Blogs

Scarleteen Mix #6: Consenting and Other Sexual Communication

Real-deal consent requires clear, open and honest communication. And if we're going ahead and actually being sexual together in some way,  that also means an ongoing, nuanced and pretty highly situational process of communication, not just one or two super-quick, super-basic exchanges.

Not only is communication as a process essential to keeping it consensual, it's a big part of sex actually being any good for everyone involved.

Scarleteens, All Growed Up

It’s Scarleteen’s 20th birthday. I feel like Scarleteen is ALL GROWED UP. Millions of people who have used Scarleteen over the last two decades, or have been part of it as volunteers or other staff, are now, too. Some of us who were part of Scarleteen as teenagers are even now the parents of teenagers or soon-to-be's ourselves.

Happy 20th F#$@&%* Birthday, Scarleteen!

Scarleteen turns 20 years old today. Twenty.

For two decades, we’ve delivered our unique and innovative brand of sex education, despite many financial, legal, political and practical barriers and battles. That kind of tenure for anything on the internet is unheard of, let alone for a grassroots, feminist sexual health, sex and healthy relationships initiative and alternative education project for young people, and one that was (and still is) queer, working class and woman-led.

Centering and serving young people, sexuality and relationships like we do, with inspired quality, care and vision, and doing so independently — and for free — for so long is so rare. Very few organizations and resources have consistently delivered all of what we do, as well as we do, and to as many as we have, for this long.

Let's Get This Anniversary Party STARTED!

What's that shiny graphic there? Why, that's just a lovely little commemorative doodle we asked artist-in-residence Isabella Rotman to do for our TWENTIETH FREAKING ANNIVERSARY. For real, we turn 20 on Saturday. TWENTY.This queer, scrappy, irreverent little sex education engine that (sometimes barely, but still) could...well, somehow actually did.

Scarleteen Timeline

One of my projects over the last year has been a full content review of Scarleteen. I have now literally read every blog, every article, every advice column we have ever published. Besides our director and founder Heather Corinna, I don't think anyone else on earth has read as much of Scarleteen as I have.

Scarleteen Mix #4: Getting Gone and Moving On

You know it's time to go, and you know it's also time to start letting go.  You probably have a whirlwind of different feelings about it. You may be leaving the worst relationshipyou've ever had, you may find yourself having to let go of what felt like the very best one. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a love, maybe it's a FWB, your town, your family, or even just a way of thinking or believing. No matter what it was, what you know it's got to be now is over and what you've got to start to get is over it.

Scarleteen Mix #2: Shacking Up!

The second of this month's batch is all about moving in together: the agony and the ecstacy, the joys and the woes, the ups, the downs, the argh of who drank the last of the milk again for crying out loud and the ahh of the very sweetest of first-thing-of-a-morning-even-though-your-breath-is-actually-kind-of-rank smooches. We've got your soundtrack for everything from bringing daily life sweetness to another person to learning to clean up your own damn mess to the deep and amazing joy making a home with someone who already feels like home for your heart can be.

We love you so much, we made you a mixtape.

Scarleteen Mix Number One: Reinvent Yourself!We made a few of them, actually. And we're going to keep making a couple of them to share with you over every month, because some of us love making mixes and all of us love all of you!