partnered sex

Ready or Not? The Scarleteen Sex Readiness Checklist

Thinking about partnered sex? Do yourself a favor and look through our checklist to get a good idea bout the readiness of you and your partner -- it's more complicated and demanding than many people think, and knowing what you need to get ready can help assure that your sexual experiences with a partner will be as great for both of you as possible.

Virginity: Written all over her face?

CuriousX asks:

Is there any way to see if the girl is still a virgin? By looking at her face closely? Or any changes in her?

Why do I feel like I want a baby right now?

Emily asks:

I'm 18 years old, going on 19 and have been with my boyfriend for 2 years who is the same age. I lost my virginity to him and have never wanted any other person besides him. When we first started having sex, I was completely afraid of getting pregnant. I once thought I was pregnant and contemplated throwing myself down the stairs, though now I would never do such a thing. Now that we've been together for so long, and plan on being together for a long time to come, I've been having very strange thoughts.

I'll be in a store, and look at baby clothes or a book store and see baby books and think "Oh, it's baby stuff. I wish I had a little one of my own." Right now, my boyfriend and I live together, he goes to college and works part time and I just work. I have no clue what I want to do yet, so we decided to move and let him go to school since he had it all planned out.

I'm just not interested anymore!

Sudden Prude asks:

Lately I am afraid of any sexual contact.

I'm in a wonderful relationship and have been with this same person for the past 4 years. We have been having sex for 2 years, and thus far it is always both extremely safe and mutually satisfying. We have never had a sexual encounter that felt unsafe, and we talk about sex really openly.

I have no idea why I suddenly am uninterested in sex. Mentally, I want to be intimate with him. However, for the past two weeks I have physically flinched whenever we try to do something. I am not experiencing any physical pain, I just get scared. I have not experienced any sexual assault or abuse in the past (to my recollection anyway) and I completely trust my partner.

What's wrong with me? How can I learn to feel comfortable being physical again?

The only factor that I can identify as a possible explanation is that recently I tried watching porn a few times. I found it satisfying, then eventually got weirded out by how offensive it can be and the way it makes sex seem very public. I like sex to remain within my relationship, and to be very private. I felt guilty after the porn thing, and maybe that's why I'm still freaking out, but I don't know. I don't have any conscious guilt about that anymore and don't have it on my mind when we attempt to have sex. I therefore doubt that this is the real reason for my recent fears, but cannot come up with any other possibility.

Any ideas?

Not feeling much with penetration, what's up with that?

Ashlee B. asks:

I'm 18 years old and I recently just lost my virginity. It wasn't very painful at all as I had heard it might be, in fact the pain I felt was very minor and more so irritating to my vagina than anything. The thing that I was worried about though however, is the fact that after he entered, I felt nothing. At first I thought that maybe it was because he doesn't seem really big in size, but after reading up on it, I guess he's pretty average. And although I felt nothing, he did. So I don't have a clue why this is so. Also, I've never really found pleasure in fingering either when he does or when I do it myself because I don't get a sensation from it. Could this be related? I just want to know if you any information that might be useful to me. Thanks.

First Intercourse 101

When you're thinking about sexual (vaginal) intercourse with an opposite sex partner, and you've got everything you feel you need: materially, in terms of your relationship, and emotionally, you're probably still reading because you want to know HOW to make it all work your first time. The bulk of questions we get asked about first intercourse are: Will it hurt? Will I bleed? Will I hate it? I'm so scared, what do I do? Why isn't my boyfriend talking to me now that we've had sex? Why didn't I orgasm? Why didn't it feel like anything?