This summer, Arianna, who is one of our readers, wrote and produced a play at her college about sexuality which also included a fundraising ask for Scarleteen.
This month, Marlena, another Scarleteen user, surprised us with this incredible video she made as part of Project for Awesome, to do what she could to help support what we do and express her experience of what Scarleteen can offer to young people, particularly in a world which is so often unsupportive not just of youth sexuality, but of youth as a whole.
And now, in the last week, yet another fantastic young person began an ingenious self-designed fandom auction to help us here, an effort a host of creative, generous folks have hopped on so far to pitch in with.
We feel the information, support and services we provide for young people are things that young people truly are owed: things they should be able to receive for free from any of us who have the ability to provide them for them. Ideally, our hope is always that older folks with a greater ability to help support organizations and services financially do so that youth can simply take what they need from us as they need it and not have to worry about whether it will still be there for them or not tomorrow or next year.
At the same time, even though their resources are most often far more limited, we've had some young people step up now and in the past to do what they could to help keep us going. That's evidenced well by our fantastic and highly dedicated volunteer staff, all of whom are under 30. Young people have also given through our give-a-buck campaign (which sometimes also includes lovely thank you letters I keep on one wall of my office, letters which always make me smile). Over the years, some of our strongest donors have been those who used Scarleteen as young people, and years later, want to do what they can to say thank you and assure that we're here for other teens and twenty-somethings like we were for them.
We just can't thank all of you enough. Both for what you've been able to do to help provide financial support (support we think you really shouldn't have to give in the first place), but also because when you do things like this, it makes all of us who run and manage Scarleteen feel so great about what we do, have done and can keep on doing. All of the Scarleteen team love the work we do here, but it's hardly an easy job; it's one that asks a lot of our time and energy and requires intensely sustained motivation and determination, especially in a world where what we do and the way we do it is so often grossly unsupported, even though it's exactly what young people themselves are asking for. Efforts like yours are wonderful gifts. They're like having the most amazing alternative cheerleading squad an organization could ask for. Thank you.
Our thanks, too, to all of you, whatever your age, and in whatever way you've done it, who have already given us your support this year. Scarleteen has remained the kind of independent, grassroots media and free-range, progressive activism and advocacy we want it to be for all the years we have operated, and as we enter our 14th year, we are excited to be able to continue the work and service we couldn't sustain without your generosity. Thank you.
We're at the last day of end-of-year fundraising drive. I know how overwhelming it is this time of year with the flood of requests in your postal or email box asking for your support for so many organizations or issues. If you're like me, part of the overwhelm you feel is a deep desire to give to many of these when you know you can't possibly give all you'd like to to all of them, or even more than one or two, at best. Often enough, the most charitable and progressive of us also happen to have wallets whose skimpy contents are highly unreflective of our big-hearted desire to support the organizations and issues most important to us. I know that asking for even a little financial support is often asking a lot, which is one reason why I continue to keep Scarleteen one of the most cost-efficient organizations out there and continue to set our fundraising goals as modestly as I can.
This time around, we've unfortunately -- so far -- only been able to reach less than 1/3rd of our minimum-needed goal of $35,000. When we subtract the two highest donations from the $7,500 we've raised as of today, we're only looking at around $3,000 raised. Anything you can give will make a real difference.
If you can help out in the last days of 2011, we'd truly appreciate it. You can be sure every and any dollar you give to us will be stretched as far as possible to help us continue to provide the trailblazing, holistic sexuality education, information, services and advocacy for millions of young people around the world that we have since they started asking us for our help in 1998.
This isn't now or never. If you can't give now, but may be able to within a few months, that would be fantastic, too. Whether you can help out now or a bit further down the road, your contribution has real value.
If financial support isn't an option for you, we understand. But don't forget that as an organization without the budget to even adequately compensate one staff member, let alone have a paid staff of more than one, we always can use extra volunteers. For 2012, we could use any help you might be able to offer in the following areas, particularly:
If those are skills or services you can and want to offer to share, you can contact us here. Thanks!
Our very best to all of our readers, users, colleagues and allies as we wind up 2011 and enter 2012. We feel lucky to have you as members of our community as we enter another year of creating and supporting what we think is some of the very best sex and sexuality education on the planet for readers we strongly feel deserve nothing less. The very least we owe the young people in our world is to be half as awesome as they are, after all.
Some of our staff and volunteer's fave links and reading from our Facebook and Twitter feeds this week:
Stephanie's Fave: 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence:
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the ensuing 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence are commemorated every year around the world to raise awareness and trigger action on this pervasive human rights violation.
This year, UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet unveiled a 16 Step Policy Agenda to address the issue. Ending violence against women is one of UN Women’s priority areas. UN Women also coordinates the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign and supports widespread social mobilization through its Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women platform. In addition, UN Women manages the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women which commemorates its 15th anniversary in 2011.
Karyn's Faves: Abstinence education does not lead to abstinent behavior:
The study is the first large-scale evidence that the type of sex education provided in public schools has a significant effect on teen pregnancy rates, Hall said.
“This clearly shows that prescribed abstinence-only education in public schools does not lead to abstinent behavior,” said David Hall, second author and assistant professor of genetics in the Franklin College. “It may even contribute to the high teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries.”
Along with teen pregnancy rates and sex education methods, Hall and Stanger-Hall looked at the influence of socioeconomic status, education level, access to Medicaid waivers and ethnicity of each state’s teen population.
Even when accounting for these factors, which could potentially impact teen pregnancy rates, the significant relationship between sex education methods and teen pregnancy remained: the more strongly abstinence education is emphasized in state laws and policies, the higher the average teenage pregnancy and birth rates.
Personal Stories of Young People Living with HIV:
I'm Lilly and I’ve just been given my diagnosis a couple of months ago. I'm 20 years old and I don't know exactly how or when I got the virus as I have never had any distinctive symptoms or conversion illnesses however I have my suspicions on my first love boyfriend when I was 15. I have been with my current partner for over 3 years and until now had never used protection, I feel grateful that he is still testing negative.
