Sexual Health
Mythbusting The HPV Vaccine
I’m an HPV vaccine evangelist. Every opportunity I get, I stand on my metaphorical soap box and preach to everyone who will listen about why it’s so important to get vaccinated against HPV. But it wasn’t always like this.
The STI Files: Mycoplasma genitalium
Mycoplasma genitalium (sometimes called Mgen) is a bacterial infection spread through sexual contact. Although it's pretty common now, it isn't diagnosed and treated as often as it should be.
The STI Files: Hepatitis
Hepatitis is is an inflammation of the liver almost always caused by different hepatitis viruses. Learn about prevention and treatment for hepatitis A, B, C, and beyond.
The STI Files: Herpes
About one in five people in the United States over age 12 — approximately 45 million individuals — are infected with HSV-II, the virus that causes genital herpes. Around 50-80 percent of the adult population has oral herpes, which most people contract through nonsexual contact in childhood.
The Real Deal On HIV, PrEP, and PEP
Is pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention right for me? When should I use post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP)? Get the answers to these and other PEP/PrEP questions, right here!
Miscarriage: What It Is, Why It Happens and How to Deal
A miscarriage is a pregnancy that naturally ends before twenty weeks of pregnancy, all by itself. Here's what it's all about and how it can be as an experience.
Pregnancy and Delivery: Super-Basic Edition
If you don’t know about what it’s like to be pregnant at any or every stage and you just want half a clue, this is your article.
Teen Access to Abortion: An Interview with Carol Sanger
Legal scholar and reproductive rights expert Carol Sanger talks about barriers to abortion access and supporting pregnant teens.
Reproductive Coercion: An intimate partner violence you might be overlooking
What is reproductive coercion, how can you spot it and what can you do about it if you do?
Pills (and other hormonal contraceptives) By Post May Save Your Hide
A guide to accessing hormonal contraception (regular and emergency) via online mail-order pharmacies and other helps when access in the United States is looking grim.
The STI Files: Zika
While most cases of Zika virus are acquired via mosquito bites, this emerging virus can be transmitted sexually, and the CDC reports that the numbers of such cases are growing in subtropical regions of the Americas.
When, Where, and Why: Telling Your Partner You Have an STI
So, you've got an STI. How do you tell current or potential partners?
Something You Can Worry About Less: Interference and Hormonal Birth Control
Worried a medication might interact/interfere with your hormonal contraceptive, or vice versa? Here's a rundown of the most common culprits in birth control interference.
The Pregnancy Panic Companion
In the thick of a pregnancy scare? Freaking out? Not sure what to do? Welcome to your virtual pregnancy scare doula.
Higher Learning: Navigating Sex and Relationships in College
Going away to school can present some new sexual challenges. Here's a get-you-started guide to grow on.
Have a Little Faith in BC
An article about choosing methods and trusting methods
All the Barriers! All the Time!
Everything you'll probably ever need to know about safer sex barriers, like which to use, how to use them, how to get more comfortable with them, and how surprisingly cute they are.
You're Not Pregnant. Why Do You Think You Are?
Some people struggle with strong pregnancy fears when there isn't a pregnancy or hasn't even been any real risk of pregnancy. What's that really about, and how can you move forward?
Self-Care: A La Carte!
Some helps for the care and keeping of you when you're stressed, depressed, riddled with anxiety or fear or going through something wretched and trying to come out the other side.
Figuring Out How to be a Lesbian Safer Sexpert
When I started having sex with girls, there was no one cheering, especially not encouraging me to have safer sex. But over the last few years, I’ve finally begun to feel confident with safer sex, and it’s improved my sex life a million percent. I wish I’d gotten comfortable with it sooner.
Risky Business: Learning to Consider Risk and Make Sound Sexual Choices
Choices about sex and intimacy will always involve some risks, and making sound choices when risks, emotions and social high stakes are involved isn't something anyone is magically expert at. How can we learn to do it well, and what are some common things that trip us up?
The Simple and Underrated Art of Washing Your Hands
Handwashing, seriously? Yep, handwashing. Seriously. (Well, mostly seriously.) Here's how to do it and why it's so important to do.
This is About Genital Herpes
I realized that I was uncomfortable associating myself with genital herpes. Will people think I have it? Why else would someone write about genital herpes and risk that association if they didn’t have it, right? So I pressed on, putting myself at the center of an itty-bitty social experiment that resulted in some pretty big stuff.
The STI Files: Molluscum
Molluscum contagiosum -- a bumpy skin infection -- isn't technically an STI, but can be transmitted through sexual contact. The CDC states that molluscum cases in the United States have been on the rise since 1996.
What Safer Sex Isn't
Maybe you know what safer sex is. But do you also know what it isn't? Take a minute and fact-check your ideas about what can protect you from STIs and what cannot.