Sex & Sexuality

What’s sex? What’s sexuality? How do people experience and actively express their sexualities, by themselves, with partners or both? How can we take part in sex in ways that are wanted and consensual, physically and emotionally safe and enjoyable for everyone? How do you figure out what you like? How can you communicate about sex? How do you deal with feelings like fear, shame, anxiety, dysphoria and other body image issues? How do you create the kind of sexual life you want? You’ll find the answers to all these and more here.

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Articles and Advice in this area:

Advice
  • Sarah Riley

Most things that you find around the house are not suitable for use as lubricant (if you have a vulva). They are simply not formulated for internal use and can easily lead to irritation and infection! So if you do not like KY, there are plenty of other brands of lube that you can buy at your grocery…

Advice
  • Sarah Riley

As I’m sure you’ve discovered, porn rarely answers one’s questions about sex in a very thorough fashion. A big part of that is probably because porn is fiction and fantasy portrayed in a way that will (supposedly) appeal to the audience. In real life, people don’t have the (dubious) “benefit” of…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Hi, Taylor. Just so that this is clear, for you and plenty of other people who have been in the same spot, here is what anal sex is and is NOT: Anal sex is not a method of birth control. While vaginal intercourse presents a much higher risk of pregnancy, unprotected anal sex can also present…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Sounds to me like you have some internal conflict here…or not. What I’m really hearing you say here is that you’re just not really feeling it when it comes to sex yet. Not alone, not with your partner. I’m hearing you say that you’re more interested in non-sexual physical affection right now –…

Advice
  • Susie Tang

First and foremost: Pornography is not real. Always remember that. Life doesn’t happen the way it does in the movies. Likewise, sex doesn’t happen the way it does in porn. Porn actors are actors. Is there anything wrong with the way you ejaculate? No. The force of a shot of semen depends on the…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Honestly? Cisgender women sleeping together have no fewer sexual options than women sleeping with men or men sleeping with men do. You can have all kinds of labial, vaginal and clitoral stimulus; you can do manual, oral, vaginal or anal sex, mutual masturbation, massage, frottage, breast play…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Hey, Jamie. First things first: there are all of two or three countries in the world where it’s even lawful for you to have intercourse at your age, and in most places, many other kinds of sex. If you’re writing in from the states, there is no state in which you’re at the age of consent. However you…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Our sexual fantasies really don’t limit our actual, out-of-our-heads sexual experiences. Sexual fantasy and sexual reality are separate. Fantasy is influenced by reality, and reality can be influenced by fantasy if we choose, but they still are two very different things. For many people, much of…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

It sounds like you’re not confused at all to me: in fact, I hear you being really clear. You know he wants one thing, and you want something else. You know you don’t want to do something he wants to do. In short, you know that the two of you want different things and that as it stands, there’s no…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Hey Anon: I’m sorry about the loss of your Mom. Often Dads really can do just as good a job in terms of talking about these things, so if he’s open to it, you might want to consider talking to him. But obviously, what’s important is that you have someone to talk to you feel comfortable talking to…