My initial reaction to the diagnosis was complete and utter shock...how could I get HIV? How could this happen to me? I am going to die! Although I was reassured by my health advisor that there has been progress and I would live hopefully a \'normal\' life, visions of AIDS patients did not stop crossing my mind. I cried non-stop for the next few weeks, my appetite disappeared, I was not able to sleep, I did not want to go out, got severe headaches and basically wanted to end it there and then.
My partner has been great in helping me get through this time, I have not told my parents as yet out of fear that they will disown me, or worse, making their life a living hell. Although I still get times when I break down and cry, I am beginning to feel slightly stronger and more couragous(sic). I have joined a few support groups and have realised I am not alone, and this illness does not fit any stereotype- everyone is at risk, not just MSM, injecting drug users or people of colour.
On World AIDS Day, Remember Women:
Worldwide, 215 million women are not using an effective method of contraception despite the fact that they want to avoid pregnancy. The largest segment of these women live in sub-Saharan Africa and many are at risk of HIV. Women account for 60 percent of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and young women between the ages of 15 to 24 are up to eight times more likely to be infected than men of the same age.
December 1st marks World AIDS Day and this year’s theme is “Getting to Zero.” Much of this day will be focused on a celebration of new technology and science that can help prevent HIV through daily treatment and male circumcision. And we should celebrate those advances – but we should also not lose sight of women who need both family planning and HIV services.
Heather's Faves: Let’s get real: female sexual pleasure and HIV prevention:
My point in highlighting these particular experiences is clearly not to advocate for forms of sexual practice that may increase the risk of HIV transmission, but rather to encourage a broader and realistic conversation amongst researchers, policy makers and service providers around the varied ways in which young women define their sexuality and what they find sexually pleasurable. If our responses do not resonate with young women’s lived realities, they will fail. It is especially worrying that mistrust of African women’s sexual pleasure has become the default position in the HIV prevention world. There are hardly any interventions that are designed specifically to address young women’s sexuality in a positive and non-judgmental way and which acknowledge that some young women have sex because they find it pleasurable. Indeed, those of us in the HIV prevention world would do well to remember that sex is not always about danger and risk but is also ‘a positive and joyous experience’ for many people, including young, unmarried African women. In the mid-nineties, US anthropologist Ralph Bolton wrote a piece in which he lamented the fact that most HIV research had completely ignored ‘the joys of sex’. He identified twenty-six ways in which sex is a positive—rather than a negative—experience and these included: sex is play, adventure, transcendence, fun, fantasy, interaction, pleasure, liminality, ecstasy, experience, an expression of emotions and a source of meaning.
Play, adventure and experience were particularly strong themes in the narratives of the female students I encountered and yet, as Kenyan feminist scholar Mumbi Machera so poignantly asserted in Re-thinking sexualities in Africa, very rarely is ‘women’s sexual desire depicted as an autonomous gesture and as an independent longing for sexual expression, satisfaction and fulfillment’ in most of this literature. Surely, our reluctance and failure to acknowledge that young women are autonomous sexual beings must, at some level, impede our ability to effectively intervene with this population. The continued high rates of HIV infection among young women point to major inadequacies in current responses and these, in turn, can partly be attributed to the fact that many of these responses have been premised on the notion of women’s victimhood and lack of sexual agency. Examples include generic messages that are based on the ABC approach—abstain, be faithful and use condoms—which encourage young women to ‘say no’ to pre-marital sex or which focus on teaching women condom negotiation skills. These do not leave much room for individual choice and preference, and they do not resonate with the lived realities of those young women who prefer to ‘say yes’ to sex, or who may have successfully negotiated the non-use of condoms with their sexual partners. In fact, US scholars Jennifer Higgins and Jennifer Hirsch note that a few studies have shown that women - rather than men - are sometimes responsible for the non-use of condoms in relationships as they complain that condoms adversely affect their sexual enjoyment.
Adoption in the United States: Harder and More Complicated Than Most Believe But "Open" to Change:
Adoption has an abysmal and embarrassing history in the United States. The twenties saw Orphan Trains, where children (many of whom weren’t actually orphans) were placed into what frequently amounted to indentured servitude. The thirties and forties marked the emergence of for-profit adoption following the lead of the terribly corrupt Georgia Tann, who actively stole children from poorer families and placed them with anyone able to pay her high fees. The fifties and sixties constituted the “baby scoop” era, where young pregnant women were sent to maternity homes and subjected to emotional and financial coercion that denied their motherhood and assured them they would forget about their children soon after the adoption.
They never did.
From this history of corruption emerged the tenets that would shape adoption for following generations: a large amount of secrecy, an unhealthy dose of shame, and the belief that keeping adoptions closed was the best thing for all parties.
To all those men who don’t think the rape jokes are a problem:
I get it—you’re a decent guy. I can even believe it. You’ve never raped anybody. You would NEVER rape anybody. You’re upset that all these feminists are trying to accuse you of doing something, or connect you to doing something, that, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never done and would never condone.
And they’ve told you about triggers, and PTSD, and how one in six women is a survivor, and you get it. You do. But you can’t let every time someone gets all upset get in the way of you having a good time, right? Especially when it doesn’t mean anything. Rape jokes have never made YOU go out and rape someone. They never would; they never could. You just don’t see how it matters.
I’m going to tell you how it does matter. And I tell you this because I genuinely believe you mean it when you say you don’t want to hurt anybody, and that it’s important to you to do your best to be a decent and good person, and that you don’t see the harm.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week? Some snippets:
last updated 1/26/2011You probably heard that Siri, the new digital assistant on the iPhone 4S, could help someone find Viagra or a sexual escort, but not a family planning clinic, a local pharmacy to get a birth control prescription filled or an abortion provider. Whether that was intended or a glitch, it was understandably very upsetting. At Scarleteen, people can get easy help finding those important services and more through our SMS service, our fully moderated message boards, our growing Find-a-Doc database and, of course, our exhaustive information about contraception, abortion and other reproductive choices, sexual healthcare and so many other sexuality and sexual health topics.
