Welcome back to 12 Days of Girly Juice, my year-end wrap-up series! Today I’m talking about 5 people who’ve influenced and inspired me massively this year in the arenas of sex, kink, and love…
Nadine Thornhill
There is a sex education crisis happening here in Ontario. As I detailed in a column for Herizons this year, our Premier, Doug Ford, has rolled back our schools’ sex ed curriculum to the one from 1998 – so naturally, it leaves out key information about consent, LGBTQ identities, and the modern sexual risks we face in the age of revenge porn and Snapchat. To say the least, Ontarians who care about sexual freedom are not happy with this development. There’s even a court appeal in the works.
Toronto-based sex educator Nadine Thornhill took things into her own hands in an even more direct way: she started a YouTube series called #SaveSexEd, in which she teaches every module of the scrapped 2015 curriculum, one by one. She’s creating a resource for kids and parents alike, which covers anatomy, consent, healthy relationships, sexual orientation, gender, and much more. She is the hero we need right now and I’m honestly amazed by her.
Sinclair Sexsmith
I’ve loved Sinclair’s writing for years, but this was the year when their work had the biggest effect on my actual life, so I knew I needed to put them on this list. I still keenly remember the day when, about a month into my relationship with my Sir, he texted me that he’d been reading a bunch of Sinclair Sexsmith articles – and I knew that our D/s dynamic was about to get an upgrade as a result.
Sinclair has written in detail about protocol – an aspect of my relationship that gives me great joy now but that I wouldn’t have even known I’d like if not for Sinclair’s writing on the subject. They’ve also written a lot about topping, dominance, and daddy identity – all of which has helped me better understand my partners’ headspace so I can be more empathetic and a better submissive. Their writing is often beautiful, or instructive, or both at once, and I find it inspiring as both a kinky person and a writer. If you haven’t explored their work, you owe it to yourself to check it out!
Eva
Eva is the brilliant mind behind the What’s My Body Doing? sex ed series on YouTube, where she takes a compassionate and research-backed approach to explaining concepts like sexual desire, threesomes, and Tinder. She’s also currently a Masters student, doing research on women’s sexting habits. Fascinating stuff!
When I was younger, I used to be intimidated by people like Eva – people who are close to me in age but have achieved so much already and are dazzlingly smart. But these days I’m more often able to be lifted up by their successes. Eva is so full of fascinating ideas and is so much fun to talk to (not to mention, she has the cutest laugh in the entire world) so every time we chat, I feel inspired and propelled forward anew in my own work in the sex field. What a lovely, clever person!
Dirty Lola
Lola does so much wonderful stuff in the world of sex and kink. Most notably, she founded Sex Ed A Go Go, an event which combines education and entertainment into an exciting night out that’ll leave you better informed about sex and kink. She also does a lot of storytelling, speaking, and tweeting about sex, polyamory, race, kink, and being a “picky slut.” I was lucky enough to share a stage with her this year at both the Playground Conference and the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit, where we spoke on a panel together (along with Bex and Kevin) about personal storytelling as activism.
Something I admire about Lola is her dedication to what she calls “edutainment”: that balanced blend between imparting important facts and entertaining the viewer in the process. I think it’s a remarkably smart approach to teaching people about sex, a subject many folks want to learn about but are scared of or intimidated by. Lola extends this approach even into her personal life, writing tweets or telling stories about times she’s been sad or angry or hurt, in order to illustrate points everyone can learn from and feel comforted by. She is a powerhouse and I’m honored to know her.
Mark Wiseman
Mark entered my life through a series of happy coincidences this year. I started dating a hypnokinkster, who urged me to read Mind Play, the best existing primer on erotic hypnosis. Later, I told my friend Dick I wanted to interview a hypnokink expert on the radio, and he immediately called up the hypno expert who’d recently guested on his show to see if he’d do it. It was only then that I put the pieces together and realized that this affable hypnosis nerd was the author of Mind Play!
Mark’s book is still the first thing I recommend any curious hypnokinksters read on the subject, because it lays out everything you need to know in order to start hypnotizing people for sexy purposes in a conscientious and ethical way. He’s done a lot to make an oft-stigmatized kink more comprehensible and clear for those who want to explore it, and that’s worth celebrating.
Who were your major heroes in the world of sex/kink/love this year?