friendship

It’s likely that you will or already do know someone who will experience or has experienced trauma of some form. As friends, it’s important that we understand the responsibilities and limitations of our role, so we can best support our friends who are survivors and maintain our boundaries. Has someone disclosed to you a traumatic experience they’ve had? How can you best support that person and yourself? Here’s some information about trauma, the role of friends, and what it means to really support survivors.

Relationships, like gender and sexuality, don’t fit into a binary. The phrase queer platonic, which comes from the asexual community, means a deep and meaningful intimate relationship which isn’t based on sex. You can have this with anyone – no matter their gender or sexuality. Perhaps if the term were more normalised (I hadn’t heard of it before researching this article), more people would be comfortable with such a relationship.

For individuals on the Autism spectrum or anyone with some kind of disability, it can be hard to ask for help. Here’s a little advice from someone who knows.

A short, fast, sex ed summary about pleasure and fulfillment.

A short, fast, sex ed summary about the bare basics of healthy relationships.

Hoo boy. You’ve hit on a lot of big questions here. Some are the kind that can (and sometimes do) lead to knock-down, drag-out fights in the queer community. I’m going to do my best to tread lightly. What’s coming across in your question is that your evaluation of your friends’ identity is more…

Hi Lisa, You can’t see it, but I’m holding a stop sign up to the computer screen right now, because you need to hit the brakes when it comes to your friend and his oh-so-generous offer to help you cheat on your boyfriend. That’s what he’s offering, by the way; it’s not sexual physical therapy if you…

Hi Jaden, It sounds like you care about this person, and that you’re worried about her. You’re also in a difficult position, because it sounds like both you and she are minors, and the person she’s afraid of is an adult who’s supposed to be caring for her. That may mean that if she reaches out for…

Maggie’s question continued: I’m struggling with the fact that when I talk about being bisexual I mean that I could happily be in a committed relationship or desire to have sex with someone of any gender. I sometimes find that when people (as a way of trying to be supportive, which I am grateful for…

What to do, and what to avoid like the plague, when you’re crushing on someone hard.