sexualization

Scarleteen Confidential: How “Men Suck” Messes Everybody Up

SCsquareMessages parents or guardians have given our users about gender come up frequently, and often problematically. As feminists and queer activists, we address gender stereotyping often in our content and conversations around women and gender nonconforming people of many stripes (or polka dots, whichever one prefers), and we know the weight of it all too well. But gender stereotyping is not just everybody’s problem, it’s a problem for everybody, and that includes for men, and the problems, for everybody, many gender stereotypes about men create.

I'm into my friend and want to fool around with her, but will she do it?

Samuel F.
asks:
I'm 15, and I have a close female friend of the same age with D-cup bra size and very good looks all-around. She hasn't shown much visible interest in sexuality, but we haven't talked very much about it at all. I've been wanting to see if she'd want to fool around. Is that really way too much for friendship or could I somehow get her to do it willingly?...

How are we supposed to know what’s wrong if we don’t know what’s right?

Sexuality in ColorSade is 17 and works as a youth activist for YWCHAC, a program for and by young women of color that helps foster their development in advocacy training while providing them with the skills to be effective peer-educators to youth on the subject of sexual health. Their mission is to address the increasing rates of HIV infection in young women of color ages 13-24.

I got the chance to ask Sade about what she does, why she does it, and what she thinks about some of the issues that impact HIV and young women.

Talking to My Daughter

Part of the 2010 Blogathon to help support Scarleteen. This entry is courtesy of Tess at Urban Gypsy.

If I earned a dollar each time I’ve heard the statement, “I’m surprised you’re so strict,” in relation to my parenting, I’d be basking on a beach in Tahiti now rather than on a Metro North train whisking me off to do a sex ed consult on the Lower East Side. I’d probably be doing sex ed consults in Tahiti; you can take me out of NY but you can’t kill my desire to help people learn more about their sexuality. But back on point, I can always hear the implied, “you with your pierced nose, tattoo, open marriage and non-stop sex talk.”

The funny thing is, my friends may have been surprised but my daughter was not.