Pride, Pleasure & Power:The Youth Sexpert Program’s Shame-Free Guide to Scissoring for Bodies with Vulvas

“Pride, Pleasure &  Power:The Youth Sexpert Program’s Shame-Free Guide to Scissoring for Bodies with Vulvas”

For most of us, queer sex was not a part of the birds and bees conversation. If you were lucky enough to have in-school sex education, odds are that terms like “top”, “bottom”, and “strap on” never made it into the classroom. This truth can leave queer folks confused, and beyond that othered; like pleasure isn't tangible for them. 

June is Pride month, and across major cities there are events spanning from parades to drag shows. It’s important too that Pride be a time for not only celebration, but also conversation. Queer communities are marginalized, queer history is being silenced, and queer pleasure is still elusive for many. Our re-vamped sex talk can start here and now, with the topic of scissoring. 

Setting the Stage

 I am a full time sex educator and the founder of a youth sex education non-profit called The Youth Sexpert Program. This means I am often in classrooms and virtual spaces providing sex education to teenagers, hearing their questions firsthand. “Is scissoring real?”, “How do people position themselves?”, “What options for protection exist?” come up again and again during units on queer sexuality.

Teaching young people while also running an organization in this field has given me a better understanding of the sex education landscape. Only 1/2 of U.S. states require sex education in public schools, and only 9 states require sex education to include LGBTQIA+ students. In 2022, the first “Don’t Say Gay” bill was proposed in Florida, setting a dangerous precedent for restricting discussions of LGBTQ+ identities in schools. Since then, queer-phobic legislation in education has only snowballed. 

If we were able to cover scissoring in a sex education curriculum, what would we say?

There are a lot of myths to be busted: that scissoring is difficult, unrealistic, or only for certain body types. These myths come from a few sources. If people aren’t learning about queer sex in schools, or from their families and communities, the internet is a logical place to look. I know from conversations with youth the topics they are exposed to on social media. While social media can fill real gaps in education and representation, it also opens the door for misinformation and disinformation.

Dismantling myths requires telling truths and identifying where those myths came from. We offer a workshop for teens on porn literacy, which is media literacy applied to porn. We discuss how to question what we are shown: who is excluded from porn, what acts are depicted, do people communicate in porn, how might these decisions in porn production be tied to society at large, and what messages are you meant to take away from the porn you watch? If people saw scissoring in porn intended for a wider audience than just men, if they saw scissoring as pleasurable for those involved, if they saw diverse bodies engaged in scissoring, they might feel differently about the possibilities for their own pleasure.

Before we delve into what scissoring can actually look like, it’s important that anyone considering scissoring be prepared to communicate with their partner. Ask them if they are interested in scissoring as well and talk through the logistics of positioning and protection ahead of time. 

Conversations about sex can feel awkward for most of us, especially when it comes to asking a partner about trying something new. My best advice? Embrace the awkwardness and set realistic expectations. Decide ahead of time when you want to have the conversation, make that an internal commitment to yourself, and rip the bandaid off. 

Exploring the Different Types of Scissoring

Scissoring is a type of tribadism. Tribbing means rubbing the clitoris against another person’s body. Scissoring specifically refers to rubbing the clitoris against another person’s clitoris. Scissoring can include a variety of positions. Bodies can be on opposite ends with intersecting legs, or side by side with intersecting legs, like two pairs of scissors. They can face one another, with one or both people sitting upright. 

The “supported scissor” may offer a more accessible position. One or more partners can have their hips, back or pelvis supported by a pillow. There are also sex-specific wedges designed for this purpose. These adjustments can make the position more comfortable for people with limited mobility, chronic pain, or anyone who wants additional support.

You can also incorporate toys into scissoring, from placing a small or wand vibrator between both clitorises, to using a double ended dildo for simultaneous G-spot and clitoral stimulation. Beyond adding another sensation, a toy could make the position more accessible, as an object in between both clitorises could be easier to reach. 

Body Care, Aftercare & Pride

The reason I do the sex education work I do is because I believe that sex education is a tool for liberation. I see the gatekeeping of our sexuality as oppressive and intentional. The expectation that we learn about sex purely through guesswork and experience can feel backwards, and reinforce the idea that sex is something to be quiet about. There is so much we can learn and discover when we talk openly about sex, because we can expand one another’s understanding of what’s possible, and also normalize the wide range of desires and experiences people have. Scissoring, for example, is a real sexual practice, possible for a multitude of bodies, and something many people desire, explore, and find pleasurable.

When I reflect on being a queer educator, and having the privilege of working with queer young people, I recognize that a great deal of this work is on behalf of my younger self. As a teenager, I wished someone had been honest with me about sex, relationships, and identity. I want queer youth to see themselves reflected in sex education, but inclusion is only one part of that work. Bodily autonomy is at the core of our curriculum, and feeling agency over your body, from who you are intimate with to how you identify, is especially important to remind queer youth of.

If you’re looking to expand your education on sex, intimacy, hygiene and wellness, The Honey Pot has an amazing expert panel that I’m honored to be a part of, along with additional blogs on The Honey Pot Journal.