Scarleteen is owned and operated by Heather Corinna and a handful of international volunteers, many who are young adults themselves, and currently serves from 20,000 - 30,000 teens and young adults, as well as parents and educators, every day of the year, 24 hours each day. While plenty of adults also use Scarleteen to glean sexuality information for themselves, Scarleteen is complied and written for a young adult population, and much of our information is more appropriate for teens than for older adults.

Scarleteen began in 1998 when other young adult sex education sites were not yet around. It wasn't exactly planned: rather, via a different website, emails started coming in from young adults with sex questions, making clear there was a profound need for a website like this. We didn't have a mold or a precedent for Scarleteen, so we built the site -- and maintain it still -- based on what our users were and are asking for, and take the sort of approach they appear most comfortable with. Scarleteen is the highest ranking sex ed site online, despite the fact that we don't have a big organization behind us or any public funding, nor have we ever run any advertising. Scarleteen is as popular and well-known as it is because of word of mouth amongst young adults, advocates and educators, and we think that says quite a bit.

We offer Scarleteen as a far better resource for sex information for teens than adult sexuality sites, as well as a supplement to in-home and school-based sex education. Many parents we have heard from have used it as a tool to initiate discussion with their teens on some of the topics addressed. Homeschooling parents have used Scarleteen as curricula for sex education; colleges add out articles to their syllabi often. We encourage you to do the same: we think the best sex education anyone can have is not only comprehensive and accurate, but is a diverse, well-rounded education that comes from more than but one source or perspective.

Few young adults nor parents can rely on school alone, or at all, for comprehensive, accurate sex education. There is every evidence that most in-school sex education is not working.

According to SIECUS, "To date, six studies of abstinence-only programs have been published. None of these studies found consistent and significant program effects on delaying the onset of intercourse, and at least one study provided strong evidence that the program did not delay the onset of intercourse. Thus, the weight of evidence indicates that these abstinence-only programs do not delay the onset of intercourse. A study of 7,326 seventh and eighth graders in California who participated in an abstinence-only program found that the program did not have a measurable impact upon either sexual or contraceptive behaviors. Nearly two-thirds of teenagers think teaching "Just Say No" is an ineffective deterrent to teenage sexual activity." A recent, congressionally-approved study of students using both abstinence-based and comprehensive sex education showed that students in the abstinence-only programs were no more likely to delay sexual intercourse and had similar numbers of sex partners at the same ages. That's a pretty big waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for abstinence-programs and a federal ban (per funding) for comprehensive sex ed.

While we at Scarleteen do not hold to the notion that telling young adults to just go have sex is a better solution, we strongly feel that belying judgment and furnishing them with the facts they need to know REGARDLESS of whether or not they are sexually active readies them to learn to make their own choices, and that often unheard perspectives help develop their own systems of ethics and values when combined with the perspectives of peers, schools, parents, other mentors and their overall culture and communities. One cannot make a decision from a position of informed consent without actually being informed. We also feel that it's important youth have as many sources of sound sex education as possible. Even when sex ed in schools is sound, the school environment in and of itself poses some problems for teens and young adults because their privacy is so limited. We feel what we do at Scarleteen is not only valuable when young adults have no sex ed otherwise, or inaccurate sex education, but also is a helpful and needed supplement to quality school or home sex education.

The statistics may surprise you. More than half of American teens DO abstain from intercourse until age 17 (and have since before abstinence-only initiatives), and that a quarter of them at 20 still have not had heterosexual intercourse. These same studies show that informative sex education has not increased sexual activity, pregnancy or the number of sexual partners, and has in fact, wildly succeeded in that, "Teenagers who start having intercourse following a sexuality education program are more likely to use contraception than those who have not participated in a program. (SIECUS)." In addition, while many teens may not be having vaginal intercourse, they are often instead engaging in a myriad of other sexual practices, including petting, oral sex and even anal sex, and a recent study of those who have taken abstinence pledges has shown that those pledgers have identical rates of STIs as well as sexual activity, to those who have not pledged to abstain.

We feel that the best model for lifelong sexual education is as follows:

• Providing information which educates in ALL aspects of sexuality, for all sexes, genders and orientations, including birth control, safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation and self-pleasuring, anatomy, diverse sexual orientation and identification, gender roles, self-esteem, body image, sexual and romantic relationship and communication tools, and care and compassion in sexual technique and practice.
• A nonjudgmental and unbiased attitude of tolerance and understanding for teens, whether they choose to be sexually active or abstain.
• Tools to encourage celibacy from ANY sexual activities until reasonable readiness for them, such as information on masturbation and self-pleasuring, and to do so from a standpoint of embracing safe sexuality, rather than anti-sex approaches, misinformation, scare tactics or shaming.
• Encouragement to know as much as possible, and from an educated standpoint, to make sound choices based on personal ethics and values gleaned from family, role models and the individual teen self.
• Open, ongoing conversation about sex and sexuality in a safe, supportive environment.

We feel accurate, holistic and interactive education, made as age-pertinent and appropriate as possible, allows anyone, regardless of age, to make the best choices throughout their lives. This, coupled with open care and communication from parents, other educators, teachers and other respected adults, and a confidence in individual choices and relationships is the foundation for lifelong sexual and emotional health. Sound knowledge and understanding of sexuality not only equips a teen with what is needed to make informed choices, but an understanding of sexual anatomy, boundaries, and what they may and may not want to participate in benefits them whether they choose to be sexually active or not. Our recent cultural rise of rape reporting and sexual abuse may, in fact, have less to do with the rise of these crimes itself than with the knowledge to know when they have been committed. Sexuality information and education are as important to personal safety as learning how to look both ways when crossing the street is. Sexuality is a facet of human life no matter how we do or do not use it, and is as much as facet as eating, breathing, speaking and thinking. To eschew its existence is to deprive those who need the information of a large aspect of self.

For more information on Scarleteen and our approach to sex ed, see:

• Scarleteen Is...
• About the Staff & Volunteers
• Why do our readers love Scarleteen so much?
• A Calm View from the Eye of the Storm: Hysteria, Youth and Sexuality
• What is Feminist Sex Education?
• Why We're Pro-Choice
• All About S.E.X.: The Scarleteen Book!
• Who's been talking about sex education at Scarleteen?
• For Parents
• About Advertising at Scarleteen