young adults

What Would Maria Do? One Sex Educator's Ever-Evolving Manifesto

Submitted by Heather on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 20:47.

One of the things that has a great influence in both how I enact sexuality education and how I conceptualized my approach from the get-go is my background with teaching in the Montessori Method.


Did my stepmother lie to me about my right to birth control?

Audrey asks:

I would appreciate a little light shed on my question, it puzzles me greatly. I asked a good while ago if I could start on Birth Control, and my father actually wouldn't mind, in fact, he supports it. My stepmother, on the other hand, doesn't seem comfortable with it. Despite the obvious discomfort, she said she'd call her doctor and see what she could do. Days later, she told me they won't take anyone under 18. This confused me. I know many teenagers on Birth Control. I hope she's not just saying that, although it wouldn't be the first time she did something rather similar to that. At first I got the feeling that she thought I would change if I was on the pill, like I was invincible and I could never get pregnant, so I can have sex whenever I want. The thing is, I'm not sexually active, I'm a virgin. I often get the feeling she thinks I'm a tramp. I would NEVER think in that fashion. So, my question to you, do you have to be a certain age to consult a doctor about Birth Control? And although I'm only 16, would that be my personal choice to take the pill? Or do they have a say in it until I'm a legal adult?

Is it normal for girls to experiment with sex together when they're not lesbian?

Sam asks:

A couple of years ago I was over at my best friends house and we were in her living room ready to go to sleep and we were just talking and she asked me if I masturbate and I told her I did and then she started to rub her clitoris and then she started to rub mine. After that she asked me if I had ever kissed a girl and I said no then we started to make out and stuff. I know I'm not a lesbian but what we did was a lot of fun, is this normal for girls to do this sort of stuff together?

Activism 101

Want to step up and start standing up for the issues most important to you? Here's a few basics on how young activists can get started.

A Calm View from the Eye of the Storm: Hysteria, Youth and Sexuality

When we look in the mirror as a culture, our tendency toward hysteria always seems to hover in our communal blind spot. We’re not very good at seeing when groups with a political or social agenda are manipulating us with fear, often the unreasonable, irrational fear of the taboo.