Feature image of Byron DuBois and Daizy Blaze in Crash Pad Series episode 296. All of the photographs in this NSFW Sunday are from the Crash Pad. The inclusion of a visual here should not be interpreted as an assertion of the model’s gender identity or sexual orientation. If you’re a photographer or model and think your work would be a good fit for NSFW Sunday, please email carolyn at autostraddle dot com.
Welcome to NSFW Sunday! May you discover the strength and fortitude to not start sexting with an ex this Scorpio season. We’re almost through it.
Never tell anyone “we need to talk,” unless you are interested in waging psychological warfare:
“Anyone who’s ever received a ‘we need to talk’ message can testify to its disruptive, day-ruining power. Just try to focus on having a normal one while you’ve been SMSed this nugget of malice and mystique. It’s scientifically (well, not technically, but still!) impossible. Forbes argued in 2015 that it may also be difficult to say ‘we need to talk,’ because anyone who is saying that is probably feeling pretty anxious and stressed themselves. OK, sure—it’s basically just a baton-passing of anxiety and bad feelings. Ostensibly, ‘we need to talk’ prepares the recipient for a difficult conversation rather than blindsiding them. In reality, by texting ‘we need to talk,’ the sender gets to telegraph the fact that they have something upsetting to say without having to bear the full brunt of the recipient’s upset reaction.”
Are you “settling” in your relationship? Stop thinking about this like “someone who is shorter/taller/blonder/too into [superficial interest that doesn’t actually matter] than I would prefer” and more like “someone who I am staying with for the wrong reasons.”
Sex workers are at the front of the fight against mass surveillance.
Here’s how often Americans have anal sex.
At Bitch, Jordan McDonald writes about 90 Day Fiancé, a show about K-1 visa holders and their US-citizen partners, to explore love as capital, the idealism versus reality of immigrating to the United States and “the abusive potential of relationships in which only one partner is a legal citizen.”
Relatedly, Rachel Charlene Lewis, also at Bitch, reviewed Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and wrote, “We can love women, hold them dear, and build our lives around an imagined future of happiness, and still be subjected to spectacular violence, cradled right into their sea of untreated pain.”
Lighter topics: At Oh Joy Sex Toy, Boum writes about sex and breastfeeding.
If you have a vagina, you probably don’t need to analyze its microbiome.
Most people aren’t confident in their bodies.
“This trans dating app focuses on safety and serious relationships.”
PayPal will no longer support Pornhub payments. On one hand Pornhub is one of a terrible constellation of tube sites known for not compensating performers for their work (among other issues), on the other hand can we stop being scared of sex now please?
If you’re ghosted, don’t keep texting the ghost:
“If you do feel like you need to text them again, Mattenson adds, you can send a final text — but again, keep it positive. ‘You can take full responsibility for your choice not to interact,’ she says. ‘Text, ‘Hey, I haven’t heard from you for a number of days, so this relationship is not working for me. I’m going to set you free and set myself free. You’re welcome to respond, but if you don’t, that’s okay, too. I wish you all the best.’ That way, you have a full release for yourself.’
Remember, you don’t need anyone else involved to get closure. ‘You’re being called to have healthy closure for yourself, and it doesn’t get to include the other person,’ Mattenson says. ‘You can send out vibes to the world saying, ‘I’m whole and complete by myself, and I’m available for a whole and complete person to come into my life who wants to contribute and uplift my life.””
Vaginal microbiome analysis may not be especially useful to the individual, but I’m all for anything that increases the baseline inventory of knowledge about the reproductive systems of people with vaginas, since it still seems in many ways to be a Mysterious Black Hole of Perplexity (pun intended) as far as the medical community is concerned.
You what’s even MORE mysterious? Vaginoplasty vaginas! They should eventually develope a microbiome that is very similar other vaginas – and we don’t have to do anything crazy like squirt yogurt in there, it happens on its own. Science!
So I’ve heard! Bodies are amazing and science is cool. And yeah, there’s definitely an even bigger knowledge gap in the medical community when it comes to trans people’s health, that very much needs to be filled.
Big gaps, needing to be filled… Checks out.
Rofl. I seem to be unable to avoid punnuendo even when I’m not trying 😝
…so, who were you checking out?
If you want an innuendo, I’ll give you one…
As a repeat offender I’ll raise you a double entendre
I’ll tri to keep up
Chandra/Snow, if we can’t have a 3way on NSFW Sunday, when can we?..
Well now it’s Monday!!! …and I’m at work sob cry cry
I thought this was fourplay
That all adds up…
Regarding the new trans dating app: I admit I do not know how valid the promises pertaining to user security might be, due to poverty and a hostile environment I do not use social media apps, and certainly no online dating apps or platforms. Danger thrill I can easily experience by, say, walking the streets or using public transport, and I can control the degree of danger thrill by chosing times and places – no need for apps there.
I appreciate that I do not have to upload a portrait – although, by not doing so, I would of course telegraph to the other users of a dating app (!) that I am a monster that does not dare to show itself. Why would I need a dating app to deliver that impression of me, what could that possibly be good for?
But first and foremost, I do not look like the young lady presented two times in the article. At this point, I think, it is important not to be misunderstood. I wish all my trans women sisters all the happiness and bliss in the world, and I do not believe, and nothing and nobody will make me believe, that those with access to early transition, cosmetic surgery and other measures that improve their lives look down on us, the …Other, and despise us. Some certainly do, but this is not the point. The point is that a message by the providers of a dating app for thans people which says to trans women: ‘this is what you should look like, you old disfigured monstrous hag’ is well appreciated for what it is, at least by me.
I’m deeply disturbed that you know I was considering sexting with my ex. 👀
Let’s pretend it was because I’m just THAT GOOD at anticipating sex and relationship trends with clarity and foresight and definitely not because I was talking myself through responding to two exes’ dm slides.
Of course, it is definitely because you have your fingers on the pulse of sex and relationship trends, plus, well, Scorpio season.