Bodies

If you’ve been reading Scarleteen for a while, you might already know that for many years now, we’ve heard from a good deal of young women who are deeply ashamed of and disgusted by these parts of their own bodies. We take this very seriously, and have always wanted to do everything we could to try and help dispel all kinds of body shame or hatred, including that of the vulva. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to go ahead and take the risk of publishing some photos of real-person vulvas, because we’ve found something we think is beautifully done, very much needed, and that we think can be of great benefit to many of our readers, whether they have vulvas themselves or not.

Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy. This is a subject that’s talked about all the time, however, when it is, there’s often little to no clear definition about what healthy sexual development is. Many easy assumptions get made, and…

Feeling low about your body and how it looks? Thinking about, or already doing, some drastic things to try and change it? You’re not alone. But you can get to a better place with your body and how you feel about it without doing anything that keeps you feeling just as bad, or puts your physical or mental health at risk. Here’s some ways to ditch the die(t)s and go for the happy, healthy do’s.

You know, thinking about periods before they happen certainly can be a bit scary. It absolutely doesn’t help anything that passed down from generation to generation is a series of alternate names for a period… things like the rag, the red flag, dead week, Aunt Flo, crimson wave, and probably the…

That’s one of the best questions I’ve received in a long time. I wish more people would ask it! But. Umm. I can’t actually answer it. I can’t answer exactly what you’re asking because human sexuality is one of the most diverse things there is, and that diversity includes how different everyone is in…

Before I say anything else, I want to make sure you know how typical it is to not reach orgasm from vaginal intercourse for receptive partners. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here since we’ve addressed this a lot, so I’ll just give you basics on that, followed by some links if you want more…

I’d say you have a few good options. Menstrual suppression isn’t really a one-shot deal like you’re thinking unless you are already using a hormonal method of contraception you can suppress with, like the birth control pill or the Nuvaring (in which case what you do is take pill packs or rings back…

yougivemefever’s question continued: My boyfriend was hesitant to try to please me in the first place because he’s inexperienced and gets frustrated. He gets upset he can’t reciprocate. I don’t expect him to just know what I like. I should be comfortable enough with my body to be able to show him…

There is a lot to unpack here, but I first want to make sure we’re on the same page with some basics, particularly since my sense is you don’t have an answer to this because you’re not asking yourself the right questions. You’re saying you can’t have an orgasm from sex, but want to. But you’re also…

It’s great that you’re looking for information for your friend. Hopefully, we can offer some both she and you will find useful. This month, we have the benefit of a some extra hands to help with this section of the site, including some wonderful sex educators, writers and activists. For this…