You’ve probably noticed some serious posting silence over here. Or maybe you’re just noticing it now as I drag your attention towards  it. First, my apologies. I know how frustrating it can be when you find something you like on the internet and the content remains stagnant.

This is not due to a lack of content inside my own head; to the contrary, my little brain is bursting with ideas. Money is the main thing holding me back right now and I decided that unless the ad revenue on this page is filling my bank account then dealing with comment moderation is not worth it. Also, I want to expand this site to become more interactive and full of easy to navigate information. I got a side job to start saving up and paying to build up the site.

What I’ve been up to

Mostly reorienting what I’m doing with sex education. When I finished graduate school my career path was clear to me: work with youth. I saw adolescent sex education as one of the most important issues and someplace where I could make a difference. Unfortunately, when I accepted Cambridge’s invitation to speak in favor of pornography I didn’t realize how this would impact me being able to work with youth. I touched the porn monster and now I am tainted by that controversial association. (Don’t worry: I regret nothing).

I spent a few months grappling with this new reality and wondering if I should continue with sex education at all. I wondered if I was really making a difference and if the walls I sought to break down would yield to my meddling.

Regardless of what I was feeling inside, I kept trudging and trying to create new content. I kept giving workshops, teaching and speaking. But I wasn’t feeling it. And the stigma of being a female speaking about sex was wearing me down. I had nights where I wanted to set my diploma on fire and have a normal job.

Trinity College Porn Debate

I got another invitation to speak about porn, this time at Trinity College in Dublin. When I accepted I did so mostly because I wanted a vacation and nothing sounded better than visiting my friends in Europe. (I’m currently in Madrid and, aside from my stuffed sinuses, everything is awesome). The organizer also mentioned opportunities for other speaking engagements and I wanted time to speak on something other than porn. I wanted time to address what I think are the real issues impacting sexuality: restrictive ideologies, sexism, anxiety, shame and willful misinformation.

My visit to Dublin was a bit of a game changer. The night before the debate, I delivered a lecture on the human body as a source of pleasure and masturbation as a source of empowerment. Living in the Bay Area I forget what revolutionary concepts these can be. I could see little lights going off in students heads. After the lecture someone asked me, “What is your agenda?”

I thought about it for a moment and responded, “I grew up in a world where pleasure wasn’t something I thought I could have. My body was shameful and not really meant for me. When I was able to change my frame of reference and identify my own desires, I felt empowered. Being able to enjoy my own body changed everything I thought I knew about the world. I want to help people do that in whatever capacity works for them. I want to lift the social weights that preclude them from that experience.”

Where I’m going

I have loads of projects waiting in the wings right now. The rest of the video footage we shot in June is still in editing purgatory. I have a bucket of articles waiting to be written. I have so many ideas for classes and lectures that my brain feels weighted.

Most of what I do is bootstrapped together on one struggling little laptop with the help of my friends in their spare time. I want things to go faster so I’m doing admin work on the side to bankroll these projects.

The good news is that you’ll see much more from me in the coming year. The bad news is it’ll be slow going.

So, dear  reader, I want to thank you for your patience and thank you for all the times you’ve read or commented or passed something along to someone else. Changing the cultural conversation about sex is not an easy task. We’re up against deeply entrenched misconceptions and asking a person to change their worldview is akin to blatantly requesting their mental discomfort. I can only hope that the work I continue to do in the future will have some sort of lasting impact.

Thanks for your time, it’s worth more than you know. When this blog is ready to switch to a private server I’ll be writing here again and will be sure to send a notification that it’s back online. Until then, you can get all up in my Twitter.

Teach It, Write It, Do It,

Jessi

I am so happy to be wrong.

Cambridge Union Society

“This House Believes Pornography Does a Good Public Service.”

I begin at the 22 minute mark if you feel like skipping ahead to my speech. For extra fun, here is the account I wrote after the debate in Februrary.