Some people sure paid a lot of money for a tool that doesn’t serve them or others well. Scarleteen users get those services and much more for free. We give teens and young adults real people to talk with, for nearly 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, when the thousands of pages of in-depth, thoughtful information at Scarleteen don’t have all they want or need. While all of that is free to our users, providing it to them costs money.
You may have appreciated a recent piece on sex education at the New York Times. It profiled a sex educator who doesn’t limit sex ed to a dry curriculum, simplistic sound bytes or fearful warnings about the terrible, horrible things that will happen to teens if they engage in sex. We certainly appreciated it. Approaching sexuality as something potentially positive and enriching, rather than as only harmful, damaging or merely neutral is something we’ve always done. You may have seen this piece on why inclusive sex education is important. We know that, too: Scarleteen is inclusive of a spectrum of orientations and identities, including in our leadership and staffing. And we aim to be inclusive with more than just orientation, but also with gender identity, embodiment, relationship models, reproductive choices, socioeconomics, cultural and religious beliefs and more.
We know sex and sexuality aren't just about the bad things that can happen. We also know healthy sexuality and relationships aren’t things only heterosexual, gender-conforming, able-bodied, middle-class or white people can attain, and that one of the most important protective factors for healthy sexuality and positive sexual experiences and outcomes is real inclusion in sexuality education and support. Holding those kinds of positions limits our access to resources other organizations and initiatives who take a different stance have. But even when we’ve had to fight a long battle like we did with the ACLU over the COPA to defend these positions, we know this is what serves people best and is what we intend to stay true to, with or without media or political support.
Every year, millions of teen and young adult readers get the truly comprehensive sex and sexual health information, education and support they want and need at Scarleteen. Scarleteen users frequently express they find a level and a quality of education and service here they have not found anywhere else, including in school-based sex education and at other organizations or sites with exponentially greater resources.
We need your support because what we do costs money.
Scarleteen is an independent, grassroots organization without federal, state, institutional or foundational funding. We are, as we always have been, supported primarily by private, individual donations from people like you. And unlike some sex education services for young people that have come on the horizon lately who seek to charge them for information, we recognize the realities of the social and economic status of young people, and aim to always provide our services to them for free.
We often need to explain to potential supporters what it is we do and the many ways that we help young people. The fact that we’ve got more pages of original, thoughtful, in-depth and progressive sexuality, sexual health and intimate relationship information online than anywhere else makes some of what we have to offer obvious. But what might be less apparent to someone who isn't one of our young users is all of what we offer here and how much it can benefit them.
There’s also the user who utilized our text service after a sexual assault to get help gathering courage to go to the emergency room: we stayed on the line with her all day and into the night, giving her support throughout the many steps of that process. There’s the user who grew up in a socially conservative environment and married young, which was supported by his community, but who found himself without help or support from the same community when his wife filed for divorce, and when he realized that the strict gender roles he was raised with had resulted in the loss of his most cherished relationship. Or the evangelical user who engaged in sex before marriage and who struggled horribly with immense levels of guilt she felt unable to disclose to anyone in her community: she came to us for those conversations and that support. Or the homeless youth in Seattle this year who received pro-choice options counseling via our partnership with a local shelter: three young women made difficult choices with pregnancies, but all left these conversations with extensive resources and support for their different choices to terminate, arrange adoption and parent they didn't have before and couldn't get elsewhere.
Young people like these have said that without Scarleteen, they don’t know how they would have gotten through what they did and come out on the other side as well as they did. Young people like these rely on us to give them a kind of information and support they often say they couldn’t find anywhere else.
We know bad things or unwanted outcomes can happen. That’s why we dedicate so much time and energy to serving young people dealing with difficult trauma, issues or circumstances. However, not all of the young people who use Scarleteen come to us in crisis. Plenty come to us without traumatic experiences, or before they've engaged in any kind of sexual activity or sexual relationship. And that's just as important: we help young people create a foundation most likely to support healthy, happy sexualities and sexual lives and informed sexual choices they feel good about.
Users frequently voice surprise that we remember who they are as they come and go. Yet this isn't surprising for an organization who deeply engages with the people it serves as a core part of its model. We think this level of engagement and commitment is essential to serving young people well, particularly with issues as diverse, personal and complex as sexuality, core parts of their identity and intimate relationships.
A phone robot won't know or remember these stories and these people. Organizations who invest more time and energy in acquiring funding than in service, who base or change their missions or aims on the politics or whims of funders rather than on the expressed needs of those who need and use their services will not have a staff and volunteer staff who know all of these stories by heart like we do. Sex education initiatives which get hamstrung by social or political battles or by foundational or institutional red tape often never get off the ground to hear these stories or speak with these youth.
This level of service requires people with deep and abiding dedication and care, but it also costs money.
It can be easy to look at all we do for the many years we've consistently done it for and think we've got all we need to keep doing it. But we don't: the amount of funds we have to work with in a given year is typically about the same as the median income for one family in the United States, a budget which means closed doors for most organizations. We're proud of our ability to do all we have with so little, and proud of the profound commitment of our staff and volunteers. However to sustain our organization and all that it does and can do, we need continued and increased support.
That’s why we’re reminding you how much we need and depend on you.
You can assure Scarleteen remains available to the hundreds of thousands of young people who find what they want and need here each month by making a donation today.
Your contribution is something you can feel proud of because of the many young people's lives it helps us positively impact together; because of the dedicated passionate and compassionate education and support it provides them in an area of life where so many so often are undereducated and unsupported. Your contribution gets a thank you every single day through every young person who is able to use a fully comprehensive, caring service like ours. And it gets a big thank you from all of us at Scarleteen, who know exactly how valuable what you can give is, and who are grateful to you for helping us continue to do the work we so love doing.
If you'd like to know more about who we are, what we do and why and how we do it, or how else your contribution will be utilized, we've provided the links below as great starting points. We're also always happy to answer any questions you may have directly, including discussing larger contributions or private grants: feel free to email us anytime.
