Sex Positive

Laverne Cox graced Allure’s annual “Nudes” issue with a picture that is so honest in its emotion and raw in its beauty I damn near cried looking at it. She admits her insecurities and ultimately decided to shrug them off and have the mac ‘n’ cheese she was craving the night before the shoot. That’s some role model shit right there. Unless you’re Feminist Current founder Meghan Murphy, who says to her neighbors south of the border (she’s Canadian): “What the fuck are you trying to sell us, America?” She mocks Cox’s insecurities and the idea of “radical self-acceptance” by gasping at her ability to indulge in comfort food and still love herself. Murphy telling Cox to put her clothes back on because she’s uncomfortable around the flawlessness that is Cox’s naked form isn’t an expression of her disdain for catering to the “male gaze.” Murphy is scolding a grown woman who made a choice for herself because: “Seeing a black transgender woman embracing and loving everything about herself might

A woman was caught masturbating during a 'Fifty Shades of Grey' screening at a theater in the northwestern state of Sinaloa in Mexico, according to the New York Daily News.

Did you know that there are places in these here United States–land of the free and home of the brave–where it is actually illegal to purchase or sell vibrators or other sex toys? Like the entire state of Alabama and several municipalities elsewhere? And people still live there? I did, but I continue to be amazed. I understand this even less than I understand “dry counties.” What kind of sheer madness drives people to stand in opposition to orgasms?

One such place is Sandy Springs, Georgia, which prohibits the sale of vibrators without a doctor’s prescription. They are banned, except for “bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose.” For serious. Can you just imagine having to ask your doctor to write you a prescription for a Hitachi Magic Wand? I cannot.

Melissa Davenport and her attorney Gerry Weber are...

I grew up thinking that once you got your period you had it every day, that sex always happens standing up, and that condoms were as thick as shoe leather. I don’t know where I got these stupid ideas from, but I know that no one I trusted ever disabused...

Humor is a big joke on us all. It’s one huge paradox. While it seems unconditionally benevolent, stimulating laughter and good feeling, it is often cruel, destructive, and manipulative.

So says Betty Swords. And she should know. For over twenty-five years, starting in 1955, she was a professional humorist. She sold her cartoons to the major magazine markets, including Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Changing Times. She also produced a considerable quantity of humorous writing for such publications as McCall’s, Modern Maturity, Christian Science Monitor, and others. And beginning in 1976, Swords taught college courses in the power of humor and lectured widely on the subject.

...And then I realized that the punching bag was always a woman. “Marriage is seen as bad,” she went on, recollecting the experience as we talked on the patio in back of her Denver home in June 1995. And she cited examples of one-liners to prove her point:

Married life is great—it’s my wife I can’t stand.

He was unlucky in both his marriages—his first wife left him. And his second one won’t.

A bachelor’s last words—I do.

“Marriage is seen as horrible because it meant that the man had lost his freedom,” she continued.