Here’s a little video about why you should measure your johnson and sheath it accordingly…

For behind the scenes pics check out my Facebook fan page here!

A male patient first presented to a psychiatrist (J.M.B.) at age 24, with the explanation, “I’m here for sexual addiction. It has consumed my entire life.” He feared losing both marriage and job if he could not contain his burgeoning preoccupation with Internet pornography. He was spending many hours each day chatting online, engaging in extended masturbation sessions, and occasionally meeting cyber-contacts in person for spontaneous, typically unprotected, sex.

The story is a familiar one. A young man seeking sexual activities outside of his marriage or relationship experiences guilt because of his compulsive behaviors. He feels he cannot stop and is at a loss for solutions. He wants to be good, by whatever measure his culture dictates, but feels he can’t.

The term “sex addiction” is the new darling of sensational media. The narrative of an addict is a compelling one, their struggle with external forces in the world leaves much room for pity. After all, this isn’t their fault but the fault of the pesky stimulus hijacking their tender neurological reward circuitry. Right?

Not really. The picture of compulsive sexual behaviors is far more complicated than (male) brain + (non-monogamous) sexual stimulation = addiction. Dopamine may indeed play a role in all compulsive behaviors but the narrative of porn as an external factor that takes over your system is a false (and overwhelmingly Christian) explanation that fails to recognize sexual histories and user conceptions of sexuality.

Enter….DOPAMINE!

Arguments about the addictive nature of porn center around dopamine, one of over 50 fun little neurotransmitters shooting around inside of our bodies. Missale et al (1998) define our little friend’s role as such:

In the central nervous system, dopamine receptors are widely expressed because they are involved in the control of locomotion, cognition, emotion, and affect as well as neuroendocrine secretion. In the periphery, dopamine receptors are present more prominently in kidney, vasculature, and pituitary, where they affect mainly sodium homeostasis, vascular tone, and hormone secretion

Of course, I’m sure most people associate dopamine with the reward system. At least, porn addiction doomsayers do. The story is that orgasm and novelty trigger dopamine, we feel rewarded and are then driven for even bigger ‘hits’ of porn. (What does that even mean? You can’t quantify a porn clip for intensity.)

While dopamine is involved in the reward system, it doesn’t work quite like that. Dopamine is a motivator for the reward, not the reward itself.  Or, as bad ass Stanford researcher Robert Sapolsky puts it:

“Dopamine is not about pleasure, it’s about the anticipation of pleasure. It’s about the pursuit of happiness rather than happiness itself.”

So the idea posited by the sex addiction set is utterly false: your brain is not rewarding you with dopamine. Your brain uses dopamine to motivate you. And amazingly, humans can release dopamine when the reward is months or ever years away.

One of the other claims made is that porn “burns you out” on sex with other people because it “hijacks” your system by hyperstimulation of your reward system, subsequently burning out the sex part of your brain making sex a pleasure-less activity.  The problem is, there is no specific sex part of your brain. Sexual excitement and arousal involve several parts of your brain structure:  nucleus accumbens, cingulate cortex, insular cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and the Paraventricular Nucleus of the Hypothalamus (PVN). Nor are there orgasm specific chemicals as any chemical involved in orgasm is involved in some other function.

But dopamine does have an interesting relationship to compulsive sexual behaviors. Patients suffering from Parkinsons Disease are often treated with dopamine agonists (DA), a synthesized chemical that binds to dopamine receptors, and some of those patients experience compulsive behaviors due to the DA, around 14%. Those behaviors include hypersexuality, pathological gambling, compulsive shopping or eating along with many other compulsive behaviors. One abstract on the subject listed “weighing, card and video game playing, fishing, gardening, intense interest in established hobbies, locking and unlocking doors, repetitive dressing and undressing” as behaviors observed in patients treated with DA in their small study.

I know what you might be thinking. “Aha! Dopamine and sex! Related! Porn addiction is for real!”

