The weekend, while enlightening, also decidedly startled me. I realized what is completely missing from our conversations about sexual health: passion and pleasure.

We are lucky enough to be among the few species that can actually enjoy sex because it feels good, and perhaps take for granted that we don’t have to fight for survival when making love with a partner. And yet, we continue to omit from the sex education conversation our innate, normal and healthy drive to be sexual, and rarely celebrate our ability to bask in the pleasure in the first place.

The result? Teens don’t realize that their feelings of love, lust, arousal and perhaps even mind-blowing passion are normal, and they aren’t equipped with the tools to navigate their developing emotional intelligence. Instead, the current education models are telling them they’re broken, weird and shouldn’t be feeling that way about sex, let alone be having it. And they’re reaching out for answers in all the wrong places.

We can be sex positive without being sluts, and yet that message gets completely lost, or ignored, in nearly all forms of sex education.

To foster positive sexuality in younger generations, we need to talk to kids comprehensively and openly about sex and provide them with resources that allow them to make informed decisions about their sexual encounters.

Full disclosure about contraception, STIs and testing, how you get pregnant (and what your options are if you do) and even information not typically covered in sex education, like anal sex and definitions of slang terms, are imperative to creating this open dialogue. But what about education that goes beyond intercourse and the protection of your parts from disease and babies?

Currently, sex education in the states evokes feelings of fear and risk, whether it’s abstinence-only or liberals’ attempt to be all-encompassing. We emphasize all the bad and scary things that can happen from sex, without discussing the facts that:

1. Most often, you have sex because it feels good — not just to procreate — and that masturbation is an important form of learning what turns you on, especially for women. And,

2. The deliciously out-of-control feelings of sex can sometimes rise to a climax that overwhelms our rationality, our good sense, and even our values. Feelings by which teens may be more surprised and unsure how to navigate than the physical p-in-v (…or p-to-p or v-to-v) action itself. Feelings that make it difficult to understand what you need to do to remain in charge of your own sex life until you’ve been there and done that.

The second point is often one of the sides abstinence-only education fights — the idea that sex is too powerful, thus you should only ever have it with one person … your spouse. And while it ignores the physical mechanics all together (because, you’re not having it anyway, right?! [face palm]), it’s at least giving the emotional side a chance (mind you, with overwhelmingly huge blinders on) most “liberal” sex education (that focuses prominently on condoms! birth control! penises! vaginas! and the like) doesn’t.

Both sides, however, are still missing the mark.

Instead of being judgmental, unapproachable, assuming extremes and emphasizing dangers, we need to validate the normalcy in the way teens are feeling, help them sort through their levels of sexual readiness and acknowledge that developing sexual autonomy is just another way in which teens mature.

Part of developing a healthy sexuality is knowing the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, knowing what feelings are normal and age-appropriate and how to deal with and talk about them, and knowing your insides — your personal values, what physically makes you feel good and how to speak up for both. The healthier our sexuality, the more conscious our choices will be.

Of course, we need to continue educating our younger generations (as well as ourselves!) about the potential risks of sexual behaviors and how to avoid them, but in an ongoing conversation that doesn’t just stop there.

Youth are sexual beings just like the rest of us. Let’s help them celebrate and accept who they are without judgment, without alienation and without secrets.

Also published on BitchBuzz.com, a refreshing lifestyle website for women that spotlights the best in style, food, sex, technology and everything in between.

Main image via Tom Kemp Starley’s Flickr

There are often not enough outlets for affection in platonic relationships. Friends provide emotional support, memorable nights out, advice and adventures, but few friendships are so close that it’s comfortable and acceptable for you two to, say, snuggle on the couch together, or hold each other in a longer-than-usual embrace — one long enough to communicate sincerity but short enough not to be awkward. The line becomes especially blurred if you’re of compatible sexual orientations, because, oh my god, then it must mean you like each other.

