Don’t Ghost, Get a Ghostwriter

WRITTEN BY JUSTINE ANG FONTE M.Ed, MPH

Let’s consider the very early stages of dating, say one to five dates. Here’s a hot take: rejection is healthy. When you reject someone in a dating capacity (aka: assert your boundary) you end up in a place that you are actually comfortable with in the long run. What would that time feel like if you didn’t reject them because you felt obligated or guilted into staying? Not too pleasurable for you and at best, not  maximal pleasure for the other person. We know from pleasure-based consent education that things feel better when all parties are into it.

Consider discomfort as a means to growing and learning. For some more than others, we are conditioned to please other people. Let’s unlearn that and adopt something more useful: please yourself. After all, the most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself so make sure you like yourself, by giving yourself pleasure! Don’t settle and when you’re confident in your convictions, the right people will find you. Love yourself more than your fear of someone else not being liked by you.

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Bent Into a New Shape

WRITTEN BY EM ODESSER

Quick! When you close your eyes and imagine a sex toy, what do you see? If you use toys casually, maybe you imagine the basics: a wand, a bullet, a stroker. Maybe you imagine your favorite toy or one you’ve had your eye on for a while. Chances are, your first instinct is to imagine something simple and conventional and created solely for your pleasure (instead of, say, the vibrating toothbrush or shower faucet you might’ve started out with, or your hands, or any part of a partner’s body.) That’s pretty fair — I think I would too. But the truth is, culturally, our ideas of what toys are, how they should work, and what they look like are pretty narrow. And as technology advances, there have been amazing advancements in the world of pleasure products, with toys that function in a completely different way than the rabbits and vibes of years past.

The problem is, those toys are still cloaked in mystery, and as appealing as they are, they’re intimidating and confusing as anything unfamiliar might be.

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