Not so fast. These are cases of people experiencing compulsion due to dopamine agonists. There is nothing to do with addiction either, simply that a heightened dopaminergic system can incite compulsive behaviors, such as compulsive gambling. In my view, this phenomenon is in line with Sapolsky’s discussion of dopamine as a motivator as these people are engaging in constant movement and activity. They’re motivated needlessly by the DA.

And now you may be thinking: “So….what about dopamine and addiction? That’s for real, right?”

In a way. There is evidence that low levels of dopamine receptors can predispose people towards chemical addictions and also play a role in obsessive compulsive disorders. However, according to Nora Volkow (director of NIDA) levels of dopamine receptors are highly variable among humans and there is evidence from primate studies that those levels can be altered by changes in environment. And, yes, people with chemical abuse issues do have decreased levels of dopamine receptors after withdrawal but this is because of an unnaturally excessive and persistent presence of dopamine, levels that would be difficult if not impossible  to maintain with non-chemical stimuli. (If you would like to get all academic and deep on this fascinating topic, go here.)

Sex and the Dopamine

“Neurophysiological studies demonstrate that dopamine acts more as a neuromodulator of sensory input than as an excitatory neurotransmitter…dopamine does not “turn on an orgasm switch.” Rather, dopamine produces a sensitization to sensory stimuli (Antelman & Rowland, 1977).” The Science of Orgasm, p. 121.

The neurobiology of orgasm is fascinating, complex and very poorly understood at this point in time. Here’s what we know:

1. Dopamine facilitates orgasm.
2. Oxytocin and endorphins peak during orgasm.
3. Serotonin acts as a handbrake for orgasm.
4. Prolactin produces a sense of satiety after orgasm.

But be aware that simply identifying the neurotransmitters and hormones involved in orgasm does not mean we understand how these chemicals produce the subjective experience of orgasm nor how exactly these all come together with external stimulation, brain activity and the nervous system. Simply giving someone a bunch of endorphins and oxytocin, while they may feel good, will not cause a spontaneous orgasm.

Some people will say that the brain releases as much dopamine as a hit of heroin during orgasm. I’ve been unable to find any reliable research on this, though there is research on hormones released during orgasm. What may raise the levels, if we’re taking Salposky’s perspective, is the uncertain reception of a reward. (In the case of sex, being unsure whether or not you’re going to get it).  So, perhaps sex that isn’t a sure thing is more compelling than sex that is.

In regards to compulsive sexual behaviors it’s not clear how these chemicals directly influence our behaviors, although evidence from Parkinson’s Disease patients experiencing hypersexuality or compulsions would suggest dopamine plays a role. However, the compulsions in those cases are not restricted to sex. The compulsions are varied.

A 2009 study looked at brain structure among men engaging in compulsive sexual behavior (CSB) and found that CSB patients exhibited more impulsivity yet their brains resembled people with anxiety disorders. What I found really interesting, and what ties back in with my point about general compulsion, were CSB patient’s backgrounds:

“Eight men who met the proposed research criteria for CSB described above were recruited from a treatment program for individuals seeking treatment for sexual problems. CSB patients all reported non-paraphilic CSB. Five of the 8 (62%) had a history of major depression, almost all (7 of 8 ) had a history of alcohol abuse or dependence, while 4 (50%) had a history of other substance abuse or dependence.”

While I completely disagree with the “sex addiction” concept, I do believe anxiety will cause people to engage in a variety of compulsive behaviors. But it could just as easily be compulsively polishing a rifle as it could be compulsive rest stop blow jobs. The issue is neither the gun nor the cock; the issue is anxiety.

And to complicate matters, sex is an anxious experience for some people. Unfortunately, a conversation fixated on the neurological effects of watching porn fails to talk about underlying sexual value systems and current life stresses that are likely influencing these rather uncommon behaviors.

Porn Will Not Destroy Your Relationship: But Instant Messaging Might (Kidding!)

