Feature image by chris joel campbell via stocksnap.io.
All of the photographs on NSFW Sundays are taken from various tumblrs and do not belong to us. All are linked and credited to the best of our abilities in hopes of attracting more traffic to the tumblrs and photographers who have blessed us with this imagery. The inclusion of a photograph here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If there is a photo included here that belongs to you and you want it removed, please email bren [at] autostraddle dot com and it will be removed promptly, no questions asked.
Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Fleur du Mal & Eres lingerie in Barneys lookbook 2016. Photo Alexandra Nataf. Model Alecia Morais. Via the lingerie addict.
+ A few things to look for when buying your first dildo.
+ There are a lot of sex-related injuries.
via black and curvy
+ At Oh Joy Sex Toy, Dwam wrote about menstrual sponges. (My personal experiences led me to believe that sea sponges are just vaginal exfoliators but this makes me want to give them another shot.)
+ Abstinence-only sex education could no longer be in the US federal budget, maybe hopefully.
via rodeoh
+ Regulating sex work just puts sex workers at risk.
+ If you want to have sex in a car, here are all the ways to do it.
“temperance” with nicole vaunt by corwin prescott
+ People with developmental disabilities deserve better sex ed. In an interview with Bitch, sex educator Katherine McLaughlin says:
“People with mental disabilities get messages from our culture that say, ‘You’re not sexual, you shouldn’t have children, you can’t make good decisions, you’re oversexed, you’re a child and you can’t make good decisions, you have to be protected and people are going to abuse you.’
And it’s tricky because there is a high rate of sexual abuse among people with disabilities, so there’s some truth to it, but it’s also very negative. In a lot of my trainings, I try to get people to think about our culture and the negative messages we give about sexuality—in general—and then the ones we give kids with disabilities in particular, so that we can change those narratives and send out positive messages, instead.”
+ What makes a bad literary sex scene a bad literary sex scene? And, more compellingly, what makes one good?:
“Generally, sex is sexier when it’s not explicit. A writer doesn’t need to painstakingly recount every last detail, but they do need to detail sensory reactions. The details can make a scene go from feeling like bad porn riddled with sexist cliches to a piece of realistic character development. Almond later adds, ‘The body does its happy labor during sex, but the mind works overtime. And just what do people think about? Laundry. Bioterrorism. Old lovers. Sex isn’t just the physical process. The thoughts that accompany the act are just as significant (more so, actually) than the gymnastics.'”
+ LitHub has a roundup of some of the best literary sex scenes, “by writers who are celebrated not for their illicit content, but for their uncommonly precise prose and insightful observations of human nature. Rather than inviting you to gape at purely physical contortions, these scenes make the reader feel the acts described as bodily, emotional experiences that inform each character’s unique sense of what it means to be alive.” Quoted works include The Flamethrowers, The Wellspring, Cool For You and more.
+ Sometimes you accidentally bring only smut to read on an airplane and feel awkward about it and then feel awkward about feeling awkward: “There’s a part of me that enjoys probing my own discomfort. Why should I be embarrassed to see two consenting adults in intimate situations? What’s wrong with a bit of flesh?”
katoucha.fab via curves in color
+ What romance means in long-term marriage or partnerships is vastly different from what it means in newer relationships. Heather Havrilesky argues that, if suspense is what creates romance, then eventually mortality is what keeps it alive:
“Because at some point, let’s be honest, death supplies the suspense. How long can this glorious thing last? your eyes sometimes seem to ask each other. You, for one, really hope this lasts a whole hell of a lot longer. You savor the repetitive, deliciously mundane rhythms of survival, and you want to keep surviving. You want to muddle through the messiness of life together as long as you possibly can.”
+ From the Autostraddle Lesbian Sex Archives: here’s how to make your own stingy as hell flogger in 15 minutes.
Also, read Colette Arrand on her trans body as a state of desire: “I’m thinking of my body as the state of desire, how it is here and present, and how its home, too, is the future.”
Oh my goodness. That article about long term romance. All the feels I’ve been feeling.
So many good things!
I particularly enjoyed this article about literary sex scenes. There are so many terrible ones.
Also: I once read American Psycho on a plane and that was way more embarrassing than reading erotica on a plane.
Beautiful and true essay on long-term love and romance. Sex gets quieter, too, but emotionally deeper. After almost 26 years, it feels like another 26 will still be too little time. But I hope we get that much.
…*immediately looks up the rest of the Temperance photo shoot*
I read erotica every where all of the time; the only embarrassing or awkward part for me is when I make this face:
and don’t realise I’m doing it until I look up to see a concerned person trying not to stare in…what ever emotion is worried and disturbed.
Oh look, there are occasionally advantages to being blind. As long as I blank the screen on my iPhone no one knows when I’m reading erotica. :)