A Helping Hand: The Benefits of Sharing Porn and Erotica with Your Partner(s)

Despite the stigma surrounding erotica and porn, they can be healthy, helpful tools both for solo and partnered sexual enjoyment. There are a multitude of benefits to watching porn in tandem, like facilitating communication about sex and sexual preferences, stimulating responsive desire, and inspiring you to try new things in the bedroom. That being said, let’s break those down to understand why that’s the case:

1) Improving communication

There are several ways that consuming erotica and porn together with your partner(s) can improve communication. One, if there’s something you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t been able to ask for directly yet, consider finding erotica or porn representing that desire and, with consent, share it with your partner. Erotica and porn are not by any means accurate enough to serve as true tutorials, but they can certainly offer inspiration! Two, opening up a vulnerable conversation such as consuming porn together necessitates communication about boundaries: what you want to consume together, why, how, and when. Finally, keep in mind that when you do communicate about it, similar to any sort of sexual desire you share with your partner(s), it should be a question with the opportunity for the response to be no.

2) Igniting responsive desire

Responsive desire “means someone often needs to experience physical arousal before experiencing mental desire, [as opposed to] spontaneous desire [which] means someone often feels mental desire before physical arousal.” Many people are busy and overwhelmed with responsibilities that regardless of a person’s desire for sex in the abstract, they might not actually experience that desire without some sort of stimulation. That’s where porn and erotica come in! Especially for relationships where there’s a mismatch in partners having spontaneous versus responsive desire styles, using porn and erotica as a “jumpstart” can change the game.

3) Inspiring experimentation

Though as stated previously, porn and erotica should not be used as tutorials, they can certainly introduce you to new moves and techniques that you may have been unaware of. From there, you can explore how to execute that move based on more reputable sources.

Sharing porn and erotica isn’t for everyone but it can certainly offer a new sexual outlet in a relationship and provide all the benefits discussed in this article. Here are Embrace Sexual Wellness’s suggestions forSharing porn and erotica isn’t for everyone but it can certainly offer a new sexual outlet in a relationship and provide all the benefits discussed in this article. Here are Embrace Sexual Wellness’s suggestions for fantasy and erotica.

4 Tips for Introducing A New Name and Pronouns, from a Sexuality Educator

For some transgender and non-binary people, part of the coming out process includes letting your community know about a new name and/or pronouns. This can be a stressful proposition even for those in the most accepting environments so hopefully this guide will help you feel a bit more confident in your disclosure.

1) Assess whether it is safe to come out

• In a perfect world, everyone would be able to be called whatever makes them feel the most comfortable without alienation or abuse from those around them, but unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. Before deciding to come out, it would be wise to assess whether or not that’s a safe decision for you right now. It is painful to stay closeted, but being out is not worth trading your safety and mental wellbeing. If you aren’t sure whether or not it’s safe, perhaps try bringing up transgender people and pronouns in the abstract to gauge a reaction. 

• When dealing specifically with the workplace, despite the fact that in June 2020 the Supreme Court decided that “federal law prohibits anti-transgender discrimination in employment,” it’s important to keep in mind that that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be safe, especially when it comes to workplace harassment from coworkers. Illegal doesn’t mean impossible, unfortunately, and it’s important to keep your wellbeing in mind, not just your physical safety.

2) Practice with a trusted friend 

• If you’re fortunate to have someone you already know is accepting of transgender people in your life, try using them as a practice partner! An added bonus is practice with someone who knows the people you plan to come out to so they can give advice specific to those circumstances.

3) Express yourself clearly and simply

• There is still a deficit of understanding when it comes to using new names and pronouns so it would be wise to keep it as simple as possible. A sample script of what you might say is: “I identify as (gender) and as a result, I no longer feel that my name and/or pronouns suit me, so I’m now going by (name/pronouns. I understand it might be a difficult transition for you to call me this, but I would appreciate if you would try. If you still have questions, I’d be happy to share some resources with you.”  

4) Be ready to provide resources for further understanding

• Though the burden should not be on you to do so, you might have an easier time both with anxiety and the conversation itself if you feel prepared with research and additional reading for them to understand what you’re conveying to them.

  • Recommended Resources to share :

    1. Why We Ask Each Other Our Pronouns - Human Rights Campaign

    2. A Guide to Understanding Gender Identity and Pronouns

    3. Making a name for yourself: For trans people, it's 'life-changing'

    4. What Is Deadnaming and Why Is It Harmful?

    5. What are Gender Pronouns? Why Do They Matter?

    6. On The Importance Of Names

If you’re struggling to figure out whether or not coming out with a new name and/or pronouns is a good idea, or how to go about it, you might consider talking to a sex therapist like the ones at Embrace Sexual Wellness. This might be a challenge, but you don’t have to do it alone.