If your desire for sexual activity is overriding your commitment to personal safety, you have to deal with that. From STIs to criminal activity, out-of-control sexual behavior can put you at risk for injury, illness, arrest, or harm.
Sex and Song: The Knife, “Full of Fire”
You don’t need to be a musician to appreciate the connection between sex and music. Still, we thought it would be fun to hear what they have to say about it. In our “Sex and Song” series, curated by drummer and producer Katy Otto, musicians share a song about sex, love, or both, and what it means to them.
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At first i was kinda clueless about what to write in this column. My sexuality doesn’t deal with Beyonce’s ass or naked chicks posing in front of a car, the things that represent sex in the average music video. Then I remembered this amazing video my friends made for The Knife. I met the director, Marit Östberg, a few years ago when I was an extra in one of her Queer Feminist Porn shoots and all the films of hers I’ve seen so far have been uncompromising and radical. As she describes the intentions of “Full of Fire” in her own words: “The film ‘Full of Fire’ started to grow as an embryo in the song’s lines ‘Who looks after my story.’ Who takes care of our stories when the big history, written by straight rich white men, erase the complexity of human’s lives, desires and conditions?”
For me, the video shows sex on a broader scale than what’s usually perceived. A hug can be very sexy. More importantly, it offers all sorts of options across the line of hetero-normativity. “Full of Fire” shows beauty in a lot of things that usually get swept under the rug. Old people’s sexuality, gender fluidity, people with disabilities, fetishes. They all deserve attention. And this is exactly the story to look out for here.
The video was shot about a year ago in Stockholm, around the time I had the first date with my ex-lover, who was part of the film crew. I was on tour at the time and she visited us at our little backstage party. Seeing this video now brings back the wild and early days of this relationship. She threw up in a glass in the most graceful way possible next to people doing stick-and-poke tattoos and a bunch of drunk teenagers, who were friends of the support band, were going crazy. What a mess.
Mika Risiko is a Berlin-based musician, promoter, and tour manager. Listen to Crime, her new band with Sarah Adorable of Scream Club. She also plays in sissters.
Sex and Song: Paula Abdul, “Opposites Attract”
You don’t need to be a musician to appreciate the connection between sex and music. Still, we thought it would be fun to hear what they have to say about it. In our “Sex and Song” series, curated by drummer and producer Katy Otto, musicians share a song about sex, love, or both, and what it means to them.
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i was 9 years old when i first saw this video.
i would daydream about being mc skat kat… walking around the neighborhood dancing on trashcans and caressing paula’s torso with my long, voluptuous tail. i wanted to know the comfort of being in a bestial toon relationship where paula and i were united by our differences…
she ~ a beautiful popstar megahuman who is clean and likes to make the bed.
me ~ an anthropomorphous cat cartoon in sunglasses and suspenders who smokes and steals the covers.
together we would defy all odds with our unlikely friendship and family-accepted innuendo.
my parents hated mtv, but i remember asking my mom if i could watch “just this video…” and her saying “yes.” with that yes, my mother implicitly agreed to the sex that was being sold to me via paula and skat kat—sex that promoted fun and intimate communication between two very different individuals. later in life i took a job making masks for a furry costume company. at one point i took a trip with my boss to a weekend-long furry convention in atlanta, ga, where we presented our wares. it was expected that each attendee of this convention have a moniker that reflected their animal alter ego. the name i chose was pork rinds—an obvious statement about my overall standing in this convention, saying “hey, i’m here for work—not to express some deep-seated need to have a cute hybrid animal character for you to connect with sexually or otherwise.”
now, when i think about it, i can see how it could be useful for many of us to find outside inspiration when trying to communicate those base needs that can get caught up in our repressed upbringings… where talking about sex is deemed taboo and uncomfortable, and therefore ignored, certain damaging hang-ups and neuroses can result.
i guess that’s who mc skat kat was and continues to be for me… an inspiration. he has helped me to see how openly expressing myself can be beneficial in my quest for reciprocated love.
so here goes…
~ dear paula abdul,
i’m 32 years old. i don’t like cinnamon candy, lace or miss piggy. i know you are a good bit older than i, and that you are a high-profile celebrity… but if you don’t discriminate against any flavor of hard candy, have a thing for risky garments, and like all of the muppets—maybe we are two magnets whose opposites attract.
