HuffPost Love And Sex Podcast: The Power Of The Clitoris
Whether it’s Freud telling the world that “real” women orgasm through vaginal penetration or a trashy magazine suggesting sex positions that even the most skilled Cirque Du Soleil performers wouldn’t be able to master, bad sex advice isn’t hard to come by.

Instead it’s the frank, real, anatomically correct conversations about sex and pleasure that have trouble seeing the light of day. And when it comes to any conversation about women’s sexuality, the clitoris — the only organ on the human body whose sole purpose is pleasure — is often the elephant in the room.

Frequently referred to as a “nub” or a “button,” the true anatomy of the clitoris was just discovered in 1998 — three decades after humans landed on the moon! — and is still rarely discussed. In this episode of The HuffPost Love+Sex Podcast, we wanted to know: What would happen if we brought the clitoris out of the shadows and its true function and capabilities were finally known? The answer is nothing short of revolutionary.

To help us better understand the clitoris, the cultural ignorance surrounding this incredible and incredibly ignored part of the human anatomy and how truly damaging that ignorance is — not just for those with clits but for anyone who knows a person who has a clit — Love+Sex hosts Carina Kolodny and Noah Michelson talked with Sophia Wallace, the artistic force behind the emerging ‘Cliteracy’ movement, Jenny Block, author of the upcoming book O Wow: Discovering Your Ultimate Orgasm and Ian Kerner, sex therapist and author of She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide To Pleasuring A Woman:

So tune in and listen up! Because you don’t know what you don’t know about the clitoris.

This podcast was produced by Katelyn Bogucki. Like Love + Sex? Subscribe, rate and review our podcast on iTunes.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/love-and-sex-podcast-clitoris_n_6761642.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Madonna Likens Ageism To Homophobia, Has A Message For The Haters

“No one would dare to say a degrading remark about being black or dare to say a degrading remark on Instagram about someone being gay. But my age – anybody and everybody would say something degrading to me. And I always think to myself, why is that accepted? What’s the difference between that and racism, or any discrimination? They’re judging me by my age. I don’t understand. I’m trying to get my head around it. Because women, generally, when they reach a certain age, have accepted that they’re not allowed to behave a certain way. But I don’t follow the rules. I never did, and I’m not going to start.”

– Madonna to Rolling Stone, speaking up for victims of age discrimination everwhere

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/phqqErAuZU4/madonna-likens-ageism-to-homophobia-has-a-message-for-the-haters-20150226

Conway, Arkansas Approves LGBT Rights Ordinance Despite Discriminatory New State Law

Charles Pulliam-Moore

www.towleroad.com/2015/02/conway-arkansas-the-latest-city-to-approve-an-lgbt-non-discrimination-ordinance.html

QUIZ: Which 'Looking' Guy Is Your Soulmate?

Let us help you figure out which HBO star should be your everything.

read more

Neal Broverman

www.advocate.com/quizzes/2015/02/26/quiz-which-looking-guy-your-soulmate

South Carolina College With Two Out Gay Athletes Bans Homosexuality In The Name Of God
Last year we featured the stories of Drew Davis and Juan Varona, two gay Erskine College volleyball players who had found acceptance from their teammates in the small school in rural South Carolina. After we wrote about them the team went on to the NCAA tournament, one of only six teams in the country to appear in the postseason.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/college-gay-athletes-ban_n_6761296.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Facebook Takes Another Step Toward Inclusion; Allows Users to Write Own Gender Description

Today, Facebook announced that it would update its custom gender feature so that its users will be able to use their own words to describe their gender identity.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/facebook-takes-step-another-step-toward-inclusion-allows-users-to-write-own?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

See Inside “Radical Extremist” Fred Phelp’s Recently Released FBI File

Fred Phelps, founder of the viciously antigay Westboro Baptist Church and promulgator of such atrocious ideas as LGBT people being responsible for all the world’s evils, unsurprisingly had a testy relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI has now released its 250-page file on the religious leader. It dates back to 1967, when a confidential informant told the Bureau that Phelps, whose Westboro Church was already more than a decade old, needed “psychiatric care.”

As The Hill reports, things really got going in 1993, though, when Phelps remained on the radar of investigators every year until 2006.

Related: Fred Phelps’ Five Most Despicable Acts

Sometimes contact was initiated by members of Westboro to alert the FBI of threats against the church, a tactic the Bureau saw through as early as 1993, when it wrote to a U.S. district attorney:

“It would appear that Mr. Phelps is intentionally provoking these types of responses. Large amounts of money and investigative time can potentially be wasted investigating these threat letters. Historically, very few, if any, of these types of cases have been prosecuted in the District of Kansas.

The FBI does have the responsibility to investigate and prevent potential violence against any person regardless of their religious or political views, however.”

