Lately I’ve been really enjoying me some Emily Nagosky :: Sex Nerd. She’s a Massachusetts college health educator. Which means that, like a lot of other campus health educators and healthcare providers, she gets a lot of… inspiration for blog posts. And since she h got a PhD in Health Behavior with a concentration in human sexuality as well as an MS in counseling psychology and a BA in psychology with minors in philosophy and cognitive science she’s decidedly got the qualifications to call herself a sex nerd.

For instance, in addition to posting amazingly practical advice about the mechanics of (enjoyable) anal penetration if you’re not sure or managing differences in arousal cycles for heterosexuals she also comes up with cool, deep, and seriously informed speculation about sex in the context of a Nobel Prize winner’s distinction between the experience versus the memory. Check this out.

Nobel prize winner and psychologist extraordinaire Daniel Kahmeman talks about the distinction between the experiencing self versus the remembering self in the context of happiness – happy in your life (experience) versus happy about your life (remembering).

Of course I’m a sexuality person so I wonder how this relates to sexuality. Given the importance of self-reported “distress” in the diagnosis of sexual dysfunction (PDF of paper by Cynthia Graham, my clinical supervisor in grad school and one of my heroes), it’s likely that a difference between the experience and the memory would have significance for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of sexual dysfunction (and indeed for the social construction of sexuality).

But I think it also has rather more playful implications. Allow me to speculate wildly for just a moment…

She said it here.

By which I mean no, really, check it out. Even better, rather than let what starts out as speculation turn into conclusions, she ends her post with a call for scientists to go get her some answers.

One fly in the ointment would be the conventional tendency to assume that men and women start out different and try to understand the differences, instead of (my preferred method) assume we start out the same and try to understand the differences. (The latter really isn’t that far from the former but I strongly believe it makes harder to miss the obvious.) But then if both of us agreed about everything one of us would be redundant. :-)

Definitely worth bookmarking.

I’m really looking forward to attending the second Sex 2.0 conference in the Washington, D.C. area early next month. Here’s the press release.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 27, 2009. Now in our second year, Sex 2.0, a one-day unconference, will take place on May 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? Sex 2.0 is an unconference, which means that sessions will be informal conversations organized by people attending the event. Session leaders with some knowledge in a subject area facilitate conversations among the participants.

Sessions will include: “Internet Advocacy for Sexual Freedom” with Ricci Joy Levy of the Woodhull Foundation; “Polyamory in Media’s Spotlight” with Anita Wagner; “Craigslist Red, Craigslist Blue: Why we should dismantle the “internet red light district” with Melissa Gira Grant and Joanne McNeill; “Kick Ass Twitter Apps” with Cunning Minx; “Revenge Porn” with Maria Diaz; and “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn” with Jack Murnighan, Nerve.com editor-at-large. The keynote speaker will be Nikol Hasler, creator of the Midwest Teen Sex Show (http://midwestteensexshow.com). A complete list of sessions may be viewed at: http://sex20con.com/2009-schedule/sessions/

Sex 2.0 will be held in a Washington, D.C. hotel. (To ensure everyone’s privacy, location information will be email once you are registered). It will offer five conference rooms, a lounge (with free WiFi), vendor area as well as space for various sex-positive outreach groups to set up informational displays and tables.

The event is managed by volunteers and funded by sponsors. We are pleased to have SEXTOY.com as our presenting sponsor this year. SEXTOY.com has been focusing on building a relationship within the blogger community with the recent start-up of its sex toy reviewer program. SEXTOY.com is honored to be the official sponsor for Sex 2.0 and looks forward to a mutually rewarding relationship with the blogger Community. Two SEXTOY.com associates will be attending Sex 2.0 this year: Erik Van Riper and Domina Doll; who both look forward to meeting everyone, attending the talks and participating in discussions. Sex 2.0 is also pleased to have community sponsor Bound Not Gagged (www.boundnotgagged.com), hospitality sponsor Kimberleecline.com and technology sponsor PosAlt.com supporting this years conference.

While the event itself is on Saturday, May 9, there are participant-organized meetups, outings, and parties being planned for Friday night and Saturday evening, as well as a Sunday brunch. For more information, visit the Sex 2.0 website at www.sex20con.com or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/sex20con.

Source: Press Release

The workshops all look interesting. Some of the ones I’m particularly looking forward to include “The Evolution and Democratization of Sex Writing,” “Gender & Technology: How technology influences hegemonic sexual awareness and vice versa,” “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn.” And obviously, and especially, “Internet Famous but Conference Shy?”

If you’re going to be there I look forward to either meeting you or seeing you again.

Reminder from (mostly) political Blue Gal

Image from original B.A.D. instigator Skippy the Bush KangarooTuesday, February 3 is Blogroll Amnesty Day. Old timers know that this holiday has a rather sullen history, but now it is a happy occasion: On February 3, bloggers are invited to post links to five blogs you like, that have smaller traffic than your own. It’s a great celebration and a time to discover new blogs and link them and stuff. As I said last year, “not to get all mushy here, but do you know how fucking great it is to be here in the blogosphere? Take a moment. Take it in.” Spread some linky love.

She said it here.

I think it’s another one of those great ideas where it doesn’t matter how large or small you are. Four years ago my blog had maybe ten visits a day… even Google didn’t know about me… but I still managed to find a few then-isolated but still cool that were less visited. If I’d known about Blog Amnesty Day back then I could still have made five new friends. This blog is a little busier now, and I follow, and I’m followed by, a lot more bloggers now but the principle still applies. Barring those with huge Rolodexes or the kind of pre-existing cache that comes when celebrities launch their blogs with the help of with pre-existing publicity agents, we all built our traffic link by link. So again, large, small, or in between, Blogroll Amnesty Day is a great way to pay it forward or pay it back.

Start looking for five smaller blogs (this is a sex and politics blog but B.A.D. isn’t limited to a single genre) that you wish more people knew about and mark your calendars for this year’s Blogroll Amnesty Day: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2009.

(Thanks for the head’s up, Bluegal.)