Jen Manion on Female Husbands: A Trans History
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Historian Jen Manion joins Tristan Taormino to discuss her new book Female Husbands: A Trans History. How did some people assigned female at birth began living their lives as men in the 18th and 19th Centuries? Manion did extensive research on primary source materials including marriage certificates, census records, court documents, local and national and newspapers. In their book, Manion introduces us to the lives of U.K. female husbands Charles Hamilton, Henry Fielding, James Howe, James Gray, Samuel Bunday, William Chandler, Robert Shurtliff, James Allen, and Henry Stoake. We learn about...
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Farzana Doctor: Speaking Out Against Female Genital Mutilation
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Author Farzana Doctor sits down with Tristan Taormino to discuss her latest novel Seven which revolves around the practice of khatna, a ritual female genital cutting in Dawoodi Bohra communities. According to the World Health Organization, more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where female genital mutilation (also called female genital mutilation or female circumcision) is concentrated. They discuss what it means when religion attempts to control women’s bodies and sexuality, and the devastating effects of silence,...
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Amanda Blumenthal on Being an Intimacy Coordinator for TV and Film
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
In the age of #MeToo, there has been a reckoning in Hollywood about sexual harassment and that extends to the way folks are treated during productions. Intimacy coordinator and founder of Intimacy Professionals Association Amanda Blumenthal joins Tristan Taormino to talk about this growing profession in Hollywood and beyond. She tells us what intimacy coordinators do, challenges they face on set, and what their training is like. She explores power dynamics on a production, how actors sometimes don’t feel like they can’t voice their sexual boundaries to a director, and why being an advocate...
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Erin C. Law and Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza on Orienting Toward Resilience: Taking a Somatic Approach to Anti-Racist Work
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Many of us have experienced stress and tension in relation to the unrelenting racist violence and oppression. There has been an explosion in public dialogue around white supremacy, whiteness, and racism and some are beginning to view this as “cultural trauma.” Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza and Erin C. Law do a Sex Out Loud Takeover this episode, where host Tristan Taormino hands over the mic for them to have an important conversation. Robyn and Erin offer a different inroad to approach anti-racist work looking at whiteness and racism through a lens of somatic methodology, and drawing on the...
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Sinnamon Love & Jet Setting Jasmine on Racism, Inequity, and Resistance in the P*rn Industry
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Award winning porn performers and content creators Sinnamon Love and Jet Setting Jasmine join Tristan Taormino to discuss the realities and disparities for performers of color in the adult industry. Inequities persist in wages, visibility, power, and opportunities and companies continue to produce content with racial fetishization, stereotypes, and offensive language and marketing. We talk about how to address the inequality and oppression performers of color face, how marginalized folks are creating their own content, and how average consumers can support sex workers of color. We also dive...
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Zachary Zane on How Bisexual Men Are Stigmatized by Gay and Straight People
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
It’s Bisexual Awareness Month and Tristan Taormino is celebrating by welcoming columnist Zachary Zane to the show! Zach shares his experience coming out bisexual, when he got pushback from his gay and straight friends. He explores the stereotypes, misunderstanding, and stigma many bisexual men face when dating and hooking up. He explains how he approaches men and women very differently on dating apps. They talk about his favorite question in his "Sexplain It" column about relationships and sexual identities and Zach’s dating tips for the pandemic. Plus, Tristan shares why she loves bi...
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Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan on Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Joining Tristan Taormino in this episode are professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan, the authors of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus based on their brilliant research about sexual assault on college campuses. Current discourses focus on toxic masculinity, consent education, bystander intervention, and adjudication, which they recognize are important factors. Hirsch and Khan take a new approach with their concepts of sexual projects, sexual citizenship, and sexual geographies and how they create and support the conditions for sexual assault. They...
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Baron Vaughn on Sexual Hang Ups, Polyamory, Trauma and Mental Health
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Comedian and actor Baron Vaughn joins Tristan to talk about a wide range of topics: his self-described sexual hang-ups, what his sex life is like during the pandemic, his experiences with polyamory and conscious monogamy (“I’m a polyamorous person in a monogamous marriage”), trauma and its effect on relationships, his ‘racial baggage’ about seeking mental health support, how depression and anxiety can fuel comedy, the state of media representations of Black folx, and his new podcast Self Quar. Actor and comedian Baron Vaughn plays Bud Bergstein on Netflix’s Grace & Frankie; he...
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Kai Werder on Skin Hunger During COVID-19 and Desire Discrepancies Between Partners
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Sex educator and coach Kai Werder joins Tristan to talk about one of the crucial issues facing lots of people during COVID-19: skin hunger. We discuss how a lack of sexual and non-sexual touch on top of a pandemic affects our physical and mental health. Kai offers a thoughtful, nuanced perspective on dealing with touch deprivation and practical communication tools in the digital age. Then they talk about their theories of mismatched libidos and the Desire Discrepancy workbook they created to help folks struggling with one of the most common issues in relationships. Kai is a certified sex...
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Jordan Flaherty on Grassroots Responses to Savior Mentality
Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino
Tristan Taormino welcomes veteran anti-racist activist Jordan Flaherty to discuss his book No More Heroes: Grassroots Responses to the Savior Mentality. No More Heroes traces "savior mentality” in pop culture, politics, non-profits, and major events including Batman, Teach for America, the flood of young white activists to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and Project ROSE. We talk about how white saviors often begin with good intentions and where it goes wrong as well as how different grassroots responses can both help people on the ground and challenge the oppressive systems that...
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