readiness

Driver's Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent

Most of us understand being in transit means there's a possibility of getting hurt, hurting others, having a good time turn into a bad one or just not getting to where we intended, and to try and prevent those outcomes, we need to follow basic rules of the road like being attentive to and actively giving clear signs and signals. Just like it's important on the road, it's important between the sheets.

Pregnancy Scared?

Worried you or a sexual partner might be pregnant? Evaluate your risk, find out what steps you may need to take next, check in with your feelings and by all means, breathe. We're here to walk you through it.

All About S.E.X.: The Scarleteen Book!

Get your hands on S.E.X.: the in-depth and inclusive young adult sexuality guide by Heather Corinna! Check out reviews, the table of contents and a myriad of places you can get your very own copy of the sexuality primer for every body.

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 about 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.

An Infection Getting Worse and Worse: Can I Just Wait it Out?

Meghan_Hoover asks:

I am 15 and I just had sex for the first time last Friday. It was unprotected but he did not cum. The next morning I had pain. The pain continued through Saturday and Sunday. I thought the pain was from having sex for the first time, but it's now Monday and I realized stinging while I pee, cloudy with some blood in it too, in addition to constantly having to pee and never feeling empty. I have had chills, too. I am almost 100% positive I have a UTI, but there is no way I'm telling my mom and getting medical attention for it, she can't know I had sex. I've read into it in depth, and the more I read the more scared I get. I'm on a vitamin regimen and I am able to get a z-pack, which treats bacterial infections but I'm unsure if it'll help me. Will it? are there anything I can do besides drink water and wait it out? How long will it last untreated? HELP!

Of forgotten condoms. And days without pants.

It occurs to me that the "we both forgot to use condoms" thing that comes up often enough is a bit like suggesting that a person forgot to wear pants.

For a whole day.

And didn't notice.

At all.

They got home, and after hours of being out in the cold or the sun, at work, getting lunch, taking the bus back and forth, only when they saw their pants laying on the bed did they go, "Whoah! I haven't had pants on ALL DAY! I had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER!"

Just think about it. Seriously. Think about it. If in doubt, try The Great Pantsless Experiment and see how long you go without noticing.

Here's a thing to know: chances are AWFULLY good that at least one person in that situation, and certainly the person who would be WEARING the condom realizes they're not wearing a condom. Probably right from the start, but if not then pretty darn shortly thereafter.

That person is highly unlikely not to feel any difference at all, because even though various kinds of sex can feel just as awesome with condoms ...

I trust him and I want him, but things are moving WAY too fast!

Emme6678 asks:

I'm only 14 and a freshmen and I've only been dating my boyfriend for about two weeks and we have been moving pretty quickly. We have been friends for a really long time and I really like and trust him but I feel like we are moving too quickly. He has already fingered me and I've given him a handjob, and he's been talking about sex. I think I am way too young and I definitely dont feel ready but when we're doing things and I'm really turned on I sometimes actually want to have sex. I am really curious what actual sex is like, and I want to try it. But I know in the long run I will regret it. How do I stop myself from doing something solely based off of my hormones? How do I explain to my boyfriend that I dont want to have sex?

Can I Start Dating When I Have a Mental Illness?

Steelflower asks:

I'm a seventeen-year-old girl and ten months ago, I was diagnosed with a light form of pseudologica fantasia, usually known as mythomania. The basis of this illness is an addiction to telling lies. I'm seeing a therapist for this and she's a very kind and competent woman, but she has warned me that this illness is usually hard to cure and there are few known cases where the therapy was actually able to get rid of the problem. I'm doing a better job at keeping it under control than I used to but the urge is still there. I just keep it under wraps and tackle the illness on my own, with the support of my nuclear family. The thing is, one of my friends has recently expressed a romantic interest in me, and I would very much like to get involved in a relationship with him, but this would mean disclosing my problem to him, because of course I'm not going to enter a relationship without telling the other person involved about this first.

Life Lessons from TV: Dawson's Creek on How to Know You are Ready for Sex

One of my favorite TV shows when I was a teenager was the series "Dawson's Creek." The series centered around best friends Joey and Dawson and portrayed their experiences from high school and into college as they made and lost friends, entered and left relationships, and grew up. The show was aired from 1998 to 2003 and was one of the most popular drama series of its time. It dealt very realistically with many issues that teens can be faced with, from bullying to dealing with a parents' divorce, and I think it did this so well that the lessons from the show are still applicable even today.

One of these lessons was about figuring out when you're ready for sex.

We often get questions here on Scarleteen from people who are thinking about becoming sexually active and don't know how to figure out whether they are ready for that step. Like so many aspects of sex, this "readiness" is something a lot of peers refer to but few can quite explain.

If you ask most people what it feels like to be ...

Off the Beaten Path

When I was growing up, I often turned to my mother for relationship advice. We had our differences, but we were close, and I valued her opinions. However, I also found myself grappling with many of the things she said, because in all of it one thing was clear: for her, the only kind of acceptable sexual relationships are monogamous, heterosexual, long-term commitments.

We first started having these conversations when I was around 14 years old, which was also when I first started to question my sexuality. From the start, I had some questions about this concept. What if I did not want to sleep with men at all? What if I did not feel interested in the marriage-and-kids thing?

A few years later, after two failed relationships (with the same wonderful person) and a lot of angst, I was fairly certain about two things: 1. I was pretty darn queer and 2. I wasn't cut out for monogamous, long-term relationships at the time. I did not feel comfortable within a relationship, no matter how awesom...

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