Last December, we began our end-of-year fundraising for Scarleteen with a goal to raise the minimum we needed from online donors for 2012, $35,000, a very modest ask compared to other organizations or projects of or near our tenure and level of service.

Unfortunately, we still have not yet been able to raise even half of that sum. As of today, we have raised almost $15,000. We're so very grateful to the 135 individuals who donated generously to help us get to that sum, but that total just won't do. We run our organization and services far more cost-efficiently than similar organizations or groups, and can stretch a dollar like nobody's business, but that can only get us so far.

We need that minimum of 35K for this year -- which, combined with a private grant and existing donors, still giv us only $80,000 to do everything we do -- in order to sustain and maintain our services and those who provide them, create new content and tools, and to keep our organization afloat.

We don't like to ask for money again (actually, we don't like asking for money at all) so soon after we've just asked, but what we like even less is the prospect of being unable to continue with the level of education, information and support that so many people rely on us for and have valued year after year. So we're asking again.

We didn't use to do fundraising at the end of the year: for years we did our yearly push around Valentine's Day. Why Valentine's Day? Well, because everyone is usually talking about sex and love already, for one. As a sex and relationships education organization, we're obviously up with sex and love. Commodified holidays, not so much, but at the same time, celebrations of love and sex are things we'll generally figure can be a Good Thing.

Too, it's a time of year when an awful lot of people shell out an awful lot of money to express, celebrate or instigate sex and romantic love. Americans alone will spend close to 17 billion (that's right, 17 billion) dollars on flowers, candy, baubles, bangles, cute underpants, dinners, getaways and other gifts and tokens. We think that spending ten, twenty or fifty dollars less on that stuff so you can support something a lot more likely to help people cultivate and nourish healthy, happy sexual and romantic lives when they want them (and with no risk of cavities!) is a great gesture of love and care, one certainly more meaningful than a Whitman's sampler or lingerie that's really for the person buying it rather than the person it's being given to.

We keep hearing people asking where truly comprehensive, inclusive and thoughtful sex education can be found, or even saying that no one does or provides that kind of sex education anywhere.

Where is progressive, inclusive and in-depth sex education, information and support most young people around the world can easily access, any hour of the day they want or need it?

As the millions of teens and young adults who find it at Scarleteen every day of every year can tell you -- nearly 5 million of them used our site and services in 2011 alone -- it's right here.

Where's sex education that's as supportive of people choosing not to engage in sex as it is for those who are? Right here. What about sex ed that also supports those choosing to have an active sexual life, including with partners, and does so without judgment? Right here. Where's sex and relationship education that really talks about what makes relationships healthy and what makes them unhealthy? Right here. How about sex ed that addresses consent clearly and thoroughly? Right here.

Where's the sex ed that isn't just for straight people, able-bodied people, cisgender people or people whose relationships are inside the proverbial box? Right here. What about sex ed that also helps victims or survivors of sexual assault or abuse, intimate partner violence or domestic violence? It's right here at Scarleteen.

Where's sex ed that helps young people unpack misinformation or mixed messages they pick up from friends, parents, poor quality sex ed or abstinence-only and the media? Right here. Pro-choice sex education, and sex education that not only isn't conspiculously silent about abortion, but talks about it openly and soupportively? Here. Sex education that talks about body-image, self-image and self-esteem? Here. Sex ed where people can actually engage in candid, frank conversations with someone educated who they can trust, someone who won't blow them off, blush or back away when they ask questions? Here. Sex ed whose agenda is set by what those receiving it are asking for, rather than by funders or state or federal mandates or politics? Here. Sex education that actually addresses pleasure, and talks about sex as something that isn't just about avoiding the bad stuff, but seeking out the good stuff? Here, again. Where's sex ed that also is sure to provide all the basics, like information about anatomy, safer sex and STIs and contraception? It's all right here.

We've been right here, doing all that we do for 14 dedicated years now, and we'd really like to keep on doing it, continuing to hold up a high bar for not just online sex education and information, but all sex education; the kind of thoughtful, in-depth, diverse and candid sex education young people themselves ask for. But we need help and support in order to keep doing that.

