Category Archives: psychology
From Blonde to Brunette
Blondes aren’t dumb, even if you think so.
By Erica Dalton
My brunette, Jewish mom was happy to have a blonde, blue-eyed daughter.
But then, she grew up being told that what’s desirable was the opposite of her. Sexy was blonde, from Cinderella to Grace Kelly to Marilyn Monroe.
Even though my mom grew to love herself, I guess she was glad that I would not have to feel unsexy.
Sure, men are privileged by being male, but attractive females are privileged, too. You are noticed more. You’re more popular. You get attractive guys.
If you don’t mind the stigmas attached to “sexy” you can milk it for all it’s worth. Read the rest of this entry
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Men Wearing Dresses to Feel Whole
“Vivienne”
All I want to do is to be able to be myself every day.
That’s from “Vivienne,” a man who cross-dresses in part to get in touch with his feminine side and feel whole.
Wearing a dress helps in the same way that actors use costume to get into a part.
But it’s unsatisfactory, he says. Read the rest of this entry
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Yes means Yes: Consent is Sexy
Suppose someone you know slightly arrives at your home, baggage and all, and just barges in and stays overnight. When you protest, the response is, “Well, you didn’t say no.”
Or imagine that a man breaks into your home while you sleep off a night of drunken revelry, and robs you blind. Did your drinking imply consent?
No.
Yet a lot of people think it’s okay to enter a woman’s body when she hasn’t said she would like that. Read the rest of this entry
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Be… But Don’t Be… Pretty, Girly, Sexy
The sexual double-bind: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
By Caitie Adler
In my kindergarten mind girls were beautiful and boys were tough. And since girls were beautiful, I was beautiful.
By middle school things looked a lot more complicated.
I’d learned that girls should be pretty. And I tried to be. But there was a downside. Read the rest of this entry
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Sex Is Best When She Likes It
When Sally faked it
By “Sex Ain’t No Game”
It’s hard to have a sexual relationship with someone who won’t accept the concept of mutual pleasure.
Here’s an anecdote containing way too much information:
Considering the tools my current girlfriend and I have, and how fit we are, sex should be easy for both of us to enjoy. And when we began the sexual part of our relationship — both of us being fairly new to it — we learned what the other liked fast.
But it changed a few months back.
It seems she’s done research in pornography, and for the past couple of months she does things she thinks girls do all the time during sex. Like incredibly loud moaning from the second we start making out. It starts abruptly, so it doesn’t seem like a natural progression.
Long story short, she ignores her own desire and focuses on mine. Read the rest of this entry
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Abuse evaporated my self-esteem
You are good enough, even if you don’t know it
By Lily Mendez
I was the girl that everyone called a slut. Or that everyone thought would be pregnant by age 16.
That’s what I would say when people asked me what I was like, growing up. Obviously, I didn’t feel real good about myself.
And my low self-esteem was reflected in my relationships with boys. Read the rest of this entry
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The guy should always pay?
A young man and woman are out on a first date, and everything is going swimmingly. That is, until the check comes and the man’s card gets declined. With no cash and a bad credit card, what’s a guy to do?
Those words are from Tarnished Sophia, commenting on a scene from the ABC television show “What Would You Do?”
TS points out that the woman could have paid, or that people could have suggested that she pay. But no one does. She goes on:
But wait…it takes two to tango, and two people definitely ate the lunch and desert from this meal. Yet time after time the scenario runs it’s course without a single onlooker taking a moment to remind the gal that she has a wallet of her own. Instead, different men and couples voluntarily pay for this broke Romeo and his cheap Juliet. (Except for one segment, where no one offers to help, the woman leaves, and the man is left to wash dishes to pay off the meal.) Throughout the episode, female onlookers are heard to say that “this is his last date” and they “felt sorry for the girl”.
So what do I think?
The sort of sociology I do looks at how society gets in our heads — so much that no one feels like they have any choice outside of social scripts. That seems to be in play here. Read the rest of this entry
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When We Don’t Teach Boys About Sex
A shaming sexual culture
By Jayson Gaddis @ The Good Men Project
To not teach children about the sacredness of their bodies and their sexuality is one of the CORE abandonments of our time. This post is about the mess we are in around male sexuality. I am here to name it and simply put it in the open for all of us to see.
I received ZERO training around sex or my body until age 34. None. Fortunately for me, I now have excellent mentors and friends who are helping me grow up my sexuality and dive into its headwaters with open arms. But it was almost too late. Read the rest of this entry
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Rape: Not as bad as seeming prejudiced
Children raped, trafficked
Around 1,400 children were beaten, raped, tortured and trafficked for over a decade in the lower-class town of Rotherham, in north England.
As authorities stood by. Or fined parents of the missing children for wasting their time.
Some of the girls were splattered with gasoline and told they’d be set afire if they reported the abuse. Some were forced to watch other kids being raped. Others were told that their parents or siblings would be killed or gang raped if they went to authorities, according to the New York Times. Read the rest of this entry
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What If Men Menstruated?
A visit from Aunt Flo
Society has taught us that a girl on her period is weak, bitchy and occasionally psychotic… That time of the month is basically a pissed-off uterus.
Stacey, a student of mine, made that observation. She continued to talk about her shame-filled sister: Read the rest of this entry
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