I'm a girl and I've been with my boyfriend for 8 months. I'm 18 and he's my first boyfriend. We've never had sex (he has had it before) but we've done other things. I have a problem though, I'm really scared to orgasm. Like we'll be doing something that feels so good and I know that if we just continued a bit longer I would get there (I feel the muscles contracting, the heart pumping, the intensity building and all that) but then I chicken out and make him stop. He's fine with it and very supportive and respects that I'm so scared, but it bothers me. Why can't I just let myself get there? It's the same deal if I um, "pleasure myself." Is there any way I can or he can help myself get over this fear of the unknown?
Some of our staff and volunteer's fave links and reading from our Facebook and Twitter feeds this week:
Rae's Faves: How Modesty Doctrines Made Me Hate My Body:
This isn’t a story about how modest clothes allowed me to “let myself go” and conceal a growing figure. It’s not even a story about how wearing modest clothes kept my self-esteem at rock bottom and thrust me into a too-close relationship with Ben & Jerry. It’s a story about how modesty doctrines impacted my mind, in ways that had real, negative effects on my body. Modesty was one of the reasons my defining relationship with my body became whether or not I was “fat.” Modesty was one of the engines that pushed me into a full-blown eating disorder. It’s not just a dress code: it’s a philosophy, and it’s one that destroys young women, mentally and physically.
Modesty taught me that my first priority needed to be making sure I wasn’t a “stumbling block” to men. Not being sexually attractive was the most important thing I had to consider when buying clothes, putting them on, maintaining my weight (can’t have things getting tight!), and moving around (can’t wiggle those hips, or let a little knee show). Modesty taught me that what I looked like was what mattered most of all. Not what I thought. Not how I felt. Not what I was capable of doing.
Stealth Shaming: What It Is, Why You Shouldn’t Do It, and How Not To:
The term “out” is of massive importance to queers. It is a term that describes how brave we are, how open, and most important how good we are at being us when everyone else insists that we shouldn’t be us. Denying blending trans people access to this term is identity policing in the worst way, and of course, it’s cissexist.
In a specifically trans context, to be out means to be honest and open about one’s gender identity. When a trans man tells someone he’s male, or walks into a men’s bathroom, or says, “From a guy’s perspective…” or does anything that indicates that he identifies as male, he’s out as a man. And he’s out. Full stop. He’s put his gender identity out there. The idea that he needs to add being trans to that as some sort of qualifier is a huge double standard. We don’t demand that all cis people come out as cis in order to be honest about their gender identities, even though it’s entirely possible that some of people in our lives whom we assume are cis are actually trans.
Karyn's Faves: Glee Teen Sex: Facts & Opportunities Using CDC vs. Hollywood TV:
Truth is, Hollywood is lying about teen sex. Big time.
New CDC research points to numbers that might as well frame Hollywood shows as a public health statistical version of ‘The Lying Game’ since TV consistently paints youth onto a recklessly bleak canvas of stereotyped imagery as impulsively hormonal lusty idiots …when the exact converse is true. Of those teens that have had sex, they did so using protection. And get this…according to the CDC, less than 43% of teens have ever had sex, meaning teenagers having sex are now in the MINORITY. (NYT/CDC) Contrary to “realityTV,” teen birth rates are down, based on data collected between ’06-2010. (and that worrisome ’05-’07 bitty bump that blipped up briefly slid back to decline and we are now at the lowest rates ever recorded in the US)
And yet, what are we seeing on teen shows? A gaping chasm between the reality of teens today and the “hot or not” salaciousness of bed-hopping flings, teen moms and baby bumps galore, sexting storylines, and fixation on appearance-based boinkability… We see consistent media depictions of a 24/7 teen focus on sex. Either overly romanticized with ‘gift giving’ overtones. Or under-handed, manipulative, sex as power tool.
What We Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex:
When Jamie Hubley was in Grade 7, teenagers on a school bus tried to stuff batteries down his throat because he was a figure skater. Jamie Hubley, as many Canadians sadly know, was the 15-year-old Ottawa youth who took own his life just more than a month ago. From what he wrote and what's been stated, he took this drastic and tragic measure because of depression, because he was the only openly gay student at his high school and because he had been the target of homophobic bullying at school for years. In his final blog entry, he expressed concern that life might not get better and that he could not endure the hurt for another three years.
It is difficult to know which part of the school bus batteries story is most shocking: the fact that the aggressors were teenagers bullying a seventh-grader; the sheer viciousness of the assault; the fact that Jamie was victimized because of figure skating and because of perceptions about figure skaters and because of homophobia; or the fact that he was on a school bus at the time, presumably surrounded by students who should have known something was wrong, and at least one adult who should have been informed and able to help.
Young, Gay And Homeless: Fighting For Resources:
“"The day after my 18th birthday this year, my adopted parent kicked me out," he says. "At the time, I was really infatuated with this guy, and she was listening to my phone calls. She started telling my family, 'He is this, he is that, he is gay,' and talking about me as if I wasn't part of the family."
Beaverly was lucky — he had friends whose parents were more accepting. He stayed with them until he finished high school. Now, in New York City, he is in emergency housing — only available for 90 days.
Vero's Faves: Sex Educators and the Politics of Attractiveness:
There are certainly some media “sexperts” (both female and male) who I am pretty sure are sexperts because they are conventionally attractive and willing to talk about sex. I say willing, but not necessarily well-equipped. And there are some who are smoking hot, in conventional and unconventional kinds of ways, and are totally well-equipped to be talking about sex in smart, helpful ways.
And it’s even trickier than that because there’s a balance. It turns out that if you’re a legitimate, hard-working, earned-her-credentials kind of scientist/sex educator like me – and yet conventionally attractive – media folks don’t always know what to do with you. Having served as a sex expert for several TV shows, I can tell you that the producers have sometimes struggled with how I look. In one episode, they wouldn’t let me wear my own clothes because they wanted to dress me in more professional, conservative and high-necked clothes so that I would look “less sexy”.
