You can read everything from the Kama Sutra to The Joy of Sex, watch porn vids until your eyeballs fall out, have a ton of sexual experience or psychically channel Mata Hari or Casanova, but if you don’t know how to openly communicate with your partners -- with your words -- chances are neither you nor your partner are going to have really healthy, beneficial and satisfying sexual experiences, especially in the long-term. So, read up and start talking!

If we're going to think of our genitals as big, any one of us, given the small range between them, we should think everyone's genitals are big. We also need to accept that it's ignorant or misinformed to think, presume or suggest that penises are big but vaginas are small, because we really are all about the same size. If thinking big is better for one sex, it's also got to be better for the other. So, if you or someone else is going to go on about some big penis, you'd best get just as excited about the idea of a big vagina, and make having a big ol'Vagowski just as cool. And if you're all hung up on the idea that the vagina be as small as it can possibly be, or is such a small thing, then you've got to accept that penises are small, too.

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.)

Many teens have a lot of questions when it comes to homosexuality and bisexuality. In a culture that is often so damning of orientation and sexual identity outside heterosexuality, many teens become nervous when they feel attracted to those of the same sex, worried that they might be gay. Others suspect (or are even very sure) that they are homosexual or bisexual, but are afraid to say so either because they aren't completely sure and feel they will be branded in some way, or simply because they fear being rejected, outcast or scolded by their friends, family or community. While at least 8 million people in the United States are homosexual, about 70 million people still think it is an "illness" or "perversion."

If we look at our sexuality one way, it looks a million times simpler than it actually is. If we look at it another way, it appears a million times more complicated. While it's important that we bear everything in mind we need to in terms of infection and disease, birth control, our relationships, our bodies and the whole works, now and then we need to remember the bare bones and the human element of the thing, and keep the essentials in the forefront of our minds.

A candid memoir of first-time intercourse from the founder of Scarleteen.

Because of the way that sexuality works in all of us, the more responsible we are, and the more safe and protected we feel, the easier it is to be really aroused and to enjoy sex: which is the point, right?

Many people in long-term, committed relationships, be it marriage or steady partnership -- no matter their age -- have ideas about sex in partnerships they may not even be aware of. Often we base our ideas of relationships and sexuality on what we see in the media or in movies, on what our parents relationship is like, or on what we imagine, in a perfect world, sex and love to be. Talking about what those ideas are, communicating our feelings honestly, and creating clear limits and honoring them make everyone happier and healthier.