by yoursl | Feb 19, 2015 | Just For Fun, Taboo Topics |
Last week, I had the nervous pleasure of giving a four-minute inspirational talk to around 167 people at a networking event. I began to work on my speech in October, shortly after I was asked to present. I chose a topic that I felt would resonate with the majority of the audience and that would allow me to inject some humor into the speech as this was the first time I would be speaking to more than 10 people at once. I talked about life lessons learned from online dating. Or, rather I tried to talk about this topic, as the technical difficulties of a non-working microphone left me shouting at all those people. I wrapped my four-minute speech up at 3 minutes and 15 seconds because shouting is simply not my thing. Neither is sexism and dealing with double standards, which are two things most women in American cannot seem to shake. An hour prior to my inspirational talk, I met with the founder of the networking group during an audio-visual check. The 10-minute speaker, a woman, was there with me on stage. We were dressed in the same professional manner, except our choices in footwear. The other four-minute speaker was a male and running late to the sound check. The founder of the group questioned my choice in footwear, which that day was a pair of pink Adidas. February in the Midwest is generally a miserable cold. That night the weather was frigid, with gusts of wind and freezing rain. I wanted to wear my Adidas so I did not get frost-bitten toes from my open-toed heels...
by yoursl | Feb 5, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, Sexual Discussion, Taboo Topics |
On the night of June 23, 2013, a 21-year-old female Vanderbilt University student was drinking at a local bar. Her boyfriend of just a few weeks, Brandon Vandenburg, who was a football player at the college, had given her a blue drink, which was laced with a date-rape drug. This female student doesn’t remember anything between drinking the blue drink at the bar and waking up in an unfamiliar room at 8 something the next morning. Several people stood by and watched while Vandenburg, who was driving the victim around Nashville in her own Mercedes-Benz, pulled the unconscious woman from the vehicle and he and three of his teammates, Cory Batey, Brandon Banks and Jaborian McKenzie, dragged and carried her into Gillette House, into the elevator and then down a hallway to Vandenburg’s room. Sadly, this young woman was victimized, sexually assaulted, and raped for 30 minutes in Vandenburg’s dorm room while she was unconscious. According to court testimony, as published by several media outlets, Vandenburg dragged the young woman out of an elevator, dumped her on the floor and took several photographs of the unconscious woman. He and one of the players carried the young woman to Vandenberg’s dorm room and, within minutes, Batey began sexually assaulting the woman with his fingers. One of the men penetrated the woman’s anus with a water bottle while Vandenburg cheered on his fellow teammates with lewd comments and, as testimony proved, handed out condoms to the other players, slapped the woman’s buttocks, and claimed he could not have sex with her because he could not get an erection. Vandenburg filmed the...
by yoursl | Jan 29, 2015 | Just For Fun, Taboo Topics |
People often ask me how I find topics to write about for Your Sexy Librarian™ blog posts. The answer is very simple as I am inspired by everyday life. My partner, my brother and my closest friends will often email or text me various links to sex- or taboo-related internet posts they think will interest me. Friends flood my facebook account with an incredible amount of sex-related chatter; my suggested feeds are mostly all about sex now. Even my mother will jot down something she saw or read about that she thinks would make a good subject for me to research. I scan news tickers on television news programs, tune in to health-related broadcasts, read newspaper articles and books about sexual health and sexual issues and scan pharmaceutical literature (required reading for my day job) for ideas as well. Morning radio shows provide me with little blog gems from time to time. I love using Google for idea-gathering as well. Other people, oftentimes newly introduced to me, are a wealth of ideas. At networking events, after people find out what I write about, they sometimes whisper things like, “I’m poly.” or “I married a transgender man.” or “I struggle with an eating disorder.” This week’s blog is all about a recent Saturday night my partner and I shared with some of our closest friends. We hosted our first party together as a couple, which was a pivotal moment in our relationship as it was the first time we introduced our individual friends to each other. We carefully selected the party guests, debating whom would blend together nicely while making...
by yoursl | Jan 22, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, Taboo Topics |
The hours of cold darkness are getting shorter, and, before we know it, grey winter will give way to colorful spring. This time of renewal and rebirth is an excellent opportunity to meet new people. There are online sites for people seeking friendship, friends with benefits, short- and long-term relationships and play partners in certain types of relationships. This blog is devoted to just a sampling of these sites with information about how to use a few sites. Meetup.com is like the five-and-dime variety stores of by-gone years. There really is something for everyone at this site as its purpose is to connect individuals with like-minded others at in-person events. After creating an account, users search for their interests in an area near them, i.e. beer brewing in Indianapolis, and the site suggests groups that match users’ interests, such as “Indy Beer Lovers.” Once a user joins a group and RSVP’s for an event, he or she simply attends the event and meets other people within the group. With Meetup, if a user finds a group is not really to his or her liking, he or she can simply leave that group with no questions asked. There is no limit to the number of groups a user can join, and most of the groups are free to join. Users should expect to pay admission fees or other costs to attend some group events. There are dozens of online dating sites in existence. Your Sexy Librarian personally knows several people who have met their significant others on OkCupid.com. This is a free website with optional paid extras that allows a...
by yoursl | Jan 15, 2015 | Taboo Topics |
The simple dictionary definition of “covenant” is an agreement. Christian faiths take this definition a step further and define a covenant as a contract or agreement between two or more parties and link this term to God’s promise to the human race. A covenant marriage arises from this Biblical promise. The Catholic Church views all marriages as covenants and, therefore, a covenant marriage in the eyes of state law is not necessary in the faith. “A covenant marriage provides an alternative to the traditional marriage contract for couples who oppose no-fault divorce or who want to demonstrate a stronger commitment to marriage,” states the website for The National Conference of State Legislatures. Couples choosing a covenant marriage must receive premarital counseling and, in some cases, marital counseling if problems arise during the marriage. Louisiana was the first state to pass covenant marriage laws in 1997. Arkansas passed similar legislation in 1998, and Arizona followed in 2001. Twenty-one other states have since proposed legislation to allow for covenant marriages, but none of this legislation have passed to date. According to the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, less than one percent up to three percent of all marriages performed in the United States are covenant marriages. Couples married in a conventional or traditional marriage in one of the states with covenant marriage laws may convert their marriage to a covenant marriage at any time. A traditional marriage occurs when a couple purchases a marriage license, obtains two witnesses to the marriage, and has a state-licensed agent perform the wedding ceremony. A traditional marriage can be easily dissolved through a no-fault divorce....
by yoursl | Nov 6, 2014 | Sexual Discussion, Taboo Topics |
Fetlife.com bills itself as “a free social network for the BDSM and fetish community.” The site claims to have around 3,329,225 members. A young professional I met at a networking event suggested I sign up as a member to learn about the kink world while discovering sources and topics for future blog posts. After my car mechanic with no ties to the young networking professional suggested I sign up as well, I seriously considered the suggestion for a few weeks before checking the site out for myself. At sign up, I knew immediately that I have much to learn about human sexuality, the kink world, fetishes and taboos and fetlife users. I am approaching fetlife with an open mind. I just want to learn as much as I can about fetishes and taboos from an intellectual perspective without having to actually participate in a bondage boot camp or witness a sadomasochist show and tell. Fetlife has a dozen sexual orientation options to select from while creating a user profile. (Note: These terms will be printed in bold in this blog.) The commonly known choices include straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, unsure, and not applicable. Other choices in this category are not as commonly known by some people. Many of the terms were unknown to me, so I searched for definitions and included them below. Heteroflexible is defined by Word Spy as “a heterosexual person who is open to relationships with people of the same sex.” The...
