Sex & Sexuality

What’s sex? What’s sexuality? How do people experience and actively express their sexualities, by themselves, with partners or both? How can we take part in sex in ways that are wanted and consensual, physically and emotionally safe and enjoyable for everyone? How do you figure out what you like? How can you communicate about sex? How do you deal with feelings like fear, shame, anxiety, dysphoria and other body image issues? How do you create the kind of sexual life you want? You’ll find the answers to all these and more here.

Highlighted content

Article
  • Sarah Kiser MSN, RN, CPNP-PC

How does a person explore sexuality, sexual identity or sexual interactions without feeling awkward? There are loads of things you can do!

Article
  • Gabriel Leão

Britain’s Quintimacy is a space that intends to cultivate queer intimacy through trauma-informed and embodied connection. In an interview with Scarleteen, founder Beck Thom talks about their working frameworks, sex ed in the UK, what they do at Quintimacy and the need to better educate people, including children and teenagers, about trauma and consent.

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

When it comes to our bodies and feeling good in them, it's usually better to listen and respond to what they are telling us than to tell them what to do.

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

I'm so sorry that you have been in this situation, Michael. It sounds stressful and heartbreaking. Let's see if I can help a little. Before I say anything else, I want to strongly suggest that you do not have any sex, of any kind, with anyone, that you do not also very much want yourself. It's no...

Article
  • Leana O'Keefe

The end of sex can feel sudden and shocking. It can set off other uncomfortable feelings that might be related to other issues or memories. But by incorporating aftercare into your sex practices, those feelings can be diminished or alleviated. Not only is aftercare beneficial to your overall pleasure, it’s an important aspect of ethical and respect-based sex.

Advice
  • Mo Ranyart

First off, you aren't alone in being turned off by "hardcore BDSM" or in feeling like you aren't really seeing a wider range of nuanced depictions of dominant/submissive relationships with which you might identify more easily. It's true that there's a mainstream image of d/s dynamics that many...

Article
  • Jess Thomson

The number of people you choose to sleep with isn’t the crux of sexual liberation. People who choose to have sex with fewer (or no) people shouldn’t be ashamed, and neither should people who choose to have multiple partners. It’s all about the choice - having the agency to sleep with as many or as few people as you please. It doesn’t make you naïve or boring or a slut or a whore; it’s just a choice that you’ve made, and that in itself is sexually liberating.

Article
  • Daniel Hall

Dating apps are part and parcel of modern life. Those marketed to the LGBTQ+ community are particularly handy if you don’t have a conventional way to meet others with whom you identify. But I feel like spending so much time using apps twisted my perception of what a whole relationship should look like.

Article
  • Sara Brezinski

Are people experiencing the “quarantine hornies,” or is sex entirely off the menu? The answer is yes; both; all the above. Here's some help for dealing with changes in libido and sexuality, how you express them, and sexual safety for right now.

Article
  • Hannah Malina

Sex positivity should have given me the courage to ask for what I wanted. Instead, I thought it meant accepting what I got.