The Archives of Sexual Behavior published a whopping four studies in April about pornography, including the internet kind! What did they find? I’ll go over the three that are pertinent to this discussion:

Male porn users self report higher levels of actual and ideal intimacy.

“In particular, the difference between the two groups with regard to total Ideal closeness of adults suggested that pornography users craved closeness/intimacy more than their counterparts.”

This runs contrary to porn addiction claims, that porn hijacks our brains and disrupts our ability to be intimate with real life partners. Yes, Virginia: you can watch porn and still have relationships with people.

Couples who watch porn together just as happy as couples who don’t watch any porn, alone or otherwise. People watching without their partners? Not as happy.

“The only difference between those who never viewed SEM and those who viewed it only with their partners was that those who never viewed it had lower rates of infidelity.”

One thing to be aware of is that the study measured infidelity with the question ‘‘Have you had sexual relations with someone other than your partner since you began seriously dating?’’ From a research standpoint you can’t really ask “Did you cheat on your partner?” as this would elicit a bias response. But, we don’t know if this indicates an open relationship or clear betrayal. The results section tells us a bit more:

“Across the groups, 9.7% (n=45) of those in the no-SEM group reported having sexual relations with someone other than their partner since they seriously began dating, while 19.4% (n=48) of those in the alone-only group, 18.2% (n=37) of those in the together-only group, and 26.5% (n=99) of those in the together/alone group reported infidelity.”

Overall, I wouldn’t take this as any evidence that watching porn will cause you to go cheat. But it will not destroy your relationship if you’re open about it.

Elle/msnbc.com conducts online survey about Online Sexual Activities (that means looking at videos as well as sexy chatting on instant messenger), social scientists go through data and find: majority of respondents report watching an hour or less per week and women more worried about partner use and negative effects than men, among other things.

The data is both quantitative and qualitative, so in addition to the numbers (which show most people are neither particularly bothered nor incredibly ecstatic about the OSA) you get to see quotes from respondents. What struck me were the quotes about negative effects attributed to sex chats:

“I think that ‘‘chatting’’ with a person on the Internet about sex and sexual topics is demeaning to the person you are with. My husband makes me feel like I am not good enough for him and that I am fat and ugly when he goes online and ‘‘chats’’ with other women about sex. I constantly worry that he will try to meet someone he ‘chats’  with and actually have an affair…Every time he logs onto ‘‘chat’’I feel like he is tellingme,‘‘I don’t love you, I don’t feel turned on by you, I want someone else, you are not what I want.’’

“Due to Internet smut, IM [Instant Message], and chat rooms,my partner had an affair that almost ended our marriage.’’

The study is really fascinating to look at although it’s limited by the sampling procedure. For the most part it seems ELLE/msnbc.com readers don’t take that much issue with online sexual activities, with more of a lean towards positive assessment.

Then Why All The Fuss Over Porn?

Let’s get back to that Mayo case study I listed in the beginning of this article:

Describing himself as a compulsive masturbator, he also subscribed to conservative Christian beliefs. Morally troubled by his own behavior, he claimed his sexual actions emanated—at least in part—from “negative influences from the devil.”

That. Right. There.

When you look at the “experts” using pop science and simplistic reductionist explanations to prove porn is evil, they are overwhelmingly Christian. The narrative of an external malignant force fits in with a Christian discourse about morality. In short, the devil made me do it! All the self-help books on porn addiction are written by and for Christian audiences. The sex addiction recovery centers are usually run by Christians. The very idea that sex is inherently dirty or shameful is borne from this theological tradition.

To be clear: I think religion is important. Community, public service and connecting with unseen forces in the world are all wonderful and necessary for people. And not all Christian traditions have this apoplectic reaction to sex outside of the married-baby-making-sex box. But when you find sex addiction, you will sure as hell find some kind of Christian, likely a Baptist.