It probably doesn't surprise you that sex ed this forward-thinking, this progressive and this pioneering isn't usually the kind of sex ed that gets state and federal funds or giant grants. It's not the kind of sex ed taught in most schools, even those with comprehensive programs. During most of the years we've been around, here in the U.S. federal funds weren't even available for ANY comprehensive sex education, and that's not something which has improved much with the end of the Bush administration. It's also not something very likely to improve very much very soon from the looks of things. And private funding for sex education of any sort, let alone sex ed like we private, is also tremendously hard to come by, especially when you answer to those you provide services to and what they want, rather than to funders, whose aims and agendas often aren't in alignment with what young people say they need.

But we're stubborn, and we've kept doing what we do despite all the challenges, financial and otherwise. We love doing what we do just as much as those who benefit from all our services love it, and our hope is that anyone who also loves what we do and can help us to keep doing it will.

If you already know that all the kinds of things people are asking for in sex ed can be found right here at Scarleteen, and you know how valuable that is, we'd very much appreciate your help. If it's news to you that we've got all this going on, or you've never even heard of us before today, take some time to look around: if you like what you see, please help us out. Even a small donation can make a big difference.

If you want a great way on Valentine's Day to demonstrate some love and care, to support sex and sexual or romantic relationships that are as good as they can be, we don't think you could do better than to give a little towards a service and organization as deeply passionate about and dedicated to quality sexuality and relationships education as Scarleteen is.

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, the links below are some 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.

Big thanks for taking the time to read and consider our ask of you today, and we wish you and yours the richest celebrations of sex, love or both you might have today and every day. If you're able to give today and support what we do, we hope your hearts swell all the more with the knowledge that you've helped give young people a big foundational piece of what they need in order to best cultivate, navigate and enjoy their own sex and love lives, in all their awesome diversity, for the rest of their lives.

• Support Scarleteen: Your Support Gives Young People Our Support
• All About Scarleteen
• Scarleteen Is...
• Support Scarleteen
• What Is Healthy Sexual development?
• User Testimonials
• About Our Bully-Free Zone
• Our 2011 Demographic Survey
• Real Peer Education

UPDATE: As of 2/18/2102, 21 new donors contributed an additional $1,795 in support. Thank you! We still have a long way to go to reach our $35,000 minimum goal, but your help gets us that much closer!

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?

• Condoms Breaking? Ur Probably Doin It Wrong.
• Parents: worried about sending simplistic messages about sex to teens? Then don't.
• How do you choose a partner?
• Healing Process Progress Report

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...

Beautiful Brains:

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?

• Losers Can Be Awesome: a Lesson Brought to You by the Chicago Cubs
• I want to wait until marriage for sex, but I'm worried no one else will.
• He doesn't want to have sex anymore: how can I change his mind?
• About Our Bully-Free Zone
• Can you make a commitment against bystanding?

Every day, around 20,000 to 30,000 people come to Scarleteen online. We already know some basics about who our users are via backend site logs, Alexa, Google Analytics, the direct ways we engage with users daily and some demographics from years ago. This summer, we created a new demographics survey as part of a potential partnership with a fellow organization, and to get an additional, fresh source of information for ourselves.

Many of users mentioned they'd be curious about the survey results, one reason why we're sharing them with you here. Our supporters and potential supporters also often ask us about who our users are. In addition, we wanted to see these results too, to help us keep doing the best job we can. I'd like to share, then talk about some of the results with that aim.

We decided to limit our survey to 2,000 participants who completed it, a number that was manageable but also statistically significant. So, we cut the survey off once we had that number. We recruited for the survey by posting a link to it on our website, including at our message boards, as well as via our social media networks on Facebook and Twitter. The vast majority of participants came to the survey via the link to it on internal pages of the main website. We used SurveyMonkey to collect and compile the data.

There's a lot to look at and talk about, so I'm going to share this information in three or four posts. Today I'll fill you in on some of the most basic demographics from the survey, all of which required answers and the first set of answers from the section where answering was optional for participants. Next, I'll do two more posts with the remaining information that was optional, including some of the comments from participants. Last, I'd like to talk a little bit about what some of the findings of the survey suggest to me, how we intend to respond to them and get some user and community feedback on that as well. If anyone wants to start discussing any of this in the comments here before then, I'd be happy to do that with you.

I'm also including some links to on-site polls which are similar or relevant to some of the data, in case a comparison is of interest.

