Excerpt from Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale, by Kate Lister. This is the history of sex work. Stereotypes, stigma and sensationalism have obscured the lived experience of people selling sex throughout much of history.

Watch Liz Goldwyn, writer, filmmaker and founder of The Sex Ed as she hosts a discussion with artist Genevieve Gaignard and curator Essence Harden at the inaugural Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles. Presented by MatchesFashion.com.

How can we celebrate sex in ways that emancipate our desire from feelings of shame? Can pleasure, power and porn be redefined as a means to teach us about sex and connection?

Watch filmmaker and founder of The Sex Ed, Liz Goldwyn, in conversation with award-winning, international indie adult filmmaker, Erika Lust, moderated by journalist and editor Danielle Kwateng-Clark.

The trio address the responsibility of representing female sexuality across creative mediums, while reframing the dialogue around pornography and gender equality.

We are elevating our consciousnesses by connecting to Mother Earth. In this essay, Lei Wann, Director of Limahuli Garden and Preserve on the island of Kauai in Hawaii—one of the five National Tropical Botanical Gardens in the world—helps us honor our connection to the Earth and explore the mythology of nature and sexuality.

When speaking about reproductive issues, it’s unnecessarily exclusive to always say “pregnant women” and never say “pregnant people.” It’s not just women that are affected by these policies.

Abortion is as old as pregnancy itself. The world before safe, legal abortions was a dark and bloody place and has much to teach us about why abortion was legalised in the first place. One of the earliest descriptions of abortion can be found in the ancient Ebers Papyrus (1550 B.C.), which recommends using a plant-fibre tampon coated with a compound of honey and crushed dates to terminate a pregnancy.

The origin of the word “aphrodisiac” comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love, beauty, desire, pleasure, and procreation, whose nectar of choice was said to be sticky, sweet honey. It’s no wonder that we’ve carried these sexy sensibilities to define the treats that spark arousal!

In the fall of 1997, I left a rather sleepy and suburban enclave of an otherwise urban city (Washington, D.C.) for the insomniac’s pace of the ultimate metropolis, New York City.

Throughout history, women have had to be inventive when it came to sanitary products. In ancient Rome, women created makeshift tampons from…

Mythology around menstruation integrates sacred rites spanning centuries and cultures. Egyptian pharaohs were believed to become divine by drinking the blood of Isis, while Celtic kings sought immortality by drinking the “red mead” of Mab, the fairy queen— both of which were thought to be menstrual blood.

As a certified, professional sex coach, I am frequently asked what is “normal sex.” Here is the truth—our sexuality is as unique as our own fingerprints.

Prostate massage began as a practice reserved for royalty thousands of years ago in the Imperial Harem of China—a selection of 20,000 women chosen to help produce heirs and assure the continuation of the Emperor’s dynasty.

This week’s guest is Alice Little—likely the top earning legal sex worker in America, where she isthe #1 luxury companion at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Nevada. Alice holds degrees in psychology, sociology, physiology, and anatomy and is an advocate for legalized sex work and education. Alice and Liz talk about the logistics of legalized sex work, from licenses to law enforcement; the cornucopia of services she offers and clients she sees, and why we need to take down the whorearchy. Liz also asked her for tips on some of the most requested topics from the Sex Ed community!

This week’s podcast features activist and journalist Ashlee Marie Preston. Ashlee is the first openly trans person to run for state office in California, as well as the first trans person to become editor-in-chief of a nationwide publication. Ashlee and Liz talk about how tattoos have been a source of empowerment for her; life as a survival sex worker; abstinence and how transitioning, by its very definition, doesn’t follow a linear path.

This week’s guest is Imani Gandy, lawyer, senior legal analyst for Rewire Dot News and co-host of their Boom! Lawyered podcast. Imani is a self-described recovering attorney who founded and writes the award-winning blog Angry Black Lady Chronicles. Imani and Liz discuss the capitalistic history of abortion laws in the United States going back to the 1850s; the nuances of how our government can and does legislate abortion, and actionable ways we can support others as reproductive justice becomes increasingly restrictive.

This week, our guest is Rabbi Denise Eger, who leads Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood. Rabbi Eger is one of the first lesbian Rabbis to work openly in the United States, and was the first queer President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which is the largest organization of Rabbis in the world. Rabbi Eger gives a blessing before a conversation about sex and spirituality; the myth of Lilith; ordaining California’s first legal lesbian wedding and how she is leading her congregation to evolve past the gender binary.

This week, our guest is Midori, legendary sex educator, author and artist. Midori wrote the classic rope bible, The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage— the first English-language book on shibari. Liz and Midori cover bondage’s roots in warfare, incarceration and slavery as well as why, when tying up a lover for the first time, it’s important to maintain eye contact.

