Sexuality Conferences and the Myths of Accessibility

Posted on by Guest

photo of a white male in a business suit leaving a wheelchair and walking up a set of stairs; blue text - "Sexuality Conferences and the Myths of Accessibility"; black text - "Avery Heimann, Chronic Sex"

I’ve been having an intense amount of anxiety writing this guest post for Chronic Sex. Partly because I think it’s impossible for to keep the flow of topics coherent… partly because, while I idealize having a more constructive and tangible approach to accessibility, I also find myself grappling with useful application versus itemized fetishization of accessibility. The anxiety also stems from feeling overwhelmed by what is going on in social media lately regarding accountability, call-outs, call-ins, privilege, and marginalization. I started writing this post at work last week during a double shift after just meeting my newborn nibling. I was optimistic, energized, and ready to write. I want to continue this post from the position I am in now: confused, jaded, anxious, and exhausted…

The following exercise requires flexible and consensual execution. Take what you want from it, throw away what you don’t:

Exist for a moment. Try to be present in your body if you can. If you can’t, try to take some time and think about what is keeping you from being present. If this amplifies stressors to an unmanageable level, I take responsibility and am prepared to be called-out for that at some point. I’m writing this post to a rhetorical “everyone and no one” through a medium which doesn’t allow for immediate communication. It puts me in a position of power I am not comfortable with, yet I continue to press on with the risks of making harmful mistakes. I am ready to learn, and it is sometimes unfair that a stationary “one-sided” blog post is how that process catalyzes.

If you are not present in your body, if you do not want to be present in this post, try to find an awareness of what that feels like, how it is named, how it manifests through sensation. If you have become so unbearably frustrated with this exercise and my ramblings that you’re ready to click off this post altogether, confront that very real possibility. I believe it can be infuriatingly difficult to pay attention to ourselves at varying levels, especially in unknown environments.

Continue reading “Sexuality Conferences and the Myths of Accessibility” →

Treat Your Tokus!

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

On right, white person with a crystal necklace holding buttplugs; On left, grey lined background with black text - final day! 25% off a defined collection - use code TOKUS - valid August 30 & 31, 2018

Vibrant is having their final Anal August sale!

You can save 25% off their curated collection of booty goodies. Make sure to use the code TOKUS to save!

If you don’t find what you want in that collection, you can use CHRONICSEX to save 10% off another order. You can’t double up codes – sorry!

What are you waiting for? Go pick up some lube, condoms, or butt plugs! The sales ends at 11:59 PM Mountain Time on August 31st.

#ChronicSex Chat Is Back!

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

That’s right – chat is back this week!

Willow and Alyssa from the Beautiful Bodies podcast will be guest hosting. The topic? Body positivity!

Make sure to join us on Twitter using the tag #ChronicSex on August 30th at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific.

See ya then!

Would you like to host/co-host chat, be a guest on the podcast, write a blog post, or anything else? Email me at kirsten -at- chronicsex -dot- org.

Anonymous Questions Answered #2

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

Questions are coming in and I love it! I’ve been bad at responding to them, so here is the latest batch. Have a question you want to ask anonymously? Head over to AskFm to ask your own!

This is from AJ:

I let my boyfriend put only the tip of his penis in my vagina (like not even that much and for like a second) yet I started bleeding. It can’t be my periods as I don’t start for another 3 days and I’m not bleeding throughout the day. So does this mean I’ve lost my virginity??? (He was also fingering me before this when I wasn’t even wet yet so maybe it could be from that). I’m just very confused.

Vaginas can be really sensitive with interactions, especially if you haven’t been fingered or penetrated before. If you had a hymen, even if it was partially broken before, it could cause the bleeding. The breaking of the hymen is what we generally think of as losing virginity.* Fingering can cause microtears, especially if someone isn’t wearing gloves that cover their fingernails. Unfortunately, those microtears can collect bacteria from fingernails, hands, and more, leading to infections. Consider getting some gloves – and lube, which can reduce your risk for microtears, too – for your next round of finger fun. And make sure to snag condoms!

*Okay, soapbox time! Virginity is a social construct. When we think about it, we almost always think of women or vagina owners. Creating a clean versus unclean status, which is really what virginity is, makes it easy for men to categorize us. Seeing us as unclean is a way to shame us for having sexual freedom or enjoying pleasure. A hymen does not make or break virginity. Some people have hymens that have to be medically removed as they have no openings. Others have never had a hymen. It’s also easy to bust it doing mundane things like riding bikes or horses. Tldr; virginity was created by the patriarchy to keep us down. It isn’t real.

