S Nicole Lane
Sex + Health Journalist
Arts + Culture, Music, Interviews, Women's Health, Sexuality, Socio-political issues, Feminism, LGBTQ, Art History, Theory, Reviews nicolelanestudio@gmail.com
PROJECTS
Healthline
What Real Orgasms Feel Like and How to Claim Your Own
If we just listen to movies, songs, and book stereotypes, there’s only one way of having an orgasm. It usually involves squealing, screaming, and “earth-shattering” explosions —dramatic and loud.
The most popular descriptor? “Like fireworks.”
But we forget that on the screens, especially the small ones (pornography), an orgasm is often performative.
The pressure to perform can be rooted in a toxic idea that women and people with clitorises and vaginas must “prove” to our partners that we came...
medtruth.com
Essure Still Sold to U.S. Women Through 2018, Despite Risks
The trailblazing documentary on Netflix, The Bleeding Edge, has shed an incredible light on the horrors and complications of the permanent contraceptive device, Essure, which has been embedded in more than 75,000 women. Utilizing two metal coils, the device is implanted in the fallopian tubes and is made up of stainless steel, nickel titanium, and polyethylene fiber materials.
One million devices have been distributed worldwide to 23 countries and until December 31st of this year, women in th...
sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
Glorimar Sanchez on Puerto Rico, Film, and Disseminating Information
Glorimar Marrero Sánchez is a self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist-director-photographer-screenwriter based in Puerto Rico. She was selected as one of the two artists in the three-month Puerto Rican Disaster Relief Residency at the University of Chicago. The residency was launched to support academics, researchers, and artists who have been severely affected or displaced by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The program, which is a collaboration between The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, a...
sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
Intimate Justice: Leah Ball
“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Leah Ball about erotica for the self, the role of the artist, and the documentation of pleasure in her Humboldt Park studio.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
S. Nicole Lane: Can you discuss the basic groundwork for combining ceramics with sexual, sensual images an...
Playboy
The Fine Line Between Art and Pornography
There’s something captivating about Romy Alizée’s gaze: The way she looks into the camera, her dark short hair curling at the roots, and her effortless expression. She looks at you with confidence and assurance, as she bends a man over her knee, her hand caught in mid-air as she let’s the viewer know that he is the submissive—and she is the empress.
Kinkly
I Wore Vibrating Panties to a Music Festival - and It Was Glorious
I’m walking into a House music festival on the southside of Chicago. I live a few blocks away, so I rode my bike to meet a friend. Although we are near Lake Michigan, it’s muggy today. My back is sticky; the breeze isn't cooling us off. It's just like any other day in the city as I walk, arm in arm, with a friend. One thing is different, though. On this day, I'm sporting my new vibrating panties. More specifically, I'm wearing a vibrating garter thong with 10 different functions (yes, being a...
Healthline
How Not Being Able to Have Sex Redefined My Sexuality — and Dating Life
Dating when penetration isn’t an option is complicated — but not impossible.
How we see the world shapes who we choose to be — and sharing compelling experiences can frame the way we treat each other, for the better. This is a powerful perspective.
“Just let me breathe for a second,” I whisper as my partner’s mouth is a few centimeters from mine.
We both begin to breathe together, one large inhale, one exhale. I close my eyes and try to relax. The tension in my muscles is so intense it’s pain...
ravishly.com
Breaking The Stigma Of Dating And Loving With HIV
The words “life” and “love” may seem contradictory when paired with HIV. For society, the virus represents sadness, loss of life, and complications. Those three letters put people into a box, shield them from others, and hide them from the world.
But in reality, those three letters should do no such thing.
People living with HIV are all around us. They breathe the same air and drink the same water. Even more so, people with HIV are in loving relationships. To think otherwise is an archaic min...
sixtyinchesfromcenter.org
In the Realm of Senses and the Pleasure of Eating with Music
Before Jeff Yang takes the stage, someone behind me says to a friend, “What you’re about to experience is like nothing else … it’s remarkable.” I don’t really know what I’m about to expect. I came to the event alone, my partner had to work, and I have an irrational fear of interactive events. I’m going into the night without many expectations. I received an email about a week or so in advance inviting me to In The Realm of Senses: Pictures at an Exhibition Fundraiser, and of course, I read th...
Playboy
Artist Lily Morris Paints the Voyeur's View
Artist Lily Morris’ first canvas was her childhood home’s walls. The little rebel would scribble patterns that were “written declarations of love, a galaxy of glow in the dark stars, swear words”. Today, her inspirations haven’t changed much—only heightened by her years of commitment to the practice.
The bicoastal artist—who splits her time between tranquil upstate New York and bustling Los Angeles—draws on the challenging yet beautiful stories of intimacy, either between couples or with ones...
She Knows
The Common Sexual-Performance Anxieties & How to Overcome Them
Image: Courtneyk/Getty Images. Design: Ashley Britton/SheKnows.
Sexual anxieties can dampen the mood in short-term or long-term situations. And yes, those anxieties affect all of us at one point and a time. For some people, these sexual-performance anxieties can plague relationships and interfere with sexual satisfaction. When a looming cloud over your sex life exists, it can contribute to a variety of other issues, like depression and low self-esteem. There are entire books and articles publ...
Metro
Can you still take part in BDSM when you’re pregnant?
Some people feel uneasy at the thought of having intercourse while pregnant – but experts say that no, you won’t hurt your foetus or baby during coitus. Sex is possible, and even encouraged, during term.
Easing pain, lowering blood pressure, improving sleep, and bettering your baby (by exposing it to fewer stress hormones) are all benefits of having sex while pregnant.
But what about certain fetishes? Will your sexual preferences have to take a break for nine months? Will whips and handcuffs ...
bellesa.co
4 awesome health benefits of sleeping naked
I think I’ve always slept in the nude, or at least I like to believe I always have. The feeling of the sheets, or the warm body next to me, the lack of clinging clothing, the supreme comfort of it all, is too much to abandon. I’ve also never considered it to be unhealthy—how can it be?
intomore.com
INTO: A Digital Magazine For The Modern Queer World
Interview with Michelle Citron about Lives Visible, a film featuring the lives of two lesbians in the pre-Stonewall era.
exhibitionsonthecusp.com
Art in the Age of Surveillance
“[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
— U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2002
Thirteen bold, multidisciplinary artists were invited to participate in Covert Operations: Investigating the Known Unknowns (2014) at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. After presenting artworks to the A...