Dildo Diaries (2002) and the Downunder Toys Hot Banana Rod. Buying a sex toy is a snap these days. Simply type “adult shop” into your Yelp app, or enter the product name into Google, and in mere seconds you can find a place to purchase the dildo or vibrator of your desires. We take this for granted. I take it for granted. But as recently as 9 years ago, it wasn’t that easy — especially in the South. Dildo Diaries (2002) is a documentary chronicling the absurdity of Texas’ anti-sex toy legislation. Directed by Laura Barton and Judy Wilder, it’s a joyous defense of our right to purchase and use sex toys. It’s also an invaluable historical artifact, a reminder that in . . . read more

It’s all over the news right now that We-Vibe is settling a lawsuit over their app-enabled vibrators, and naturally, everyone wants to know my opinion. (Thank you, by the way, for thinking of me whenever sex toys are in the news.) According to the plaintiffs, We-Vibe was collecting app usage data without their knowledge. One headline reads, alarmingly, We-Vibe vibrator creator to pay damages after spying on user sex lives. Obviously, privacy and consent are important, but so is context. So, what kind of data was collected and how was it used? When the issue was brought to We-Vibe’s attention in September, they explained: We do collect certain limited data to help us improve our products and for diagnostic purposes. As a matter . . . read more

So I was interviewed for a piece about female ejaculation/squirting for Fusion recently. The article finally went live, and lo and behold, I’m not mentioned at all because some new bullshit study came out that had to trump everything. Also, they needed to make room for all those animated GIFs. I’m no scientist and I’m not in the business of picking apart studies, but I will say that its findings contradict several other studies which have previously shown that ejaculate contains zero or low levels of urea and creatinine. Its findings also go against several thousand million1 vagina-owners, including myself, who have reported that the stuff they ejaculate does not look, smell, or taste like pee. Also, WHO FUCKING CARES what the chemical make-up of the ejaculate . . . read more

[What happens when the media misrepresents squirting? Similar rage.] Less than a month ago we were attacked by headlines screaming that the G-spot doesn’t exist, and here we are again, with yet another news source “reporting” (I use that word quite loosely) on yet another “study” “proving” that the G-spot is a “myth” and EVERYONE CALM DOWN AND TOUCH YOUR CLITORIS. It’s not the first, and it will never be the last, but it’s the one that broke me. My soul has been cracking, little by little, each time this happens. Like that time a sex educator drew a question mark on an anatomy chart in place of a G-spot. That time a guy dared to write a book called What Do Women . . . read more

Now that Hysteria’s come out, everyone has an opinion about vibrators. Many of which I ignore. But I had not really heard this particular argument from a woman before, and I was intrigued by its logic. Brandi Megan Granett is troubled, just troubled, that there’s an entire movie!!! devoted to the history of the vibrator, and that her Twitter timeline is full of links to sex toy-related news stories. This is all very upsetting! Because in her mind, fingers are better, and vibrator users are just brainwashed. I know I should let her have her little opinion in her corner of the internet, but… I have to say something. This shit bugs me because, while the article isn’t extreme or super . . . read more

[Edit, 11/29/15: Not a stand up guy at all, it turns out. Fuck James Deen.] BREAKING NEWS, everyone. LISTEN CLOSELY, especially if you are raising innocent little girls. I’ve just learned that James Deen, my/your favorite male porn star of all time, is very dangerous. He is a serious threat to our girlchildren. He is lurking in the shadows of the internet, infiltrating their Tumblr dashboards with his bedroom eyes. HE MUST BE STOPPED. Or, at the very least, awkwardly questioned on TV about his lasciviousness! “Porn Industry Attracting Teens?” is the headline for this segment of Nightline, because of course it is. ABC News clearly yoinked this story from an article in Good Magazine, but when re-told in alarmist video form, it gets . . . read more

Facebook hates sex bloggers1. This is well-established. They’ve disabled my account twice now. The first time, they told me I needed to create a fan page if I wanted to be promoting myself. So I did. This time, when they reinstated my account, they had a new and exciting reason for my account being disabled. Your account was suspended because you uploaded photo content that violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This content has been removed from the site. Please review the guidelines below to prevent your personal account from being disabled in the future: • Do not send messages or post photos that contain nudity, graphic or sexually suggestive content. Yet their terms (which they helpfully suggested I . . . read more

Yesterday I woke up to a very sad press release in my inbox. It announced that Tristan Taormino, sex educator and feminist pornographer extraordinaire, has been uninvited from giving a keynote at Oregon State University’s Modern Sex Conference in February. Why? Oh, only the same reason people get booked to do keynotes: “the content of her resume and website.” Probable translation: “what, she makes porn?!” Even worse, OSU will not be reimbursing Tristan for her travel expenses. Classy. Tristan’s keynote was called “Claiming Your Sexual Power,” and its description was as follows: What does it mean to be sexually empowered? How is our sexuality affected by the mixed messages we get from the media and other cultural institutions? How can we . . . read more

It started out innocently enough, with a girls-only presentation about periods in the fifth grade. On a super-secretive slip of paper, I asked the presenters, why do some pads have wings? And I got the first and only answer to an actual question I had about sexuality in my entire schooling. My boyfriend was not as lucky — at age 21, his best friend confided that, after years of puzzlement over pad commercials, he had finally figured out what the wings were for. During this time, I had information about discharge (mostly the abnormal kind!) drilled into my brain — completely ruining the texture of cottage cheese for me — but my boyfriend didn’t even know what it was until I . . . read more