Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition 

• “Committed to improving health care access and the quality of health care received by trans and gender non-conforming people through education, resources, and advocacy.”
• Programs they have:
  • Shot Clinics; helping trans folks with their hormone shots 
  • Free HIV/Hepatitis C Testing and Counseling
  • Several Support Groups 
  • Transgender Health Training for healthcare professionals, clinic staff, and students in Minnesota 

Minnesota Transgender Health Alliance

• Resources and support to all members of the transgender communities

OUTFRONT Minnesota

• “Founded in 1987 to fight for LGBTQ justice and equity. Over the past 32 years, we have worked to ensure that our values of liberation and intersectional justice guide our work until full equality under the law and full equity in practice is realized.”
• Some things this group has done:
  • They successfully passed a nondiscrimination law that included sexual orientation and gender identity as protected statuses in 1993
  • They defeated an anti-marriage amendment at the ballot box and passing marriage equality through the legislature in 2013
  • They also passed the Safe and Supportive Schools Act in 2014

Rainbow Health 

• “We are as dedicated as ever to working for equitable health care access and outcomes for people who experience injustice at the intersection of health status and identity. We center individuals and communities at risk of and living with HIV or facing barriers to equitable health care access and outcomes because of their identity as gender, sexual, and/or racial minorities.”
• They offer training and education, therapy/counseling, HIV assistance, syringe exchanges to lower the risk of HIV, and several other programs. 

The Bridge For Youth 

• Mission: The Bridge for Youth centers youth voice, justice, and equity in all we do, and empowers youth experiencing homelessness through safe shelter, basic needs, and healthy relationships.

The Quorum

• An organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+ and LGBT-allied businesses, corporations, nonprofits, and professionals focused on building a strong business community in Minnesota. Quorum champions the business case for a fully inclusive business community as a conduit for economic development and is a leader in the continuum of change. With over 70+ networking, education, and certification events, Quorum builds, connects, and strengthens Minnesota's LGBTQ+ and Allied business community.

PRIDE Institute

• “Pride Institute offers inclusive and accepting recovery programs for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Pride first opened in 1986 and has since gone on to be one of the leading providers in the area of residential and outpatient program treatment for substance use and addiction needs of the LGBTQ+ population.”

Quatrefoil Library 

• “Quatrefoil Library is a community center that cultivates the free exchange of ideas and makes accessible LGBTQ+ materials for education and inspiration.”
• They have many different clubs including: 
  • Fabulous Fridays which is a game/social night at the library
  • Lesbian Fiction book club
  • Queer History book club
  • Transgender book club
• Also host some creative writing classes 

The Trevor Project

• 24/7 Hotline for Support & Crisis (Text START to 678-678 or call 1-866-488-7386)
• Join their online community for support
• Get resources

Athletic Clubs/Organizations: 

• GLASS - Midwest Gay Lesbian Athletic Association; a major player in local gay volleyball 
• Minnesota Gay Flag Football - “seeks to promote the positive social and athletic enjoyment of American Flag Football. Through our league, events, and most importantly our players, we seek to foster and augment the self-respect of all LGBTQ+ persons and to promote respect and understanding from the larger community.”
• Minnesota Ice Swim Club - club swim team for local LGBTQ+ swimmers 
• Minnesota Out Sport Alliance - “A directory of Minnesota sporting organizations striving to promote amateur sports competition, for all persons regardless of age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.”
• Stonewall Kickball & Dodgeball

(The above are just a few! There are so many of these, which all aim to build community.) 

See the full list here!

​Written by Sexual Wellness Institute Therapist, Eric Anfinson, MS LMFT

I see a lot of couples who struggle differences in sexual desire. For the lower desire partner, this usually results in a lot of negative feelings, including shame, and pressure or expectation. On top of these feelings, many higher desire partners are guilty of intentionally communicating negative feelings about the lack of sexual intimacy to their lower desire partner, and increasing the pressure on them. This often leads to a very harmful situation. This can result in the lower desire partner deciding to have sex with their higher desire partner just to get them off their back. While this sex is technically being consented to, it is not sex that the lower desire partner wants to have. This sex is incredibly damaging to the relationship and does nothing but increase disconnection and build resentment for the higher desire partner. I have seen a lot of higher desire partners feel rejected and sad when their partners do not want to have sex with them. They feel worse, however, if they find out that their partner had sex with them even when they didn’t want to.
How can we avoid this negative cycle? Let's take a look at why this happens so often and a couple of ways to handle this situation better.