'I was lectured on my sexuality':
A few years back when my school principal became aware of my sexuality I was given a lecture about not publicly promoting my sexuality. I have not been successful in applying for any promotion since. I should be first in line because I am the most senior teacher in the school and I hold a Masters of Education degree. I have regular visits from the local priest to keep an eye on how I am teaching religion. No other teacher in the school gets these “visits”.
Most of my fellow teachers are not regular mass-goers. Their lives do not all fall into the norms of Catholicism when it comes to marriage. Yet they are not singled out like I am. The INTO have been sympathetic, but I was told that the school is not breaking any rules by enforcing religious practise on me or curtailing my freedom to discuss my life in the staffroom. They advised that I do not rock the boat.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week?
My 15 year old son has a first girlfriend who is a year older. My concern is that she lives with her dad only and quite often is home alone. My son has been there twice already and one time I made him leave because the dad was not home. I am besides myself about how to handle this. He said that he is not going to have sex with her but you know how that goes. I know what I was doing at 15. Do I make condoms available? But that would be condoning it. I will have a talk with the girl about not hanging at her house. They are always welcome at mine and I will try to speak to her dad about it.
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 breaks and have them provide you the high level of effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and STIs you are using them for.
Have you checked the expiration date? Condoms past their expiry date are much more likely to break, because the latex can start to break down. If they're past the expiry date, they also may have been shuffled around for a long time. The expiry date put on a condom -- which you can always find right on the package of every individual condom -- is usually for around five years after it's been manufactured, so you've got a pretty good time window. Our advice? Make sure a condom is not only within its expiry date, but around six months ahead of it, the time when a lot of condom resellers dump a batch instead of continuing to sell them. Don't use condoms past their expiry dates: toss them out and get yourself new ones.
Are you or your partners storing them properly? Sometimes people carry around what we'll call the "wishful thinking" condom. That one condom they keep in their wallet from the dawn of time, thinking if they have that one condom, they'll be more likely to have an opportunity for sex. Or maybe you just think that will assure you'll never be without a condom when you need one, which would be great if the condom you had had been stored properly.
Condoms need to be stored somewhere that doesn't get too hot or cold, where they're not directly exposed to sun or fluorescent light, and where they don't get bumped around a lot. Back pockets, wallets, the bottom of a purse or inside a car dashboard compartment are not sound places to store condoms. If you want to carry a condom or two around with you, find something you can put them in that protects them, like a pencil case, or in the box they came in if you bought a whole box. There are also cases made expressly for storing condoms, and sometimes when you buy condoms, you might find some already specially packaged in a storage case.
Condom storage is also something to think about before you even have the condom yourself. Some places that sell or dispense condoms don't store them properly, potentially screwing them up before you even get them. That's why machines that dispense them aren't such a great place to get them, nor are places like gas stations, which often keep them near the front windows, where it can get hot or sunny. When purchasing condoms, look for them to be in a spot where temperatures are moderate and they're not in direct sunlight. You also want to avoid hand-me-down condoms, too, however well-intentioned the person who gave them to you may be. Who knows how that person stored them.
Leaving room in the tip? You don't put condoms on like you put on a sock or stocking, where you pull them all the way on so that they're snug at the tip. Instead, we need to leave a little bit of room -- around a half inch or so, or the width of two fingers, if that's easier -- at the tip for ejaculate and so the condom can move around a little bit. That makes them feel more comfortable, too.
Using enough lubricant? Plenty of condoms come pre-lubricated, but that's only a smidgen of lube. More times than not, especially for intercourse that goes on for a while -- and more so with anal intercourse than vaginal, since the anus doesn't produce its own lubricant -- you'll need some extra lube right from the start, or to add lube during sex. Even with vaginal intercourse, while the vagina often produces its own lubrication when the person with the vagina is aroused, lube is often still needed. It's pretty common for younger people to feel nervous or have issues with arousal, so not being as lubed up on your own as you might be otherwise is typical. Too, if you're using a hormonal birth control method like the pill, one common side effect is a drier vagina. While we don't endorse mixing sex with drugs or booze, being wasted also tends to impact lubrication, especially with alcohol. By all means, drinking impairs our judgment no matter what, making it a lot harder to use condoms at all, let alone properly, but it also often inhibits parts of the sexual response cycle. Whatever the reason, chances are awfully good that you need more lube than a condom itself offers. Plus, putting a drop or two of lube inside the condom, as well as more liberally on the outside, makes condoms feel a lot better, too.
Feeling funny about using lube? Don't, seriously. People have used lubricants for as far back as we know, and if you ask us, beautifully engineered, clean lube in a bottle or tube is a serious improvement over animal guts or blubber, something we know people way back in the day used as lube. The idea that a body creating enough lubricant on its own gives a person some kind of sexual status, and that not being lubed up enough on your own means something is terribly wrong, are both really problematic ideas. Lube makes things feel better most of the time, and it helps condoms be more effective. We can probably agree that there's no status in sex feeling less than as good as it can, or in a condom failure.
Remember, what you use as lube with latex condoms matters a lot. When buying lube, look for the tube bottle or packet to make clear a lube can be used with condoms. Oil-based lubes or oils, lotions or vaseline are NOT okay to use with latex condoms.
One condom per customer. If you have the idea that two condoms at a time are better than one, ditch it, and fast. That only increases friction, which increases the possibility of breakage. Only use one condom at a time.
Same goes for thinking thinner condoms will be more likely to break: that's not true. Thinner condoms often feel better and are just as effective as thicker ones.
Does the condom fit? Condoms really aren't one size fits all. Sure, most brands will fit a lot of people just fine. But some brands or styles don't work for plenty of folks. So, if a condom is really tough to get on or off, hard to roll down, won't roll down all the way, or feels uncomfortable, try out some different sizes or brands. If we have to struggle with condoms, we're more likely to put them on wrong or just ditch them altogether. And with so many options in condoms, there's no reason anyone should have to use a size or style that doesn't work for them. The right condom usually feels great and works just as well. Even if you're getting condoms for free from a clinic or school, you'll often have more than one option, so snag a few different ones when you can.