In the survey, users in the United states and all others outside the US answered separately, with 65% of respondents coming from the US, and 35% from other nations (a number of US readers about 20% higher than our logs and other analytics typically reflect). Here, all the answers have been combined and averaged, both for ease and because the answers did not differ significantly between US users and those outside the US.

Age: The vast majority of our readers (79%) are under age 24; most are between the ages of 16 and 21 (53%). 13% are aged 13-15, 32% are 16-18, 21% are 19-21, 13% are 22-24, 11% and 25-30 and 10% are over 30.

Area: Scarleteen users are primarily urban and suburban. 40% of those surveyed live in urban areas, 38% in suburban areas, 13% in rural areas, and 9% are unsure what type of area they live in. (We did not ask about economic status because so many of our users do not know what their yearly family income is, and do not want to disclose to their families they they are utilizing a sex education service.)

Sex and Gender: We differentiated between sex and gender in this survey, asking what sex users were assigned at birth, and, separately, what their gender identity is. We did this this way for several reasons: gender tends to be far more relevant to us in serving users well than sex, we do not address sex and gender as the same as an organization, and we also already knew we have a substantial number of users whose assigned sex differs from their gender.

In addition, when asking about gender identity, we had fields for men/boy and women/girl and trans/trans gender, and assumed that some trans users would choose one of the former two fields rather than the trans field. We did this because we know that some prefer to identify specifically as trans, while others prefer not to identify specifically as trans, instead identifying their gender in the ways cis gender people most often do. This also had to do, again, with what is most relevant to us as an organization, which is how our users identify their gender, rather than how and if their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

86% of participants were assigned female sex at birth, 13% male sex, and around 1% reported an intersex assignment, did not know what sex they were assigned at birth, were not assigned a sex at birth to their knowledge or preferred not to answer the question.

80% stated they identify their gender as women or girls, 12% as men or boys, 4% as genderqueer, gender-variant or agender, 1% as questioning, 1% as trans or trans gender, and 1% stated they identified their gender in some other way than the fields above (with some identifying a sexual orientation as a gender identity, either because they misunderstood the question or because that also is or is part of their gender identity). Less than 1% preferred not to answer.

The other field for gender included answers such as "transfabulous and genderplayful," "gender abolitionist," "Strong female. I decide what that means day by day," "A man who is happy in a woman's body," "not a girl," "bigender," "femme," "butch," "Teddy Bear (masculine-leaning genderqueer)," and "boygirl."

Related poll: When it comes to my gender, I:

Sexual orientation: Scarleteen readers represent a highly diverse spectrum of sexual orientation. When asked what word respondents "use, or best describes, sexual orientation (who you are sexually/romantically attracted to, if anyone, based on gender)," 52% answered straight or heterosexual, 19% bisexual or pansexual, 8% stated they chose not to use any words or terms to identify their sexual orientation, 5% answered queer, 5% answered questioning, 3% answered lesbian, 3% answered asexual, 2% answered gay, and 3% stated they identified their orientation with words or phrases not included in the fields given. 1% preferred not to answer the question.

The answers to the "other" field were most typically combinations of some of the above terms or the above terms combined with other aspects of sexual identity (like polyamory or monogamy, BDSM, celibacy, fantasy, the desire or lack of desire for romantic relationships, attraction based on age, etc.).

Related poll: When it comes to my sexual orientation, I think I am:

Ethnicity or race: A majority of responses were from white users. 68% identified as Caucasian, European or White, 8% as Asian, 4% as African, African-American or Black, 4% as Hispanic, Latino/a, Mexican or Mexican-American, 8% as Biracial/bicultural or multiracial/multicultural, and less than 1% as American Indian/Native American, First Nations or Alaskan Native, Arab or Arab-American or Pacific Islander. 3% chose other, and these most often were answers reporting a bicultural or mutlicultural race or ethnicity, reporting a religion as a race/ethnicity, stating a national identity as a race or ethnicity (such as Irish, French or American), specifying a South Asian ethnicity, or an AU/NZ aboriginal ethnicity. 4% preferred not to answer the question.