The first source of our problem is often a lack of understanding from the higher desire partner of their own sexuality. For men that are the higher desire partner there are several compounding problems that make this situation harder. The first is that men are not raised to understand or communicate their emotions. This is problem because sex is an intensely emotional experience between two people. Men are also raised to see sex as some ultimate form of validation. Someone wanting to have sex with you is a direct and powerful communication of being wanted/chosen. If you're already feeling healthy, self-confidence isn't an issue. However, for anyone who isn't wholly secure in themselves and in their relationship, this messaging transforms sex into a powerful validation drug. It has an intense high but fades quickly, leaving the man needing more sex for another hit of validation. All of this is happening unconsciously, and men often struggle to identify what it is sex is communicating to them. This leads to them just expressing that they must "have their needs met." Sexual needs are a very real and healthy thing, but met just as well through masturbation as through sex. Tom Hanks didn't die in "Castaway" because he couldn't get laid. Sexual release is an individual need while sexual intimacy is a relational need. Understanding this difference is our first step to solving this problem.

If we can understand why pressure is being put on sex, then we can make the conversation about something that's actually productive. As I said sexual intimacy is a relational need. As such,  communicating that you're looking for intimacy and connection with your partner allows for multiple routes to success. Sex is a fantastic way to feel intimately connected with your partner. But if one of you isn't in the mood for sex, cuddling and watching a movie together can also meet that need. By opening other ways to meet the need we take the pressure of sex, which actually opens people up to it more. If you're the higher desire partner, communicate the connection need not physical need.

A relationship does not need sex because "it's my birthday" or because "we're on vacation." A relationship needs sexual intimacy in order to consistently communicate love and desire and affection for your partner. If you're needing to feel that sexual intimacy with your partner the ask might sound more like "we haven't had sex in a while and I'm really missing that intense intimacy with you. When can we find time to connect?" or "We haven't had much sex lately, is there something putting the breaks on your desire?" By making the conversation about the relationship we take pressure of the moment and find a path that goes forward.

So, if you are the lower desire partner, address your partner’s need for intimacy. If you are not wanting to have sex on a particular night, you can say something like, "I'm not in the mood tonight, but I'd love to just hold you and watch a movie together. I want to feel connected too." You can also communicate that you do desire intimacy with your partner, just not at that moment. "I'd love to have sex tonight, but I'm completely exhausted from work. It would be fun to have sex tomorrow." Lastly, talk with your partner about what sex means to you and what it communicates to each of you. Talk about the pressures you might feel and how to mitigate them. The less pressure we put on sex the better it gets, and when it's better we tend to want it more.

Remember to address the feelings present for your partner whether you are the higher desire or lower desire partner. Helping them feel validated and heard will help take the pressure off sex (or lack of) being a central issue in your relationship.

In addition to couples therapy & marriage counseling,  our LGBT & polyamory friendly sex therapists provide a wide range of mental health services at our Plymouth, MN counseling office. Other services include sex therapy, EFT, evidence-based couples therapy, EMDR & sexual trauma therapy, as well as, teen therapy. In order to help serve the mental health needs of all those living in Minnesota, we also offer online counseling & sex therapy. We also provide a variety of helpful tips on our mental health blog. Please feel free to reach out with questions, or if you would like to schedule an appointment to begin working with a skilled therapist! Your love life can be amazing.

See the full list here!

Have you seen the new Netflix mini series The Principles of Pleasure? This 4 episode series celebrates female pleasure by sharing lots of history, facts, and science about the female anatomy, pleasure, and sexuality. It also tells you all the ways we are getting screwed (and not in a good way) if we’ve been socialized as women in this patriarchal culture.
From the title of this article you may assume I mean we deserve better in regards to pleasure from our partners. I do believe we deserve better from them, but mostly I mean, we deserve better from ourselves. We deserve to feel and know that pleasure is not just “okay” but something we should welcome experiencing from ourselves and our partners. We deserve to be educated about our body and what gives us pleasure. And we deserve to know this is H E A L T H Y. Seriously! The World Health Organization includes sexual health as a part of a healthy lifestyle. This includes pleasure!

We live in a world that teaches people to say vagina when the whole thing is really the vulva. To call is just the vagina is to reduce it to just the reproductive function. You’re leaving out some really important parts. The vagina is what’s on the inside. The vulva includes the clitoris, labia, and other important parts of our pleasure center.

"If it breaks, like all of our other skin it HEALS - it doesn't break and stay broken. it's not a freshness seal. Yet, the myth is so powerful, not because of what is biologically true about a hymen, but what a culture has made true about the hymen."
Our culture would like you to believe your hymen defines you, that some singular event including a penis penetrating your vagina defines you. Isn’t that so silly when we put it like that? That’s because it is. We should no longer be teaching girls and women and anyone with a hymen that a man or his penis defines them. This is also extremely heteronormative. What about those who never have this experience? If you are looking for some kind of replacement word just for reference when discussing it with your teens or friends, I suggest instead of virginity you call it “sexual debut”.

