Sarah Riley

Sperm are hearty, but they’re not that hearty! As long as your hands were dry when you had contact with your girlfriend, you’ve got nothing to worry about from this situation. Dry ejaculate or pre-ejaculate poses no risk. I’m not quite sure what you mean by saying you “poked” your girlfriend, but I…

While gloves are helpful for making sure that no ejaculate reaches your genitals during manual sex, the primary benefit is that things are both clean and smooth. Obviously, hands tend to carry tons of bacteria. Just think about all of the things that your hands or your partner’s hands come into…

As you and your partner consider sexual activity, it is great that you’re seeking out information and resources to help prepare you. It also sounds like you have been talking about this together, which means that you’ve already crossed a big hurdle that a lot of people get stuck on. So in order to…

Whether you orgasm or not, sex without a condom leaves you open to both STI transmission and pregnancy risk (assuming your partner is not using another form of contraception that would protect against pregnancy). Pre-ejaculate (sometimes referred to as “pre-cum”), the fluid that is released by men…

It sounds to me like it’s time for you to think about what you really want right now in this relationship and then have a good ole’ fashioned sit-down talk with your partner here, honey! First off, what exactly is it that you want in this relationship? Forget for a moment what he may or may not be…

It sounds like you’ve got your body pretty confused here! Let’s talk a little bit about how the pill works, because that may clear things up a little bit. Birth control pills are essentially doses of synthetic hormones. What this does is sort of re-order the way your body is functioning with regard…

Generally speaking, when you start missing pills in the middle of a cycle (especially if you miss lots of pills) some weirdness with your withdrawl bleed is to be expected. By not having those extra hormones in your body, it’s impossible to guess what was going on with your natural hormone levels…

First of all, good for you and your partner for educating yourselves about safer sex and wanting to be as safe as possible! The first step in having safer sex is deciding on and using some form (or forms) of birth control. The second, really important step then is making sure that you are using your…

You can tell your partner that he’s incredibly misinformed. You might want to check out my answer to another question about vaginal tightness. But the short answer here is that your partner is woefully confused about sexual anatomy and arousal. The vagina does not permanently change due to inserting…

Learning to communicate with partners about any topic can be tricky. But working out those conversations about sex can be even more difficult. It’s really good that you want to discuss things and be open with your partner! Here’s the thing though, you can’t make someone talk about anything they…