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Friends or Lovers? The Complexities of Queer Love

Relationships, like gender and sexuality, don’t fit into a binary. The phrase queer platonic, which comes from the asexual community, means a deep and meaningful intimate relationship which isn’t based on sex. You can have this with anyone – no matter their gender or sexuality. Perhaps if the term were more normalised (I hadn’t heard of it before researching this article), more people would be comfortable with such a relationship.

Scarleteen Mix #9: Crushing It!

Are you now or have you ever been floating and gooey or jangly and excited or blissed out or feeling downright tortured or just plain imploding from the giant wave of what even are all these freakishly distracting feelings? There's a song here for that: even if you haven't ever had a crush before you just might wind up feeling like you have one now.

Scarleteen Mix #7: Friendship Is Magic

Whether your friends are your boyfriend, your dog, your best friend from almost the minute you were born, your third cousin, your booty call, your Dad, your guitar teacher, your downstairs neighbor, your brother, your girlfriend, your iguana, your teammates, your band, your Mom, your gaming group, your sister, your cat, your uncle, your cool new friend from work, your lover, your secret crush, your guardian, your gerbil, your stepmom, the kid you mentor, your choir director, your sponsor, your lab partner, your co-author, that cool person you always talk to the whole way home on the bus, your training buddy, the lunch lady, your locker next-door neighbor, or anyone else, this one's for them.  And for you, friend.

He gets oral sex from me: what can I do to get him to give me some?

starriestknight
asks:
I'm 19 and have been with my boyfriend (also 19) for a little over two years. In the last year, our relationship has progressed sexually (but both of us have decided not to have intercourse). A few months ago, he performed oral sex on me. I'd given him blowjobs before and he asked if he could reciprocate. Afterward, though, he was really quiet. I got the nerve to him about it....

Summering Safe and Sound

Here in the hemisphere I live in, we're into the swing of summer. Ah, summer, my personal favorite season. I love the sun, the warmth, everything blooming, the energy, the spirit of the season.

It's also the time of year when we tend to see the most new users coming to us because they're in a crisis or a panic, or are just really, really feeling down in the dumps. We know that the idea of summer as a happy, carefree time for all young people doesn't square with the reality that for plenty, it's not, whether that's about tough stuff happening, or about having experiences that aren't negative, but are just super-challenging. With that in mind, here are a few tips and things to think about as you get into (or grapple with) your summer groove:

What's it called when you're a straight girl who finds other women beautiful?

Thyromanes
asks:
What do you call it when you're sexually attracted to men (I'm a girl), but you can also appreciate female beauty? I'm straight and would not want a woman as a sexual partner. However, it's not unusual when I see a beautiful woman to think "damn, she's smokin'" the same way I might think "wow, he's a hunk" when I see an attractive guy....

What if our feelings aren't perfectly mutual?

Anonymous
asks:
This question isn’t about a sexual issue, but I was hoping you could help me anyway. I’ve been going out with this guy for about 4 months now, and I’m getting a bit antsy. We’re both really busy with college and work, and we find it quite hard to organize dates and so on (we don’t go to the same college)....