The current porn panic is just like all sex panics before it: championed by the white, bourgeoisie, Christian reformers and shrouded in dubious “science” claims. Not so long ago, doctors gave dire warnings about masturbation, writing all manner of treatises on the vice of onanism and its physically deleterious effects. Insanity, hairy palms, dead libido, idiocy, violence, you name it. And it proved dangerous. In addition to sharp anti-masturbation devices placed around little boy’s genitals, some doctors took to burning little girls clitorises with hot irons. (That is, if they didn’t perform a full cliterodectomy.)

Yes, Virginia, if you touched yourself in the Victorian era, mommy and daddy might have the doctor cauterize or remove your clitoris, because, um, science!

Of course, we know now that there’s nothing wrong with masturbation.

But is there anything, anything at all wrong with porn? Yes. Much of it’s crap. Some of it reflects the same misogyny, racism and utterly broken attitudes of sex we see everywhere else and some of it is really hot and made with high ethical standards. (The rest of it is boring.)

Hold On Lady! I Have A Sex/Porn Addiction! This Is Real! How Dare You!

I had my own brush with compulsive online activities during the height of my graduate school stress. I spent hours upon hours each day, avoiding my research and hiding from my books to click on image after image after image. I was obsessed. It was almost compulsive and I had neither the desire nor the ability to stop myself, even when I knew I needed to be getting other things done.

Yet at no point did I consider seeking help. Perhaps I didn’t realize I had a problem. Or perhaps it was because there wasn’t a pervasive public discourse saying my habit was harmful, although I’m sure the images of BDSM, orgies, pegging and magical cum sprites would raise people’s ire if they knew it was there.

To be fair, I still look at webcomics on a regular basis. (Current Faves: Oglaf, Platinum Grit, Sinfest, Menage a 3, Magick Chicks, Eerie Cuties)

The question I ask myself is this: what was so compelling about webcomics at that point in my life?

I was stressed the fuck out. School made me anxious, my workload made me anxious, my housemates made me anxious- I was a regular anxiety ball. Webcomics were low-impact and noncommittal. Nothing happened and there was no way for me to fail looking at a webcomic. No-one would grade me. I had no reason to feel stressed. A simple, easy to access pleasurable activity to distract me from the unpleasant, isolated, walking heart-attack of my life.

Now what if we replace webcomics with porn? The story is the same, even down to occasionally masturbating after poring over some of the sexually explicit webcomics online. The big difference is that no-one ever told me it was wrong. I never heard that cartoons are wrong or that drawing pictures of people doing strange, fantastical and often sexual things is wrong. Had it been forbidden I may have sought it out even more. Who knows.

Did I have a webcomic addiction? No. I wouldn’t call it that. I was using it as a crutch to deal with a larger issue but I wasn’t “addicted”.

Although, I can think of a few potentially negative effects of porn:

-Agitating unresolved sexual issues

-A way to avoid tensions with a partner

-Repetitive stress injuries

-Getting bored with porn

But you won’t become addicted to it. If you have deeper issues about sex and are prone to compulsive behaviors, porn might become one more problem tacked on. The reason for this is not some biological predisposition towards shiny sex images that juice our brains like we’re on drugs: the problem is perspective. The problem is general sex hysteria and shame.

In summary: just because sex involves some of the chemicals involved in addiction does not mean sex is addictive. Not even close. And if it is absolutely imperative to your worldview to believe this is true, just say it’s the devil in your brain and leave half-assed scientific explanations out of it.

ETA: If you or someone you love is struggling with a drug addiction or compulsive behaviors, locate a therapist in your area. There are usually options for all incomes in metropolitan areas, though I’m not sure about rural. If you’re struggling with issues specifically pertaining to sex I recommend checking out the AASECT directory.

In evaluating and understanding our own, often confounding, sexual behaviors I think it’s a mistake to hold any other animal up as an ideal or try to identify immutable parts of our sexual behavior by observing them. Though closely related to both of these creatures we’ve evolved on our own path for quite some time, not only in terms of biology but in cultural terms as well. And that last bit is often the biggest influencer on how we have sex.

