condoms

Parents: worried about sending simplistic messages about sex to teens? Then don't.

margaret
asks:
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....

Condoms Breaking? Ur Probably Doin It Wrong.

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.

I feel dirty and irresponsible because of genital herpes

fairies
asks:
I'm 20 and have been with my partner for about two and a half years. We have a great relationship and are happy together. However, two years ago, when we first started sleeping together, I contracted genital herpes, even though we used condoms. I was a virgin before I slept with him so I knew it had come from him....

When you use the pill, do you still have to use condoms?

Kori_Sanchez
asks:
I'm and 18 years old and have been having sex for a year and been on the pill for about a year. I take my birth control like a ritual at the same time every day (the combination pill). Sometime my boyfriend and I don't use a condom in the beginning to get him hard then we always put one on. My question is, when on the pill do you absolutely have to use condoms?...

Where do I even get started in educating myself about sex?

aguynamedrourke
asks:
I'm a 19-year-old virgin and I don't know enough about sex, period. I went to Catholic and Christian schools with terrible sex-ed classes (I learned the basic biology but virtually nothing about actual sex, condoms, safe sex, or anything like that). I looked at your list of books to read and I've browsed through the questions, but I still don't know where to start....

Sex Education is Important

This a guest post from Shay at The S Spot for the Scarleteen Blogathon

I remember one time when I picked up my younger brother from school, I asked him about his day and he told me that there had been an assembly about sex ed. I asked him if he had learned anything interesting and if he had any questions about anything they talked about (figuring that he might be more comfortable talking to me, his older sibling rather than a “real” adult like mom or dad). He did have a few comments about funny things the teachers had said and how uncomfortable many of them had looked. Then he said, “I didn’t know that condoms don’t protect you from infections or AIDS”.

I was flabbergasted.

I need to better understand how condoms can protect me from STIs.

fox
asks:
I'm unclear on how condoms are supposed to be effective in preventing female-to-male contamination during "plain" sex, I mean insertion of the penis into the vagina. Let me explain. Latex is an effective barrier to virii and germs. I get that. As far as protecting the woman is concerned, I've no trouble believing it works....

What's the worst that can happen?

qwertymepizza
asks:
What are the risks of having homosexual sex with another male? I tried it once, but I couldn't "get it up", so I was also wondering how I might help that?...