeah, that’s my one grip with SYTYCD. The gay/lesbian contestants never mention their sexuality on camera. And their are so many gay contestants on that show. SO MANY. Not that I’m obsessed with SYTYCD either(or follow all of the dancers s1-9 on twitter or anything).
Also I know it’s a distant second but AfterEllen had a pretty good interview with her: http://www.afterellen.com/people/an-interview-with-sasha-mallory
Oh, Youtube is full of videos of her dancing. You will not be disappointed.
I had that book as a child! My mother was an adult std educator, so it was all very frank at my place.
From memory, the book prompted me to ask my elderly male neighbour if he’d ever had an orgasm, and what it felt like… Oops.
Not only are Victoria’s Secret panties overpriced, they’re poisonous too. o_O I love pics like the 5th one….where arms and other parts are strategically placed to leave mystery.
Going to sex ed at my church of all places was how I found out what the clitoris was called/what it was for…
Nice links. enjoyed the content.
That Desert Hearts essay was incredible. (Sharing it on my book blog, actually, with credit to Autostraddle for linking there!) I think that 1) I need to see this movie, 2) I’ll probably even go to the trouble of getting the book on interlibrary loan, and 3) I’m glad I got to read the story of someone else who really, really needed to see herself reflected in fiction.
So that Rookie mag link. I’ve now spent the last hour obsessing over/in awe of Tavi Gevinson.
how have i never heard of her?
bell and sebastian. i still cannot believe how many years of enjoying great music they cost me since i basically thought belle and sebastian were tegan and sara and absolutely didn’t like their music. oh man! #teamteganandsara
just a quick correction: It’s Lauren of *crowcrow who’s doing the reviewing of sex toys!
thanks abbey for coming to my rescue! i kind of doubt it will get changed, but a follower let me know that i was featured on here and right as i was going to comment on the correction, i saw you already did <3
i LOVE krista.
OMFG Suicide girls…
YES YES YES YES TO THE ROOKIE ARTICLE. (Though I wish they had included trans* ladies, too.) I am so annoyed when people tell me and my girlfriend that what we do when we’re intimate is not sex. It’s not only heterosexist, but can often be triggering for her dysphoria. Also when they ask who the guy in the relationship is. -______-