Click through a series of detailed questions to narrow down your own best methods, become a pro on what method your partner is using, or windowshop in-depth info pages on each contraceptive option. With 25 integrated pages of teen and twentysomething-specific information, plenty of links, questions and answers, we've done our very best to help you protect yourself from unwanted pregnancy.
As someone who was all but completely celibate throughout high school and this was not at all by conscious choice, I can tell you that I often found it frustrating to deal with the fact that a lot of teenagers were under- or mis-informed about safer sex, that a lot of teenagers were sexually active, and that a lot of politicians and think tanks believed in stanching teenage sexual activity entirely. I was fourteen when I started listening to Loveline (though I didn't always agree with Dr. Drew) and it began my path of sex-pertise (as it were). I was eager to get informed.
That's the response to the question "What if I want to have sex before I get married?" in "No Second Chance," a film that is part of Sex Respect, an abstinence-only program. Sex Respect has a host of other special and oh-so-factual messages for you in their student workbook, including such sparkly gems as:
I have been dating my boyfriend for over a year now and I have been very sexually active with him but now I want to slow things down and wait until I'm ready for marriage. I want to start everything over and just be a normal teenager. He doesn't seem to have any problems with this and I talked to him about it already, but I feel like there are problems. Our relationship is actually getting better but now he is more horny around me all the time and it tempts me but I don't want to give in. I want to have sex too even more now that I told myself I can't. Are there any methods I can use to calm myself from sex or just things I can say to my boyfriend to tell him to realize I'm not comfortable with him being horny and it really bothers me?
From PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 1 January 2009, pp. e110-e120 (doi:10.1542/peds.2008-0407): Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers, Janet Elise Rosenbaum, PhD, AM; Health Policy PhD Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
I am worried about sex, and I don't think its normal at my age (24) but I don't know what to do about it. I was raised in a really strict family and so I didn't lose my virginity til I was 21 which was really way later than everyone else, even my younger sister. I wasn't really ready but I was sort of curious and I did it to please my boyfriend and lots of other reasons. We dated for about a year and I had sex with two more guys after I split up with him but mainly from feeling like I should to fit in. I haven't had a serious boyfriend in ages now, and I'm afraid to have another relationship cos I think it will surely involve sex. I know in theory you can say no, but hey, what guy is going to stick around with me when he can get it from any other girl on the street? It doesn't seem realistic. When I think about sex I just get scared, cos I feel like I don't know at all what to do, and its not like I was even an adventurous teenager so I can't give head or anything either. I really don't know how to do anything except kiss. But I'm sure most guys are expecting way more than that! I don't want to become a slut just to learn but I can't claim to be a virgin any more so I don't know what to do. In my ideal world I'd like to be with a guy for at least a year before sleeping together, maybe wait til marriage, but I am scared to even admit that's what I want cos I know its not normal. Please help! I'm worried that being so messed up about this will mean no decent guy will want to be with me.
I'm posting most of the text of the lecture I just gave at the University of Texas through the NSRC Regional Training last week. A bunch of people there asked for it, and it was a great experience for me (how awesome was it to be in a room full of current and potential sex educators? VERY). So much of what I said really sums up where I'm at with this work right now, have been going and want to keep going.
I only started having sex about 3 months ago. I'm 20 and I made my fiancee wait almost 2 years. The problem that I noticed is that I never orgasm when he's inside. He has no problem with using his fingers on me but why can't I when he is inside. I mean I can feel it coming and it feels great but it never happens it's like I get sooo close and I'm on the edge and then I just stay there and I know he's frustrated cause he thinks it's his fault so he tried harder and harder each time to try to find positions I like and such. We are trying to use more foreplay to see if maybe if I'm close beforehand, and it will make things easier but I'm still waiting. It's soo frustrating cause I enjoy the closeness of sex with him but it's not very fulfilling.
I am 22 years old and my BF is 23 years old. We are both virgins and we both want to stay virgins until marriage. We have been together for 3 years now and lately he mentioned to me that he wants to have anal sex. I want to do it but I want to ask if he should wear a condom. Also, will it hurt?
I'm a 15 year old virgin and at the beginning of the summer holidays a met this guy through a friend of mine. We got on really well and started dating about a week after we met. The only problem is now we've been going out for a few weeks he's started to change, he's not as sweet and caring anymore and has started to try to get me to do more sexual things with him. He says his last girlfriend and him had sex after two weeks and doesn't understand why I will only do basic things. Up until now I've found it so easy to tell people I don't want to do something, but I've told him I don't think we've been dating long enough to do anything serious and he won't listen. Please give me some advice, I'm worried soon I won't have the guts to stand up to him and I don't want to be rushed into anything I don't want to do.
Who gets left out, ignored, dismissed or denied when someone states that sex, good sex or real intimacy or love should, can or does only happen within the context of monogamous marriage, or when any given couple has only had one spousal sexual or romantic partner in a lifetime?
I used to know God was real. And I knew sex outside of marriage was wrong. Then I lost my faith, and fell in love, and everything turned upside down. One readers story of her struggles to resolve her conflict between sex and religion.
As reported at Time Magazine this week, most of the United States has started to wise up about the ineffectiveness and bias of abstinence-only (which differs from abstinence-plus or comprehensive sex education, both of which contain accurate and in-depth information on sex and sexual health, but which usually also make clear that forestalling sex or certain kinds of sex is often most safe) sex education pushed by the Bush administration, and which is funded by billions of taxpayer dollars to date, and $50 mil
My boyfriend and I are being abstinent until marriage. We only had sex once, we aren't doing it again and want to be renewed as being abstinent, and we are doing that with my cousin and her bf, because they quit after doing it for months, too.
There was only one incident that happened, that scares us both to death. I would never let him in my vagina because that would just ruin our relationship. We had anal sex. I was sitting on top of him, and the he pre-cummed in his pants. He wanted to just stick his penis in my butt, not my vagina, so he did and it hurt soooo badly. He said he cummed while I was on top. I'm not sure if he wasn't in my vagina, though, because I had a tampon in and when I went to the bathroom after all of this happened, I found the tampon all moved up inside my vagina. Then he cummed and took it out, and we stopped, and we both laid next to each other and he stuck his penis back in my butt again. He used lotion so it wouldn't hurt as bad, and it didn't go in far. After the second time lasted for a minute or two, we stopped and decided we should never do it again, because we weren't like that, being all "sexual." That happened on April 19, and it is April 29. We are both scared that I may be pregnant. I never eat a lot, but now I crave food a little more. We are just so scared to death. I never lost my virginity. I was just wondering if the second time he cummed, if it was in my real butt or not, because it felt different from a different position. I want to know if there is any risk at all that I might be pregnant. My period was the 16th-19th, and I really don't want to wait that long to see if I am or not, but I live with my nana and her new abusive husband would kick me out if I even had a pregnancy test so there is not really a good way to do that. I would just like to know all the information, if we should be worried or not, and anything you can tell us. Thank you so much!
My girlfriend wants to have sexual intercourse and I'm waiting till marriage. I'm sure she will be the one, but I believe sex should happen after marriage. What do I do?
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