by yoursl | Aug 21, 2016 | Chromosome Disorders, Fertility, LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sexual Discussion, Sexual Dysfunction |
I took a writing hiatus due to experiencing an ongoing medical crisis. I am still sorting out how to live with my new diagnosis, which sadly interferes with my ability to write, to think, to sleep, to laugh and to live how I want to live my life. My diagnosis doesn’t just affect me; it affects my partner Dutch, my entire family, my friends and my pets and my ability to perform at my bill-paying day job. I am not back to being 100 percent myself yet. This is my first blog post in nearly two months. I am considering this to be a small win in my battle back to health and wellness. A friend told me about a young colleague undergoing gender reassignment surgery. This was not an act of malice or of gossip. It was simply my friend, who is of an older generation, wanting to better understand the situation. We now talk about gender reassignment surgery in the news and at the coffee maker at work where previously this was a taboo topic that wasn’t discussed openly. My friend’s colleague was diagnosed during his youth with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS). Androgen insensitivity is a condition that affects sexual development before birth and during puberty. People with androgen insensitivity conditions are genetically male, with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome in each cell, yet their bodies are unable to respond properly to male sex hormones, or androgens, which includes testosterone and dehydroepiandroesterone or DHEA. As a result, the person has some or all of the physical traits of a female with the genetic...
by yoursl | Jan 14, 2016 | LGBT, Sex and Art, Sex and Culture, Sexual Exploration |
Music is a refuge from the stress and turmoil of everyday life for many people, even Your Sexy Librarian. While listening to a local radio station one morning, Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ played. I have always enjoyed this song and picked up on the meaning of the lyrics the first time I heard the song played (blame Coolest. Mom. Ever. for giving me unlimited and uncensored access to all things written). Let’s take a look at the man and the story behind this gem, which features drugs, prostitution and transvestites. Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed was born on March 2, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, into a middle-class Jewish family. In 1952, Reed’s family moved to a suburban house in Freeport, located on the south shore of Long Island, where Reed and his younger sister Merrill spent the majority of their youth. According to his sister, the move from social Brooklyn to isolated Freeport is what would drive Reed to music, possibly as his own refuge from the world around him. Several print sources from the 1970s have identified Reed as being homosexual and has having struggled with his sexuality when he was a teenager. Medical care was approached differently in the 1950s. When Reed’s doctor suggested electroshock therapy for 17-year-old Reed, his parents went along with the doctor. These treatments caused Reed to suffer memory loss and have trouble concentrating. In 1960, Reed began to study at Syracuse University. He started playing music in bands and started using drugs more heavily. He would make his way to New York City. Reed was the guitarist, vocalist...
by yoursl | Dec 31, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, LGBT, Sexual Exploration |
This week’s blog is a letter from reader Brian about his personal experiences with being gay and with coming out. I did a little bit of editing, but the story is still all his in content. I thank Brian for sharing his experiences with all of us and for giving me his blessing on publishing a part of his life’s journey. Xoxo Dear Readers, As I look back at my past and at my path of self-discovery and enlightenment regarding my sexuality, I realize that it was quite an arduous and anguishing journey. In the past decade we have seen the stigma and condemnation surrounding being homosexual diminish to the point where the millennial generation finds it challenging to accept just how complicated and petrifying the process of coming out had been for the preceding generation. As far back as I can remember, I knew that I was attracted more to boys than to girls. I was far too young to comprehend the notion of sexuality or sex at that age, but I was fascinated by my own private parts. It wasn’t long before curiosity regarding other boys began to manifest. Even as young as I was at the time, something always felt wrong about this – I did not know or recognize then but now believe that this feeling was due to the societal inference that boys were supposed to like girls and that it was wrong to like boys instead. My first sexual experience happened during a sleepover with my childhood best friend. I would sleep in my bed, and he would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. I...
