parents

As we go through childhood and our teens, our boundaries tend to change. It's typical for young people growing up to want increasing privacy and also to have an expanding personal space bubble: to want your family and other people close to you to support you feeling like your body is absolutely your...

I'm writing this because someone told you that you can't understand or experience love at your age. If no one did yet, they probably will soon enough. I'm writing to tell you that if you've heard that, I just don't think it's true.

Let me first talk lay out the basics of UTIs. A urinary tract infection (also called cystitis or bladder infections) is essentially something that happens when external bacteria enter your body through the urethra -- your urinary opening -- and get into your urinary tract and your bladder. That...

I'm so sorry that was your almost-first-time sexual experience. If it's any consolation, you're hardly alone: a whole lot of people have had this kind of experience with sex and a parent. Ultimately, I'd say your biggest issue right now is earning your mother's trust back, not finding a way to have...

Talking with your parents about sex can be really hard – even if your parents are really open and start the conversation themselves rather than you starting it – or even if your parents are totally supportive of your boyfriend or girlfriend and your sexual activities. Here are some tips and helps to make it easier on both of you.

Erin's question continued And I said it wasn't that I didn't want to, but that I should at least wait until I get on birth control or something. And he started begging, so I said we could do anything except for that. And then he told me nothing else would be good enough, and got really angry and...

Feeling uncomfortable or trapped by one’s own body is a really hard feeling to manage. I’m really glad that even though it was a challenge you were able to put some words to your feelings, and I hope that maybe this response can help you feel a little less isolated in those feelings. The first thing...

This is actually a question that we see very often around here, and it’s understandable that you’d be worried about this if you don’t want your mother right now to know that you’re sexually active. Doctors actually have an ethical responsibility in keeping what’s called doctor-patient...

It doesn't make any sense to presume infertility until you have had fertility tests done. At least once a week or two, I sit in the clinic I also work at counseling someone for an abortion procedure who was told or had the idea that they were infertile, and who didn't get tested to make sure that...

If you go to an OB/GYN and your mother asks them to do this, the very first thing that should happen would be for that doctor to explain that is not what should motivate a parent to get their child sexual healthcare, and hopefully, they'll also tell her that going to the gynecologist should be about...