When I imagine a bonobo-fied sexual landscape in modern culture I can’t help but giggle. Road rage solved with handjobs, bar fights ending in orgies and hands down pants at board meetings. (Although, bonobos do engage in sex to attain higher rank, which is a bit like our own “sleep your way to the top” phenomenon in some industries.)

But maybe there is something valuable we can learn from Bonobo behavior: bonding through sex.

Now, I’m sure some people will read this and think “But we do bond through sex!” Yes and no. In certain contexts sex used for bonding purposes is ideal while in others neither expected nor desired. Discourse around sex within marriage frames sex as a way to strengthen pre-existing marital bonds but we assume any sex outside of these bonds to be potentially disruptive or competative in some way. The underlying message we see is that marriage (or monogamous, partnered sex now that marriage rates are down) is the proper place for bonded sex to occur.

What if all sex was bonding? What if our one night stands, fly by nights or short term flings left us thinking as affectionately about long-term partners? And furthermore, what’s stopping us?

A friend recently told me about breaking up a casual relationship by telling her partner she loved him. For her, the admission was not a declaration of absolute monogamy and eternal bonds but simply what she felt: love. The cultural weight of that word is staggering in the context of sex and sex alone. We seem more comfortable proclaiming our love to inanimate objects and foodstuffs or even our friends and family than with someone we’ve shared a naked night drenched in sweat.

To me, this seems a complete waste of perfectly good affection.

And this construction needlessly places awkward boundaries between people. People try to remain detached or play it cool when they could be laughing and blissfully enjoying each other. Deeper emotions remain locked away and thoughts go unsaid because we’re too afraid of what it might mean and if we’re even ready for that meaning.

Love is not often the archetypical fated, lose your breath, you-and-me-against-the-world experience of Hollywood. (Which, seriously, if that happened with every couple we would have major social problems.) Sometimes love happens slowly, sometimes it comes after hating a person, sometimes it sits softly inside and merely makes a person’s face shine brighter when you see them. And sometimes, it goes away completely after furnace levels of emotional heat.

A remark another friend made about relationship trajectories sums up my current thinking:

 ”I don’t see why you ever have to break up with someone. Sure, you may stop having sex for whatever reason, but why break up? You don’t stop talking to other friends because you’ve met new people.”

Why break up indeed? Sex is inherently vulnerable, a moment in time where you can lose control of yourself, muscles spasming, face contorting and uncontrollable sounds yelping from your mouth. I know some people will point out that sex doesn’t need love to happen and it’s possible to have amazing sex without being head over heels for someone. But I’m not suggesting that we need to be swimming in that heady soup of Romeo and Juliet love. Rather, that love is more multifacted than that and it’s silly to suppress affections and warm sentiments about another person just because sex is supposedly either emotionless porno sex or a meeting of made-for-each-other souls. Reality is far messier than those two tiny categories.

Sadly, our sexual assumptions stand in the way of a middle ground and prop those options as the only ones. When we see sex only through a lens of reproduction and assume that all activity represents genetic codes jockeying for evolutionary position, we assume sex to be characterized by competition.

So I challenge you to try and look through a lens of cooperation. I’m not saying the path to happiness rests on casual sex partners or to reject the dizzy nature of intense romantic love or to pooh-pooh monogamy. Truly, the path to happiness in our relationships is manifold. What works for one person won’t work for everyone else.

But I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where exes didn’t exist as antagonists in our stories and where any sex that made you smile was an absolute good. What would it be like if we were just as comfortable professing our adoration for sexual partners as we are for hamburgers and drinking buddies?

All in all, I think when it comes to love maybe we should look to the mouths of babes (instead of other animals) to spit truth better than our jaded adulthood can muster:

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” – Billy, age 4

(For more lovespiration, check out other kids’ answers in “What Is Love? Some Really Smart Kids May Have The Answer.”)