“Imagine if every time you went out for dinner your date was served this amazing 7 course meal. You were served a pack of saltines from 2012. You would be OUTRAGED. You’d never eat there again. You’d write a scathing yelp review and tell all your friends not to eat there. So why does it feel like we just accept that men are the only ones reliably orgasming?”
This is what we call the Orgasm Gap. Two thirds of women are rarely orgasmic from penetration alone. Women are made to think something is wrong with them if they cannot orgasm from penetration alone, yet it is the more common experience! Knowledge is power. Know that you are normal, and know that adding additional clitoral stimulation during penetration is necessary for most women to have increased pleasure and orgasm. For more information about this, read my previous blog about how women can reach orgasm more reliably. 

The folks on the show explain an important concept: women are taught they must conform with the socially constructed beauty ideal. The further you get from that standard the less permission you have to access pleasure. This gets more and more complicated with marginalized identities.
For those struggling to “feel okay” accessing pleasure, Emily Nagoski has a great exercise to try.
She says – Take off your clothes and get as naked as you can tolerate. Stand in front of mirror and say out loud the things about your body that you appreciate. This can be as simple as – I like my nailbeds! Or I think I kind of have cute toes. Or I appreciate what my strong arms allow me to do like carry around my baby. She says to do this everyday.

I highly recommend you watch this show. This can be done individually- or for extra points watch it with someone else and discuss it. This could be your partner, your friend, your parent, etc. Discuss what came up for you. Practice saying words like vulva or penis or orgasm. This will help desensitize the words and make them easier to use! I would also love for anyone to comment on this blog what part of the show they enjoyed!

The BDSM community requires constant communication with your partner. This extends outside of the regular daily communication that couples should have. Communication about BDSM needs to be explicit and well thought out. Some couples have contracts that they abide by. In these contractions, certain expectations, rules, and activities are laid out for all parties involved. The contracts stipulate people’s comfortability with engaging in particular acts, what they’re willing to do and not do, and their limits. While contracts are more utilized in the BDSM community with folks who aren’t in romantic relationships, they can still be helpful as a blueprint for communication with your partner for what you’re comfortable with.

Communication while participating in BDSM ensures that both party’s needs are met. Sex can be a very challenging topic to discuss. Adding on kink to your sex life adds another layer of complexity, especially when some people don’t know their limits. Being able to explicitly talk about what you are comfortable with makes sure that the sexual activity being engaged in is consensual and fun. There are ways to go about communicating with your partner. Usually, the most effective communication about sex occurs when emotions are well regulated. Starting out the conversation by discussing what you want to talk about is crucial too. For example, if you’re out to dinner for a date night, you don’t want to randomly bring up your rules for BDSM play, unless you’ve establish your partner is comfortable talking about it in that context. Ask you partner when they are okay with talking about kink play and how they would like to approach the conversation. Reading your partner is important too-if you partner is incredibly stressed out about something else in the relationship, don’t force communication about rules during kink play.

So, what exactly do you discuss before indulging in kink play? There are several considerations. Here is a list of helpful starting questions for beginners:
-Who plays what role (IE Dom, Sub, or Switch)
-How they play it (What does it look like to you if you were to be in that role?)
-When they play it (Is this a spontaneous thing, is it planned, is it every time you have sex, etc.)
-Who will be involved (Extra partners, people who watch, etc.)
-What things will be involved (Particular toys, restraints, lingerie,)
-How long do we want things to last (Until orgasm, until safe word, etc.)
-What are our explicit limits (No nipple clamps, no electric wands, no anal play)
-What are our goals (To create emotionally intimacy, to release sexual tension, to spice things up)
-What are our soft limits (things you are willing to explore but still are unsure of)
-What we want individually (to be tied up, to have anal play, vibrators, etc. )
-Birth control methods if wanted
-Clothing worn, if any

Consent is something that is needed in every sexual situation, whether you have been together for 30+ years or 2 weeks. Consent looks different to everyone and can be different at different times, so make sure to talk to your partner PRIOR to any sexual activity about what they’re okay with. Consent doesn’t have to be awkward either. You can use it as an opportunity to navigate challenging and stigmatized conversations which will ultimately increase your bond and intimacy. Consent during sexual activity can be sexy too-think dirty talk.

Consent with kink requires additional components of communication, such as the list mentioned above. In additional to verbal consent, setting up limits with safe words is crucial in the kink community. Safe words are words used that signal to the other person that a hard limit has been met and the activity must stop. They provide a way to let your partner know that you are not okay with what is going on. Safe words must be talked about prior to the sexual activity so your partner is aware of what they are and how to handle them. Some couples are okay with saying a safe word and having the partner stop that specific act, but continue on with other sexual acts without verbal communication or checking in. Other partners use safe words and want the partner to hinder all sexual activity.