But wanting to be touched is a basic human need. (Without it, we’re so much more susceptible to depression, stress, anxiety, loss in self-confidence and loss in drive and motivation!) And sadly though not surprisingly, we live in a touch-deprived culture that’s comfortable with touch only if it has sexual meaning, if we’re celebrating, if someone is consoling or being consoled, or if it involves raising our kids.

Outside of those exceptions, our culture looks at touch as suspect. We assume something’s wrong, or make meaning where there isn’t any. So, if none of those situations apply to us at the moment — if we are single, happy and not particularly close (physically or emotionally) to family — how can we meet our touch needs without that uh-oh factor?

Yeah, of course there are inappropriate ways to meet touch needs, through hookers, massages with happy endings and the like. But how about giving new meaning to things most of us already do every day? How about hugging, but without an agenda and where no one’s holding on too tight or for too long? The average hug is 1.7 seconds long. And after about 4 seconds, most people become squeamish. Why don’t we eliminate the space between our hearts, stop burping each other with those manly pats on the back, and embrace for — gasp! — 5 seconds, maybe even 10? That time is nothing compared to how long we spend writing emails, updating our Facebook statuses or how long it takes to check-in somewhere on Foursquare.

How about massages — from friends or professionals — with no strings attached? How about encounters — like hooking arms with your girlfriend when out shopping — where touch has no specific reason or communicates no specific intention other than hey, this just feels nice? What is so awkward and socially uncomfortable about that?

Isn’t it also possible that, since we are trying to survive in a touch-deprived culture, part of what the dating scene satisfies is our need to be touched? We need touch to thrive. And as backwards as it may sound, we are being told that to do so, it’s more acceptable to jump into bed with someone than it is to sit closely next to your best male friend on the couch with your head in his lap.

Because it’s not as socially acceptable or natural to go to even one of your closest friends and ask to be the little spoon, is our simple need to be touched fueling the mindset that we’re not okay unless we have a man? Are we so desperate to feel loved that we settle or fall for the wrong people?

Perhaps like the 1980s AT&T ads proclaim: we just need to reach out and touch someone.

Also published on BitchBuzz.com, a refreshing lifestyle website for women that spotlights the best in style, food, sex, technology and everything in between.

Image via hien_it’s Flickr

When I think about marriage, about the thought of spending the rest of my life with one person, I continuously wonder: what does it take to devote yourself mentally, physically and emotionally to one soul … forever?

My parents divorced when I was six, and I grew up with my mom’s boyfriends walking in and out of my life. I wasn’t raised in a functional version of “forever,” nor have I since encountered a seasoned marital relationship — through friends or family — I want to emulate.

We all know that divorce rates are insanely high, that only 50% of (first) marriages last anymore, and that the institute of marriage itself is a tradition that pre-dates recorded history, when human lifespans were half of what they are today. “Forever” wasn’t nearly as long then, and the meaning and social issues married couples face now versus way back when is like comparing a blow-up doll to the real thing: there is no comparison.

I think the problem lies in our societal assumption that after marriage, our lives are only devoted to one person, or to one + a family. That you and your life partner then have to focus heavily on building a life together — moving into (and potentially buying) a (bigger) home away from where your other friends live and where it’s more appropriate to raise kids.

That then, you are each others’ lives. There’s less focus on the continuous building of your friend network and sense and strength of community. That your life partner has to provide you with absolutely everything: he is your go-to emotional support and air bag; he is your best friend and constant companion; he is your partner in crime; he may even be your business partner.

Providing emotional and intellectual support, having similar core values and senses of adventure, and being able to communicate openly and candidly are imperative to a healthy and lasting relationship. And yet, in the process of valuing those things and the relationship itself, we can’t let slip away those people who have helped shaped who we are. It’s in letting that happen that too much pressure builds on the relationship to be absolutely everything — performance anxiety that can slowly erode the connection you felt when you first fell in love.

All of a sudden, your partner is the person with whom you’re over-analyzing the little things that don’t really matter — the things your best girlfriend would have talked through with you; the person on whom you take out your frustration or who feels the brunt of your bad moods.

