And on ice! (No, not on ice, sorry. That'd sure be fun, though.) "Scarleteen Live" is something we think is pretty exciting, even without ice skates and kooky costumes, but probably isn't quite as exciting as it sounds, either. There aren't even any song and dance numbers. (Yet.)

Here's what this is all about, for real.

Just below the Scarleteen 101 section on the left-hand sidebar over there, you should see something new today that looks like this:

Or, you'll see an image that looks like that one, but which says it's offline, and makes a sad-face because, as you know, someone not being online to help when you want is a bummer.

What's that all about?

That's our brand new, shiny, live site helpline. It's a web-based, real-time chat system our visitors can now use to be able to connect with one of our staff or volunteers directly for quick help.

What kind of help? If you're new to the site, and are having any trouble navigating, or have any kind of technical problem using the site, yo

As we've explained in the past, like here, with proper use, condoms actually break very rarely. The common mythology that condoms are flimsy and break all the time is just that: mythology, not reality. Different studies on latex condom breakage tend to reflect a breakage rate of around .4%, or only 4 breaks in every 1,000 uses. So, if you're having condoms break often, especially before you've even used them a few hundred times, it's not likely something is wrong with condoms, but that something is wrong with the way you're using them. That's not surprising, since a lot of people don't get good information about how to use condoms correctly, or ever see clear, slow demonstrations of proper use where they also get the chance to ask questions.

Since we've been having some users lately reporting patterns of breakage, we thought we'd take a few minutes to walk you through a review of some common issues that tend to make breakage more likely, so that those of you using condoms can avoid br