The common umbrella term for many hiccups is “Vulvovaginitis” and describes any irritation of the vulva or vaginal areas. Often the irritation comes in the form of painful swelling or itching caused by an external factor irritating sensitive mucous membranes. (Ever gotten something in your eye, be it infection or irritant? Same idea. ) Many cases of vulvovaginitis  occur because of an imbalance of naturally occurring bacteria and yeasts and sometimes parasites or viruses.

But don’t fret! These are easy to remedy. Here’s a handy guide to the more common causes:

Yeast Infections

Candida albicans is not so good for making bread rise...

What is it? Overabundance of candida albicans, a type of yeast that already exists in small numbers in  the vagina. (Though other types of yeast can get out of control, candida albicans is the most common.)

How can I tell? Aside from itching and redness, a yeast infection can be accompanied by an odorless cottage-cheese like discharge.

Why is it happening? Something has disrupted the vaginal  ecosystem. Too much moisture and not enough circulating air, unprotected sex with a male partner who has an overabundance of this fungi in his urethra, stress, medications, lubricant with glycerin, douches, perfumed products, high estrogen levels, immune disorders or even diabetes can help tip the scales.

What do I do? If you are 100% sure it’s a yeast infection and you’re not pregnant, you can skip the doctor and drop by your local pharmacy for an over the counter cream or suppository. If you like to go for natural remedies, pick up some plain yogurt (sugar + vagina = irritating) and apply inside and out. (One friend with recurring yeast infections swore by home-made yogurt pops: take several tampon applicators, fill with plain yogurt and place in freezer. Very soothing to the irritated skin and destructive not only to the yeast but to the spores as well!)

*NOTE: If you are having unprotected sex with a male partner and need to be treated for a yeast infection, make sure he visits a doctor and does the same! Otherwise the imbalance can happen over and over and over.

 Bacterial Vaginitis:

Wait...wrong BV.

What is it? Bacteria imbalance!

How can I tell? A creamy, whitish/greyish, odorous discharge which can sometimes smell fishy after exercise or before your period.

Why is it happening? Same idea as behind yeast infections, but with bacteria instead of yeast. Once again, the ecosystem is off-kilter and one or more bacteria are more abundant than usual. Any introduction of bacteria by way of hand, penis or shared sex toy, can start the chain reaction. Stress, antibiotics, douching, etc. can all play a role in fostering the imbalance.

What do I do? Go to a doctor, have them test your vaginal fluids. If the culprit is indeed BV it can be treated with medications.

Trichomoniasis:

It's Trich-y

What is it? A parasite! (Known in science circles as Trichomonas vaginalis)

How can I tell? Yellow or greenish, frothy, odorous discharge sometimes accompanied by irritation.

Why is it happening? Your body is responding to a foreign entity in the vagina. This little microscopic parasite loves living in vaginas or in males’ urethras and passes itself between those two worlds. Mouth and anus, not so much.

What do I do? Go to a doctor, get a physical examination and take the treatment they prescribe. If you have a partner be sure they’re treated as well.

This list is not exhaustive of all the things which might irritate the vagina and the best advice is this: pay attention to your body! If something seems off and you can’t identify it, please don’t spend too long trawling the interwebs to figure it out. Go to a clinic or primary care physician ASAP.

Final Note:

One of the best ways to keep tabs on your lady bits is to pay attention to them. Don’t bind them up in nylon fabrics, douche them, or spray with noxious fumes. And, though some people cringe when I suggest this, know your own taste.

That’s right, taste yourself. Take a clean hand, place inside, withdraw and lift to your lips. Knowing what your healthy vaginal secretions taste like helps you identify when the environment starts becoming imbalanced. We already do these things with other body parts (cupping your breath, sniffing your armpits or sneaking a glance into the toilet) so why not your lady bits?

(I start about an hour into the podcast.)

THE FEMALE VOICE: 3/25/2011

And then it hit me.

Girl Guilt.