Phelps is referred throughout the documents as a “zealot” and “radical extremist,” his behavior “almost militant,” and his church a “hate group.”

On a total side note, the file also shows the Bureau passing around the Wikipedia page for the Westboro Baptist Church, telling agents it had a “pretty good rundown regarding members and family.” It’s nice to know the FBI and undergrads have something in common.

You can find the full document here:

Fred Phelps FBI File

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/UEotPygWDfE/see-inside-radical-extremist-fred-phelps-recently-released-fbi-file-20150226

Get Ready Hunties, RuPaul's Drag Race Season 7 Is Almost Here! – VIDEO

Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2015/02/get-ready-hunties-rupauls-drag-race-season-7-is-almost-here-video.html

Growing Up Kinky

When you read a lot of popular novels, you get the impression that kinky is a choice you make as an adult.  The protagonist reads a book, sees a movie, or meets that one certain kinky yin to their vanilla yang and their entire sexual identity shifts.  That’s how it happened in Nine and a Half Weeks .  It even happened that way in the Story of O.  You meet someone else and, before you know it, you fall into a pit of lust and do stuff you never even dreamed of doing before. 

In other words, it’s all fiction.  It’s a way for people to rationalize their desires: “oh, I was just walking along, minding by own vanilla business and then WHOOSH,  I saw this hot woman behind me in line and now I’m a lesbian.”  No.  It doesn’t happen like that. Even when it feels as if it does, it doesn’t. 

Sexual identity doesn’t start in adulthood.  You can’t catch sexual identity from someone else or be “turned” if you are not built for it in the first place.  It was that kind of thinking that led 1950s-60s sex hysterics to spread the insane idea that homosexuality was contagious and would somehow infect or alter people who were exposed to it.  That has been the homophobic right’s biggest argument against gay school teachers, although it is, without doubt, one of the sickest lies ever told. 

Sexual identity starts in childhood, usually long before you have any idea that there is a name or a label to describe the things you are most drawn to.  It begins before you have the hormones to turn you on sexually.  In pre-pubertal childhood, most of us already have inklings and inclinations that will develop into full-fledged sexual desires when we get older.  Gay and lesbian children may know they’re same-sex oriented before they experience anything like adult lust; fetishists may already feel a special affection for future fetish objects;  and BDSM’ers typically recall how they loved bondage scenes in movies or getting tied up in kiddy games. 

I’m typical that way.  I always knew there was something different about me. In sixth grade, I had an irrepressible urge to punch my boyfriend when we kissed, something that mystified me as much as it irritated him.   I was a fan of all action/adventure movies that featured bondage and whipping.  I fooled around with girls.  As soon as I could buy my own clothes, I went with the tomboy look, living in workshirts, chinos and army boots.  And, when I started masturbating to sex fantasies at puberty, they always involved captivity, bondage and Tom of Finland-looking men.  

Of course, I didn’t know about Tom of Finland then.  Nor did I know that gender was fluid, and it was okay for me to prefer men’s styles to women’s.  I agonized about clothing just as I agonized about my sexual fantasies.  The real me didn’t fit in the world.  My secret need to do painful things to boys did not fit in with my relaxed, free-loving style.  My bisexuality, my polyamorous nature…I didn’t even have those words to describe myself then.  As a fiery young feminist, the idea of a power relationship was, in itself, offensive.  And yet, when I tied my ankles with a scarf in bed at night, in the dark, when no one could hear me, I soared to ecstasy. 

Growing up kinky, queer, non-binary, non-heteronormative is a mixed bag which often includes struggles and self-doubt, insecurity about being weird, fear that your secret sexual desires make you unlovable, and endless questions about how you’ll live and whether you will ever find anyone who accepts the real you.   But you grow up.  You find ways to deal and, if you’re lucky and work for it, chances are you will find that person or those people who don’t just accept you but are grateful for who you turned out to be. 

But one thing you won’t do: you won’t become someone else.  You can’t pray away your DNA.   No matter how many straight people one may sleep with, it doesn’t turn anyone straight.   Neither do you suddenly turn kinky or queer through exposure.  Who you are, sexually, has been with you all along, waiting to emerge, to blossom, to be resolved or to find support that helps you get where you were heading in the first place. 

I grew up kinky, and wrote all about it in my new book, A Fetish for Men, now the #1 Best Seller in Gay & Lesbian History on Amazon.

www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gloria-brame/growing-up-kinky_b_6753806.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

North Carolina Bill Lets Public Officials Opt Out of Performing Marriages

A bill passed in the North Carolina Senate today would allow public officials to opt out of performing all marriage-related duties based on a “sincerely held religious objection.”
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/north-carolina-bill-lets-public-officials-opt-out-of-performing-marriages?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed