With so much of my life this year taking place indoors, I relied even more on my favorite media-makers to keep me entertained, informed, and uplifted. All 5 of my picks for this year’s sex-savvy superheroes list are people whose media creations I adore, but they’re also just wonderful, smart people. I hope you check out their work and that you enjoy it as much as I do!
Rachel Rabbit White is mostly known as a poet these days, and while her poetry is indeed transcendent, I first encountered her work about a decade ago, when she was one of the only people I’d ever heard of who was successfully making a living as a sex journalist. I actually interviewed her in 2012 for a first-year journalism school assignment where we were tasked with asking for advice from a journalist we admired; she was gracious and kind. Her debut book of poetry, Porn Carnival, felt like a useful reminder this year to lean into hedonism, glamour, and messy joy, even in times of great global strife.
Tuck Woodstock is the host and creator of the Gender Reveal podcast, one of the best sources of high-level gender discourse on the internet (IMO). They’re also a journalist who has covered anti-police protests in Portland, among other topics. One of the things I admire most about him is his commitment to mutual aid: over $150,000 has been redistributed to trans and nonbinary folks in need, due to Tuck’s work and advocacy, and the generosity of the community they have created. There is always more to learn about gender, regardless of how you identify in that area, and I’m so grateful for Tuck’s work and all that it has taught me.
Princess Kelley May is a spanking fetishist and professional disciplinarian. This year I absolutely fell in love with her YouTube channel, Spanking University, which is full of indispensable advice, not only for spankophiles but really for sadomasochists of all stripes. Her advice is more thoughtful, thorough, and experience-backed than most I’ve seen; I love, for example, her thoughts on accounting for differences in body size and ability level in her video on the over-the-knee position, and her detailed explanation of how to play safely without a safeword. Her education is life-changing and I wish I could show these videos to every spanking newbie!
Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performer, and former therapist who writes my favorite advice column on the internet, and I was so grateful for all of her words this year. She writes with such kindness on topics like sex, gender, dating, mental health, addiction, and abuse. She also studies conflict resolution techniques and has (bravely) publicly opposed the widespread harassment campaigns that often result when the left turns against itself in cancel-culture spectacles of misguided, performative rage. She’s one of the most courageous and compassionate writers I know of.
Dixie De La Tour is the host and creator of Bawdy Storytelling, a sex-themed storytelling event that I was lucky enough to perform in this year (you can listen to my story on the Bawdy podcast). Prior to speaking at Bawdy, I had no idea the extent to which Dixie makes herself available to storytellers for help shaping and sharpening each story to make it gleam. She transformed mine from a quirky little anecdote to a fully-fledged emotional tale with a beginning, middle, and end. She’s also just incredibly charismatic and a joy to watch on stage (or on Zoom, as the case may be) – she has a way of making the audience much more comfortable with explicit subject matter, even taboo stuff, with her easy charm and matter-of-fact approach to all things sexy. Definitely check out the Bawdy podcast if you need more sexy stories in your life!
Who were your sex-positive heroes this year?