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Why can't I let go of his past?

Audrey asks:

I am 21 years old and have been with my boyfriend for eight months. This is the first relationship I have ever been in; we had sex only a couple of days after we met and I have been with him since. Obviously I trust him and love him and we have a very healthy relationship, but I have known for a while now that prior to meeting me, he slept with 15 other girls. I have a history of depression and ever since he has told me I have started to feel really horrible about it all - I never thought it was something that would ever bother me, as I have friends both male and female who are promiscuous, but I feel so much differently about it now that he has told me. I feel that it upsets me a lot and I don't know why and I can't understand it. I have tried to talk to him about it a lot but he won't open up to me and I don't know what else I can do.

Do vibrators cause a loss of sensitivity?

girl16 asks:

I have heard two different stories; one, that using a vibrator can do no harm, and two, that using a vibrator can do worlds of harm! I have heard that using one will desensitize the area and make sex with a real person totally unenjoyable and dissatisfying. Which theory is true?

How could I check if I am still a virgin?

16-gurl asks:

I just wanna ask could orgasm make me lose your virginity? How could I check if I am still a virgin?

Dear New York Times

Submitted by Heather on Sat, 07/28/2007 - 19:27.

I sent this in response to the New York Times piece published last week regarding abstinence-only education. Alas, I didn't hear back from them, so I offer it up here instead. I feel it's important to get as much informed commentary out there on this issue as possible right now, especially considering the recent continuance and increases given to abstinence-only funding.

I want to lose my virginity before I have sex.

sodapope asks:

I am a virgin, and I really want to lose it myself before I actually have sex because it is embarassing that I still have my virginity and i'm 18. But everytime that I masterbate or try to "pop my cherry" about like 3 inches into my vagina there is like a "sheet" of skin that is hard to push through, I am not sure if it is something you are supposed to push through, or it's my "cherry", I just don't want to hurt myself breaking something I am not supposed to.

From Victim to Survivor

Sometimes we have no idea how things will affect us, no idea about the million ways in which one event can influence our lives. When I ran out of the driveway that day, across the street and to our house, I had no idea that the hard part was still to come.

One volunteer's story of her history with sexual abuse, and her journey to healing.

A Calm View from the Eye of the Storm: Hysteria, Youth and Sexuality

When we look in the mirror as a culture, our tendency toward hysteria always seems to hover in our communal blind spot. We’re not very good at seeing when groups with a political or social agenda are manipulating us with fear, often the unreasonable, irrational fear of the taboo.

Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

The Museum of Menstruation is full of interesting facts about menstruation and menstrual products throughout history, going as far back as Greek philosophers.

Magical Cups & Bloody Brides: Virginity in Context

The more common meaning and implication of the term came to change around the 13th century and derived a sexual, sexist and moralistic meaning. With that change, the word now implied that staying a virgin until marriage guaranteed that a woman would uphold the family honor by passing from father to husband as an object that was owned -- her virginity, her own body, was a thing of value that would be owned by her father, until such time as ownership of her virginity, body and sexuality would be transferred to her husband.

To Jane & Sarah for Their 30th Birthday

Enough people don't talk about abortion. Too many people don't listen to those who do. I'm not talking about conceptually or hypothetically. I'm not talking about discussing this woman or that who you knew that aborted or did not. I'm talking about talking about abortion; intimately, personally. In public, not in secrecy.

20 Questions About Virginity: Scarleteen Interviews Hanne Blank

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."

What's Sodomy?

The Biblical sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality or anal sex -- it was rape, greediness and poor hospitality, and the legal basis of sodomy is not about homosexuality, but about oral and anal sex, and often about homophobia.

Looking, Lusting and Learning: A Straightforward Look at Pornography

What IS pornography? Why do people use it? Should I like it or not?

Shameless

Submitted by Heather on Wed, 02/14/2007 - 00:00.

When I was a teenager, having sex wasn't really part of my rebellion.

Having GOOD sex was.

Full-Spectrum Choice

Submitted by Heather on Mon, 01/22/2007 - 00:00.

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.)

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