Redefining masculinity for the HIV/AIDS fight in southern Africa
I can’t speak for all of Southern Africa, but certainly, the area where I’m currently doing HIV/AIDS work is inundated in HIV/AIDS ad campaigns. There are ten million taglines, ten billion posters and stickers and t-shirts and events and commercials and shoutouts on the radio and and and …. Every other billboard is HIV-related. Every khumbi (van in the public transit system) has at least one sticker. Every class in school incorporates AIDS into the curriculum; even kids studying math draw graphs of HIV prevalence. I have never seen anything like this level of media coverage for anything in America, anything at all. I was recently intrigued

Sex+++, Best Sex-Positive Documentary Series Ever, Will Continue!
Although it kills me that I’m not there to see it, I am thrilled to announce that Sex+++ — the Chicago sex-positive documentary film series that I poured my soul into creating — will continue past the last film I chose! My partner in crime, amazing Hull-House liaison Lisa Junkin, is now coordinating a Sex+++ committee that includes activists, sex workers, scholars, and kinksters. This committee will curate Sex+++ for the foreseeable future, and films will now screen on the second Tuesday of each month, 7PM as always, at

Withdrawing consent
While waiting for the firestorm over my three masculinity posts to die down (I’ll post a followup soon, promise), I want to parse out some recent thoughts on — you guessed it — consent! I’ve been dating a guy here in Africa whom I will henceforth refer to as Chastity Boy.* I recently wrote a piece on my southern Africa experience that included descriptions of my relationship with him. I texted him, asking permission to write about him — which he granted — and then the next time I saw him in person, I had him go over the writing and specifically give consent for the piece itself. I warned him that the writing would almost certainly

Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 3: Space for Men
Click here for the previous installment, “Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 2: Men’s Rights”. I’m about to assert something that makes me nervous, because I worry that people are going to stick me in the “asshole MRA” box. Don’t get me wrong: I certainly don’t think that women have it better, overall, than men do. But

Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 2: Men’s Rights
Click here for the first installment, “Questions I Want to Ask Entitled Cis Het Men, Part 1: Who Cares?” In the 2006 documentary “Boy I Am“, a trans man talks about how one of his mental barriers to transitioning was the fact that after transition, he would be a “white male”. And, he laughs, the “last thing in the world” he wanted to be was a white male! A year or two ago, I attended a lec