You shouldn’t have to give up everything you know, everyone else you love, for one person, for an “idealized” life together. Lifetime commitment and partnership should be about the integration of two independent lives and adding your union to the whole community versus isolating yourself from it.

When you can incorporate your community as one more important piece to what supports your relationship, to what helps make it work — when you can balance the just us with the energy of everyone, then it’s easier to look “forever” straight in the eye, with a smile and ever-growing excitement, knowing that for the journey on which you’re embarking, you’ll never be alone, even in the absence of the one you truly love.

It takes a village, right?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Niffty.. via CreativeCommons

That’s how some parents down in Menifee, California think, anyway. So passionately that a complaint about “oral sex” being in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionaries purchased for advanced readers at the local elementary school caused the books to be banned.

Banned! It’s a dictionary. At an elementary school.

How else are kids expected to develop a vocabulary? How are we empowering children to learn things on their own if we’re keeping from them one of the most useful writing, reading, grammatical and researching tools out there? Slapping their hands with rulers, so to speak, for using a school-provided resource to find the answers to their own questions. This is … bad? Shouldn’t we be encouraging kids to learn, to explore their sense of curiosity, especially on their own?

My mom’s a therapist and sex educator. And even though my sex education started before I could even pronounce the names of anatomical parts correctly, my elementary school sex education happened in fourth grade. (Yes, my mother was one of two parents who actually accepted the invitation to sit in on the “lecture” and painfully bad video.) It’s wasn’t all that comprehensive, and it sure as hell didn’t cover why adults have sex for pleasure and not just for procreation. But if we’re teaching kids about “how babies are made” in elementary school, it makes no sense to ban books — especially dictionaries! — that mention the topic.

Kids and pre-teens aren’t stupid. I can almost guarantee that they know more than their parents and teachers think they do. And if they’re looking up the term “oral sex,” it’s not because Mrs. Smith in Room 19 went off-key with her sex ed curriculum. It’s because that’s what the kids are talking about at recess, on the playground. Perhaps someone thinks they’re cool because they overheard their older sibling talking about “oral sex” on the phone, heard it on t.v., or most likely on the Internet, and decides spreads the “wisdom” (i.e. I know something you don’t know!) on to friends, or wannabe friends.

Instead of hiding from them the answers and taking away their right to curiosity, why aren’t we teaching them the truth?

The more they know and the less afraid they are to ask when they’re curious, the more they’re likely to make the right decisions when faced with them, and the more likely they’d be to approach an adult if faced a serious problem. Rumors about how babies are and are not made (“If you have oral sex with a guy, and swallow, you’ll grow a baby in your stomach!” … NO. Fail.) spread less like fire.

Way to put your town on the map, Menifee. What’s next? No Internet?

Dove was, however, already way ahead of the game. Their Campaign for Real Beauty launched in 2004 and continues to empower girls and women of all ages and shapes. But last I heard, Dove doesn’t drive home magazine sales. Sexy things do. And naked sexy things will sell even more magazines.

And suddenly, we embraced the body — naked (or nearly so) and often un-airbrushed — while we also further embraced the plus-sized.

Glamour ran a spread of naked-and-not-insanely-thin models in November. You might remember that infamous picture of plus-sized model Lizzie Miller with tummy flab? (No! Not tummy flab!)

A couple months before that, model Natalia Vodianova bared all on the cover of British Vogue’s June 2009 Body Issue, an issue that vowed to look at how women — yes, even women thinner and more famous than you — felt about their bodies and how they, too, obsessively watch their weight and wished their butts were perkier. (But wait, if even the “perfect” feel insecure, is there hope left for the rest of us?)

And the trend continues on into 2010:

• Naked and un-airbrushed Jennifer Hawkins will grace the cover of the Australian Marie Claire in February.

• V magazine has dedicated its whole January issue, out on the 14th, to plus-sized models in all states of dress and undress.

