The feature image of Domina Mari and Billie LaBeau and all of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from fetish site Mondo Fetiche. The inclusion of a visual here is not an assertion of a model’s gender or 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!
Dildos are finally getting safety standards:
“Until now, all of those jewel-toned silicone dicks, buttplugs, and fucksleeves existed in something of a regulatory wild west: sex toy manufacturers have been able to use a labeling loophole to categorize their products as “novelty items.” This exempts them from testing and safety protocols that sectors like food, medical, and transportation are subject to; what you do with your Quiet Muscle Percussion Back Neck Head Massager for Athletes after it arrives in your home is your choice, after all. Some products, especially those with rechargeable batteries, have to pass safety regulations, but this is the first time an official standard has been set that focuses on topics like material and design.”
Valentine Boudreaux, Lain Arbor, River Gray for Mondo Fetiche
What can you expect when you go to couples therapy?:
“Couples therapy is about helping you to learn and practice the tools that help you achieve a better relationship. Couples therapists also work to remove the idea that being in conflict is bad or that you are doing something wrong because you disagree. Your therapist can figure out where you experience stumbling blocks in your approach to conflict and how you deal with your physiological responses. They can also evaluate your repair attempts after conflict.”
Valentine Boudreaux, Lain Arbor, River Gray for Mondo Fetiche
The only way to find out how often you “should” be having sex in a long-term sexual relationship is to ask yourselves how often you want it.
Here’s what to do if a crush isn’t picking up on your hints.
Here’s how to call bullshit in your relationships (it starts with calling bullshit with yourself).
Audio smut is secretly vibrant, writes Amberly Rothfield at Input.
Here’s how to get good responses on your dating apps of choice.
What do you do when you get ghosted?
Anal douching is getting less intimidating.
Here’s how to survive a party when you don’t know anyone.
Ashley Paige, Ava D’Amore Ashley Paige, Ava D’Amore
Our sexual desires may be more conditioned than we realize, writes Alexandra Schwartz at the New Yorker (CW this is not light reading and the opening paragraph discusses Ovid, which means there’s some assault, just FYI):
“Desire changes, and not usually by the mechanism of conscious choice. We meet someone; we want them. Then we meet someone else. Srinivasan recognizes this. Actually, it’s what she thinks we should hope for. ‘Desire can take us by surprise, leading us somewhere we hadn’t imagined we would ever go, or toward someone we never thought we would lust after, or love,’ she writes, at the end of her ‘Right to Sex’ essay. Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about how to shift what we want but instead, like Antonio, recognize that we may be wrong about what we think we want, and embrace the possibility of wanting something different.”
That couples therapy article is suddenly very relevant for me, so good timing!