It’s Chanté, back with more sexuality (in color) and intersectionality. If you appreciated last week’s definitions but are still curious or you want to learn even more, you may also find this video from Taryn Crenshaw helpful.

Hey, hey, hey, it’s Chanté, back this week to continue the convo about sexuality and intersectionality. This week, I want to revisit a little basic terminology I brought up last time.

We got our collective, grabby little hands on a copy of Mady G. and J.R. Zuckerberg's A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities a couple weeks ago and we're in luuuuurrrve.

Are you now or have you ever been floating and gooey or jangly and excited or blissed out or feeling downright tortured or just plain imploding from the giant wave of what even are all these freakishly distracting feelings? There's a song here for that: even if you haven't ever had a crush before you just might wind up feeling like you have one now.

Hey! I'm Chanté Thurmond, and I'm the new curator of the Sexuality in Color blog, as well as Scarleteen's Growth and Advancement Advisor. Before I share a quote that's been in my heart lately, and a shortlist of a few exceptional PoC who consistently add value to the culture and to their respective communities, I want to share a brief backstory about my journey to Scarleteen.

Big day? Fighting with insecurity? Got a hot date? ARE the hot date? Starting a new project, school or job? Going to do something where everyone's watching? Coming out? Just got tested or asked for what you really, really wanted in bed for the first time?

Whether your friends are your boyfriend, your dog, your best friend from almost the minute you were born, your third cousin, your booty call, your Dad, your guitar teacher, your downstairs neighbor, your brother, your girlfriend, your iguana, your teammates, your band, your Mom, your gaming group, your sister, your cat, your uncle, your cool new friend from work, your lover, your secret crush, your guardian, your gerbil, your stepmom, the kid you mentor, your choir director, your sponsor, your lab partner, your co-author, that cool person you always talk to the whole way home on the bus, your training buddy, the lunch lady, your locker next-door neighbor, or anyone else, this one's for them.  And for you, friend.

On Friday, the Japanese Supreme Court voted to uphold a law that requires transgender people to be sterilized before their

Bonnie Rough echoes many comprehensive sex educators in her assertion that it is often adult discomfort with the idea of children being sexual beings, or an inability to see things like nudity in a non-sexual light, that drives the way they interact with children’s sexuality. She’s honest about the ways in which she, and many other well-meaning parents, can be so focused on how they can prevent negative outcomes of sex that they inadvertently reinforce harmful, sex-negative messages. She poses an alternate question for parents to ponder in place of merely thinking about how to prevent negative outcomes: what are my hopes and dreams for my children in their sexual lives?

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.