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noticing the HIV pandemic, too many people are still refusing to talk about sex openly, or give healthcare to sexual minorities directly affected by HIV. To say nothing of people who are attacked or killed for their sexual minority status, like trans people who are murdered in the street, or lesbians who are raped in order to "fix" their sexuality. Sexual stigma kills. So when someone says something icky about sex and gender, or stereotypes a certain sex or gender identity, it's so great to challenge them -- or at least to question them. ("Really? What makes you think all gay people are abuse survivors?") And some of the most powerful sex activism out there involves starting discussion groups, creating venues for discussion, hosting sexuality speakers or sex-related art, etc. C) Be "out" or open, without being invasive. This can be tricky, because I don't want to encourage people to aggressively talk about sex at totally inappropriate times -- and again, I'm against re-centering. On the other hand, the most powerful tool for destigmatizing sexuality appears to be coming out of the closet -- whether a person is queer, BDSM, or whatever. Openly acknowledging, owning, and discussing your sexual preferences can help others respect those preferences -- and can help others who share those preferences respect themselves. (Can you tell that I cried when I saw the movie Milk?) This post can be found on the Internet at: S&M: [theory] S&M Superpowers I wrote this post in 2011, but I encountered the "superpower" framework for fetishes in 2008, before I started blogging. I was telling one of my first S&M partners about how broken and anxious I felt, and he said: "Why talk about it that way? You haven't lost anything. You've gained a superpower!" ok oe S&M Superpowers I've gotten so bored of the biases and stereotypes against S&M. It's like, "Hey, another person who implies that those of us who do consensual S&M were all abused as children? Sweet! That person is wrong, and I consider those views highly stigmatizing and sometimes damaging. So, can we go for a swim now?" (For the record, the biggest and best-designed study ever done on this topic surveyed HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018487