If all bodies are beautiful, shouldn’t we focus equally on the thin and not so thin? The short and tall? The curvy and boxy? Despite the valiant efforts, we can’t assume that occasionally swapping out rail-thin models for those with some meat on their bones will, on its own, make 2010 the year the fashion, beauty and advertising industries suddenly changed their minds.

These women — underweight or slightly overweight — are still models. The images we digest are the results of teams of makeup artists, hairstylists, wardrobe assistants, lighting specialists and creative photographers that none of us “real” people have at our disposal. Fashion spreads, despite the model and her size, are still perpetuating parts of a beauty myth — the glowing, perfect skin, the undimpled thighs — and the message that you are not good enough the way you are. (And that products! They have all the answers!)

Designers’ samples are still size 4 … or smaller. Runway models are still hired as emaciated hangers that catch your eye and on which designers can hang their art.

Shedding light on the fact that different body types exist — sure, it’s a step in the right direction. But for maximum impact, to make the change that communicates my body and my self are awesome just the way they are, we have to be able to prove that a different message and image will make the industries more money than what they’re making now.

What sells the most — whether it’s putting women down or lifting women up — will eventually win in the end.

Main photo via NYMag.com
Center photo via Glamour.com

And yet, in the process of wishing for time to pass quickly, ’tis the season of reflection and resolution: How we’re going to spend more time volunteering, cooking, spending quality time with family and friends, etc. … and less time focused on 140-character status updates and waiting in lines (because, really, you can buy just about everything online these days — even your fresh produce). How we’re going to change our eating habits and exercise routines … that we’ll only somewhat follow. How we’re going to be a truly better person … when we find the time between working over– I mean, full time, keeping an active social and familial life and keeping up with our Netflix and Kindle queues.

The fact the turn of the new year is the only expected time for introspection and starting anew may be a problem in itself worth resolving this year.

When it’s not all concentrated into one day, or weekend vacation, you can outline more meaningful goals, promises to yourself, and perhaps to others, you won’t take lightheartedly and be so tempted to break. And wouldn’t it allow for you to be more in tune with yourself so that you’re constantly, and not only once a year, aware of where you stand — with you, with your circle of friends and colleagues … with the world?

But I digress. It’s officially 2010, and you can’t ignore the top, or worst, X (fill in something of cultural meaning here) of the decade lists, family Christmas letters that are still trickling into your mailboxes (or inboxes, maybe?) and Facebook and Twitter statuses detailing a disgust of 2009, an eagerness for 2010, a witty (or not so much) list of resolutions, or any combination thereof.

Reflection is awesome. Goals are necessary. If it’s now or never, just do it. Don’t get me wrong there. But perhaps you can shine a new light on your reflection this year. Simply bitching about what sucked — and vowing to avoid similar, or worse, situations — isn’t going to get you too far.

Instead, try considering:

What was truly amazing? What experiences made you feel happiest? For those things that were more negative, what can you learn from them? How can you turn the downs into enlightening experiences? How can you keep your radiance, your passion for life and for living it, gleaming, even through the difficult stuff?

Challenge yourself to delve deeper — and all year round. You’ll find the possibilities for change, for resolution, for renewal are endless.

Photo courtesy of Kevin Krejci via Creative Commons

For one, that even people over six feet tall can touch their toes. (So yes, that means you can, too, with enough practice and encouragement.)

One night, one lesson, one nugget of insight stands out in particular, though.

Usually overflowing with bad jokes we can’t help but laugh at, my yogi was overflowing with wisdom, sharing with us his tidbits of knowledge as we struggled through Baddha Parivritta Parshvakonasana. His words became my mantra for the next hour — mostly just so I wouldn’t forget to write down what he said.