This is from JH:

This started happening 4 years ago. Before I had no issues with sex. I would either last for 30 minutes, occasionally 1 hour when I’m lucky or it ends briefly. I was ok with my sex life. But as of recently every time I’m getting busy it only last for 3 strokes or less. I thought maybe it was this girl but then the other girl I couldn’t even get it up the second my penis was getting there. When it’s coming to foreplay and blowjob there is no problem. I am afraid to date this girl because of this issue. And yes I been battling anxiety for years (since I was a kid) but it never did this to me. Somebody thought maybe I was turning gay, at one point I tried to watch gay porn to see if maybe that was it. It did nothing for me, it made me sick watching that shit. Anyone got any tips?

Oh this is a lot to unpack. Just because one kind of porn may not be something you enjoy doesn’t give you space to call it ‘shit’ or to act like it’s beneath you. That’s homomisic. I know it’s rooted in patriarchy, but being gay or queer or anything other than straight/heterosexual isn’t bad. I’m queer as fuck.

Okay, now, sex is an interesting thing. If you’re not having as much of it lately, it’s common for it to take less time for you to orgasm than it used to. It’s similar to a tolerance for pain that way. I highly suggest talking to a doctor. This could be nothing out of the ordinary. On the other hand, it could be a sign that you’ve got some unaddressed health issues – and some of those are dangerous. It could also be related to a medication or other treatment you’re on.

Allowing Ourselves to Feel Our Feelings

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

A few years ago – when I was still doing talk therapy – I brought T with me a couple of times. I felt like there was tension we needed to talk out, and I was right. It just wasn’t the tension I was expecting.

TW for abuse, shitty parenting, emotional incest, self-harm

dark blue background with teal bubbles and white text: Allowing Ourselves to Feel Our Feelings - and teal text: Chronic Sex; on right, photo of a white person covering their mouth

Growing up, I’ve always been that person who tries to cheer everyone up. It’s a habit that developed early in life. Living between two combative abusers, I learned very quickly that they were less likely to cause harm if they were happy. Naturally, then, anytime they were sad or upset, I would do my darnedest to cheer them up.

It’s a large part of why I’m such a sticker around rules, too. If rules are followed, rule-makers don’t harm us, right? (Of course, the political activist in me shudders at that sentence and wants to vomit, but it is what it is I guess?)

Of course, that also meant hiding a lot of my own feelings for the ‘benefit’ of others. For a long time, I had two moods – happy and brooding. When I was happy, I would dance to the latest radio pop and hip-hop songs. When I wasn’t, I listened to a lot of Linkin Park and the beginnings of screamo.

It’s hard to find healthy coping mechanisms in a space full of harm. When I got out and away from my family, I still had to deal with a lot of abuse. It wasn’t until four years ago when I cut contact with my mother that I actually was able to start healing.

The euphoria of that separation, of cutting off codependency and emotional incest, combined with getting married was something I was able to ride for a long time. As they always do, though, that high wore off. I began to realize that I wasn’t as healed as I thought. That’s when I started therapy which helped for a little while.

Continue reading “Allowing Ourselves to Feel Our Feelings” →

SSC is Ableist – Let’s Use RACK Instead

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

TW saneism, ableism

photo of a long haired person looking away from the camera with black text: SSC is Ableist - Let's Use RACK Instead and Chronic Sex

There is one well-known tenet in the BDSM and kink world – all parties must give consent. That said, there are a few different ideas around that consent. Two ways of talking about it are SSC and RACK. Today, we’re gonna look at both.

Definitions

Safe, Sane, Consensual (SSC)

SSC is a long-standing term within kink communities. It means that acts should be safe, agreed to under a ‘sane’ frame of mind, and obviously should be consensual. The term came about in the early 1980s from the S&M scene’s David Stein.

Risk-Aware Consensual Kink

This term from the late 1990s came from Gary Switch who wanted to have a more fitting acronym for kink play. The idea of replacing safe with risk-aware acknowledges that safety is almost never ensured in anything we do. Instead, we should be aware of the risks before engaging in an activity. This is also why I’ve started to call ‘safe’ sex risk-aware sex instead. It’s just more accurate.

Other terms you might see:

  • Committed, Compassionate, Consensual (CCC)
  • Personal Responsibility, Informed Consensual Kink (PRICK)
  • Communities may also have their own terms

Each of these alternate terms remove some of the stigma SSC was meant to fight without making false claims about safety. They also remove the ableist component present in SSC.

SSC is Ableist

I’m not sane. My depression, anxiety, and PTSD ensure that. There is no condition I will ever be in that makes me sane in body or mind. As someone who engages in kink to help my chronic pain and PTSD, I need a community that uses a more accurate and compassionate term.

I hesitate to think who I would be without my chronic pain or mental health issues. What I can say is I’d likely not be involved in kink. I’m definitely not alone in that.

