I am 17, and I have a 15 year old sister who is Autistic. I also come from an EXTREMELY Catholic family. I never got a sex talk - I straight-up asked my dad what sex meant when I was 9 or 10, and he gave me some very unhelpful answer about a gift that God intended to be shared between a man and a woman in marriage. I, however, had enough resources like gurl.com and, you know, friends with older sisters to eventually get the full picture. My sister does not.
Katie knows about menstruation and deals very well with it, but at last check she barely knew what her parts were and she does not appear to be receiving any meaningful sex education in school - that's my school district through and through. But Katie is physically mature, and I'd bet almost anything that she's experiencing age-appropriate sexual feelings.
Let’s just say – just because we can – that we, all women, in every sexual scenario imaginable, are already past both the no and the yes. Let’s say that nothing even starts without that yes, and that when it is issued, it is firmer, stronger and more exuberant than we may be able to presently imagine it could be. Let’s write a new ideal sexual initiation script. One that's a lot more interesting.
While out of town this weekend, between two plane trips and a couple late evenings up reading, I started and polished off Elliott Currie's The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence in very short order.
The website for the wonderful young women's menstrual cycle book "Cycle Savvy."
...and we love them back!
We interrupt your regular programming for a little bit of shameless and self-congratulatory self-promotion.
The reviews of our young adult sex guide, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College have been coming in, and we're elated to hear that readers and reviewers of the book seem to think it's just as special and essential as we do.
Feeding hungry readers!
Book reviews, author interviews, a blog, extensive reading lists and more.
Need a place to start in building your sexuality canon? Start at the bookstore or your local library, and get your read on with these books we suggest as cornerstones for a holistic, informed sex education!
Teenreads.com bring teens info and features about their favorite authors, books, series and characters. We are a part of The Book Report Network, a group of websites founded in 1996 that share thoughtful book reviews, compelling features, in-depth author profiles and interviews, excerpts of the hottest new releases, literary games and contests, and more with readers every week.
The American Library Association's list of best picks for young adult reads by year.
Hanne Blank is not a virgin. (She's almost 37 and she's been living with her life partner for nine years -- we just thought we'd get that out of the way.) But she is a historian, a writer, and an expert on virginity, having written the first-ever history of the subject, "Virgin: The Untouched History."
I've recently been unable to put down The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler. (It's a tough month for my bedside table, which has had to bear the physical and emotional weight of that book, as well as bell hooks' All About Love: New Visions, Jackson Katz's The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, and Susan Griffin's Woman and Nature.)
© 1998 - 2009 Scarleteen/Heather Corinna. All Rights Reserved.
Best viewed with Firefox • Privacy Policy & User Guidelines
Subscribe to our RSS feed.