The hottest Sexuality Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Culture Topics

The Pain and the Glory of Nonmonogamy

Knowingless • 5186 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Nonmonogamy can be deeply fulfilling and build intense trust, because it lets you be chosen freely and learn more about who your partners really are.
  2. It is emotionally hard and culturally unsupported, often triggering strong jealousy or a "scary attention-hijack," but those reactions tend to calm with experience and honest processing.
  3. Making it work requires radical honesty, clear communication, and dating people who are truly committed to nonmonogamy rather than those who might slide back into monogamy.

Stop Trying to Make Heterosexuals into Lesbians

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 5291 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Heterosexual attraction often depends on complementarity: men typically prioritize youth and physical attractiveness while women more often prioritize status, resources, or power.
  2. Pushing heterosexuals to adopt a lesbian-style model of romance that minimizes power differences and emphasizes compatibility only — and stigmatizing age gaps, workplace dating, or transactional aspects — can reduce pairing and harm family formation.
  3. We should be realistic and nonjudgmental about different adult relationship types, acknowledge how dating apps and changing social norms reshape mating markets, and avoid selectively condemning common transactional dynamics.

Lindy West Is Wrong: Open Marriages Never Work

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1715 implied HN points • 10 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Open polyamorous arrangements often fail to meet people’s emotional needs, and claims of happiness in them can mask real discomfort.
  2. Some people accept being infantilized or replaced in relationships, revealing complicated power dynamics and attachment issues.
  3. People will insist their relationship choices are authentic and not the result of pressure or ‘brainwashing,’ even when their words and actions suggest a contradiction.

The biggest kink dataset is now easy to explore!

Knowingless • 1836 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. An interactive site lets you explore a massive fetish survey of about 960,000 people and ~900 questions by picking x/y axes, filtering by demographics, and choosing weighted or unweighted views.
  2. The site includes a search, a question generator, tools to show random or statistically significant correlations, and a summary that displays exact survey wording, with some chart types still being improved.
  3. Early explorations already surface notable patterns—age-linked trends, apparent gender confounds in reported partner counts, low neuroticism predicting enjoyment of sex work, and subs reporting more interest in violent porn—so it can help people find new, testable correlations.

I Miss When Homoeroticism Was Erotic

Freddie deBoer • 20668 implied HN points • 24 Nov 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Gayness has been turned into a marketable, sexless identity sign that values spectacle and safe signaling more than actual desire.
  2. Contemporary queer culture is polarized between sanitized, inoffensive portrayals and mechanical promiscuity, and both extremes erase real intimacy and erotic joy.
  3. Eroticism depends on uncertainty and risk, so when hookups, publicity, or social norms remove chance and possible rejection, they drain sex of what makes it truly erotic.
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Here's my Big Kink Survey dataset, raw

Knowingless • 1364 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. A very large fetish-survey dataset (about 970,000 responses) has been released along with metadata and survey structure so others can explore and analyze it.
  2. The public release was heavily anonymized and downsampled into a representative subset: many demographic fields were binned or removed and multiple layers of noise were added, so correlations remain but are generally reduced by roughly 15–30%.
  3. The sample is limited to ages 14–32 from Western countries, some extreme fetish items were removed, and there may still be occasional cleaning errors, so verify any surprising findings before drawing strong conclusions.

The Rise of Masturbation, the Decline of Sex

Richard Hanania's Newsletter • 4730 implied HN points • 05 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. People increasingly accept masturbation and online sex while real-life sexual relationships—especially those with age or power differences—are more stigmatized and policed.
  2. A rising culture of safetyism and vague labels like grooming or trafficking pushes people away from in-person intimacy toward digital outlets, and this shift helps explain falling rates of dating, sex, and childbearing.
  3. Paid sex can give men real-world social and sexual experience that masturbation cannot, yet sex workers are often criminalized or presumed victims, a contradiction that likely worsens social and demographic problems.