Carrying condoms when you're not the one wearing them? If so, see if you can't buy variety packs, so you have more than one style or size around in case another just doesn't work out. Most condom manufacturers sell combination boxes of a couple different styles or fits, sold right where you can get boxes of only one style or size. If you feel funny about having a variety and worry about judgment from a partner, remember that what you're doing is having an assortment so they're most likely to have a condom that feels good for them. Every partner is going to appreciate that.
Are you or your partner hanging around after ejaculation or starting intercourse again without changing condoms? Male condoms are manufactured and designed for a single use: in other words, for only one session of intercourse or one ejaculation. After ejaculation happens, it's really important the person wearing the condom withdraws pretty immediately. If you want to continue that sexual activity or start again, you need to put on a new condom.
Breaking during oral sex use? That's even more unusual than breaks during intercourse, but if it's happening, we've got one word for you: teeth. You've got'em, and they're sharper than you think (just ask your lunch). If condoms are breaking during oral sex, and they were put on properly, stored properly, and are within the expiry date, teeth are probably the issue here. Remember that during oral sex, you've got to watch those little sharpies, both for a partner's comfort, but also when using condoms.
While we're talking about teeth, don't forget that they're not what you want to use to open a condom. That can easily rip or tear the condom. You want to use your hands to open a condom, not your mouth.
Practice makes perfect. So does patience. If you're racing around in a big hurry to put a condom on, it's a lot easier to make mistakes. And when everyone is turned on, they can be a lot tougher to notice. So, if you aren't already an expert with putting condoms on -- whether you're the person who wears them or not -- practice. If you are the person wearing them, practice during masturbation, where you don't have the pressures we can all feel when there's a partner there. If you aren't the person wearing them, get some condoms and find something suitable to practice on: the age-old banana is always an option, and one of our users today said she practiced using a deodorant can.
Remember that it's ideal for everyone involved with condom use to know the right way to use them and how to put them on. Not only can putting them on for a partner make condoms feel like part of sexual activity, rather than an interruption, we all have different levels of experience and skill with condoms, as well as different levels of condom education. So, if both people know how, and one person is doing something wrong, rather than finding out the hard way, the other person can easily make a correction so condoms work as well as you want them to, every time.
Don't forget about the female condom! If no matter what you do, male condoms (and we know, this female/male language doesn't make a lot of sense, and certainly isn't very inclusive, but it's what they're called right now) don't seem to work out for you, try a female condom to see if that works better. Female condoms are non-latex, and far roomier at the base and through the shaft than male condoms are, and they can also be inserted well in advance of intercourse to help you avoid game-time fumbles. As well, if you or a partner prefer not to withdraw soon after intercourse, that's okay with female condoms in a way it isn't with male condoms, which are more likely to break or slip off when withdrawal doesn't happen soon, or if intercourse is something you continue after ejaculation. Female condoms can be a bit tougher to find, so if you want to try them and are having a hard time finding them, check in with your local sexual health or family planning clinic.
Have questions or want someone to walk you through all the steps of proper condom use so you can be sure you're doing it right? We've got your back: come on over to the message boards, or use our text service. We're happy to talk with you one-on-one.
P.S. We just got a helpful addition to this list from Scarleteen reader and peer sex educator Katarina Albrecht. She said, "Another important point: Do NOT poke your finger carelessly into the tip to correct the direction for rolling them off! We teach people to blow into the tip to change the direction or be reeeally careful with their nails. We've been seeing so. many. girls (and boys) do this with their long, sharp, nicely manicured fingernails." Thanks, Katarina!
Some of our staff and volunteer's fave links and reading from our Facebook and Twitter feeds this week:
Alice's Faves: Op-ed: Why Don’t Male Children Matter:
Girls are most often the victims of child sexual assault. When boys are assaulted, it is likely by men like Sandusky—mentors who prey on their vulnerability and to whom they feel loyal and thus unable to tell anyone what is happening to them. Because boys are considered less vulnerable than girls, when they do dare complain of abuse, often the assaults are minimized or dismissed. In the case of older children, there is a presumption that they are complicit in the assaults because of their budding sexuality, much like adult women are often portrayed as complicit when they have been raped. These cases are often represented as he said/he said and in the hyper-masculine world of sports, the victims lose.
Incurable Hippie's incredible list of disability and sexuality resources.
Karyn's Faves: Sex Ed's Straight Edge: Queering sex-ed can save lives:
Though learning about reproductive sex and associated health risks is a component of public education in most Canadian schools, the matter of whether there is discussion of anything other than non-heterosexual intercourse is still left to the discretion of teachers.
“It's all well and good to tell teachers to talk about queer and trans sex,” says Jamila Ghaddar, a sex education advocate with The Well LGBTTIQQ community centre in Hamilton, Ontario. “But who's going to support those teachers when they face backlash from angry parents? They know what the reaction will be, and they won't touch this issue with a ten-foot pole.”
The social and human impacts of teaching gender binaries and privileging heterosexual relations in schools are severe. According to the Gay and Lesbian Educators of British Columbia, nearly 40 per cent of gay and lesbian youth report dramatically low self esteem. The 2003 Centre for Suicide Prevention Alert reported that Canadian youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or questioning their sexuality are 3.4 times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers.
What We Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex:
U.S. parents fear that sex is everywhere and they want to protect kids from it. I argue that you want to have a positive vision that you can lay out there, not a vision of keeping sex away from you. Because then, you have two options: either a very sensationalized unrealistic scoring type of mentality or no sex until marriage. Those are not two good alternatives.
“What if our kids really believed we wanted them to have great sex?” Vernacchio asked near the end of an evening talk he gave in January primarily for parents of ninth graders who would attend his sex-ed minicourse. “What if they really believed that we want them to be so passionately in love with someone that they can’t keep their hands off them? What if they really believed we want them to know their own bodies?”
Vernacchio didn’t imagine that his audience, who gave him an enthusiastic ovation when his presentation ended, wanted their 14- and 15-year-olds to go out tomorrow and jump into bed or the backseat. Sex education, he and others point out, is one of the few classes where it’s not understood that young people are being prepared for the future.