Remember that communication is a necessary part of engaging in kink, but it’s also part of the fun! Many couples really enjoy discussing their wants, needs, desires, kinks, fantasies, etc. You can learn so much more about your partner and become connected in a new way. Enjoy!

I hope this has helped you get more information on how to use BDSM, help you consider how to try BDSM or incorporate other erotic play into your sex life! In the meantime, consider talking with a professional about BDSM to get your questions answered. Our sex therapists want to help you address sexual concerns here in Plymouth, or anywhere in the state with online therapy in Minnesota. Get started by following these simple steps:

1. Contact the Sexual Wellness Institute to set up your first appointment.
2. Meet with one of our skilled sex therapists for an intake appointment.
3. Begin building better communication with your partner, overcome sexual concerns and experience new fun and intimacy in your relationship!​

See the full list here!

So many of us are a little bit obsessed with this show. Have you wondered what a couples therapist might think of this season & these couples? There are many fun relational dynamics to dissect from season two - so let’s dive in!

It’s hard not to root for at least some of these couples to make it, right? Sadly, I don’t think any of them have a shot. Well, maybe Jarrette and Iyanna - let’s start with them.

Jarrette is probably going to face a harsh reality, transitioning from a single, free person to a husband. He seems to be used to doing what he wants, when he wants. This could be problematic for them. 
I originally felt like Iyanna was settling a bit for something she maybe didn’t really think was right for her. But then I saw them dance at their wedding. They looked so damn natural and comfortable with each other. They even had similar dance moves! It was beautiful to watch. I’m rooting for them. 

They were a bad match for many reasons, but I’m going to focus on their love languages. Shane needs a cheerleader - someone who is going to root for him and shower him with compliments every day. His love language is definitely Words of Affirmation.
Natalie seems to have grown up in a family where words of affirmation weren’t used that much, and she seemed uncomfortable giving compliments and words of affection. Not having your partner speak your love language consistently often leads to resentment in the relationship. We saw that developing with Shane. He also seemed to struggle to see the other ways she was showing him love that were not through words of affirmation.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Shane seems to have some personality and possibly some substance issues that were contributing to their unhealthy dynamic as well.

These two both seem to have a ton of unresolved trauma and issues from their pasts. That is going to make this relationship nearly impossible to thrive, unless they make an appointment with a couples’ therapist, stat. A couples therapist could help them identify what triggers they have in a relationship and how they may intermingle with their partners’ triggers, and the best way to handle it.
​They also both seem to get very flooded very easily when in conflict and become unable to communicate rationally. They both seem to want a relationship but maybe haven’t thought through if they actually want the things that each other in particular would bring to the table.

Salvador saying “no” on the day of the wedding sort of shocked us all. After all, we saw him serenade her several times and it seemed super romantic, right?
To use a favorite reality show reference - I don’t think he was “here for the right reasons”. My gut tells me the serenades were about jump-starting his music career. Even if he wasn’t ready for marriage he also didn’t show interest in continuing to date Mallory which also makes me question his motivations for being on the show.
As a sex therapist, I also don’t think they had very much sexual chemistry. Honestly, Mallory seemed to have that sexual attraction and passion much more with Jarrette. 
Mallory said early on that she was purposely choosing someone “different” than she normally chooses. I think she was indirectly saying she normally chooses someone who is less emotional and more traditionally masculine. Salvador seemed to be the opposite of that but still didn’t work out for her – but I still think her quest for someone with these qualities is an important one for her!

Okay here’s where I have A LOT to say as a couples therapist. So much happening with this couple.
First - I will agree with pretty much the whole world and say Deepti is amazing and whomever she ends up with is going to feel very lucky to have her.
Shake: I see potential in him, I really do. But he has some work to do with gaining insight about what’s going on subconsciously for him.
Remember how he kept saying he wasn’t physically or sexually attracted to her? In my opinion, there is some deep internalized racism and sexism happening here.
Shake told us all he only dates “white girls”. Based on many of his comments, he seems to over sexualize and dehumanize the women he’s normally attracted to.
Because he didn’t see Deepti first, I think he really humanized her and looked at her differently than how he normally looks at women he dates. He saw her as a whole human and not just some hot girl to have on his arm. BUT because he humanized her, he found himself faced with a subconscious discrepancy. I think the only women he’s ever fully respected have been women in his family. And, of course, he doesn’t want to have sex with his mom, aunt, etc.
Remember when he said he felt like she was his aunt?!? He said that because he didn’t understand that the way he viewed her as a whole human was the same as how he viewed women in his family and NOT how he views the women he typically dates.
So, for Shake I’d love to help him figure out this inner conflict and how to be attracted to someone both physically AND emotionally. He also needs to learn how to lean into vulnerability and not into his shame, which ends up making him a bit narcissistic. But that’s a topic for another day!