women

First Intercourse 101

If 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 might 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?

Seven Ways to Love Your Body

This is not another diet guide. It will not show you how to lose ten pounds by Thanksgiving. It will not introduce you to a new set of "miracle ab crunches" or rave about the latest liposuction advances. And there will be no butt pads, silicone, or fat-free recipes to share.

FBI Files: Vasocongestion, AKA: Blue Balls

Am I blue? Find out what "blue balls" are really all about: the facts may surprise you.

Shameless

When I was a teenager, having sex wasn't really part of my rebellion.

Having GOOD sex was.

Full-Spectrum Choice

I've recently been unable to put down The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler. (It's a tough month for my bedside table, which has had to bear the physical and emotional weight of that book, as well as bell hooks' All About Love: New Visions, Jackson Katz's The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, and Susan Griffin's Woman and Nature.)

Even though every single first-person story in it makes my heart hang heavy, even though if I read it at night, I have to fight off the urge to allow myself to cry myself to sleep. It's important. So important.

I was just mentioning today to one of the amazing young women at the All Girl Army, blogging for choice today, that while it is, absolutely, positively vital to talk about backalley abortions, to talk about what abortion was like before Roe vs. Wade (and what it still is like in areas where abortion is illegal or inac...

The HPV Vaccine FAQ

A vaccine is available to help prevent the spread of some types of HPV for people of all genders. Have a click to find out more about it.

The morning after the morning after (or, what the FDA decision about Plan B means to you)

The morning after pill is now legal in the U.S. for over-the counter use, without a prescription, for those over 18.

But what does that mean to you?

Following is an in-depth question and answer page about the decision and how it will be applied for all women, about Plan B, and about pharmacist refusals and how to manage them. Please circulate this information and/or link it as widely as possible, (with attribution to the author, please).

The FDA press release from the day of the decision stated:

Watch Your Reproductive Rights Vanish Right Before Your Very Eyes!

It's hard enough to stomach this administration's claims of a "War on Terror," when fighting that war (as if that wasn't ironic enough already) involves taking water and work away from civilians, and thousands of deaths and injuries for Iraqis and American soldiers alike.

But when, today, the Supreme Court negated federal protections for abortion clinics against violence, when the Bush administration supported a "pro-life" group with a validated history of a wide scope of clinic violence, including bombings (again with the irony), all one could really ask oneself was...

Watch Your Reproductive Rights Vanish Right Before Your Very Eyes!

Abortion & Trauma: The Bigger Picture

Studies, and reports on them, like this amaze me. Of course, the pro-life blogs and sources are all over this already like white on rice.

Of COURSE a lot of women suffer long-term trauma with abortion, and of course it's longer-term than miscarrying (pity they didn't also include women's psychological states after childbirth, the first year of parenting and adoption).

You miscarry, everyone says, "Oh, I am so sorry." This is said whether you wanted to be pregnant, whether you planned to bring a pregnancy to term or not. This is not usually the case with abortion: in part because a lot of women don't -- can't -- tell anyone they have even had an abortion.

You are told again and again that a miscarriage is not your fault. Rarely are women told an abortion is not our fault. We are told miscarriage is okay, because it is out of our control. Because we chose to have an abortion somehow that negates the fact that the systems we l... Read more...