All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are by photographer Kenzi Crash and have been used with permission. The inclusion of a visual 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!
“Thinking about love as a feeling, something brought about by chemistry and circumstance, is pleasant. Because it frees us from acknowledging that we get to choose the people with whom we spend our days. In fact, thinking about love as a casual accident frees us from realizing that we are choosing at all. […]
Fredrickson doesn’t define love the way the rest of us do. To her, love isn’t infatuation or passionate romance. It isn’t even strong positive regard. Instead it’s something you experience, face to face, with another person—any other person—as you go about your days. She calls these experiences ‘micro moments of positivity resonance.’
I know this sounds pretty technical. But if, for a moment, we can abandon our ideas about passion and romance and commitment, we can reimagine love more simply—as something we create with another person, something that feels as good as sunlight.”
- There are ways to start being a better listener. To start: don’t interrupt or abruptly change the subject, make eye contact but not too much, match your face and any “I’m listening” noises to the speaker and content, and nod occasionally. Ask questions, and pay attention to details for follow-up questions, and balance them with your own experience so it doesn’t feel like an interrogation. Then, empathize:
“Being a truly excellent listener has everything to do with empathy. Minden suggests using reflective responses, a concept popularized by the psychologist Carl Rogers. Framework from MIT pinpoints three main traits of reflective responses. First, you are reflecting the speaker’s emotions. So if your best friend complains about an experience at work, you would say something like, Right, I get it. You felt anxious and cornered because you had to give a last-minute presentation, right? Second, instead of leading a conversation, reflective responses require you to, y’know, respond. So instead of making the conversation about your own point of view, you allow it to follow the path of the speaker’s thoughts, opinions, and emotions. Finally, you respond not to the content of the conversation, but to the emotion — how the speaker feels about the subject.”
- Language shapes reality. At the Cut, Leigh Cowart writes about a new study that looked at how to say “orgasm” in 27 different languages, and notes:
“How we name things can reveal secrets about how we feel, while giving insight into the deeper recesses of our own psychology. This rings especially true when it comes to language that’s used to describe sex. Often mired in euphemism and wordplay, the way we describe sexuality tells of how we experience sex, or, at the very least, how we wish to. With that in mind, let’s take a stroll through the many ways people around the world describe the experience of orgasm.”
- Silicone lube is the best lube for shower sex.
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At Oh Joy Sex Toy, Erika Moen writes about the sexual response cycle, writing, “Good sex is about the whole process, the cycle, the pleasure and satisfaction and connections, it’s about enjoying the entire experience.”
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People often break up around the holidays.
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Jealousy is often more about you than about a partner.
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Check out this new completed novella series from Sinclair Sexsmith.
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A new study says the G-spot is a myth, piling on to a long history of controversy about the G-spot.
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Tinder now has a feed for Instagram and Spotify.
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Your sex drive might be low because of stress, depression, antidepressants, hormonal birth control and more.
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If you want to be a strong partner to someone who’s experienced sexual trauma, focus on communication, don’t pry for details, discuss what types of touch cement your partner’s sense of trust and safety, find non-sexual ways to build affection, offer empathy without judgement, and support your partner’s healing process.
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You can’t make someone go to therapy, but you can encourage them while speaking from your own experience, talk about it directly, operate from a place of care, and set boundaries.
- Why do couples speak to each other in baby talk as a sign of affection? Blame moms:
“’[Baby talk] exists for language acquisition in infants, and it also expresses love and facilitates bonding between the mother and the infant,’ she says, explaining that studies show that infants love baby talk—especially when it comes from their mother.
When it comes to adult bonding, Falk believes that similar principles apply. ‘My hypothesis is an extremely simple one,’ she says. ‘Couples, speaking this way, harken back to their own experience when they were infants and to their first love, their mother.'”
- The photos in this week’s NSFW Sunday are by photographer Kenzi Crash (also on Instagram and previously featured right here) from Kenzi’s 2018 queers in neon calendar. Kenzi writes:
“Queers in Neon is about finding and being the light. It’s about honoring the spaces we create and celebrating our queerness in moments of solitude and in moments of abundance. Most importantly its a love letter to yall, your beauty, your gifts, your talents. We keep surviving, keep thriving.”
Even when people are made to go to therapy, by court order or something like that, is it even effective?
Usually only if there is a strong insentive as well as intensive and genuine support. Which often means that help is superficial or insubstantial which is pretty much what you’d expect if the government (any neocon govt anywhere in the western world) has anything to do with running it or if some sort of contracting company is involved.
i loooove these photos