A knot of post-sex shame tangled inside of me. I’d violated the most primary tenet of female sexuality: casual sex on the first meeting. Not even the first date. We’d met at a friend’s birthday party and gone home together.

My stomach sank down, weighted with girl guilt and the prospect that I had lost respect for engaging in a consensual hook up. I tried to fight culture with common sense. Why does it matter? There were two people involved and we both enjoyed it… But I should have made him wait. Now he might not respect me, might think that was too easy and be over it…How the hell could he be that hypocritical? He’s just as much of a slattern as me… Too bad no one wants an easy woman.

The most disturbing thing is this isn’t a scene from high school. It happened this week.  If I, as an empowered, adult, female sex educator still have these thoughts, I can only wince at how the rest of the population fares.

Culture runs deeper than we realize. The lessons we learn in youth are the foundations upon which our reality grows, roots that inform every lesson thereafter. I wonder if we ever really dismantle the social constructions we inherit or if we simply cover them up with new messages and paradigms.

I sometimes fear the intrinsic nature of slut shaming and girl guilt is too deep to dislodge, that no amount of writing or lecturing or challenging social norms will shift that pendulum in my lifetime. Just when I think we might be getting somewhere, I speak to young women terrified of having sex for the first time. And they’re less afraid of the sensation than they are about how their first (male) partner will treat them: will he like their body? Will he respect them after?

And just when I try to tell myself these are just a few experiences, research emerges demonstrating a link between first sex and improved body image for males but degraded body image for females. Despite decades of public discourse about the validity of female desire, despite Our Bodies Ourselves, despite Betty Dodson, despite Susie Bright, the sinister double standard remains.

In a recent post recounting talking to her 11 year old son about slut-shaming, Airial Clark wrote: “I’m learning that what goes down in the dorm room starts on the playground.”

Truer words could not be spoken. In examining my reaction, I remembered my first run-in with the slut-shaming machine at the tender age of nine. The conversation centered around a girl in our grade, whom I’ll call Kelly, and the “naughty area” on the other side of the playground fence where the older kids allegedly went to hook up.

For reasons unknown, our grade designated Kelley as “the slut.” No one had any evidence she had so much as kissed a boy. But she did have tiny breast buds forming and I suppose that was enough to condemn her. Kids would spread rumors about Kelley having sex with any boy who wanted it. They’d claim they saw her hop over the fence or swear their friend had totally done her.

We were nine. This was the same year a ten year old girl in our class started hysterically crying because she started her period. We knew next to nothing about sex and sexuality except it meant doom for the females.

Children do not exist in a separate world of innocence. They live in the same world as everyone else, hearing our comments and conversations. At their youngest, their views are dependent on public discourse and private conversations. When a newscaster reports sexual assault and remarks about the victim’s attire, they remember. When we deride a person’s sexual choices, they hear. When our conversations about sex revolve around danger and forget to mention pleasure, they recognize.

And what favors do we do to younger generations with our shame? Sex, a simple physical act that can be so fulfilling and beautiful, becomes warped. We knot their future desires in a thorny fence of anxiety. By passing on our shame we prevent them from having sexual fulfillment later in life.

Because they will probably have sex one day. Hell, we expect people to have sex at some point in their lives. Virgins are simultaneously revered and suspect in our culture, depending on one’s age. Trying to scare youth away from sex is the worst possible tactic and only results in scared adults trying to work out their sexuality in the increasingly complex and uncharted modern romantic interactions.

I wish I could tell you that womanhood displaces girl guilt. But in a culture that legitimizes disrespect to females having sex outside of a committed relationship, how can it? I wish I could say the blatant hypocrisy of a male passing judgment on a female he slept with was enough to erase some sense of girl guilt, but when the larger culture agrees how can those actions not still sting?

So I propose this: call out slut shaming wherever you see it. Don’t be angry or riled up. Just note the double standard. Ask the person why they think a double standard is fair. Ask if they’d like to be treated like that.

Remind them of another pervasive childhood lesson: the Golden Rule.