He prefaced by telling the story of our generation’s Bobby Fischer, about how his winning strategy was simply that he wasn’t afraid of losing. Why was my yogi talking about chess when we’re supposed to be in a serene state of meditation? At the time, he was trying to make his point that we shouldn’t worry about hitting the floor when we attempt to do, say, Parivritta Ardha Chandrasana; about challenging ourselves to do our poses right and do what might feel unnatural and uncomfortable. That if we stop worrying about what could happen (falling into the person next to you creating a domino effect throughout the room, not catching your own fall, etc.), what should happen will fall into place.

Being the sweaty, contemplative and inward-thinking mess I was at the time, his point really stuck with me. And I kept coming back to it then. And I keep coming back to it now.

We can’t be afraid of losing.

We can’t let fear stand in the way.

The fear of falling down — the distrust of our own resilience and the lack in confidence that we can steadily and successfully pick ourselves back up again — can too easily hold us back from taking the leaps that can, and will, propel our lives forward. Looking that fear in the face and acting in spite of it can open you up to self-defining moments you may have never experienced otherwise.

This wisdom has since gently guided me to consciously make changes in how I’m choosing to live my life — subtle or otherwise — and be more open to unhesitatingly accept the change that involuntarily comes my way.

How?

Routine.

Perfecting the balance between the new and the old, the present and the future, comfort and anxiety. When we fear losing what we know and what is comfortable, we are simultaneously not letting live and closing doors to a whole other set of memories, experiences and opportunities.

In moving out of an apartment that feels so comfortable, in a place that felt so grounding, so much like home, and in leaving behind a routine to which I’d grown accustomed, I’ve let in so much more than I could have had I stayed snugly settled in a pattern that for two years had been creating a mediocre level of happiness.

Trying something new.

The more you have to lose, the harder it is to take risk, to swallow it, to rationalize it. But if you can feel the fear and do it anyway, you’ll learn something about yourself by just having taken the risk, in its success, in its failure — or some enlightening combination of the three.

That one song marked the beginning of something. I don’t remember if I already had Frou Frou’s Details album (2002) — Imogen Heap’s and Guy Sigsworth’s short-lived duo project — buried in my then-unmanageable iTunes library (hellllloooo college), or whether I snagged it from my sister’s dusty collection shortly thereafter the Garden State release. Either way, Imogen’s striking vocals paired with her electronica influence were to die for and set her apart from the Britney Spears, Maroon 5 and Ashlee and Jessica Simpson pop overplayed on the radio at the time.

Months later, the unforgettable and unmistakable chants of Hide and Seek aired in The OC’s season 2 finale, and I remember the confusion: Frou Frou? Or Imogen Heap? What was the difference? And regardless, how do I get my hands on her music?

And now, after countless plays of I Megaphone (1998 – I’m sure you’ve heard, Come Here Boy), Speak for Yourself (2005), and a smattering of singles (my favorite: Speeding Cars), her latest album, Ellipse, is scheduled for release:

• August 24th: in the UK and internationally (except, of course, in the U.S., where everything comes out on Tuesdays)
• August 25th: in North America

BUT. The coolest things about her upcoming album release? Not only did she tweet about the production of the album (this falls into the love category of my love-hate relationship with Twitter) and keep vBlogs along the way, making her feel less like a total celebrity and more like one of us — simply a young woman who’s realizing her dream — but it’s streaming live. Right now. Pre-release.

The results? Thought-provoking lyrics. Whimsical vocals. Sprinkled with piano cords and the same electronic flavors that made us love her in the first place.

Listen and decide for yourself!

And all this is for … what? To uphold unachievable standards the fashion and beauty industries are trying to impose on us? What about something that screams You’re awesome and beautiful just the way you are! Not quite the self-affirming message you get from looking at, say, the latest Louis Vuitton ad campaign.

So this is where About-Face comes in. They’re actually doing something about it. In addition to presenting media literacy seminars to schools and universities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area that help equip women with the tools, information and confidence they need to resist the media’s negativity and notions that you’re never enough, About-Face goes to the streets to directly impact the local community. To deliver the messages they feel women deserve to hear, but hear all too rarely.

Their latest stunt?

This Saturday, August 15th, About-Face supporters of all ages will be putting up static-cling decals in the dressing rooms of various stores that say the types of things women ought to hear when they look in the mirror. Messages like “Confidence is beauty” and “YOU: No Photoshopping necessary.”

They’ll also be setting up their own dressing room at the excessively foot-trafficked cable car turnaround where Market Street and Powell Street meet. (If they’re diverted elsewhere, check Union Square!) Here, women can step up and write on the mirror and express the messages they think women deserve to hear.

Jennifer Berger, About-Face’s executive director, shares in a press release that the young women involved in the organization and this particular activity believe that:

Women and girls have the right to feel beautiful the way they are, rather than trying to conform to the unreal, unattainable images we see every day. Sadly, many women and girls don’t like their bodies the way they are, and we need to change that.

The public is invited to participate during the event. Members of the community can talk with women who come up to the outdoor dressing room, or help the girls covertly put up decals in local stores. (All items posted in dressing rooms will be removable without damage to the walls or mirrors.) If supporters can’t be there in person, they can catch the action on Twitter by following @aboutfacesf.

EVENT DETAILS

Event: “Covert Dressing Room Action” by About-Face

When: Saturday, August 15, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Where : Cable Car Turnaround at Market and Powell Streets, San Francisco, CA (In case of problems in that area, this event will be 3 blocks up Powell at Union Square, on a sidewalk bordering the square.)

Are you on Facebook? Check out more event details there, too!

About-Face Background

About-Face equips women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that affect their self-esteem and body image. They deliver media-literacy workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area, enable girls and women to take action in their own ways, and maintain the resource-filled web site About-Face.org. About-Face is based in San Francisco, and educated more than 700 young women in the 2008-09 school year.

About-Face’s success with previous actions has been profound, and includes their teen-driven action using full-sized body-shaped cardboard cutouts at the Powell BART/Muni station in late 2008, the Yay! Scales action in Union Square in July 2008, and our “Please Don’t Feed the Models” poster in 1998.

Liz and I got to the V&A not long after it opened. She went upstairs to textiles, and I made a b-line for the fashion collection. I think my neck is still sore from looking down at all the placards explaining the significant of each piece. *sigh*

1988 Moschino Bra Dress

1959 Jacques Heim Gown

Not knowing exactly what to explore after 45 minutes of making a slow circle around cases of enclosed dressing and evening gowns, vintage wedding dresses, and shoes dating back to the early 1800s, I sat down for a cup of tea in the courtyard to peruse the map.

All in all, I probably spent more time in the gift shop than I did in any of the other collection rooms.

After lunch and more tea at a sidewalk cafe in Knightsbridge …

…Liz and I split up again — she, heading back to the V&A; I, poking around my old neighborhood:

A few things have obviously changed — closed corner shops replaced by cute, modern bakeries and upscale nail salons — but all-in-all, South Ken still felt familiar and comfortable — the bookstore where I bought both The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons is still standing, the Irish bar around the corner is as unassuming as ever, the Lamborghini dealership’s still flashy, the smell of coffee wafting through Caffe Nero’s doors nearly made me turn around and go in just to take a deep breath of coffee aroma, and Ben’s Cookies is just as delicious as I remember it.

I'll take them all please.

What’s missing? The smoke. London gets major bonus points for going significantly non-smoking over the last three years. (And oh the difference it’s made for evenings out.)

I topped off the afternoon with the shopping spree I didn’t even know I’d been saving up for: TOPSHOP. Three hours, nearly three hundred pounds — including a splurge on a pair of round toe, blue ombre patent leather (wearable) pumps that nearly jumped off the shelf and into my arms, screaming buy me! buy me! (More on these later.)

The evening later concluded with some delicious chicken tikka masala and korma on Brick Lane — on the walk home from which, I stumbled upon this:

Ironic?

Off to bed. Tomorrow: a day of solo adventuring while Liz explores the Tower of London followed by evening drinks with Cate — the founder of BitchBuzz.