NSFW Lesbosexy Sunday: Don’t Steam Vaginas

Feature image of Emma Claire and Lilian Rose in Crash Pad Series episode 283. All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from the Crash Pad. The inclusion of a visual here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If you’re a photographer or model and think your work would be a good fit for NSFW Sunday, please email carolyn at autostraddle dot com.

Welcome to NSFW Sunday!

Adina Powers and Scout

Adina Powers and Scout in Crash Pad Series episode 286

Porn creators and websites still rely on search keywords to reach their audiences — and most have to negotiate between the often-fetishistic terms fans use to find their work and the terms they’d prefer to use for themselves without typecasting or offensive language. In a roundtable at Mel, adult model, performer and producer Mimosa says:

“[W]hich comes first — the categories or the content? They’re intertwined to give maximum appeal and online accessibility. It’s all connected to what the dominant culture is demanding. In a better world, for me at least, the dominant culture would ideally be women, LGBTQIA, black people, people with disabilities and other underrepresented or exploited communities being able to create the demand.

Similarly, I’d like to see the words used to describe porn to be celebratory, reverent and powerful instead of denigrating and violent. But I also understand that there are folks that enjoy that, both creators and consumers, and that my personal ideals are not universal. So I don’t want to condemn consensual objectification either.”

Emma Claire and Lilian Rose

Emma Claire and Lilian Rose in Crash Pad Series episode 283

Support sex workers instead of just coopting their aesthetics, writes Raquel Savage in Bitch:

“When I think about what empowers women, I have to remind myself Sex Workers are often excluded from the conversation. What hurts more is watching women celebrate sisterhood at the expense of Sex Workers while emulating us. Part of the movement to rejoice in women’s power includes reclaiming our bodies and demanding our worth—things that aren’t exclusive to Sex Workers but certainly show up in the work that some of us do. We see this in fashion, being discussed online and in lyrics. Everywhere you look, hoe aesthetics are being appropriated and incorporated into declarations of liberation.”

Cinnamon Maxxine and Kissy Burgundy

Cinnamon Maxxine and Kissy Burgundy in Crash Pad Series episode 288

“Banking issues disproportionately impact sex-related companies with women and queer clients, in part because they’re more likely to be censored in general,” writes Diana Hubbell on the financial processing issues that people and businesses in the sexuality space face.

Mushrooms! Mushrooms. MUSHROOMSSSSSSSS.

If you have a vagina, don’t steam it.

Here are some date ideas based on your crush’s moon sign.

The Kinsey scale! What is it good for.

Sex scenes in mainstream movies and television are starting to get the same coordination, thought and oversight as fight scenes:

“Fundamental to [intimacy coordinator Alicia] Rodis’s approach is her comfort talking about human bodies and the things they can do together. “It is a skill just to speak freely and technically about sex scenes,” Green said, adding: “How can we figure out where this can all go wrong until we can talk about what it is in the first place?” When Rodis first arrived at HBO, such frankness wasn’t necessarily what people were expecting; to the contrary, she sensed that some veteran actors and directors suspected that intimacy coordinator was code for “censor”—that “the Millennials were coming to sanitize everything.” Rodis is sensitive and chooses her words carefully—she is capable of saying bloodless things like “rear backside nudity” with a straight face. But she is also, as Meade put it, “completely down for the raunchy silliness of it all.” This combination of candor and lightheartedness allows everyone around her to speak frankly, too. And that, far from sanitizing sex, enables richer and more realistic depictions of it.”

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Ryan Yates

Ryan Yates was the NSFW Editor (2013–2018) and Literary Editor for Autostraddle.com, with bylines in Nylon, Refinery29, The Toast, Bitch, The Daily Beast, Jezebel, and elsewhere. They live in Los Angeles and also on twitter and instagram.

Ryan has written 1142 articles for us.

10 Comments

    • I could swear I read some trashy erotica where the heat made genitals appear to steam in the cold air. Pretty sure it was a vampire’s perspective of a human.

  1. MUSHROOMS!!!! (That link was like a special little surprise edition of straight people watch, though at least the hubby seemed ok)

  2. Please check out http://www.steamychick.com for more information about steaming. Steaming resolved an issue for my wife that doctors could not even diagnose. Steaming has a very long history of benefitting women’s gynocological health.

  3. Or: safely steam. We’re not telling people to not drink coffee because someone burnt their tongue on a too-hot cup, and besides, the body wakes itself up (though I suppose if Gwyneth Paltrow sold it on her website, we would be, because the joy of being reactionary seems to outweigh the actual traditions, benefits, etc. of whatever the objet d’outrage is).

    • Drinking a hot liquid with your mouth which is intended to drink liquids is not comparable.

      I don’t know what you were taught about vaginal hygiene but serving it humidity is no bueno. The balance of the vaginal microbiota is not something to be messed willy-nilly with unless we’re Rule 34’ing yeast infections and boy do yeast love humidity.
      Not to mention the irritation to the dermis herbal steam could cause, rash or even hives.

      Like I know 2nd degree burn=/=yeast infection on the pain and danger scale but no one deserves to suffer them because of some fad started by rich people with more money than sense.

      • “because of some fad started by rich people with more money than sense”

        you.. don’t know what you’re talking about, but thank you for making my point about the reactionary bullshit.

      • It’s a tradition going back hundreds if not thousands of years in various cultures around the world (Eastern Asia, South America…)

Comments are closed.