Puberty is the process of physical changes and sexual maturation leading to sexual maturation as well as complete body growth. During puberty, your whole body goes through growth spurts until it has become physically mature in terms of bone mass and size, and the sexual organs and secondary sexual characteristics develop and mature. Chances are, if you're at this website, you have likely already started puberty.

What's a "boyfriend" or what's a "girlfriend?" It all depends on what you and yours decide it's going to mean and what works best for you.

At least once every couple of days, a woman posts or writes into Scarleteen reporting that vaginal entry -- usually heterosexual intercourse or manual vaginal sex ("fingering"), and usually (but not always) with male partners -- is painful, uncomfortable, or unfulfilling for them. Whatever sort of vaginal entry we're talking about -- with fingers, a penis or a dildo, with partners of any gender -- not only doesn't have to be painful, it really shouldn't be. More than that, any kind of sex shouldn't be about a lack of pain, but about the presence of pleasure.

If we're going to think of our genitals as big, any one of us, given the small range between them, we should think everyone's genitals are big. We also need to accept that it's ignorant or misinformed to think, presume or suggest that penises are big but vaginas are small, because we really are all about the same size. If thinking big is better for one sex, it's also got to be better for the other. So, if you or someone else is going to go on about some big penis, you'd best get just as excited about the idea of a big vagina, and make having a big ol'Vagowski just as cool. And if you're all hung up on the idea that the vagina be as small as it can possibly be, or is such a small thing, then you've got to accept that penises are small, too.

A big part of keeping yourself sexually healthy is maintaining your sexual and reproductive health in the first place, and paying attention to your sexual health daily so that you can get the jump on any problems that may crop up.

When I was fourteen I became convinced that masturbating would kill me.

The next time anyone tells you that only losers masturbate, or that they don't, and never would, bear this in mind: according to most studies and surveys, about 95% of adults have masturbated or continue to do so. Were many falsehoods and misconceptions about masturbation true, it would mean that 95 out of every 100 people would be blind, drooling psychopaths with hair on their palms and shrunken genitals.

Vaginal discharge and secretions are a normal, healthy part of your reproductive system. The vagina -- which is not the whole of your genitals, that's called the vulva, but the flexible tube behind the vaginal opening and inside the body -- is a passageway between the outside of the body and the internal reproductive system. The pH balance of the vagina is acidic, with "good" bacteria, by design, which helps keep infections away. Vaginal secretions are how the vagina cleanses and regulates itself -- how amazing is that? -- in the same sort of way that saliva helps keep your mouth clean and healthy.

It’s typically assumed that sex and gender are the same. They’re not. What's gender all about, then? What is the range of gender and gender identity, and how does gender impact our lives and how we live them?

It's amazing that with something as safe, simple, affordable and revolutionary as emergency contraception that it STILL isn't being used by millions of women who could use it, and who would prefer to avoid an abortion or an unwanted pregnancy. In part, that's because so many doctors and clinics still do not inform and educate women about EC. Here's some EC clarity, on the house. Pass it on!

Your menstrual cycle and your reproductive system house miracles that have held people in awe for thousands of years. Follow us through a tour of how it all works, how to best manage it and use it to empower yourself and stay healthy, and find out what it means now and has meant to others in the past.

The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is a means for women to observe the three primary fertility signals: cervical fluid, waking body temperature and cervix changes so that you can be as in-the-know as possible when it comes to your own fertility and menstrual cycle. Find out the basic how-to so you can make the mystery of your own fertility cycle become a lot less mysterious.

Want to know what to expect at your first gynecologists' or reproductive health exam? We've got the lowdown for you here.

We get a lot of questions at Scarleteen from folks who are worried about periods that are MIA (missing in action, for us civilians). Sometimes there's a pregnancy concern, and sometimes not; but even if you're not sexually active, a missing period can be worrying.