by yoursl | Dec 3, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, LGBT, Sex and Art, Sex and History, Sexual Discussion, Sexual Exploration |
People have been fascinated with movies for more than a century now. The first movie theatre devoted to showing moving pictures was the Nickelodeon, which opened on June 19, 1905, in Pittsburgh, Penn. The name Nickelodeon was a combination of the price of admission, a nickel, with the ancient Greek word for theatre, odeon. The theatre’s owner Harry Davis, a vaudeville impresario, bought a machine called a cinematograph from a Frenchman named Lumiere and set up a storefront theatre where everyone could afford the admission price. Davis showed a 10-minute thriller, The Great Train Robbery. A bonus scene at the end of the short film featured the film’s bandit, actor George Barnes, pointing his revolver at the camera lens and shooting point-blank directly into the camera. Audiences were terrified, but the love of movies was born as a result of this unexpected drama. Davis’ low overhead meant he could show the movie several times a day to thousands of people. Within months, Davis had opened more than a dozen Nickelodeons throughout Pittsburgh. Movies are magical in that they allow us to trade our own realities for new ones, even for just a few hours, and that they can give us a different perspective of the world around us and of other people in lifestyles different than our own. Currently showing in theatres is The Danish Girl, which may make some people uncomfortable due to its controversial subject matter. The Danish Girl, released in the United States on November 27, is about artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), who prepares to undergo one of the first sex-change operations with...
by yoursl | Oct 8, 2015 | HIV and AIDS, LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Women's Sexual Health |
At the end of September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against a Subway franchise located in Sheridan, Indiana. The lawsuit alleges that employee John Doe was hired to work at the store on January 1, 2015. Twelve days later, the employee disclosed his HIV-positive status to the store manager. Doe reported to the EEOC that, on February 14, his supervisor called him at home to fire him, telling Doe he might be a liability to the company. The day after the lawsuit was filed, Indianapolis-based radio station 103.3 invited its listeners to call in during a morning show to voice their opinions over the air about the lawsuit. I listened to part of this broadcast and was blown away by some of these callers and their sheer ignorance of HIV in terms of how the virus spreads and how long the virus lives outside the body. Feeling inspired by this radio broadcast, I have created this HIV transmission fact sheet using information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AIDS Vancouver Island and online resources aidsmap.com and aids.gov. There are three stages of HIV infection. The first stage is acute infection, in which large amounts of the virus are being produced in the body. Within 2 to 4 weeks of initial infection, many people develop flu-like symptoms, which is the body’s natural response to HIV infection. The second stage of HIV infection is clinical latency, in which the virus reproduces at very low levels, although it is still alive. With proper HIV treatment, people can live with clinical latency for several decades. The...
by yoursl | Sep 24, 2015 | LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sex and Pharmaceuticals, Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
The HIV medication Truvada was first approved for use by the Federal Drug Administration in August 2004. Made by California-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, Inc., Truvada contains two active drugs, emtricitabine and tenofovir disproxil fumarate and was originally approved for use as an antiretroviral agent. Antiretrovirals are in a drug classification of medications used to treat HIV and AIDS. All HIV medications work by disabling the steps the virus takes when hijacking uninfected cells. The goal of antiretroviral treatment is to keep the amount of HIV in the body at a low level to help stop the weakening of the immune system, which can lead to the development of AIDS, and to allow the immune system to recover from any damage that HIV might have already caused. There are more than 20 FDA-approved antiretroviral medications in use today. When only one antiretroviral medication is used to treat HIV, the virus can become resistant to that medication, making it ineffective over time. Taking two or more antiretroviral medications at one time is called combination therapy. The goal of combination therapy is to limit the rate at which HIV becomes resistant to the medications and, therefore, making treatment more effective over a longer period of time. Since its approval in 2004, Truvada has shown great promise in reducing the risk of acquiring an HIV infection. The medication works so well in suppressing HIV infections in the blood that HIV-positive people who regularly take Truvada can show negative results on HIV blood tests, which renders them nearly noninfectious despite their being HIV-positive in status. In July 2012, Truvada became the first FDA-approved...