Our guest for this episode is Natasha Lyonne—actress, director, producer, writer and renaissance woman, whose most recent brainchild is the Netflix series Russian Doll. Longtime friends Natasha and Liz talk about the power dynamics of appearing nude on screen; their shared fascination with women like Mae West and Alla Nazimova; sexual appetite; and why the brain is a major turn-on.

We’re kicking off Season 2 of The Sex Ed Podcast fabulously with Violet Chachki, — iconic drag queen, aerialist and burlesque performer. Violet is the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7 and a showgirl who tours the world. On this episode, Violet and Liz discuss Catholic school uniforms, breaking Drag Race taboos, being a fashion icon and so much more.

Paul Fishbein founded AVN Media Network, the adult film industry’s leading trade publication, and the annual AVN Convention and Awards Show in Las Vegas, otherwise known as the “Oscars of Porn.” Now Paul is producer of the Showtime Series “Submission” and “Sex With Sunny Megatron,” amongst others. In this episode Liz and Paul discuss how a college kid with no knowledge of porn ending up founding the industry giant, how he’s transitioned to making Hollywood product and why he considers himself a feminist.

Karina Longworth is the creator of You Must Remember This, a podcast about the secrets and forgotten histories of early Hollywood and the author of the book, Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood. Liz catches up with Karina during her book tour to discuss sex on the silver screen in cinema’s golden age and the long history of Hollywood’s boys club.

What do you imagine when you hear the word celibacy? A monk taking a vow of chastity? Someone denying themselves pleasure? Do you imagine someone saving themselves for marriage or God? Do you think that if you go too long without penetrative sex, you’ll grow cobwebs? Do you consider celibacy the absence of all orgasms - including masturbation? Have you ever gone through a period of self-imposed celibacy? For our season three finale, Liz dives deep into the topic of Celibacy with the help of some friends and guests from this season.

This special episode pays homage to rock’n’roll of the 60s and 70s with legends Bebe Buell and Pamela Des Barres. Pamela and Bebe are icons who have written groundbreaking, NY Times bestselling memoirs about their wild times loving, and leaving, some of the biggest rock stars of our time. This week, Liz talks to Pamela and Bebe about the free-love innocence of days gone by for this special episodeon sex, drugs and rock’n’roll!

Justin Simien is the creator of the incredible film and Netflix series Dear White People, which is now in its third season, and the upcoming film Bad Hair. Liz spoke to this renaissance man about queer black cinema; being the target of alt-right trolls; how he learned to market films before he made one; Buddhism; Carl Jung, Terence Nance and more.

Dr. Kate Lister is a historian and author of A Curious History of Sex, a new book that covers her years of research into the history of sex and sexuality. She is also the brains behind the popular website and twitter account, Whores of Yore. In this week’s episode, Kate and Liz discuss their favorite historical slang; masturbating medieval gargoyles; and how the Victorians used bicycles to get off.

Liz spoke to Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former US Surgeon General about being the Condom Queen of Washington, DC; entering the White House shortly after the Anita Hill trial; growing up in Dust Bowl-era Arkansas; the potential benefits to passing out vibrators in nursing homes; and why she’s optimistic about the future of sex education.

Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. Ina Park, MD, has been pushing boundaries to empower and inform others about sexual health for decades. With Strange Bedfellows, she ventures far beyond the bedroom to examine the hidden role and influence of these widely misunderstood infections and share their untold stories.

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Biographer Charlotte Chandler draws on a series of interviews she conducted with the star just months before her death in 1980, as well as interviews with people who worked or lived with her. Actress, playwright, screenwriter, and iconic sex symbol Mae West created a scandal-and a sensation-on Broadway with her play Sex in 1926. Her screenplays included some notorious one-liners that have become part of Hollywood lore, but behind the clever quips was Mae's deep desire to see women treated equally with men. She fought the double standard of the time that permitted men things that women would be ruined for doing.

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Reproductive Justice is a first-of-its-kind primer that provides a comprehensive yet succinct description of the field. Written by two legendary scholar-activists, Reproductive Justice introduces students to an intersectional analysis of race, class, and gender politics.

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When Trevor MacDonald decided to start a family, he knew that the world was going to have questions for him. As a transgender man in a gay relationship; this memoir is a book about being a breastfeeding parent and a transgender man, and the many beautiful, moving, and difficult ways these two identities collide. “Where’s the Mother?” is a memoir like no other.

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Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues.

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Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood—and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.

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The inspiring true story of transgender actor and activist Nicole Maines, whose identical twin brother, Jonas, and ordinary American family join her on an extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all.

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From the ancient poet Sappho to tombois in contemporary Indonesia, women throughout history and around the globe have desired, loved, and had sex with other women. In beautiful prose, Sapphistries tells their stories, capturing the multitude of ways that diverse societies have shaped female same-sex sexuality across time and place.

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A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. From the widely revered and legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis.

