After speaking on pornography in Toronto and Alberta, I’ve just returned from lecturing on intimacy in Vancouver, my third Canadian city this year.
As always, the British Columbia Psychological Association was gracious and well-organized. About half of those in attendance had heard me speak there last year on infidelity and cybersex,
We can all admire Canada’s culture regarding sexuality. It’s not perfect, but here are just a few features that put American sexual culture to shame.
For example, public bathrooms:
Can the US keep up with the English? Their government has just encouraged parents to use the right words for genitalia with their young children. They see this as one way parents can support kids’ healthy sexual development.
“Yam tho.” It’s pronounced “yomm toe,” except you form the syllables in the back of your throat rather than the front, and you end the words with a tight jaw rather than a loose one. It means “vagina” in Chinese, and it became my secret weapon. When I can’t get a non-U.S. group to loosen up and participate in a seminar, I have them teach me how to say vagina in the local language, and then a few bold ones and I practice together. By doing this periodically for the length of the seminar, everyone eventually gets involved. So I…
Well, it’s actually Croatians. The Croatian medical students with whom I worked in Ravenna last week. More than once, they asked how sex has changed since the invention of the internet. It’s an important question. On the one hand, there are some tangible ways: * Porn is now available everywhere, all the time, in every possible configuration. * There are new ways to meet people for sex: escort services, apps like Grindr, websites like Ashley Madison and Sugar Babies. * It’s easier than ever to buy sex toys, lube, condoms, and other products, with privacy and low prices, from reliable…
According to the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS), today is World Sexual Health Day. Adopted along with the UN, here’s their definition of sexual health. Some of the key challenges to sexual health in the U.S. today include: * Childhood sexual exploitation: It can alienate people from their bodies and from sex, entangle sex with coercion, entangle attention with shame and pain, and create lifelong secrets or hatred. * Shame about our bodies, learned from an early age: No baby is born ashamed of her or his body. And no baby thinks their genitalia is any different than any…