There's been a lot of writing about men, gender training, and relationship dynamics. I've even done some of it myself. But there's a piece at the core of it all that I think often gets missed. I certainly didn't understand it until just a few years ago. There's a developmental trauma at the heart of…
Charlie Glickman
There's something I've noticed about dogs and cats. Some animals don't really care if you're not paying close attention to what you're doing while you pet them. I've known many cats and dogs that enjoy it if I make the scritchy motion with my hand while they move around to get it where they want.…
I've been seeing a meme floating around that says "the things that helped you survive get in your way when it's time to thrive." There's a lot of truth to that, and not just in terms of emotions.
When it's a physical injury
Here's one way it might look when it's a physical injury. I…
There are lots of things we can do to make the world a better place. We can reduce our consumption of irreplaceable resources, we can develop our capacity to bring compassion to our relationships, we can support people in crisis or need- there’s plenty to be done. And there’s one thing that I think has…
In 2023, I completed an accountability process to address harms I caused to one of my previous partners and to my personal and professional communities between 2014-2017. Thanks to the process, and my work with my accountability pod and my coach, I’ve restored integrity, made amends where possible, and shifted my behavior. If you would…
Note: I wrote this post in April 2019 to explore how my thinking on this topic has changed since writing this one in December 2015.
In the tech world, they often say that it’s important to find a balance between security and usability. If you make your online passwords difficult to crack, they’re also difficult…
There's a piece of advice that sex educators and writers always seem to give folks that I find both accurate and useless. "It's all about communication" is certainly true, and it doesn't do a lot of good.
Part of that is because almost everyone thinks that they're great at communicating, in the same way that most…
If you ask most people what makes someone an amazing lover, they'll probably say that it's about being able to give your partner pleasure. There's certainly a lot of truth in that, but it's only half of the story. The other half is taking pleasure.
Let me explain that that means.
Giving Pleasure
When you give someone…
There's a funny thing that a lot of people do during sex. They focus so much on increasing the level of stimulation that they actually miss out on some of the opportunities to experience incredible pleasure. That's because one of the most effective ways to enhance your sexual experience is to create a rise and…
In several of the communities and events that I participate in, I've seen some ongoing discussions about the differences between a safe space and brave space. While these conversations have been useful to some degree, they often turn into a debate about which one is more important. It seems to me that this creates a…
When I talk with people about sex coaching and how it can help them, it sometimes becomes apparent that they're looking for a transformative, cathartic experience that will change everything about their sex lives. This seems to be especially common when they're asking about somatic sex coaching, but it also happens when they're curious about…
There's a phrase that a lot of people use when talking about their feelings. They'll start their sentences with "I am..." As in:
I'm angry.
I'm sad.
I'm scared.
From a grammar angle, these ways of expressing emotions aren't any different than saying "I'm hungry" or "I'm ready to leave the party." But…
I talk with a lot of people about their sexual desires and the things they want to try. One of the questions that they sometimes ask is "how do I make this sexual fantasy come true?" I find that there's actually more to that than you might think. Most fantasies aren't just about the physical…
There's a question you can ask during sex that can lead to a communication trainwreck, despite your best intentions.
"What do you like?"
On the surface, it seems like a great way to find out what brings a smile to your partner's face and show consideration for their preferences and needs. And in some situations, it works…
One of the biggest relationship challenges that people struggle with is emotional flooding. It's something that happens to everyone sometimes, and if you don't know how to respond to it, it can escalate conflict and create disconnection. Fortunately, many of the steps you can take to resolve it are pretty simple. Not necessarily easy, but…
1 in 3 cisgender women in the US will have an abortion at some point in their lifetime. For such a widely-shared experience, the stigma associated with it keeps most people silent about it. Instead, we get polarized political fights that don't leave much room for individual stories.
That comes from both sides of the arguments.…
Let's start by acknowledging one thing. Talking about emotions can be hard. It takes practice to be able to tune into them, to describe them in ways that other people can understand, to listen to them and figure out what they need, and to hold onto the complexity of multiple simultaneous (and sometimes, contradictory) feelings.…
Have you ever woken up the morning after an amazing night and just felt terrible? Maybe you felt emotionally tender or raw. Maybe it seemed like everything was just a little bit off. Or maybe you were irritable, cranky, or withdrawn. However it showed up for you, there's a chance that you were dealing with…
Here's a question I got in my inbox:
I am a guy in a polyamorous relationship with a woman who is rather more experienced than I am in the poly world, and in terms of threesomes, group sex, etc. We're planning on having a threesome soon, and potentially a foursome with another couple. I know she…
All relationships are going to have friction and conflict. There's no way to avoid that. But one of the ways that relationships get stuck is when we try to avoid the disagreements and conflicts. It happens all the time:
"I don't want to say anything and make my partner angry."
"It's not a big…
The title of this post comes from the book Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS.
One of the tricky skills you need to create satisfying romantic/sexual relationships is being able to balance the need for connection and the need for individuality. Each of them is essential, though every person has…