Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Gird Your Loins — And Your ‘Intravagina’ — From ‘Penis Power’


filed under: State of Sex Ed, We Are The Sex Media by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

Circulating today: Alexyss Tylor, host of this Atlanta cable access show, illuminates how “not all penises are created equal,” why women use vibrators as an expression of submission to the penis, what it’s like for men to “ejaculate all over your brain,” and other non-sex advice. Oh, do we need to be keeping an eye on local cable sexpertise! Tips, tips!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Abstinence Education Not So Smart


filed under: State of Sex Ed, Strange Bedfellows by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

It should come as no surprise that we at Sexerati aren’t big fans of abstinence only education (it’s hard to fit statements like ‘touching another person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy”‘ and “half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus” under the banner of smart sex) — so it was nice to see the Associated Press reporting that a new study has shown that abstinence-only education doesn’t work.

Which is to say: students who attended abstinence-only education classes were just as likely to have sex as their peers who didn’t attend the classes. And have about the same number of partners. And lose their virginity at about the same age.

Not surprisingly, supporters of abstinence-only education (like, say, the Bush administration) aren’t willing to abandon ship in the face of this study, pointing out that the four programs involved in the study were early, unrefined examples of abstinence-only education, and that later programs have perfected the strategy of, uh, scaring kids out of having sex by lying to them.

Well, maybe. Or maybe we should just throw our money to programs that have actually been scientifically proven to work.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Rock Hard, Explosive, and Profitable: “The sexual performance perfection industry”


filed under: State of Sex Ed, We Are The Sex Media by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

You know we can’t resist a good college paper’s de rigeur “sex issue,” especially one that claims to not be “a cliche sex issue” as “Baltimore’s top campus paper,” The Towerlight, does.

Taking sex culture to task is so the new how to have sex, and I can’t say that’s totally a bad thing, so long as — hey, this is academia — we’re all doing some research with our ranting. Which is why, as much as I’m fond of the phrase coined therein, of “The sexual performance perfection industry”…

The members of this industry include most large pharmaceutical companies, members of the medical/surgical establishment, as well as certain entrepreneurs, some of whom manufacture sexual “enhancement toys” and others of whom produce sexually explicit films. The SPPI, which evaluates all sexual encounters in terms of performance rather than satisfaction, tends to “medicalize” any type of sexual behavior that is not consistent with the industry’s definition of sexual perfection.

… is it really possible to collapse all sexual products and media into this one purpose, that is, to produce a sexual discourse centered on never being a good enough fuck? (Take that, Foucault.) Is there not room in the business of buying and selling sex stuff for disruptive business models, one’s that are based on making goods that make for better sex, and doing the necessary education around how to use those goods? Does this perpetuate bad sex, or bad sex education, or does it support a more sexually sophisticated consumer, one more likely to return for more than one made to feel ashamed, powerless, or lacking?

In short, sure, a lot of what’s sold as sex is nothing but, and it’s purveyed in the ethical vacuum of a capitalist market that sort of relies on our increased estrangement from eros. (And take that, Marcuse.) But can we not also resist the medicalization of sex and sexual disatisfaction with better sexual art, design, and culture? Just as the market already guarantees a demand for sex toys and smut by virtue of desire’s role in driving the wheels of commerce, so, too, can we put our desire where our wallets are and ask for sex consumables to promote smarter, hotter sex.

PS: Dude, you have a psychoanalytic practice around sex, and you’re not part of the sexual market? Oh, denial, how it cuts both ways.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

The State of Sex Ed… for Kids


filed under: State of Sex Ed by Lux Nightmare | 1 Comment

Through a news story out of Australia, I learned about a brand new book (put out by Family Planning Queensland) that’s intended to teach young children about, well, their bodies and themselves: Everyone’s Got a Bottom.

bottoms_cover_.jpg

From what I can tell (the website doesn’t have extensive information) the book is something along the lines of the Everyone Poops of sex education, which amuses me to no end. Personally, I have some very fond memories of my first sex education book (given to me at the age of five).

Did you get a book about sex (or where babies come from, rather) when you were a kid? What was it? Would you recommend it to the world at large?

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Safer Sex, Coming To a Bus Shelter Near You


filed under: Design for Sex, Smart. Safe. Sex., State of Sex Ed by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

Sexerati is a bleeding (Pan Am-esque) heart, you know. While visiting the offices of Better World Advertising yesterday in downtown San Francisco, we couldn’t help but be struck by how much hotter and smarter public health campaigns around safer sex are — and more effective — when introduced by the likes of the Healthy Penis.

Better World is also behind the indie-cred-filled ‘Buck Syphllis’ campaign (just look at that t-shirt), and the controversial ‘Homoboy’ posters that, while promoting HIV prevention for men of color who have sex with men, were also criticized for their portrayal of bottoms as “bitches.” Riding the line of honest community engagement that doesn’t pander or patronize and in-your-face messaging worthy of framing in your bedroom is a tough one, and we’re glad to have such great designers (oh, for their bank of Cinema Displays) and sexual health and rights activists on the cause.

Follow along on our tour in the Sexerati Flickr pool. (And heck yeah, add your own images of smart sexual health messaging to the pool, pls!)

« go back — keep looking »