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Hi Emma, Reading this, I get a strong sense that you expect to be judged for your age and your sexual choices. I have no intension of judging you, and I’ll get back to why in a bit. First, though, I want to answer your questions. It’s okay that your boyfriend doesn’t want oral sex. I know you want…

Since the first time I had it inserted, the technology of the implant has changed a little bit, for the better. When it was developed, Implanon was a thin plastic rod that couldn’t be seen on x-rays - so if there was a question about whether it had been placed in the right spot, there wasn’t really a way to tell. The insertion device was also pretty intimidating-looking. Nexplanon, the newer version, has fixed both of those issues.

Hey there, Dan. I’d never assume someone is dumb (including when someone is a young, a guy, or without a house, car or a job), nor do I think that having strong feelings for someone means a person is dumb. It sounds like you’ve had a pretty watershed emotional experience with this person, and…

When one person walks up to another person on the street and just starts punching them in the face, we don’t call it boxing. We don’t call it “unwanted boxing.” We call it assault.

This is definitely not a silly question. In fact, many people with vaginas experience the feeling of having to pee from stimulation inside the vagina by fingers, sex toys or a penis. Understanding your body and anatomy can help to explain why you feel like you have to urinate during sex, and also…

Does sex feel like it’s “just happening,” rather than something you’re actively doing? Here’s how to change that.

Here’s something that happened to me last month: I got asked my preferred gender pronoun. For those who aren’t familiar, this is a thing that tends to happen a lot at queer-positive conferences and gatherings these days. When you go around the room at the beginning of a session, you’ll say your name…

It occurs to me that the “we both forgot to use condoms” thing that comes up often enough is a bit like suggesting that a person forgot to wear pants. For a whole day. And didn’t notice. At all.

It sounds like you have two different concerns in your question: that it is not normal for you to not be experiencing pleasure (or much sensation at all) while receiving oral sex, and that you also don’t want your boyfriend to feel bad about that. Let’s talk about the first part of your question…

No. It is not possible for a gynecologist to tell if someone has been sexually active, either with themselves or with a partner through an examination. The only exception might be if you were examined shortly after masturbating; the doctor might notice redness or irritation of the vulvar tissues…

elinor’s question continued: I know many people experience different romantic vs sexual attraction, and from talking to him, I feel like he is a little more sexually attracted to men, and a more romantically attracted to women. We also have a very friendly/open sort of relationship (we started off…

Meet our good friend, Lube. It can’t create world peace, but it can make some kinds of sex more comfortable, masturbation or other sex you already enjoy even better, help prevent condoms from breaking and more.

What I’m hearing a lot of in this question is you wondering if you’re okay. So, I wanted to start out by saying: Yes, you are okay, just the way you are. I realize this may not be a comfort, but in spite of how it might seem, there are plenty of 19-year-old folks (plenty of folks of any age, for…

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. But, boy howdy, does it sound like plenty was wrong with this situation. You did not WANT to engage in sex with this person. You were also clear that you didn’t feel ready to have sex with this person once it was obvious to you that you felt that way…

I don’t celebrate most holidays, but I’ve always been a fan of New Year’s. New Year’s Day, actually, more than New Year’s Eve. I relish fresh starts and new beginnings. I even like New Year’s resolutions. I know, they’re cliche, and that much of the time, when we make them, we don’t stick with them…

I’m sorry to hear that sex has been a disappointment. Let’s see if I can help shed some light on this for you. A partner cannot be a mind-reader. No one can, but being someone’s sexual partner doesn’t magically imbue them with that skill. There’s just no way your boyfriend can know what you’ve been…

Everyone is different when it comes to hormonal/menstrual cycles, and there certainly are people who experience more intense effects of physical and psychological changes throughout their cycle than others. Experiencing changes in your mood, how your body responds to different kinds of touch, and…

What I’m not hearing in this is what you want. You tell me he’s been touching your body more and more, but you didn’t say anything about if that’s something you want and have been enjoying. I hear the things he’s been saying, but I don’t know what you’ve been communicating to him yourself. The…

Patsy Niklas is someone I consider myself privileged to know in person. Until recently, she worked as the program manager for YEAH (Youth Empowerment Against HIV/AIDS) in Melbourne, coordinating volunteer training and taking care of the organisation’s social media. Now she works with the Foundation for Young Australians on their Young People Without Borders project, helping young Australians get involved in volunteering and activism. In addition to all that, she hosts a weekly show about sex and relationships on Melbourne’s youth-run radio station, SYN.

If you’re someone who takes part in end-of-year giving, we’d like to ask you to consider giving to Scarleteen . As you may already know, Scarleteen was one of the first online resources for young people about sex and sexuality, and remains the leading, most visited online resource expressly created…

You did nothing wrong. The idea someone “asks for” something they don’t want, something that they experience as a violation, is a trope that I wish would go the way of the dodo bird. Understand, I’m not upset with you for saying that; I’m upset with the culture that sends messages that make you…

You tried to do something sexual you thought was super-sexy but the other person thought was weird, silly or downright gross. Something one partner of yours thought was the hottest thing ever turned out to be something that, when you tried it with another person, bored the pants not even off of them, but right back onto them. Your biggest turn-on is someone else’s buzzkill. In any of these situations or many others like them, you might feel like you were bad in bed or someone else might think that about you. Here’s the biggest thing to know about that, before I say anything else at all: When sex is consensual, we all have the right to be our own idea or someone else’s idea of who or what is “bad” in bed. Sometimes; anytime. That’s because we’re human.

Nothing. In other words, since it sounds like you’re asking for a personal answer here, and I am someone who could have become pregnant, and am someone who engaged in those sexual activities when I was a teen, the answer is that I didn’t do anything per preventing pregnancy and those activities…

People do say that people are ready for sex – and not just the first time, either – at different times, different ages and in different situations. And that’s absolutely right. Whether we do or don’t want any kind of sex at any given time, with any given person, in any given situation, and also…

- (from the website:) Female genitalia have long been a source of fascination, recently of celebration but generally of confusion. Today it seems that creating images of the vagina is the sole preserve of pornographers, erotic artists and feminists. Step in British artist Jamie McCartney who has…