Vero's Faves: Shaming and taming teenage girls:
Look away now if you don’t like to watch the media revel in shaming young female celebrities. The above quote wasn’t lifted from of the plethora of “trash” mags, but rather from online site Jezebel, a site that claims to be offering “celebrity, sex and fashion…without airbrushing.” No airbrushing but, it would seem, with an extra dose of female venom – or, as we like to call it, fem-ven. Sadly, Jezebel is not alone in reveling in dishing up the dirt on young women.
Much of popular culture perpetuates the idea that young women can simply not be trusted, particularly if they have money, fame or any kind of power. Think everyone’s favorite targets; Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian… Going by all the recent reports which document young women stripping off and partying on, you would be forgiven for thinking that young women are simply out of control.
Think too of the more troubling way in which teen girls are presented by those who are supposed to have their best interests at heart. How many books on teen parenting have featured either surly looking misses with arms folded on their covers, or titles which claim to help parents “survive” adolescent girls (please note – girls aren’t carcinogenic).
The general consensus seems to be that girls are running wild and must be tamed, or shamed- stat!
Opinion: Attempts to discredit sex education in schools are outdated, misguided:
Opponents also attempt to discredit sex education by claiming that it undermines parents’ rights to educate their own children. George and Moschella mistakenly view parents as a monolithic group and neglect to mention polls that show that most adults support sex education programs by wide margins. They are also in for a surprise if they think their piece will galvanize parents to demand a more spacious “opt out” policy. Only a tiny fraction of parents in most school districts opt their children out of certain sex ed lessons.
New York City’s sex ed policy lets parents remove their children only from instruction about birth control and contraception, which George and Moschella argue is too narrow. I’m against any “opt out” provision, especially given that our children will inherit a world where STDs rage on. They must know how to protect themselves, and sex education is the first line of defense for public health. Most parents want their children to learn how to stay sexually healthy and understand that teachers can deliver unbiased, accurate information better than they can.
Heather's Faves: There Are Victims in the Penn State Tragedy, Not "Accusers" :
This language usage plays a powerful ideological function. Consider: the public is inclined to sympathize -- even empathize -- with female and male victims of rape, or prior to a finding of guilt of the accused/defendant, "alleged victims." Unless our psyches have been hopelessly distorted by misogyny or desensitization we not only feel badly about what has happened to them; we identify with them. Victim-blaming often distorts this sympathetic identification, but the sentiment derives in part from an understanding that "the victim could just as easily have been someone I love -- or me."
Referring to the victim as the "accuser" reverses this process. She is no longer the victim of his (alleged) attack. She is the one doing something -- to him. She is accusing him. In other words, she is now the perpetrator of an accusation against him. At the same time, he is transformed from the alleged perpetrator of sexual assault to the actual victim of her accusation. The public is thus positioned to identify sympathetically with him -- to feel sorry for him - as the true victim.
Every time a well-meaning journalist or commentator refers to sexual assault victims as "accusers" they contribute to this dynamic. They tilt the scales of justice away from victims and toward alleged perpetrators. The presumption of innocence for accused men -- and women -- is a critical feature of our judicial system. It represents a basic commitment to equal justice and fairness that is well worth fighting to preserve.
#NoShaveNovember Raises Hairy Gender Questions:
No one should be surprised at what is trending on Twitter. No one. While body hair has been discussed from time to time in the women’s movement, it hasn’t spread to the mainstream discussion. That’s because the progress that has been made for body image in the media has for the most part been about weight and body size. While weight and body size are important issues that must be addressed, they are not the only gendered issues around body image. I’m still waiting hopefully for the Glee kids to sing about leg fuzz.
Yes, there is increasing pressure for men to wax their backs and chests. And yes, men in fashion magazines often have trimmed armpit hair. Fashion tends to dictate what we should look like, and the appearance of hairless men in magazines is no exception. One could also argue that men’s garments are often less revealing, making shaving armpits or backs a moot point. So what’s the difference between the expectation of hairless men and hairless women?
"Eggsploiting" Young Women - What the Fertility Industry Doesn't Want You to Know:
Despite being someone who enjoys staying abreast of women’s issues, I was left stunned after a viewing of the provocative documentary Eggsploitation last week at the Capitol Building. In her documentary, Executive Producer, Director, and Writer Jennifer Lahl exposes the negative consequences of female egg donation which fertility centers all too often conceal from the public eye. Though not an expert on egg retrieval or the self-administered hormone injections, I knew female egg donation existed and has gained increasing momentum in recent years. I also recognized that the risks and possible complications for female egg donors were far more dangerous than those for male sperm donors. What I failed to understand about female egg donation is that the vulnerable women having their eggs harvested are all too often left anonymous victims in the process.
Exclusive: Breaking Bella—When Love Equals Violence:
Some people might say, so what? Life is violent. Childbirth, at the very least, is violent. And they’re right. Nobody would stand in line for hours in the pouring rain to see a movie in which every character floated around on an ambrosia-scented cloud and ate bon-bons until the credits rolled. But my point isn’t that this movie is violent; it’s that while Edward stares out the window and mopes and Jacob storms around in various stages of undress, Bella bears the brunt of the movie’s violence at the hands of the people she loves. This is the central message of the movie: love comes hand-in-hand with physical violence. We’re supposed to revel in Bella’s suffering; the bigger her bruises, the louder her bones crack, the better wife she is, the better mother, the better woman. Twilight’s audience skews young—there were nine-year-old girls in the theater with me—so what are they supposed to take away from this?
Those too young to have experienced a sexual relationship and certainly too young to have experienced a pregnancy only see the normalization of violence against a woman’s body. And when the movie ended, they cheered for it.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week?
We do so much reading and outlinking in a given week through our Twitter and Facebook feeds, it can get dizzying! While it's not always easy to find great content out and about that addresses the issues we do well, we still always find plenty that catches our interest, or gets our support or a hat-tip from us. But not all of our readers use Twitter or Facebook, and we'd also like to start making sure to keep track of the bits and pieces each week we really appreciated or feel deserve a second look.
