When it comes to outdoor communities, studies show there are additional factors to consider that increase the risk of sexual assault and harassment taking place. So why aren’t we talking about it? And more importantly– what do we do about it?

What’s the deal with our collective embarrassment around hygiene? How is sex and gender tied up into all of this? What happens when we don’t talk about hygiene openly? And-- just as importantly-- what happens when we do? Anastasia Allison, founder of Kula Cloth, joins the show to dive into this, and we lean on our own personal outdoor hygiene stories and mishaps to illustrate that when it comes to hygiene, there’s nothing dirty about it-- and nothing to be ashamed about.

In this special bonus content, hear a custom-made poem written and read by Anastasia Allison, founder of Kula Cloth, all about the unexpected adventures that can take place when you decide to get intimate outdoors.

So, we got kicked off of Instagram last month. And it got us thinking about how we can best structure our online community as well as this show. Get read, because next month we're coming... back.

Condoms are single use, which might give some environmentally-minded folks reason to pause and wonder if they should use them or not. However, condoms are also incredibly accessible and effective when it comes to unplanned pregnancy and STI prevention. So today we’re taking a journey together following the general lifecycle of a condom to better understand the impact of single use products like condoms while also holding how essential they are to our sexual health.

Rey Arrastia, a kink educator, naturalist, and online content creator, joins us for our first-ever full episode covering kink. Because we’ve been told that our kinks aren’t normal-- but in reality, they’re not only completely natural-- but most of us have them. And if we would do more to learn about them, there would be more to embrace, and less to be afraid of.

When it comes to gender binaries, there’s a lot of digging to do to get to the root of our problems. Nick Albritton, a transgender man and outdoorsperson, spends a good deal of time unpacking specific ways he’s seen gender binaries show up all throughout his life, and the damage they can do-- especially to transgender folks-- and the way nature helped give him the space he needs to dig deeper into what it means to truly be himself.

Sex Outside Nature Quickies are short dives into a specific, practical topic about our bodies and the outdoors. This one features Alessandra Hurt-- a mother, wife, book reviewer, and outdoor-lover-- who shares her top 3 children’s sexuality books and offers some perspective on how important it is to be intentional when it comes to navigating these kinds of learning and self-discovery moments with children-- as well as ourselves.

Even though sex may never be a completely comfortable topic for many folks to discuss, there are ways to make it easier to talk about. We explore with writer, traveler, and sexuality specialist Natasha Buffo when it comes to healthy communication, gender roles and expectations, and learning about our own bodies through outdoor recreation metaphors. And once again, we find that when the outdoors are involved, sex becomes a little easier to approach in a dialogue.

Sex Outside Nature Quickies are short, 5-minute dives into a specific, practical topic about our bodies and the outdoors. This one features Kelly Simmons, whose background studying animals and plants opened her eyes to the wide world of sex happening all around us outdoors. And we agree! Because the more we started to look into “what animals are having interesting sex?” we quickly learned that the answer is all of them. Tune in to hear just a handful from Kelly as she uncovers fact after fact about how quirky all of our sex lives actually are, and how natural that truly is.