This week's Sexuality Superhero is Casey Carter. Casey is a fetish lifestyle expert, domme and erotic writer. Whether it's in a classroom, in a sex club, or at an erotic reading, Casey aims to spread her awareness and understanding about sex and relationships to all audiences. Read her feature below!

How did you find yourself working in sexuality?

I was on the verge of separating and getting divorced when I found myself meeting me/Casey for the first time. While she has always been there, I kept her at a distance. Once I embraced and released her, I started expressing myself through erotic writings. On rides to NYC from Stamford, CT, I fell in love with the idea of short stories - something that can be finished in the 50 -60 minute ride into the city or in the roundtrip. After a couple of years of developing characters and releasing my first set of stories, I started Casey@Night on Periscope. It was how I could promote not just my stories, but the stories of other writers....

I was recently interviewed on the topic of how social distancing will affect your sex drive and I’m happy to share my thoughts below.

1. How will staying home affect our sex drives?

This is a time of stress, uncertainty and transition and our responses to distress will vary greatly from person to person and from day to day. If you find that sex helps you to self-soothe, you might find that your sex drive is working overtime and you can’t get enough. If, on the other hand, sex is a source of stress or you’re experiencing tension in the relationship, you may have no interest in sex whatsoever.

All responses are perfectly valid.

This may not be a time to perform or achieve. Many of us are so emotionally drained that we’re just struggling to get by, so don’t feel pressure to have the hottest sex of your life. Instead, focus on your own well-being and look for ways to maintain connections aside from sex (e.g. physical affection, thoughtful conversations,...

The current situation is stressful for everyone and it’s normal to be worried and anxious. I like this 5-4-3-2-1 grounding approach by The Real Depression Project and I share a few more strategies to manage anxiety below:

1. Accept that some anxiety is normal right now and can be functional in that it motivates us to take the appropriate steps to protect ourselves and others.

2. Be realistic about your risk and consume information from credible sources as opposed to FB friends who have been “googling for hours”.

3. Take a break from the news and data. Pick a few times daily to check in, but consider avoiding the video updates that seem to pop up every hour (unless there is an urgent reason why you need hourly updates).

4. In addition to scheduling your news updates, consider taking a daily digital detox to unplug completely.

5. Consider soothing the physical signs of anxiety first. You can’t immediately *think* anxiety away, but a few deep breaths...

Make “The Talk" an ongoing conversation.

Though you probably have more on your plate than usual right now, there are still opportunities to talk about healthy relationships with your kids — especially if you're streaming shows or movies. Turning to pop culture is one of the best ways to start conversations about difficult topics, as it's de-personalized; you can talk about storylines, jokes, language, relationships, specific on-screen interactions & character behaviour without making it about you or your kid.

If a topic or scene arises that makes you uncomfortable, it’s probably a sign that it’s worth talking about. Obviously the way you speak to a 15 year old will be different than how you address it with a 5 year old, but don’t gloss over & hope for the best. Even a five year old can observe that language is hurtful or that an interaction makes them feel bad. When we model and give them permission to talk about how they feel and what they like...

Meet this week's Sexuality Superhero, Olive Von Topp. Olive is a burlesque dancer, sexual educator and empowerment coach. Olive gives her clients the tools to strengthen their loving relationships, so they can move forward in their lives. She also uses her empowerment coaching values about self-confidence and 'owning your body', and executes them during her burlesque performances. Get to know Olive a little more by reading her feature below.

How did you find yourself working in sexuality?

Great question. It hasn’t exactly been a straight-line to get here. Like many people featured on this blog, I have always been fascinated by all things sexual. I had two older brothers and my mother always encouraged us to ask questions about sex if we had them, so I think I was exposed to some mature topics at an early age. I was always the one my friends came to with their questions about sex.

I even wanted to be a sex therapist (and still may go back to school for it at some...

This week's Sexuality Superhero is CoCo La Crème. Lorraine Hewitt is a sex educator, burlesque performer, foodie and a master of sewing! You can check out her workshops at Good for Her, and learn more by reading her feature below.

How did you find yourself working in sexuality?

Growing up, I received the standard public school sex education curriculum. It explained the mechanics of sex, but didn’t really speak to sexual enjoyment or sexual communication. Because of that, I was missing a lot of information about the things that make sex great. My lack of knowledge became more and more obvious to me, as I became sexually active. I felt uncomfortable and unsexy, because I didn’t have the slightest idea about how to talk about pleasure.

The desire for a better sex life is really what propelled me into the field. I worked around the corner from one of Toronto’s first progressive sex shops, and I started going there all the time to ask questions and check out...

I have a question based on a woman who doesn’t know if she is having an orgasm or not. She says she’s enjoying herself and claims that I’m “making her feel more than any other lover has ever made her feel before”, but she doesn’t know if she had an orgasm. So how can I really tell if she had an orgasm?

This is a great question!

Many women struggle to discern whether or not they’ve actually had orgasm because the experience is highly varied. In some of my workshops, I ask women to describe an orgasm in one word and their responses range from earth-shattering and f*&king intense to nice and relieving. Some orgasms provide ecstatic bliss and others simply lull you into a deep relaxation.

Thanks to the theatrical performances in mainstream porn, many of us think that an orgasm should be so mind-blowingly powerful that we don’t even realize that we’re jumping up and down like chimpanzees and...

Meet our next Sexuality Superhero, Lola Jean. Lola is a sex educator and podcaster, pro domme, wrestler and coach! She has learned so much from this industry and she's sharing her knowledge with the world! Read her feature below and learn more.

How did you find yourself working in sexuality?

I didn’t make an intentional decision to disappoint my parents every day, but man am I lucky I did. I was in between jobs during another phase of my own sexual exploration when I was in search of “a job I didn’t hate.” I began working with Kenneth Play in a more supportive role and didn’t have any intention of becoming an educator and events facilitator myself. However, when I saw the way people reacted to what I had to say, when I realized how my voice and stance felt underrepresented, and most of all how I knew much more than I thought I did. I like to challenge not only traditional ways of thinking and behaving, but the radical ones too. I feel...

Say hello to our first Sexuality Superhero of 2020! Meet Fatima Mechtab. Fatima is the Marketing Director and Event Producer for Oasis Aqualounge, but beyond that she does so much more the sex-positive community. Read Fatima's feature below and get to know her a little better...

How did you find yourself working in sexuality?

From early on, I knew I was not going to be on a traditional career path and for most of my life, Sexuality was always something that I was very open and curious about. I came out as gay/bi, when I was a teenager and my personal politics were influenced through my University education in Women’s Studies, LGBTQ+ issues and Political Science.

I discovered my true passion through Event Management & Digital Marketing but struggled a bit on where I could apply those skills, knowing that a corporate environment was not the right fit for me. I tried more conventional routes with brief stints in trade show work, customer service roles, etc. but...

I was recently asked to share my thoughts on what it means to be sex-positive and I’ve shared an excerpt of the interview below. Feel free to chime in below in the comments, because this is just the tip of the iceberg and I appreciate your experiences and insights.

1) What is sex-positivity?

Sex positivity involves an attitude and approach to sex that minimizes moral judgments and honours personal agency and preferences. 

There are certainly differing definitions of sex-positivity. For example, some people claim to be sex positive, but their definition of moral sex is narrow — they may not have sex workers and trans rights. This is not sex positivity — it’s selective sexual freedom. 

My understanding of sex positivity includes respect, support and celebration of everything from abstinence to consensual non-monogamy and everything on the edges and in between. There are of course intersectional issues to consider when it comes to sexual agency —...