Emily Prior

• MA
• Professor (Associate) at College of the Canyons

Over the last 30 years, there has been a growing trend among both professionals and nonprofessionals in applying an addiction framework to understand frequent sexual behavior and pornography viewing. However, sexual scientists have identified serious methodological problems in applying an addiction model to such behavior and have noted that this mo...

There is a growing interest among leisure scholars to investigate a wide range of diverse sexual topics from a leisure science perspective. However, leisure experts sometimes struggle with issues surrounding their topics that are firmly rooted in broader socio-historical controversies. Indeed, these controversies continue to play out in fierce acad...

Despite an emphasis within American social work to operationalize important professional values, such as embracing human diversity and promoting social justice, it is not clear how this may or may not occur with respect to human sexuality and sexual practices. In considering this issue, the present study employed a thorough content analysis of unde...

Helping professionals in multiple disciplines, including social workers, are commonly taught to embrace human diversity, think critically, empower clients, and respect client self-determination. Indeed, much of clinical practice with clients is predicated on such professional values, which are important to the establishment of a strong therapeutic...

Introduction: Recent studies have suggested that, in contrast to traditional psychopathologic explanations, bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism (BDSM) could be understood as recreational leisure. However, the theoretical framing of BDSM as potential leisure has not been empirically explored. Aim: To conduct an ini...

Despite an extensive research literature on sexual offending, much of current sexual offender policy within the United States runs counter to such literature, and instead, is based on common, pervasive myths about sexual offenders. Not surprisingly, recent studies on sex offender policy effectiveness suggest that current approaches are both costly...

The BDSM (consensual sadomasochism) community has commonly utilized Safe, Sane, and Consensual (SSC), or more recently Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) as basic frameworks to help structure the negotiation of BDSM participation. While these approaches have been useful, particularly for educating new participants concerning parameters of play, both...

Social work, in addition to many other professions, remains very concerned with resolving and preventing various problems associated with sexuality. Social workers commonly may be involved in treating victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse, dealing with client personal issues concerning sexuality and sexual functioning, and advocating for policie...

Through interviews and field work, the complexity of BDSM (bondage/discipline, dominant/submissive, sadist/masochist) power exchange is articulated as a continuance of third wave feminism, wherein women explore sexuality on their own terms. This particular type of power exchange is analyzed within the context of contemporary definitions as they app...