The Mediated Murderer

Default Wisdom • 188 implied HN points • 08 Mar 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Online mediation is reshaping intimacy and identity, producing experiences where people can feel arousal or connection while being disconnected from physical sexual participation.
  2. A new pattern of harm is emerging in which someone uses sustained, platform-based communication to build coercive psychological control and push a specific person toward self-destruction without ever meeting them in person.
  3. Existing criminal labels don’t capture this phenomenon, so we need a mechanism-focused category — a "mediated murderer" — for targeted, interactive, platform-dependent coercion that culminates in death without physical co-presence.

Sex Work, Looksmaxers, Mansplaining

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 1250 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. People often glorify sex work while still preferring safer, ordinary jobs for their own daughters, which reveals a social hypocrisy about what kinds of labor are truly valued.
  2. Readwise is recommended as a reading tool that pulls together highlights from many sources and sends daily excerpts, making it easier to revisit and search your past reading.
  3. Three notable social findings: big cash incentives for parenthood (e.g., South Korea) have largely failed, majorities across parties support voter ID, and women react more negatively to interruptions or patronizing explanations when those come from men and are likelier to see them as gender bias.

Sex Workers Are Built Different (graph dump)

Knowingless • 1053 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. People who do sex work generally rate their experience as slightly positive, and those with more experience or who do it as a career report much more positive views.
  2. Satisfaction varies by sex work subtype: porn performers reported the highest ratings, full-service workers the lowest, and non-full-service in-person roles (like dominatrix or massage parlor work) fall in between.
  3. Sex workers differ from non-sex-workers on demographics and background — they tend to be more liberal and slightly older, report higher rates of childhood abuse, and show some health differences (like higher BMI) that are concentrated among those with worse childhoods.

Why the Term 'Porn Star' Should Go

The Take (by Jon Miltimore) • 218 implied HN points • 12 Oct 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. The term 'porn star' is misleading because most performers aren't actually stars, just regular actors in adult films.
  2. Using euphemisms like 'porn star' can distort the truth and make serious topics less clear, which isn't helpful.
  3. The glamorization of pornography through phrases like 'porn star' raises questions about how we view and talk about these actors in society.

Desire Digest 004

Many Such Cases • 519 implied HN points • 05 Sep 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many young women are feeling let down by casual sex, with issues like non-consensual choking becoming more common. There seems to be a gap between what some women want and what men think they want.
  2. There's a noticeable trend of Gen Z pushing back against intimate scenes in films. This could be reflecting their real-life attitudes towards relationships and intimacy.
  3. The author is aiming to create a more interactive newsletter experience, involving live discussions and advice columns, making it a more engaging space for readers.

There Are No Satantic Elites and the Scramble to Redefine "Woke"

Default Wisdom • 403 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Calling elites "Satanic" is a mistake — their ties to things like Kabbalah or Freemasonry aren’t the same as modern Satanism, and the more dangerous Satanic-adjacent networks today are lower-profile online groups, not secret elite cabals.
  2. The rush to rename or declare a new phase of "woke" is mostly a branding contest driven by incentives to be first, and fast, screen-based reporting often produces shaky theories rather than clear evidence of a coherent new movement.
  3. Looksmaxxing grew out of gay culture’s individualized sexual market and now spreads widely, encouraging endless self-optimization, risky DIY cosmetic procedures, and racialized pressures that can cause real harm to people who can’t access professional care.

Desire Digest 002

Many Such Cases • 1558 implied HN points • 30 Jul 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Being off your phone can help you feel more present and connected to your body. It’s nice to experience life without the distractions of technology.
  2. Sex wellness retreats are becoming popular, showing a desire to reconnect with ourselves and our pleasure. Some people are willing to spend a lot of money to explore this side of their lives.
  3. There's confusion around the political messages tied to sexuality. It seems people can be both sexually liberated and assume certain political beliefs without clear connections.