So, from here on out, every Friday we'll be rounding up some faves from an assortment of our staff and volunteers. Let's get this ball rolling!
Rae's Fave: Sex, Gender And Dancing With Chaz Bono:
Uproar has resulted from Chaz's appearances on Dancing With The Stars. I learned this first from my Facebook feed, where a woman I know, a diehard fan of the show, declared that she wouldn't watch it until "she" (Chaz) was kicked off. Chaz's transformation from Chastity upset her greatly, and she's not alone. The psychiatrist Keith Ablow has warned parents not to allow their children to watch Chaz, for fear that their developing, and thus vulnerable, gender identity might be disrupted. For the record, no evidence exists to suggest that watching a transsexual dance on television causes children any harm.
Although the word "transgender" is sometimes used to describe Chaz, the term "transsexual" is more accurate. Transgender people are born as one sex and identify with, act, and/or dress as the other. They haven't had sex-reassignment surgery, although some may go on to have it in the future.
The primary issue is of course people, not terminology: People like Chaz Bono, who have a right to transcend biology and to become, physically and emotionally, the sex they know themselves to be. And the rest of us too, who react to Chaz Bono's dancing presence. We can transcend an evolved tendency to think in fixed binaries, and arrive together at an acceptance of constructed sex as well as of constructed gender.
Karyn's Faves: Lesbian teen launches LGBT youth book project:
For LGBT youth, age-appropriate books about LGBT people and issues can be a lifeline. Not every school has the resources or desire to include such books in their collections, though. But 14-year-old Amelia Roskin-Frazee, an out lesbian ninth grader from California, founded The Make It Safe Project to solve that problem. The project gives free packages of LGBT books to schools that need them, and works to ensure the books will be readily available to students.
(P.S. Scarleteen will be donating books to this project, too! Three cheers for Amelia and her fantastic idea and activism.)
Recommendation: A Transgender Vagina Talks Back:
This is one of the coolest YouTube videos I’ve ever come across – I don’t know who this guy is, but he sums up so many of the odd, funny, awkward, self-contradicting sensation and thoughts that result from having a body that doesn’t match one’s identity but loving that body anyway. I’m genderqueer, not trans, but I still find what he has to say about what it’s like to have a vagina to be hilarious, heartening, and thought-provoking. I hope it brightens some other people’s days as much as it brightened mine.
Heather's Faves: #ThingsAYoungMomDoesntWantToHear:
When I was in high school, I was “diagnosed” with teen pregnancy a month after my 17th birthday. I say “diagnosed” because society promotes this idea that teen pregnancy is a disease - a contagious disease - and we must shun those infected to prevent it from reaching our own homes. Since then, I have been a witness to a condescending, disrespectful, and judgmental society that has pushed me to the edge… the edge of insanity. Contrary to popular belief, my teenage friends and peers weren’t very mean. But the adults in my life? The adults have scarred me in ways unimaginable. Recently, I have blogged on this topic… why do adults forget their manners and think it’s acceptable to tell me “You look too young to be a mom!” So I took my frustrations to the wonderful world of twitter yesterday for my 1800 followers to read...
The slow and uneven developmental arc revealed by these imaging studies offers an alluringly pithy explanation for why teens may do stupid things like drive at 113 miles an hour, aggrieve their ancientry, and get people (or get gotten) with child: They act that way because their brains aren't done! You can see it right there in the scans!
This view, as titles from the explosion of scientific papers and popular articles about the "teen brain" put it, presents adolescents as "works in progress" whose "immature brains" lead some to question whether they are in a state "akin to mental retardation."
The story you're reading right now, however, tells a different scientific tale about the teen brain. Over the past five years or so, even as the work-in-progress story spread into our culture, the discipline of adolescent brain studies learned to do some more-complex thinking of its own. A few researchers began to view recent brain and genetic findings in a brighter, more flattering light, one distinctly colored by evolutionary theory. The resulting account of the adolescent brain—call it the adaptive-adolescent story—casts the teen less as a rough draft than as an exquisitely sensitive, highly adaptable creature wired almost perfectly for the job of moving from the safety of home into the complicated world outside.
Seven things Glee gets wrong about The First Time:
2. You can’t feel or understand passion until you’ve lost your virginity.
This is the Sleeping Beauty Theory, where Rachel needs Finn to ‘wake her up’ sexually by putting his penis inside her. Only then will Rachel become a sexual person, capable of sexual feelings and sexual musical theater acting. This kind of thinking negates the power of all the many and varied sexual experiences a woman might have that don’t require even the proximity of a penis.
What's Love Got to Do with It? Marriage, Tradition and Gays:
The idea that marriage is about love between two people is a modern concept. Love often had nothing to do with marriage. It was about politics, property, production, division of labor, and materialistic issues. For much of history, the ancients would speak of love as if channeling Tina Turner: "Oh, what's love got to do, got to do with it?"
When you consider that some of the first marriages in colonial America were between men and women who didn't know each other, you can see how love had little to do with it. For instance, "Between 1620 and 1622, about 150 'pure and spotless' women arrived in Virginia and were auctioned for about 80 pounds of tobacco to future husbands."
I've noticed that promoters of "traditional marriage" are the most misinformed, ahistorical participants in the debate. Much of what they claim is pure codswallop. While I can't dissect their mental processes, to the extent that they actually think about the issues, I suspect that some claims are not just fabrications but an intentional twisting of facts. This may not be true of rank-and-file "marriage advocates," but when it comes to leaders of the movement, I suggest that they are willfully ignorant or consciously dishonest.
The vision of marriage that they claim is traditional is uniquely modern and results from the influence of the Enlightenment, classical liberalism and the economic forces of modern capitalism. We are no longer primarily agricultural, so we no longer marry to preserve property; households are no longer centers of production, so division of labor is not beneficial. We have moved toward egalitarian marriages where woman are the legal equals of men -- a very nontraditional concept. These forces changed marriage substantially. What the right calls "traditional marriage" is not traditional at all, and most people, including conservatives, would not want to return to the past.
What was going on here at Scarleteen in the last week?
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