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Nathaniel Rappole is a South Eastern coastal seabird who lives in Philadelphia. Listen to his music on gullface.com.
A Different Kind of Literacy: Art Show "Cliteracy" Hits NYC This Weekend
Let’s be real—we’ve all dated or fooled around with someone who needed to attend this art show. Check out artist Sophia Wallace’s laws to promote “cliteracy” and come up with your own. Help fight ill-cliteracy. And if you’re in NYC, go to the show and let us know what you think!
…the real final frontier in sex is you. You and that sexy brain of yours. Your actions, feelings, and thoughts have everything to do with charting new territory in mind-blowing sex and limitless pleasure. That includes your body image; self-esteem; openness to intimacy; relationship issues; comfort with sensuality; and perceptions about sex.
We are sex-obsessed. We are obsessed with wanting it in all its flavors, deny that we want it, and then hide it when we get it the way we want it. It takes a lot of guts to be a normal real person in the real world living a fully integrated life, i.e., embracing your sexuality.
GQ: You interviewed students all over the country about sex. What school had the horniest population?
Savage: Tulane [laughs]. Tulane, hands down. It might as well be a school in the New Jersey state system.
According to a recent interview with GQ about the first season of his MTV show Savage U, Dan Savage’s award for horniest college students goes to Tulane University. Congrats, Greenies!
…Doing a little roll wave to celebrate? ;)
With Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April and International Anti-Street Harassment Week back in March, we’ve had street harassment on the brain lately. But, as you can see in Veralyn’s vlog above, folks don’t always agree on what qualifies.
That said, between Veralyn’s interviews, Khalea’s post on Anti-Street Harassment Week, and feedback from the Bedsider community, I’ve noticed two themes weaving their way through all the different perspectives on hollas vs. harassment.
1) Respect. When we asked folks on Facebook how they would respond to a comment from a stranger along the lines of “you look beautiful today,” 14 out of the 14 who responded said they would “smile and say thank you” (the other options were keeping their blinders on and walking faster or giving out their number on the spot). Veralyn’s interview with Nicole, where Nicole says there’s a big difference between telling someone she looks beautiful and commenting on her body, may shed some light on why the response was so consistent. Emily May of Hollaback! takes that distinction a step further when she talks about intention—a comment that’s intended to be a genuine compliment can feel very different from a remark intended to cause discomfort or shame.
2) Consent. It seems a bit counter-intuitive to talk about consent and street hollas, but Emily May’s interview got me thinking about it. Emily describes a scenario in which a woman says thanks for a compliment and keeps walking and notes that a respectful encounter should be able to end there. Veralyn alludes to something similar when she admits “the reality of how quickly a ‘You looking good, girl’ could potentially turn into a ‘F*** you, B****’ is always in the back of my mind.” In other words, a part of the harassment equation is an unwillingness to read and respect the way the person you’re talking to responds—or doesn’t respond—to you.
It’s not exactly groundbreaking to say that respect and consent are crucial for a healthy relationship—fortunately there are some very awesome conversations already going on about exactly that. I just found it interesting to think about the part those qualities can play in a fleeting interaction with a stranger. And indeed, I’d say that if we can make respect and consent a part of our random public interactions, we’ll be on the right track for the private ones too.
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Liz Sabatiuk is Social Media Manager for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. When she’s not blogging about birth control and relationships, she dances and teaches Argentine tango and spends a little too much time on Facebook.
‘In contrast with the traditional linear model, in which desire precedes sex, these results support a nonlinear model of sexuality in older women, because sexual desire did not precede sexual arousal in most women,’ the authors wrote. Women, they suggested, ‘engage in sexual activity for multiple reasons, which may include nurture, affirmation, or sustenance of a relationship.’
From the Los Angeles Times article “Sexual satisfaction highest in oldest, youngest women, study says.”
Why do you engage in sexual activity?