Death by Situationship

Many Such Cases • 8892 implied HN points • 21 Mar 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Situationships are confusing romantic bonds that lack clear definitions, leaving people feeling stuck and unfulfilled. Many young people find themselves in these types of relationships instead of committed ones.
  2. Surveys show that situationships often lead to heartache, especially among younger generations. Many people end up feeling emotionally drained and hurt since these relationships usually don't meet their needs.
  3. The rise of digital communication has impacted how we form connections, making it easier to avoid real intimacy. Overall, situationships seem to reflect a broader struggle with genuine relationships and emotional honesty.

Desire Digest 001

Many Such Cases • 1698 implied HN points • 27 Jun 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. The term 'hawk tuah' became popular online from a viral clip where a woman casually talks about her sexual desires. It shows a fun, carefree attitude towards sexuality, even if it gets commercialized later.
  2. Beauty products are increasingly marketed to signal desire rather than encourage real experiences of intimacy. For example, lip colors are now designed to evoke a feeling of sexiness but might not reflect actual sexual interactions.
  3. Feeld's new feature lets users connect with multiple partners, which aims to embrace non-traditional relationships. However, it raises questions about whether we need more labels when exploring unconventional dynamics.

How Not to Be an Incel or a Psychopath

Bet On It • 311 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Dating culture has moved toward casual, short-term arrangements like "situationships" and "nanoships," leaving a lot of people frustrated and unclear about what partners really want.
  2. Many men feel stuck between being honest (and staying celibate), lying to get sex (and feeling guilty), or committing to someone they don’t genuinely like just to have a sex life.
  3. Both men and women commonly misrepresent themselves — about age, looks, or future intentions — and those mutual deceptions breed distrust, resentment, and unhappy long-term outcomes.

The Science of Hooking Up and Settling Down

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 213 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many young heterosexuals are dating less and often get stuck in endless app messaging, awkward first dates, and little romantic progress.
  2. Pessimistic cultural narratives and toxic online subcultures have deepened despair among some men and made dating feel more fraught.
  3. People blame everything from the sexual revolution to economics and dating apps, but the conversation frequently relies on an oversimplified pop version of evolutionary psychology that mischaracterizes attraction.

The Sexbot Revolution Is Already Here

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 213 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. AI-powered sex robots are becoming more realistic and widely available, offering a physical, interactive alternative to human partners.
  2. Many people—especially some men—are turning to tech substitutes like sex robots, social media, and paid online content instead of messy human relationships, and this shift is linked to people having less sex overall.
  3. If intimacy no longer requires another human, it could lead to fewer real relationships, the potential replacement of women in intimate roles, and broad social and ethical consequences we aren’t prepared for.

The Other Sexual Orientation

Knowingless • 6185 implied HN points • 19 Jun 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Not everyone experiences sexual attraction the same way. Some people, like those with BDSM preferences, have unique orientations that can define their sexuality just like being straight or gay.
  2. Sexual interests are diverse and can range from common to taboo. What excites someone may not be the same for another person, highlighting that sexual preferences are deeply personal and varied.
  3. There are different mindsets around sexual preferences, with some people being open about their kinks while others may feel judged or confused. Understanding this diversity can help people accept and communicate their desires better.

Monogamous Humans, Erectile Dysfunction, Growth Minds

Rob Henderson's Newsletter • 965 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Affirmative action often ends up benefiting already financially well-off members of the target groups, and affluent white women appear to be a large share of those beneficiaries.
  2. Erectile dysfunction among young men has risen sharply, with many heavy pornography users needing extreme content to get or maintain an erection while real-life sex feels dull.
  3. People across the political spectrum can believe similar conspiracy theories, such as hidden harms from GMOs, secret groups spreading disease, banks manipulating the economy, Holocaust denial claims, and sinister motives behind water fluoridation.

dear ghostwriter I fiction

Tumbleweed Words • 10 implied HN points • 14 Mar 26
⚔ Fiction Sexuality
  1. He turns to books, travel and writing as a way out of a chaotic home and troubled school years, with creative writing becoming a real refuge and direction for his life.
  2. A secret, taboo sexual encounter and other losses lead to silence and isolation that shape his choices and relationships.
  3. Moving to London and working in publishing exposes him to stark contrasts between gritty everyday life and glossy media culture, forcing him to navigate poverty, identity and new opportunities.

