What Makes a Baby and 5 other books that explain the different ways families are made
Based on how many of you have told us about it, we know a bunch of you are big fans of What Makes a Baby, one of the newer kids books out that explain conception, gestation, and birth to the 3 to 8-year-old crowd. While this book is a good one, there are a whole bevy of books out there that explain the different ways families are formed and exist.
Caroline Rothstein on feminism and bikini waxes
…Yet here I am, month in and month out, dropping my pants for a stranger, letting her slide hot, green, organic wax along my vulva, around my labia, and across my lower abdomen with a thick, pale wooden popsicle stick just so I can feel “clean.” How can I subject a part of my body with such a complicated narrative to this hedonistic ritual and still call myself a feminist?
Get sexy (even geeky!) boudoir photos from Portland-based The Sensual Photographer
We’ve talked about boudoir photography over on Offbeat Bride with Why you should consider boudoir photos. Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love my body. Much like the title implied, one of our plus sized Tribesmaids called her boudoir session “honestly the most liberating experience of my life.” If you’d like to feel liberated yourself, celebrate the body you love, learn to love the body you have, or give the gift of your sexy-ass self to a special someone(s), you can do so at a special discount with our Oregon-based sponsor The Sensual Photographer.
Masturbation and my relationship: How I stopped worrying and learned to love myself… despite living with my partner
We’ve talked about masturbation on Offbeat Home and Offbeat Bride before. We’re familiar with solo sex here. But what if you no longer live solo? “Easy,” I thought when thinking about how my sex life would change when my boyfriend and I finally moved in together. “Sex whenever/however/wherever we want. This is, as far as I can tell, the only reason anyone moves in together at all ever.” And more or less, this has proven true.
Except sometimes… I want, and he doesn’t.
And other times… I want very specifically to do my thing alone.
What are your experiences with the new generation IUDs?
as anyone used a new-generation intrauterine device (IUD)? My doctor brought it up, and it sounds like a great form of birth control. I like the idea of local medical interventions (a hormone-relasing IUD) when possible, rather than systemic (the pill). However, I frankly am still a little creeped out by something in my uterus. Clearly everyone should only take medical advice from their doctors, but I am asking for personal advice here. Have any Offbeat readers had favorable or negative experiences with one of the new generation IUDs? How did it fit into your lifestyle?
Should you allow your daughter’s boyfriend to sleep over?
What a concept — approaching self esteem by telling a child their darker selves are loved. Only in our culture is the primitive drive to propagate a species seen as dark and dirty. We MUST change that. Sex is not dirty or disgusting, it’s amazing and should not be relegated to something we do in the dead of night when the house is asleep and the lights are off. Turn on the lights and make love at noon. Sex and pleasure are not desires that should be hidden, but valid feelings that when expressed appropriately, bring immense joy into your life.
Talking “the talk” with my daughters: I accidentally avoided talking about sex with my kids
At this point I was feeling pretty good about myself and the conversation. I felt I’d taken a stand for equal rights and promised to defend my daughters’ reproductive rights. I was feeling much like a bona fide father of the year candidate when I was blind sided by the next question. “So, how do they get in there then?” she asked.
When is a good time to have “the number” talk with your new partner?
I have a question about sex — more specifically number of sexual partners. I recently hit double digits, and I have no problem with this or the choices I have made. As a 25-year-old woman, I don’t think that number is particularly high. I am not ashamed. But I do wonder how/when I should handle it in future dating scenarios? Do you wait till they bring it up or tell them before you add them to your number? Is there an “okay” number of people to have slept with? If yes, what is it, and is it different for men and women?