NSFW Lesbosexy Sunday Is An Antidote
Feature of Aviva Romelli and Selphie Labrys in Crash Pad Series episode 216. All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are courtesy of the 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!
April Flores and Milcah Halili in Crash Pad episode 234
+ A new approach to love addiction is actually two approaches: narrow and broad. In the narrow view, you’re an addict when you show obsessive behavioral signs that interfere with day-to-day life or yours or the love object’s safety, mental health, physical health, or that have social or legal ramifications. But under the broad view, we are all love addicts:
“[T]he broad view … argues that addictions—whether for love, food, or drugs—’are simply appetites: they are felt needs that can be temporarily satisfied, but which become urgent and distracting if one abstains from fulfilling them for too long.’
In other words, everyone is on a spectrum of addiction. ‘This approach would claim that to love someone is literally to be addicted to them, though perhaps only weakly,’ the paper notes. Studies have shown that plain, normal love—as opposed to the disordered behavior described above—stimulates our reward centers in the same way that drugs do.”
+ Maybe that’s also part of why people blurt out “I love you” during sex — along with cultural scripts, finding it hard to give themselves permission to be sexual without a relationship, an overactive endogenous opioid system (because sex) and more. At Broadly, Sirin Kale also notes, “Of course, you might actually feel like you love the moron you’re cresting mid-coitus on a splendid, orgasmic wave. Remember, these feelings are false, but go ahead and suspend disbelief for a bit if it’ll help you get off. Also, stuff you say on drugs doesn’t count.”
Cinnamon and Cicatriz in Crash Pad Series episode 169
+ Dayna Troisi writes about how her disability influences her queer dating life, noting:
“I was pretty self-conscious of my disability at times when I was younger. As if it wasn’t hard enough being a queer teen in conservative Long Island suburbia, I also had my missing left arm to contend with. Even if my classmates weren’t directly saying something about my disability, I was occasionally worrying that they would. My desire to be with a woman was something I realized early in life, but soon afterward I began to fear that my arm made me undesirable.
But luckily, queer women tend to be more accepting. And the older I get, the less concerned I am about my arm counting against my attractiveness. I don’t see my disability as a negative — sometimes I even see it as a positive thing. Now, in my twenties, I feel more confident than ever thanks to age, maturity, and my badass bionic arm. But it’s been a journey getting here — one that has included some not-so-great moments involving my disability and my dating life.”
Aviva Romelli and Selphie Labrys in Crash Pad Series episode 216
+ “Through violent sex, my body bears the pain my mind won’t.”
+ At the Establishment, Lorelei Lee writes about all the ways that pornography will change your life.
+ At Oh Joy Sex Toy, Sarah Winifred Searle writes about bigger bodies, fatphobia and intimacy, noting: “Taking off your clothes in front of other people can be scary, and that feeling is valid regardless of the shape of your body. Also remember that features like rolls, stretch marks, and cellulite are part of what makes a body unique and worth getting to know — and if someone doesn’t appreciate that, they can just go fuck themselves.”
+ These are the most popular sex toys by state.
+ Got a vagina? Here’s how much discharge is normal.
+ Looking for an antidote to that one New York Times piece everyone is talking about on polyamory that featured straight couples and called monogamish couples poly and also really only included primary/secondary partnership dynamics? Check out Poly Pocket instead.
Jiz Lee and Nikki Darling in the Crash Pad Series episode Training Day