Politics
Rebel Well: A Starter Survival Guide To A Trumped America
Under a Trump administration many Americans, especially the most vulnerable, are going to hurt and struggle. Many of us need to protect ourselves; all of us need to help protect and care for each other. Here's an extensive guide to help you do both.
Sexuality: WTF Is It, Anyway?
The term "sexuality" can be used a lot like the word "sex." They're both terms we say and hear a lot, but which often aren't clearly defined. We take for granted everyone knows what sexuality means, a heck of an assumption to make with something that covers so many important things and can feel as murky as Lake Erie. So: what's it all about?
Driver's Ed for the Sexual Superhighway: Navigating Consent
As it is on the road, being attentive to and giving clear signs and signals is a big deal between the sheets. If consenting feels complicated or confusing, here's a guide to clear it up.
What's Sex?
It's obviously important if you're here for information that you know what we mean when we say "sex," so we thought we'd make it clear.
Protest in the Age of COVID-19
We've got a million reasons to be in the streets. But not everyone is okay with — or even able to engage in — active protest right now. But because of COVID-19, many people, especially sick and disabled folks, may be hesitant to bring their bodies together as a show of force. Here's how to make in-person protest safer and how to pitch in from your living room or bed instead.
Machismo: How Toxic Masculinity Harms Latinx People - an interview with Laura Carlsen
Machismo is an expression of exacerbated masculinity that has caused lingering pain and trauma to generations of Latinx people. Many young people are still struggling with it today.
Everything Sucks! It's Time To Be Negative
Sorry-not-sorry, but this sucks! I know it and you know it; maybe it'd be best if we let it show.
A Sexual Miseducation
Sex positivity should have given me the courage to ask for what I wanted. Instead, I thought it meant accepting what I got.
We Are Currently Living in an Active Trauma State: An Interview With Jimanekia Eborn
"Those of us that identify within the QTBIPOC community cannot take off our skin the same way we cannot remove our gender and/or our sexuality. We have to continue to have conversations about all of the disparities that are going on. There is not just one way we are affected."
Staying Seen: Being Bi in Relationships with Straight People
When you identify as queer but enter into relationships with heterosexual people, or those with of a different gender to your own, it can feel odd to consolidate these two parts of your identity. You’re not straight, but society can perceive you that way – where do you fit in, exactly?
How to Celebrate Pride From Home (even if you can't be out)
Social distancing has introduced new challenges into Pride month. Here are some tips on how to celebrate safely at home, including what to do if it's not safe for you to be out yet.
Hookup Culture and the Impact of COVID-19: An interview with Lisa Wade, PhD
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many higher learning students are having to put their sexual lives on hold. To talk about casual sex in college life and the effects COVID-19 might be having on it, Scarleteen spoke with sociologist Lisa Wade, PhD, visiting scholar at Tulane University and author of the groundbreaking "American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex On Campus."
The Struggle to Access Medical Abortion in Northern Ireland During the Pandemic: An Interview with Alliance for Choice’s Naomi Connor
Abortion services were to be introduced in Northern Ireland in April of this year, but did not come to fruition given the pandemic. As of right now, it isn’t clear how or when this situation will be sorted. Alliance for Choice co-convener Naomi Connor explains how this impacts pregnant people and their families in Northern Ireland.
A Matter of Foreign Policy and Human Rights: How the Global Gag Rule Invades Kenyan Women, Bodies and Families
Reproductive health nurse and former Kibera clinic director for Family Health Options, Melvine Ouyo from Kenya recently visited the American Congress to advocate against the Global Gag Rule and talked with us at Scarleteen about how this foreign policy affects Kenyans and controls and overrules women, girls and others with a uterine system.
Sex on Screen: Reality-Checking Mainstream Porn
Part two of Alice O's exploration of mainstream porn to help increase your sexual media literacy. Includes information about sex positions, orgasm, consent and communication, boundaries, birth control, safer sex and more as they exist (or don't!) in mainstream porn, and how this can or should all go in real-life-sex to compare and contrast.
Do you need a pelvic exam? Maybe... or maybe not.
Do you really need that pelvic exam? Here's a quick primer of how to figure out if you do and how to talk to your healthcare about it, including if they say you do when you think you don't or just don't want one.
The World Needs Safe, Self-Managed Abortion: Here's Why.
Safe, legal, affordable, and uninhibited access to abortion is a global issue and necessity. Read more to get a current, international, intersectional picture of both the existing access and the existing barriers.
Bare Bodies: Reality Checking Mainstream Porn
A clear-eyed, in-depth exploration of mainstream porn that can: amp up your sexual media literacy so you can better suss out what's really going on with and in porn, fill you in on how it may or may not -- and sometimes just plain shouldn't -- match your expectations or experiences of sexuality offscreen, and tell you more about its politics and behind-the-scenes realities.
Getting Birth Control May Be Easier Than You Think!
If you're a young person, you may not know it, but you can probably access methods of birth control without your parent's permission, and even for free! Here's a starter guide for those in the United States, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa and India.
Pussypedia: A Bilingual, Body-Positive, Inclusive Digital Space
Who knew a discussion with an ex-boyfriend about squirting would set Pussypedia co-founder Zoe Mendelson on a quest across the internet in search of trustworthy, fact-based sexual health information about her body that led to starting a bilingual, diverse, and inclusive digital encyclopedia? (Not Zoe!) We talked to her to find out all about this new resource and Zoe's experience making it.
A Manifesto on Pleasure and Self-Love for We With an STI
Despite the initial shame, guilt, name-calling, jokes, and fear related to disclosure, my STI presented me with a chance to love myself more deeply. It gave me a chance to sit with myself, who I thought myself to be, who I thought I was going to become, and who I really was.
Impurity Culture: Pregnancy and Fear
If you grew up steeped in purity culture, it can be easy to see pregnancy as an automatic punishment for any sexual behavior. Here's how you can counteract those beliefs.
A Guide to Accessing Abortion Care – Even When It Looks Hard
Let’s say one day you find out you’re pregnant. And let’s say that after considering your options – carrying the pregnancy to term and becoming a parent, adoption, or abortion – you’ve decided that the best choice for you is to terminate your pregnancy. That’s fine! Depending on where you live, though, accessing abortion care could be an issue. This guide is here to help you figure out how to access the care you need.
Sexual Harassment in Your Workplace: What to Know, and What You Can Do
What is sexual harassment likely to look like in your life, or the lives of your friends? And what can you actually do about it, whether you’re the target of it, trying to avoid harming people yourself, or you’re the friend of someone who’s being harassed at work?
What's Death Positivity and How Can It Help Us? A Conversation with Sarah Chavez
We are living in a time where death and loss are everywhere we look and is a part of so many of our lives, often before we think it will be. Here's some talk with The Order of The Good Death's Sarah Chavez about death positivity -- what it is, what that means, and who it can help -- and how young people can better understand death, can better talk to each other about it and support each another through it.