A love letter this valentine’s day to the doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers who give of their precious time with loved ones to care for us at our most vulnerable. Please join me in supporting other sex educators this Valentine’s Day by checking out the rest of our “Love Is” blogs here. And don’t forget to tune in to O.school for more pleasure-centric, inclusive sex education every night of the week.
I’ve been taking my time before responding to the conversation about sexual assault spurred by Kelly Shibari’s accusation of Reid Mihalko. The original coverage of Kelly’s account and Reid’s response can be seen here and a list of further analysis, accountability statements, community response, and more can be found here. Let me start, as all writings about a sexual assault case should start: I believe Kelly. I stand with Kelly. I believe we all deserve to live in a world…
Intimate Health Consulting has started answering some questions on Quora about reproductive health, gynecology, and LGBTQ health. You can follow our answers here but we’ll be posting a few of them here on the blog. Are pap smears painful for women who never had kids? Should they be painful? No. Are they sometimes? Yes. The experience of pain has less to do with whether you’ve had kids and more to do with: 1. The size and shape of the…
You know this scenario: Your doctor is an hour late for your annual exam appointment. You’re quietly shivering, half-dressed in a paper gown, kicking your feet and anxiously trying to keep track of all of the questions you want to ask your doctor. Maybe you just started having anal sex with your partner, and you’re worried you’re going to get some kind of infection if you’re not careful. The doctor sharply knocks on the door. Showtime. The next ten minutes…
Not enough high quality, short educational videos about sexual health, you say? Can’t get enough of sex ed tidbits from superstars like Sexplanations with Lindsey Doe or Dawn Serra’s Explore More Summit? Well good. This December I’ll be releasing a 5-10 minute sex education video on Youtube EVERY DAY through Christmas morning. Why? To celebrate! December is a busy month for us North Americans. It’s the month with the highest number of pregnancy conceptions, where all those September babies get their starts.…
What’s new this fall with Intimate Health Consulting? Our owner, Bianca Palmisano, has joined O.school, a shame-free platform for pleasure education. As Rebecca Ruiz of Mashable describes it: Imagine a sex ed class that taught you not only basic anatomy and disease prevention, but also encouraged you to reclaim sexual pleasure after a traumatic experience, helped you unlearn the shame associated with growing up in a religious or homophobic household, and non-judgmentally listened to your curiosities. Now imagine that class…
The first of its kind 2017 Online Sexual Health Summit is only a week away, can you believe it? For two days, we’ll be diving deep into questions of intersectionality, medical ethics, queer families, social justice, sex therapy and more. Join us on September 22nd and 23rd at 11am ET/10am CT. Want to come but can’t afford it? We have pay-what-you-can tickets available ($0-25). Email bianca@intimatehealthconsulting.com to get one. Let’s meet our presenters! Speaker Biographies Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they), M.S.W., L.S.W.,…
Intimate Health Consulting’s owner, Bianca Palmisano, thinks she looks a little goofy in this promo video from 2015, created by our wonderful friend Paul Roth of PaulTalks. But it is a great encapsulation of what Intimate Health Consulting is and what we can help you do! Check it out below: https://www.intimatehealthconsulting.com/team.php
Sexual health is an integral part of healthcare delivery. Too often, we’re weighed down by shame, embarrassment, or our own personal judgments about sexual behavior to have effective conversations about our patient’s sexual lives. But why is it so important? Preventative sexual health services save time and money down the road. Birth control, pap smears, STI tests: these are low-cost health services that prevent complicated, expensive procedures down the line. Any obstetrician will tell you that the cost of an…
This spring, some of you beautiful souls helped me achieve a HUGE professional goal: attending the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Conference annual conference. It was an amazing learning experience and I am still parsing through some of the new medical content I greedily absorbed during 3 days of intense learning. But in some ways, the journey to ACOG was as informative as the conference itself. Some of you know from my social media presence that getting to this…
