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It’s been an exciting and also unexciting couple of weeks. Life is changing, as it often seems to do. At my last doctor’s appointment I had gained a couple of pounds. My care provider was okay with this because it puts me back on the way to my pre-pregnancy weight. My partner was able to come to my appointment with me this time. We got to hear the heartbeat again.

Well, I don’t think vaginas or vulvas (or penises or anuses or mouths or ears or eyes or fingers or kidneys: any body parts) are gross. I think they’re really freaking cool and totally fascinating, whether I’m talking or thinking about my own, or all vulvas or vaginas. But you’re making quite clear…

3 words…round ligament pain. Oh my. This is probably my biggest complaint over the past couple of weeks. And my goodness, it is uncomfortable! Round ligament pain happens as the uterus expands in pregnancy. There are ligaments (special muscles) that hold the uterus in place in the abdomen. During…

Sauce’s question continued: He would stop me by telling me how much he loved me and how I should give a chance. I met him at university and he led me to a dark place and forcibly kissed me. I say forcibly because I was in shock, unresponsive and had backed up to the wall. It was my first kiss, a…

Today we’ve got the whole of a short interview that was excerpted in small part for a piece over at Ms. Magazine yesterday, Future of Feminism: Sex Education As a Human Right. The added bonus of aiming for truly inclusive sex education is that it can also inform people about the sexualities, bodies, identities and lives of others different than their own, helping them to understand that even if and when their own rights aren’t or don’t seem to be impeded, the rights of others are and that needs to matter.

The Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN) is an organization by and for Indigenous youth that works within the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice across the United States and Canada. The reclamation and revitalization of traditional knowledge about people’s…

Yeah, we meant to say that. Boy do we wish we didn’t. Here’s the spiel: it’s Back Up Your Birth Control Day today, but as you may have heard, or personally experienced, here in the states, we’re still having a lot of trouble with pharmacists refusing over-the-counter Plan B (emergency contraception, the morning-after-pill, or whatever you like to call it), for a whole bunch of reasons, including because of age, even though most of those asking for or about it are of legal age to get it over-the-counter, and without a prescription.

As we’re rolling out some redesign we’ve been working (and working to fund) over the last year or so, we thought we’d celebrate by sharing some of our history. Mind, it’s probably more fun for our readers than it is for me, since showing designs from times when the tech to do design blew, and one’s…

We have a good piece on safety when it comes to online relationships and meeting up here, but let’s review the basics and talk about you and this situation specifically. Meeting someone who you don’t know in person and haven’t met before alone, especially if and when they may feel you agreed to be…

I am so fucking fed up. The latest is from Arizona: now, if an employee uses the company’s health insurance to purchase contraceptive pills, they must prove to their employer that they are using them for “non sex” purposes. If they don’t, they could be fired. How is this supposed to go? “Oh, yeah…

As a sex educator, I don’t define sex as only being about penis-in-vagina intercourse, for a whole lot of reasons. If “sex” was the answer, the questions would be things like “What am I doing to try and feel good sexually or to express feeling good sexually? What am I doing that feels sexual to me (or to me and a partner)? What am I doing that feels like a way to express my sexuality, or my sexual desires and/or feelings about myself or others?”

At the beginning of week 14, I had my most recent appointment with my OB/GYN.

This doesn’t sound weird to me at all. Many of us have grown up getting a lot of direct and indirect messages that our own sexuality is the one thing we’re all just supposed to know how to do. We see variants of this question a lot, and I’d venture to say that there are many, many more people who…

Over the last few weeks, I have been sicker than sicker than sick. I managed to pick up whooping cough, which, combined with other health issues I already have, made my blood pressure dip to a very scary place, to boot. I had already been having some flare-ups from those other issues, so they made…

I’m not a doctor, but this sounds to me (as you say) like it could be an allergy to semen. But like I said, I’m not a doctor, and I can’t diagnose you over the internet, possibly from thousands of miles away. You say that you are on the pill now, so please consider going back to the healthcare…

It sounds like you’re really struggling with these expectations you have for yourself. Let’s see if we can’t help you feel a little better about yourself. First, let me see if I can’t put this in perspective a little by clearing up a misconception. The average time it takes someone with a penis to…

On the positive side, during the last week to week & a half, I’ve been feeling better. While I know it seems superficial, my biggest complaint right now is about clothing.

Based on everything I know and have learned working in sex and relationships for many years, people don’t tend to have or sustain healthy relationships when they do big things for or with partners they don’t also want to do and feel good about themselves. Taking out the garbage, doing the dishes…

Hey, thanks for your question. Lots and lots of guys worry about this kind of thing so it’s great that you’ve had the courage to ask a question about it. You’ve pretty much answered your question already, to be honest, but I’ll recap some of what you’ve said and fill in a couple of blanks here and…

The only sound way we can tell if someone has or hasn’t already had any kind of sex is by asking them and accepting their answer. Obviously, sometimes some kinds of sex can result in certain outcomes, like pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, which can also tell us if someone has engaged in…

There has been an increasing level of organisation and activity in the UK from politicians and pressure groups who are against comprehensive sex education, even lobbying against the basics like teaching body parts to primary school children and ever more increasingly speaking about abstinence. The tactics are versions of what US sex educators have been battling against for a while.

Physically, I’m feeling much the same as I was last week. Although the fetus is around an inch and a half long now, I don’t think my look has changed much yet. I have switched over to maternity pants because it is simply more comfortable. The nausea and tiredness are still there, as is the anxiety. But hopefully some of that should wane in the next few weeks. This week, I’ve been thinking more about the social implications of pregnancy and I’d like to talk a bit more about that.

I think one of the coolest things about sex is that it’s a lot like our taste in music. When it comes to music, we get to like what we like, and listen only to what we want to listen to when we get a choice. Obviously, in the grocery store or at a club what we hear not going to be up to us, but that…

My uterus is around the size of a grapefruit this week. I’ll admit, I find this rather amusing. When you look at sexual anatomy diagrams (which are generally shown non-pregnant anyway), the uterus usually looks pretty large. In reality, it’s about 3 inches and looks a bit like a pear. By 10 weeks…

Once, in a sleepless night of Netflix marathoning, someone said something on a show that stuck with me, despite the rest of the night being an unmemorable haze of insomnia. That was, “What’s so wonderful about being young is that there are no mistakes, only research.” As someone who works with young…