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Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding New York Times bestseller transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

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A is for Activist is an ABC board book written and illustrated for the next generation of progressives: families who want their kids to grow up in a space that is unapologetic about activism, environmental justice, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and everything else that activists believe in and fight for.

Ages: 3-5

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Mind Body Baby: Meditation is a board book that families can use with their youngest for bonding and to find peace and calm in the middle of life’s daily stresses. Aided by simple text and instructive illustrations, babies will learn meditation step-by-step: how to find a comfortable position, close their eyes, and take deep slow breaths. Share a quiet moment of mindfulness with the child in your life!

Ages: 0-4

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From Rob Sanders comes this powerful and timeless true story that will allow young readers to discover the rich and dynamic history of the Stonewall Inn and its role in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement—a movement that continues to this very day.

Ages: 5-8

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In luminous paintings and arresting poems, two of children’s literature’s top African-American scholars track Arturo Schomburg’s quest to correct history. Where is our historian to give us our side? Arturo asked. Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro–Puerto Rican named Arturo Schomburg. This law clerk’s life’s passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent through the ages.

Ages: 9-12

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Almost 10 years before Brown v. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. Mendez, an American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, was denied enrollment to a “whites only” school. Her parents took action by organizing the Latinx community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.

Ages: 6-9

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Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of forty trailblazing Black women in American history. Illuminating text paired with irresistible illustrations bring to life both iconic and lesser-known female figures of Black history such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash.

Ages: 8-11

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50 Real Heroes for Boys teaches young boys everywhere that being a man only requires being yourself―but your best self. Bright, colorful portraits by over a dozen international artists accompany true stories of men who knew that character―things like integrity, kindness, empathy, courage, respect for women, and more―mixed with their own unique gifts―art, athletics, creativity, dance, music, curiosity, and more―could make the world a better place.

Ages: 7-10

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Based on the rich collection of interviews and documentaries from MAKERS, this book introduces pioneering women from all walks of life. Readers will get to know these women's hopes, dreams, challenges, and accomplishments in chapters filled with personal stories, historical information, inspiring quotes, and much more.

Ages: 8-12

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An important book for readers of all ages, this beautifully illustrated and engagingly written volume brings to life true stories of black men in history. Among these biographies, readers will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include writer James Baldwin, artist Aaron Douglas, filmmaker Oscar Devereaux Micheaux, lawman Bass Reeves, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, and musician Prince. The legends in Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History span centuries and continents, but each one has blazed a trail for generations to come.

Ages: 8-12

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Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school. Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding the bus on her way home from school. Now Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Ages: 12+

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Kid Activists tells these childhood stories and more through kid-friendly texts and full-color cartoon illustrations on nearly every page. The diverse and inclusive group encompasses Susan B. Anthony, James Baldwin, Ruby Bridges, Frederick Douglass, Alexander Hamilton, Dolores Huerta, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Iqbal Masih, Harvey Milk, and more.

Ages: 9-12

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It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender—both other people's and your own—the same way again.

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Constance, the young Lady Chatterley, is married to a handsome man. However, his physical limitations lead him to emotionally neglect Constance, and for comfort, she turns to the gamekeeper, Oliver. With explicit descriptions of sex, Lady Chatterly's Lover used language largely unseen in print at that time, which resulted in its banning and the author's censorship.

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In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the nation's leading expert on violent behavior, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger—before it's too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love.

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Rebel Heart is Bebe Buell's no-holds-barred account of her life at the center of the rock scene in the '70s and '80s, when rock stars were royalty. Her relationships with musicians like wunderkind Todd Rundgren, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler—father of her daughter Liv-Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page and Elvis Costello played out against a backdrop of some of the most legendary locales of the era.

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A Curious History of Sex covers topics ranging from twentieth-century testicle thefts to Victorian doctors massaging the pelvises of their female patients, from smutty bread innuendos dating back to AD 79, to the new and controversial sex doll brothels. Podcast guest Kate Lister deftly debunks myths and stereotypes and gives unusual sexual practices a historical framework, as she provides valuable context for issues facing people today.

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As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell–all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.

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In this riveting popular history, season 1 podcast guest probes the inner workings of Hollywood’s glamorous golden age through the stories of some of the dozens of actresses pursued by Howard Hughes, to reveal how the millionaire mogul’s obsessions with sex, power and publicity trapped, abused, or benefitted women who dreamt of screen stardom.

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Victim’s rights attorney Carrie Goldberg shares the diabolical ways her clients are attacked and how she, through her unique combination of advocacy, badass relentlessness, risk-taking, and client-empowerment, pursues justice for them all. With breathtaking honesty, Carrie also shares her own shattering story about why she began her work and the uphill battle of building a business.

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How do Christianity and homosexuality factor within each other? Vines embarks upon a thorough investigation of just this question (along with a host of others it triggers) throughout this catalog and interpretation of the Bibles various references to same-sex coupling. In his quest to let the text do the talking, he leaves no stone (or page) unturned. 

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