Episode 20: Bridging the Gap in Sexuality Research with Trinda Penniston

In today's episode, we sit down with Trinda Penniston, a Master’s student in Social-Personality Psychology working with Dr. Meredith Chivers in the Sexuality and Gender Lab (SageLab). Her research interests include examining psychological and physiological sexual responses and the stimulus cues that trigger sexual arousal and desire, with a focus on understanding the sociocultural factors that affect sexual response and sexual functioning in queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and other people of colour (QTBIPOC). She is also keenly interested in researching sex- and gender-based violence and sexual violence trauma. For her thesis, she is examining racialized sexual attractions and sexual responses when viewing race congruent and incongruent sexual stimuli (i.e., sexual images and videos depicting people of the same- or a difference race from the viewer). Outside of academia, she enjoys playing video games, D&D (Dungeons and Dragons), reading comic books and manga, watching anime (and too many shows on Netflix). She also loves listening to music and watching films in theatres (before COVID, of course). Once the outside opens again, you’ll catch her at different music, food, and cultural festivals and events!