communication

First up, good onya, J, for thinking about these things in advance, despite that fact that you've been so unprepared to do so by your community! Here's the scoop on condoms for you. Effectiveness & Use: With perfect use, condoms are HIGHLY effective, around 98%. Perfect use means a few things. It...

It's a pretty mixed message to tell someone they're perfect, then tell them that you're only interested in engaging in a certain sexual activity with them if they look a certain way per your liking (shaved, unshaved, what have you). Sex with partners shouldn't have entry requirements based on what a...

A young person is very unlikely to need or benefit from hormone therapy to help with sexual desire. And if she's already been on many different types of birth control pills, it's relatively safe to say that if hormonal BC is the issue here, then her best bet is to switch to another contraceptive...

I think it's sage to listen to yourself when you say that maybe you don't want to get into something you're both not sure about and are not sure you'll like. If only one partner has any interest in doing an activity, and the other either has none, or is opposed to it, it's generally best to just...

That's pretty normal as partners get more comfortable having sex together, so you should let him know that doesn't mean anything is wrong. But if he's not satisfied with that, the trick generally is just to mix it up: to mix in way more activities than intercourse, and to focus on his whole body...

Plenty! Without more information than that, it's hard for me to know what's been part of your sexual activity. For instance, if by sexually active, you just mean with partners -- for any activity -- then I'd suggest going back to your own drawing board, with your own two hands, and finding out about...

I’m going to suggest you look at reciprocity in sex -- the idea that one person gives something, so the other should get something of equal value back -- in a different way than you might be used to. (Excerpted and adapted from S.E.X., the Scarleteen book.)

You know, what "sex" even IS differs for everyone. There are a world of sexual activities out there -- oral sex, manual sex, intercourse, anal play, role play, frottage, the works -- and how each person does them isn't only different from person to person, but from partnership to partnership, and...

Having sex with someone else is really intimate, and we're all vulnerable in that space, and double for both when we have strong feelings for the person we're with. So, in order to make our own best choices -- including in terms of our emotional safety -- we need to understand that. Does this person...

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is the most common cause of vaginitis symptoms among people with vaginas of childbearing age (15-45). However, half the people who meet clinical criteria for BV have no symptoms.