Education: Most of our users are in or have completed K-12 education or college/university. Less than 1% reported never attending any type of schooling, 2% reported their highest level of education as K-12 education via homeschool or another setting, 41% reported K-12 in traditional school settings, 12% reported 2-year college, vocational school or other higher education, 25% reported 4-year college, vocational school or other higher education, 6% reported some graduate school, 8% have completed graduate school, and 5% chose other (most of the these answers involved GEDs, alternative education or were responses which referenced/were included in the above categories).

How did users first find Scarleteen? The vast majority of users (77%) found Scarleteen online, via a search engine or a link on another website. 40% report they first found us via a search engine, 37% via a direct link on another website, 6% were referred by a friend or romantic/sexual partner, 2% via a sex education class, group or independent sex or health educator, 2% via a book or magazine, 1% through a teacher, coach or other mentor, less than 1% by a parent or guardian, less than 1% by a healthcare provider, and 5% found Scarleteen some other way. 7% don't remember.

The other responses included links to websites (so should have been included via that field instead), listed books (so, again, should have been included under books), podcasts including those of Dan Savage, Susie Bright and Amanda Palmer, radio, sex education text services, and "my awesome lesbian cousin."

What are users' favorite parts of Scarleteen as a website and an organization? Participants were able to choose more than one answer in this segment. The majority report that the articles (80%) and advice column (62%) are their favorite part of Scarleteen. The message boards are a favorite for 24%, the blog for 19%, the polls for 15%, the text service for 4%, the resource listings for other sites, agencies and services for 13%, and the new Find-a-Doc database for 6%. 9% list our facebook page as a favorite and 5% list our twitter accounts, @Scarleteen and @STSpeaks. 46% say that the parts of our website written by staff and other experts are a favorite, and 28% say first-person content written by young people is.

What have users used Scarleteen for? Respondents were able to choose more than one answer in this segment. 53% said they used it to "find sexuality or relationships information or approaches I couldn't find anywhere else."

23% have used Scarleteen to "talk with others about sex or sexuality in a safe space," 21% to get emotional support, and 20% used it to get help or information when in a crisis. 24% have used us to find help or information for someone else, and 13% to give emotional support to others. 47% have used Scarleteen to find out about sex education in general, 16% to get ideas for activism, and 10% for research.

44% used Scarleteen to "fact-check information I heard/read somewhere else," 32% to get information a sexual healthcare provider/doctor didn't give them, and 3% to get a referral for in-person help or services.

Nearly equal numbers of respondents stated that they were using Scarleteen to find out about sexuality and relationships for the future (50%) as those who stated they were using it to get information for current relationships and situations (52%).

When given an open field to list other things they may have used Scarleteen for, the most common answer was getting information as a partner, guardian, teacher or healthcare provider to share with a young person.

Related poll: Which of the following did your sex ed in school (before any college) and/or at home include:

The following data is the first part of a section of the survey that was completely optional. Just over 1,500 respondents answered these questions. They were allowed to choose multiple answers. We asked these questions because we wanted a more well-rounded sense of some of the life experiences our users have or have not had, particularly those pertaining to sexuality and relationships, or which we know have an impact on sexuality and relationships:

Have you ever:

• been homeless or transient: 4.1%
• had an eating disorder: 21.2%
• felt suicidal: 51.2%
• made a suicide attempt: 15.6%
• been abused or assaulted (sexually or otherwise) by someone other than a family member: 24.7%
• been abused or assaulted (sexually or otherwise) by a family member: 16.1%
• had problems with drugs and alcohol: 10.2%
• dated/had sex with someone you KNEW was bad news: 32.3%
• been the victim of a hate crime: 5.6%
• been in the juvenile detention system: 1.2%
• been pregnant: gave birth and parented: 5.6%
• been pregnant: gave birth and arranged an adoption: 0.6%
• been pregnant: had an abortion: 4.9%
• had an STI: 6.8%
• lived on government/federal/public assistance: 12.5%
• been bullied or harassed: 54.3%
• suffered from anxiety or depression: 72.1%
• felt afraid of your own sexuality: 41.6%

Related polls:

• So far (or if you're through them), how would you describe your teen years?
• If you've been in or are in an unhealthy or abusive relationship, it has been:
• Have you been sexually assaulted or abused?
• Have you had an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy?
• If you're in or have been in a sexual relationship, do you feel like it has been/was emotionally healthy?