Sundress Eroticism

Many Such Cases • 999 implied HN points • 07 Jun 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Sundresses are popular in summer because they are comfortable and pretty. Many people enjoy wearing them as they feel good in them.
  2. There is a discussion about who sundresses are worn for, with some women dressing for themselves and others for attention. It's okay to dress in a way that attracts others.
  3. The meaning and style of sundresses can vary among different racial groups. Both types offer comfort and a sexy look, but they can be seen differently based on culture.

Anecdotes From The Slutcloud

Knowingless • 3646 implied HN points • 26 Jun 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many people have strong opinions about promiscuous lifestyles, often thinking they lead to unhappiness or drama. However, not everyone in those communities feels this way, and many have positive experiences.
  2. Communication and openness are crucial in non-monogamous relationships. Creating a safe space for expressing feelings leads to better understanding and managing possible jealousy.
  3. A supportive community can help people feel comfortable with their sexual choices. When casual sex and connections are normalized among friends, it fosters trust and reduces insecurity.

Gay vs Straight Relationship Quality (Graph Dump)

Knowingless • 202 implied HN points • 25 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. It compares how happy people in gay and lesbian relationships are versus people in straight relationships.
  2. The findings are based on a survey that was framed as unrelated to relationship quality, which helps reduce bias in responses.
  3. The piece uses a graph-heavy dump of data and visualizations to illustrate differences in relationship quality.

Lessons from Wall Street sex trafficker Howard Rubin

Sex and the State • 27 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Rape is mainly about power, not sexual freedom, and abusers target people who are vulnerable and use control and coercion to harm them.
  2. Sexual shame and moralizing help abusers by silencing victims, letting others discredit survivors, and enabling recruitment and cover‑ups.
  3. Reducing sexual violence requires destigmatizing consensual sex, teaching accurate sex education, believing survivors, and holding perpetrators and enablers accountable.

The banality of Aidan

The Glinner Update • 2869 implied HN points • 18 Jan 24
🏥 Health & Wellness Sexuality
  1. Dr. Aidan Kelly's presentation on gender healthcare is described as dull and frightening.
  2. The use of puberty blockers in young people is highlighted as experimental with unknown long-term effects.
  3. Ethical concerns about introducing medication dependency and fertility issues in children undergoing gender interventions are raised.

What Porn Took from Us

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 3283 implied HN points • 05 Jun 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many children today are exposed to porn at a very young age, which can shape their understanding of intimacy in harmful ways.
  2. The exposure to hardcore porn isn't just a casual experience; it can be a form of abuse that affects children's mental health and development.
  3. While society discusses various traumas, the impact of porn on young people is often overlooked, although it can have lasting effects on their lives.

Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity

Sex and the State • 110 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Sex workers often provide emotional labor that bolsters men's sense of masculinity, selling feelings like validation and performance more than just physical sex.
  2. Advertising and many services work by selling emotional experiences or identities (for example, rebellion or nostalgia) rather than just product features.
  3. Many men misidentify why they seek paid sex because masculinity discourages admitting vulnerability, so sex workers can uniquely perceive and meet those hidden needs.

The gay-ification of heterosexuality

Disaffected Newsletter • 1099 implied HN points • 15 Apr 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. There's a noticeable trend where aspects of gay culture are becoming more common in heterosexual relationships. This includes things like experimental and adventurous approaches to sex.
  2. People are starting to see what was once considered edgy or restricted to the LGBTQ+ community as normal behavior for everyone.
  3. This shift raises questions about how we define sexuality and what is considered acceptable in relationships today.

