Feature image of Erykah Ohms and Tina Horn in Crash Pad Series episode 262. 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!

Vivienne Vai in Crash Pad Series episode 275

“If I had to guess, I’d say 360 out of 365 days of my year start with an orgasm,” writes Isabella Kohn at Broadly, before investigating the benefits of masturbating as part of a morning routine:

“[M]asturbation releases a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters that put you in the sort of energized, upbeat, and focused headspace that makes mornings more bearable. Oxytocin, endorphins, and dopamine released during orgasm improve mood, soothe anxiety, lower self-doubt, increase focus, and contribute to feelings of enthusiasm. At the same time, epinephrine (adrenaline) acts like a shot of espresso for your nervous system, perking you up. Even if you don’t end up coming, fooling around with yourself often has the meditative effects of connecting your mind and body, increasing your confidence, and grounding you for the day. It also gets your blood moving.”

Erykah Ohms and Tina Horn in Crash Pad Series episode 262

Why not try having sex in your lucid dreams?:

“”When you have an orgasm in a lucid dream, you are present, your brain is switched on, and what you are experiencing is not a body orgasm but a mind orgasm,” Morley claims. “Many people find orgasms in lucid dreams are incredibly powerful, because it’s a mindgasm. It’s incredibly deep.”

Though I’ve attempted it on and off over the years, I’ve never fully nailed a lucid sex dream. So my renewed quest to have a lucid zipless fuck begins with Morley’s plan: the “three Ds.” The first ‘D’—”dream recall”—sets out an intention to remember dreams. Keeping a “dream diary” helps “solidify the memory of the unconscious dreaming process to help us remember more of them.” The final ‘D’—”dream science”—helps spot recurring patterns in dreams so you can tell when you’re in one. Planting triggers, like looking at your hands or a clock and spotting that it doesn’t quite look realistic, can also work.”

Butch Stud and subMissAnn in CrashPadSeries episode 228

SEX DREAMS, as distinct from sex dreams, is a visual project of queer and trans desire conceived by Joshua Allen. At Them, Joshua writes:

“As Nina Simone said, an artist’s duty is to “reflect the times.” In creating SEX DREAMS, I wanted to put together images that celebrated young queer and trans people shedding tradition and marching to the beat of their own drums. For each moment that I felt failed by words, I dreamed of creating visuals of everyday people that defy heteronormativity with their very existence. I created this photo series to reflect the beauty of the non-normative. People of all sizes, shapes, colors, cultures, and abilities who dare to own their bodies and desires. This generation of young people redefining the ways that they relate to themselves and the world around them is an act of political defiance — one that shakes tradition and celebrates individuality. That forces us to find new ways to relate to one another. To me, there’s nothing sexier than that.”

La Muxer Diosa and Mars the Prince in Crash Pad Series episode 238

Sometimes vaginal penetration by anything including a tampon feels like shit. At Jezebel, Eliza Cossio writes about discovering she has chronic pain and learning to see it as valid even though vaginal pain isn’t part of the cultural conversation around sex:

“It turned out that the walls barring me from intimacy were the very literal walls of my vagina. My gynecologist diagnosed me with pelvic floor muscle spasm, a chronic condition where the pelvic floor muscles can become so tight that they are painful to the touch. Basically, the way one might get knots in their back, I get them in my vagina. (But also my back still; I contain multitudes.) I had never heard of this before my diagnosis, and the medical legitimization of my pain dumbfounded me. Even referring to my pain as chronic pain made me uncomfortable; surely my suffering was not bad enough to warrant the term. But as I worked over the course of two years to get better, I realized maybe it wasn’t all in my head.”

Lindsay Cin and Valentine in Crash Pad Series episode 276

CES gave a sex toy an innovation award, then disqualified it because it was “obscene.”

“I’m sorry my nudes make you thirsty, but this drink is all mine,” writes Sophie Saint Thomas at Allure on using nudes to address body dysmorphia.

Is FabSwingers.com replacing Tinder?

The top trending porn search term for women in 2018 was “lesbian strap-on,” according to PornHub.

Grossed out by PDA? Unless you’re a homophobic hetero (in which case: get out), how you feel about kissing is related to your disgust sensitivity, your own relationship attachment style, how you see yourself behaving in similar situations, and by whether or not you think the PDAers are in some sense showing off.

Comprehensive sex educations lower the risk of sexual violence.

Are we all having a lot of sex or none at all? Who can say?

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