communication

Y'all need to remember that when anyone is doing the things that can cause pregnancy, pregnancy is always a possibility. In other words: are you having direct genital-to-genital contact with someone who has a different reproductive kind of system than you do? If so, pregnancy is possible. How...

Congratulations on starting college and on your great new relationship with a guy who means a lot and treats you well! This is an exciting time in many ways, and I'm glad to hear that you're interested in waiting on getting sexual until you both feel ready for it. It sounds like you just started...

As anyone who works in sex education or sexuality can tell you, when it comes to the questions people ask us, variations on the theme of "Am I normal?" reign supreme. I just spent a half hour going through our advice question queue, doing a search on each page for the word "normal." At the moment...

I don't think that how we feel emotionally is ever about a matter of rights. We cannot control what we feel, after all: we can only control how we process, hold, express and manage our feelings. You feel upset: whether or not you or anyone else thinks you have a right to have those feelings, there...

You've probably heard or thought some things about condom use that might be keeping you or others from using them or from using them consistently, and I'm willing to bet you haven't heard everything I'm about to say. Even if you're already using condoms and using them every single time properly, I bet you know someone -- a sibling, a friend, a sexual partner -- who could stand to hear ten great reasons to use condoms.

My hat's off to you for being so thoughtful about the readiness of your partner. Too many people not as concerned as they should be about a partner's readiness, and people are often particularly prone to presume male partners are always ready: that if men want sex, it's all go, with no need to...

Hi aroplane, I'm sorry to hear that your long-distance relationship is causing you so much pain. It sounds like the two of you both really love and just downright like one another, and time has told you that those feelings are really strong. The one and only but huge challenge is the distance...

A lot of what I'm reading in your post suggests to me that you two are just not in a good place for sex together right now. Someone telling you they don't want to be intimate, that they don't like it when you do sexual activities for them, that they don't like to do them for you is usually telling...

It sounds like you've found an effective and pleasurable way for you to enjoy masturbation! There is huge variety in what people find pleasurable or comfortable. Lots of folks report that direct clitoral stimulation is too much or otherwise uncomfortable, and then there are plenty of others who...

The first thing I want to mention here is that I’m not sure there is such a thing as “a normal teenager”! Seriously, each individual is different, with different needs and desires, and so there is no one way to be in the world. The best we can do is make decisions that are well-informed and that...