Friday Night News Roundup

Daily Dreher • 2083 implied HN points • 26 Jan 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Sexuality
  1. Qatar allegedly hired a former CIA agent to discredit Sen. Ted Cruz and others opposing Muslim Brotherhood
  2. The US is facing a constitutional crisis over border control and the executive branch's refusal to enforce laws
  3. There is a concerning trend of ideological divide impacting relationships and marriage rates, especially among young adults

Do These People F*ck: The Sex Symposium

Many Such Cases • 1358 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. The Sex Symposium focused on women over 40, addressing their unique challenges and experiences with sex. Many attendees were eager to talk about pleasure and sexuality without the fears younger generations might have.
  2. Speakers discussed the importance of individual pleasure but recognized societal issues like shame, trauma, and patriarchy that affect women's sexual experiences. While these are real concerns, some wonder if there’s more to address beyond personal feelings.
  3. Overall, the event was a positive space for discussions on sex, with many women feeling empowered to explore their desires. The excitement for pleasure was a big part of the experience, showing that many older women are enjoying their sexuality.

The Relation Between Cohabitation and Divorce

David Friedman’s Substack • 260 implied HN points • 14 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Cohabitation before marriage is linked to higher divorce rates even though it might seem like a way to test compatibility; both who chooses to cohabit (selection) and what cohabitation does to relationships (experience) appear to matter.
  2. Sex and pair-bonding can create strong emotional ties and people tend to heavily prefer present comforts, so living together can make partners settle for someone they might not choose for a lifelong marriage and reduce continued partner search.
  3. Other plausible reasons include pregnancy-driven marriages, carrying cohabitation habits into marriage (inertia), and burnout from longer total time together, and cohort data show the cohabitation–divorce link weakens but still exists after controlling for demographics.

Virginity Is the Last Taboo

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 1469 implied HN points • 28 Jun 25
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many women feel that virginity carries a strong significance, even in a time when sexual freedom is celebrated. Their experiences and feelings about virginity can vary widely.
  2. The topic of virginity is still considered a taboo in society, creating pressure and expectations around a woman's first sexual experience.
  3. Conversations about virginity often reveal that it can be seen as both a personal experience and a social construct, influencing how women view their own sexuality.

The Celibates, the Gooners and the Moralists

Many Such Cases • 1538 implied HN points • 19 Dec 23
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Many people are calling themselves celibate, but this often doesn't mean they're actually not having sex. Some just like the idea of being celibate because it makes them feel superior or detached from the current sexual culture.
  2. There is a trend of women choosing celibacy due to feeling disrespected in dating. This choice is significant, but it highlights the ongoing problems in the way people relate to each other sexually.
  3. Words around sexuality, like 'gooning', are becoming normalized in everyday conversation. This shift can contribute to a toxic culture, making it important to talk about these topics without judgment and to seek a healthier sexual culture.

Compulsory monogamy as sexual socialism for mediocre men 2.0

Sex and the State • 44 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Sexuality
  1. Compulsory monogamy can function as a tool to stabilize unequal societies by spreading partners more evenly so elite men don’t monopolize wives, which helps reduce the creation of angry, partnerless men.
  2. When women delay marriage, divorce more, or assert independence, it can produce a class of marginalized, partnerless men who lack emotional support and can be vulnerable to radicalization and violence.
  3. The suggested fixes are to reduce economic inequality and build institutions that give young men non-monetary sources of esteem—like civic organizations or meaningful service—and to have honest, empathetic public conversations about these problems.

What Makes Men and Women Different?

Uncharted Territories • 2162 implied HN points • 04 Sep 23
🔬 Science Sexuality
  1. Women and men think differently due to biological differences like having a uterus, leading to significant psychological variations.
  2. Men and women face different stakes in relationships and reproduction, with women having higher commitments and limitations due to their reproductive capacity.
  3. Evolutionary factors have shaped men to compete for access to females, leading to traits like dominance, aggression, physical strength, and risk-taking behavior.