We’re launching a regular Sex and Relationship Advice column by the one and only Lyric Seal.

Lyric Explains it All

My love affair with advice columns began in middle school. Especially advice columns focusing around love and sex and changing bodies. My friends and I would pour over CosmoGirl for their columns, embarrassing moments, and quizzes during sleepovers while we read each other’s tarot, did makeovers, and took photos probably more alluring than we knew at fourteen. Of course we were making fun, we were feminists, and also read serious literary journals, and didn’t believe in all of the priorities being touted by the editors or readers of mainstream teen fashion magazines, but we were also taking it a little seriously too.

We were looking for answers! Cues. Hints even. Aren’t we all?

Trouble was, I could not even remotely see or hear myself in the questions or advice of those asking for and giving advice. I wanted something weird. Something sweet. Something deep. Something nuanced, something queer. I didn’t know it then. I’m still a Cosmogirl in many ways (Cosmopolitan I guess now), and I am not giving up on my dream of appearing on some wholesome girl centered sitcom, but given my enthusiastic involvement in porn, I’m not sure what that will look like yet.

But now, allow me to be your Dear Abby. Your Cosmogirl. Your Gossipgirl? Your Pretty Little Soothsayer? Of the queer and deeply weird variety. In the more vanilla aspects of my life, I work as a writer, dancer, and peer counselor. And okay, you caught me, none of it’s all that vanilla. I care about people and I care about bodies and I care about queer people nurturing queer bodies and queer relationships and coming as they are.

I want your open ended questions spilling open ended mouths and open ended bodies and hearts. I love it. I can’t get enough. Let’s mutually educate each other. I do not claim to be an expert of any kind, and I will let you know when a question prompts further research of my own (I’m a nerd), but I do have a lot of experience coming out (many times), harnessing magical creature powers, having great sex, and facilitating embodiment and improvisation in art and life. And improvisation is where the spice comes from isn’t it? If we got to rehearse everything, or know everything before we start, how would we grow?

There are no questions in the lands of love and lust too narrow or too vast. Keep it coming babes! I’m listening. Comment below or email listentolyric@gmail.com to ask your questions!