Sexual Health
Can I Get Pregnant, or Get or Pass On an STI From That?
Want a quick way to sort out what does and does not pose real risks of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections? We've taken the temperature for you here.
Birth Control Bingo
Our giant 25-page guide to birth control options provides in-depth info on contraceptive choices to help you find your BC BFF.
Condom Basics: A User's Manual
Using a condom is generally easier than it looks (especially if you can relax about it), but the first few times, it can be tricky, especially if you're nervous about knowing how to use one.
STI Risk Assessment: The Cliff's Notes
Need to check out what your sexually transmitted disease or infection risk might be in a jiffy?
Human Reproduction: A Seafarer's Guide
How a pregnancy happens is a lot more complicated and a whole lot more interesting than just a sperm cell and an egg cell running into each other. Here's our map to the way there...or not.
Testing, Testing: All About Getting Tested for STIs
What does STI testing involve? How do you do it? Where? When? What do you do with your results? We answer all these questions and more to help demystify testing so you can take care of you and yours with less stress and more confidence.
What's Harm Reduction?
What's harm reduction? What are some basic harm reduction principles? What are some basics ways to minimize or reduce harm with sex, recreational drug use and the pandemic? Here's a place to get started.
How to Make New Relationships, Add New People to Pods and Have Sex More Safely During the Pandemic
It really sucks that during something that can make us feel lonelier than ever, the most dangerous thing is being close to other people. It is still safest to limit our up-close-and-personal contact, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still safely seek out and experience intimacy with new people, nor that there aren’t things you can do to make it safer if you do decide to get physically close to someone. Here are some basics to get you started.
Libido and Lockdown
Are people experiencing the “quarantine hornies,” or is sex entirely off the menu? The answer is yes; both; all the above. Here's some help for dealing with changes in libido and sexuality, how you express them, and sexual safety for right now.
How Can I Access Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare in the UK?
A primer on accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare in the United Kingdom.
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 Guide to Accessing Abortion in South Africa
If you experience an unwanted pregnancy in South Africa, you can opt for a legal abortion. Here's how to choose what type of abortion and how and where to access it, maybe even for free.
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.
How to Access a Safe, Self-Managed Medical Abortion
Thanks to the advent of medical abortion, we can now learn how to access and administer safe abortion for ourselves. This guide provides accurate information and resources about how to access and use safe abortion methods.
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.
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.
Getting to Know Your “New Normal”: Tips for Sex When You Have Pelvic Pain
It can be incredibly frustrating when a part of the body we strongly associate with, and expect to give us, pleasure ends up causing us chronic pain. If you have chronic pelvic pain, what do you do if you want to get sexual with yourself or someone else? How can you be physically intimate if you’re in pain? How do you talk to your partners? If it starts hurting, should you stop? This guide from Nicole Guappone offers some great help with all this and more.
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.
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 Assault Exam: An Insiders Guide
I know that isn’t news to anyone, but I think we forget that sometimes when trying to help our friends or family members who are going through it. We expect them to act “rationally,” like we would, or like we want them to.
But sexual assault is traumatic, and making decisions during and after trauma is complicated. Decisions about who to talk to - the police, a healthcare provider, a friend, a teacher - can feel incredibly complicated. Are they going to believe me? Are they going to listen to me? Are they going to call the police even though I don’t want that? What is going to happen next?
What's Pelvic Pain and What Can I Do About It?
We’ve created this guide to let you know that if you're experiencing any kind of pelvic pain, we believe you, and to let you know that you are not alone. While chronic pain (including pain with sex) is common, it is not “normal.” If it hurts, it’s usually because something is wrong.
Amelia Is Shouting: A Conversation About Abortion
I wanted to have a candid conversation about abortion for the benefit of young people, like what to expect, how to help a friend having one, and the best candy to keep on hand for recovery, and I knew Amelia Bonow was just the right gal for the job.
A Future Without HIV: Are We There Yet?
The findings of a major eight-year-long HIV study known as the PARTNER2 study have shown that so long as HIV+ partners are being fully treated, there is no chance of passing on HIV to a sexual partner, even with unprotected sex. What does that mean, and where do we stand now that we know this?
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.