Pandemic Dreams It is two years from now. I am in California for my youngest daughter’s college graduation. In a large auditorium, crowds of people sit or stand cheek by jowl. Everyone talks a mile a minute, happy to be out after two years in quarantine. They dressed up for the occasion but have totally lost their fashion sense. Horrid pastels are everywhere; even the men’s suits are powder blue or mauve. Everyone looks pasty
Learning and Sex Until Rigor Mortis The Life of Maggie Kuhn We sit at home in the pandemic with the one job of keeping our breath separate from the breaths of strangers. This gives us time to make friends with the books on our shelves that had been passing acquaintances. Intrigued by a few famous quotes from Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, I ordered her autobiography some time ago. It joined the ranks
Scaring Our Pants Off – Stress and Sex in the Time of Pandemic This is not the blog I planned for today. I was planning to publish an interview with Melanie Davis, the author of an excellent new sexual education program for older adults. I look forward to running Melanie’s interview when the time is right. In the interview, Melanie explains that one of the main benefits of that program compared with reading a book
Now You See Her – Now You Don’t It was not the threat of cancer that made me stop dyeing my hair. Sure, I saw those studies, but no, it was nothing that sensible. I would read articles by women proudly going gray and think, You go for it, ladies — not my thing. I was into that conspicuously false display of reproductive fitness we create when we dye our gray hair blonde (see my
The Spectrum of Sex By one of those odd life quirks that happen now and then Professor Nieto was (in real life) one of my key influencers, teachers, mentors and guides during my studies for my MS in Cell and Molecular Biology a mere thirty years ago. I’m delighted our paths have crossed again! My conversation with Dr. Nieto is below. Hida Viloria, a leading intersex activist, and Maria Nieto, a scholar in the biological
Sexuality Down the Decades The 1940s: Good Little Girls Don’t . . . One of my earliest memories is sitting on the floor in a doorway; I am three or four. It must have been a typically hot and humid Florida day, and it was before air conditioning. I am wearing only panties. My hand must have slipped inside them. Perhaps it felt good. An adult hand swooped down, and pulled my hand out from