We’ve all grown so much since SSC came about. Hell, I wasn’t even born! We should be growing the terms we use for our communities, too. In an age where we’re focused on highlighting marginalized voices, can we really afford alienating some because we don’t want to use a new term? I don’t think so.

Awareness Calendar for August

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

Month:

  • Alternative Sex Month
  • Anal August
  • Autoinflammatory Awareness
  • Cataract
  • Children’s Eye Health and Safety
  • Dental Implant
  • Gastroparesis
  • Immunization
  • Medic Alert
  • Psoriasis
  • Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Day/week:

  • Minority Donor Awareness Day (1)
  • World Breastfeeding Week (1-7)
  • Grab Some Nuts Day (3)
  • Underwear Day (6)
  • Klippel-Feil Syndrome Awareness Day (6)
  • Severe M.E. Awareness Day (8)
  • National Health Center Week (13-19)
  • Fungal Disease Awareness Week (13-19)
  • National Honey Bee Day (19)
  • Internet Self-Care Day (21)
  • A Day for SJIA (22)
  • Women’s Equality Day (26)

Emotional Incest Has Long-Lasting Effects

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

TW: emotional incest, childhood emotional abuse, harmful parental relationships, sexual assault

 

photo of a person with a skirt walking away from the camera on a road; green circle overlay with white text: Emotional Incest Has Long-Lasting Effects - Chronic Sex

When I was a little girl, my mom told me it was us against the world. That alone would’ve been fine if she didn’t rely on me for so much. From the time I was three or four onward, I had to consciously carry her emotionally. I became the parent that not only I needed, but she needed, too.

a young Kirsten stands outside in a colorful early 90s outfit

This is called emotional incest. I became essentially my mother’s keeper – not only her parent but the equivalent to her partner. When she started dating, I would have conflicting feelings about whomever she was seeing. Any teenager would have, but it was different. There was a layer of mothering where I worried about her choices – especially since she wanted to share sexual details I didn’t need to know – but also some jealousy. Of course, my feelings became even more complicated when one of her boyfriends sexually assaulted me… and she stayed with him for almost a year afterward.

My teenage years were horrible because of it. I was struggling to gain my independence at a time everyone does, but it was much harder. The fights were more intense, more hurtful. I was so enmeshed with my mother that I couldn’t be myself. When I was in college, I had to get a job behind her back because she feared what the emotional and financial independence would cause. In both high school and college, she would threaten my friends and force them to leave over her embarassment of mishearing song lyrics. She’d call my boyfriends and chew them out in hours-long conversations.

Then again, she gave me her wedding planning book from the 80s when I was 15 and got a new boyfriend. She simulatneously kept pushing me to marry him while forbidding me to see him. Sometimes it was pushing me to be intimate with him and ask me questions about it while forbidding me to have sex.

It was bad. Really bad.

Continue reading “Emotional Incest Has Long-Lasting Effects” →

[FREE!] Hurts So Good at Smitten Kitten

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

Smitten Kitten logo - a yellow cat against a light blue/teal background

I’m so excited to share that I’m presenting Hurts So Good at Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis!

The presentation will be on Sunday, August 5th, from 10 AM to noon. Since it’s in downtown, there isn’t on-site parking. Make sure to arrive a little early to find a spot. Like almost every single event at Smitten Kitten, it’s free!

Since it’s free, though, it’s important to RSVP early. You can email info@smittenkittenonline.com or call 612-721-6088. Seating is limited and our classes frequently fill to capacity. To guarantee your spot, you should RSVP early.

To arrange ASL interpretation, specific seating needs or to discuss other measures that will make the event more accessible to you, make sure to call or email. They’re always eager to help make everyone comfortable.

Smitten Kitten is at 3010 Lyndale Avenue South in Minneapolis.

Update: Holy crap, y’all! You filled up the class before Smitten Kitten could promo it!! We’ve set up a second session from 10 AM to noon on Sunday, September 16th, that is currently open.

Research Opportunity: Disability and Reproductive Health

Posted on by Grayson Schultz

The following is a current research opportunity.

There is not enough research about women’s health–especially about women with disabilities!

We are doing this study to understand the day-to-day challenges of women with disabilities in getting women’s healthcare. We need a better way to learn how to provide the best care and meet the needs of reproductive-aged women with disability.

If you are an 18-40 year old woman with a physical, developmental, or cognitive disability, you may be eligible for our survey. Click here to go to the study page or email urad@utah.edu for more information. You can call 801-585-9360 if you’d like/need a member of the University of Utah nursing staff to assist you.

Additionally, filling out the survey gets you a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card.

If you have questions, please contact Lauren Clark, RN, at 801-581-8576 or Sara Simonsen, CNM, at 801-595-9360.