interviews

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they talk about feminist sex toy stores? Do you love learning about feminism, sex toys, and history? Are you just looking for a fascinating book to read? Then Lynn Comella’s new book, Vibrator Nation, is for you! Vibrator Nation tells the story of…

We’re some of consent’s biggest fans around here, so we’re thrilled to have gotten a chance to interview Kitty Stryker about the new anthology she spearheaded, Ask: Building Consent Culture.

Sometimes you meet an activist who is so dang cool you want to tell the whole world about it. We’re lucky to have two such folks who agreed to a Scarleteen interview: Luna Merbruja and Lexi Adist! Luna is the author of Trauma Queen, a member of the 2014 Trans 100 List, international performance…

Dr. Karen Rayne has spent a decade supporting parents and young adults with well-researched, thoughtful discussion of sex and sexuality.

Sade is 17 and works as a youth activist for YWCHAC, a program for and by young women of color that helps foster their development in advocacy training while providing them with the skills to be effective peer-educators to youth on the subject of sexual health. Their mission is to address the increasing rates of HIV infection in young women of color ages 13-24. I got the chance to ask Sade about what she does, why she does it, and what she thinks about some of the issues that impact HIV and young women.

Toni Weschler is the author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement and Reproductive Health, which is pretty much THE book for people who want to chart fertility, and the book I used to learn how to do it well in my 20’s. She also wrote a great book about menstruation and charting for teen women, called Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body. She’s an amazingly dedicated and energetic person who also just happens to really, really like chocolate croissants.

Being queer and South Asian isn’t easy; being queer and mixed is harder, because any community can put it down to the OTHER identity group. That said, my Indian grandmother has been incredibly supportive, and no one has written me hate mail or disowned me. I’m very grateful for the internet, and for the time I’ve spent in larger cities. Both give me a sense that there’s someplace I might sort of fit in.

I’ve known that I am attracted to men for as long as I can remember. I identify as a MSM or as “downe” rather than as bisexual. Being attracted to men didn’t bother me as much as how that attraction would play out. There aren’t many black MSMs in the media so it was hard for me to reconcile my race and my masculinity with my attraction to men. I felt as though I would be seen as weak or effeminate by others.

Kate Greenaway is the Canadian director of Medical Students for Choice, a group of 7000 medical students across the US and Canada who are working towards improving school curriculums to include reproductive health training, especially abortion training.