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This guest post from Arvan at SexGenderBody is part of a blog carnival to raise awareness and funding for Scarleteen. In terms of group politics - there are large groups of people who are fighting to prevent you from learning any facts about sex. Facts that can effect your health, income, present, future, career, happiness, ability to have or enjoy sex, choice of sex partners and even the ability to have sex. People get elected by using sex to scare voters - queer sex, teen sex, unmarried sex, kinky sex, fun sex, sex of any kind. Cultural practices and commonly held beliefs about sex punish or shame people for even discussing sex, much less teaching it to a classroom.

This a guest post from Shay at The S Spot for the Scarleteen Blogathon I remember one time when I picked up my younger brother from school, I asked him about his day and he told me that there had been an assembly about sex ed. I asked him if he had learned anything interesting and if he had any questions about anything they talked about (figuring that he might be more comfortable talking to me, his older sibling rather than a “real” adult like mom or dad). He did have a few comments about funny things the teachers had said and how uncomfortable many of them had looked. Then he said, “I didn’t know that condoms don’t protect you from infections or AIDS”. I was flabbergasted.

Good question! I wish I had an answer to give you as succinct and simple as your question. The answer is that it depends. Many countries have age of consent (AOC) laws that are federal, or the same throughout a whole nation, so it just depends then on what country you’re in. If you’re not in one of…

Part of the 2010 Blogathon to help support Scarleteen. This entry is courtesy of Tess at Urban Gypsy. If I earned a dollar each time I’ve heard the statement, “I’m surprised you’re so strict,” in relation to my parenting, I’d be basking on a beach in Tahiti now rather than on a Metro North train whisking me off to do a sex ed consult on the Lower East Side. I’d probably be doing sex ed consults in Tahiti; you can take me out of NY but you can’t kill my desire to help people learn more about their sexuality. But back on point, I can always hear the implied, “you with your pierced nose, tattoo, open marriage and non-stop sex talk.” The funny thing is, my friends may have been surprised but my daughter was not.

Annie’s question continued: What I would like to do is approach administration about implementing a sexual assault awareness session for all students at the beginning of the year and I am anticipating resistance. So, my question is, what is the best way to go about doing this? I would also like to…

I can’t make these choices for you, and I think it’s really important you make and own your own choices in relationships and in sex once you start choosing to have them be part of your life. What I can do for you is to try and give you some extra information and perspective, based on what you’ve…

What a person wants and enjoys in media – including pornography – may or may not have any relationship to what they want and enjoy in real life. That’s often particularly the case with fantasy media, which pornography usually very much is. A big part of viewing, reading, or otherwise engaging in…

In hindsight, I knew when I was around ten or eleven that I was queer: that I had and was experiencing growing sexual and romantic feelings for people of all genders, not just those of one of for those of a different sex or gender than me, feelings I’d continue to have throughout my teen years and my adult life to date. I didn’t have the language for it then, though, even though there were queer adults in my orbit I could have gotten it from, adults I naturally gravitated towards without realizing a big part of why was because I saw myself in them and I really needed them.

morphobutterfly’s question continued: I’ve finally found myself in a place where I feel a lot more comfortable with myself, men & sex, & I felt ready to sleep with someone. I didn’t have any love & rose-petal fantasies in mind; on the contrary, I felt that I wanted to do it without the drama of any…

I’m not going to be able to tell you exactly what happened here, because I wasn’t in your head or his, I don’t know what the dynamics of this relationship are or have been like outside of this context and I don’t know your sexual history, including with this person. This is one of those posts I wish…

Before I say anything else, I’m going to say what I often do to people about threesomes (or moresomes), particularly threesomes-in-the-abstract or other kinds of sexual scenarios with an established couple and one or more other partners who they don’t know yet or haven’t even considered. Especially…

I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis Missouri in a mostly white neighborhood. One of the first things I noticed was that my hair was different. My fellow students would run their hands through their hair, flip it from side to side or pull it back into ponytails. Their hair moved… my hair didn’t…

I’m always so glad when I hear from someone clearly thinking ahead, who wants to establish sexual communication and boundaries early on, rather than after boundaries have been crossed or well after communication was needed. Well done! Kudos to you for planning to take the initiative yourself, rather…

It certainly sounds like this isn’t a good sexual relationship for you, and perhaps hasn’t been throughout. I’m not surprised you’re feeling dissatisfied, and not surprised you find yourself experiencing anger and resentment around your sex life in this relationship. It sounds not only like your…

A few years back I was at a sex and disability conference in San Francisco. Tom Shakespeare, an author, disabled activist, and disability scholar, was giving the opening talk and he began by saying that as disabled people the real problem is usually not how to have sex, but who to have sex with. Eli…

I feel your pain. Big time. I have had times in my life where UTIs were something I could count on more than the sun coming up every day, owing the IRS money while people who made 100 times more than I do in a year didn’t, and never getting a seat on the subway during rush hour. I know too well how…

I’m so glad you were able to ask about this and break your silence. I know how scary it can be to do that. It’s a very big deal to take that step and I hope you give yourself a lot of credit for taking it. I certainly do. What you have described is beyond sexual harassment: it’s sexual assault. And…

Time for another installment of Building Bridges, where we facilitate, then publish a conversation between two people in different life stages who have something with gender, sexuality and/or relationships in common. This time, our intergenerational pair is two women who have had their sexual orientation and identity shift for them during the course of their lives.

Not only have we seen this before, it’s something we see at Scarleteen often. At our message boards, at least once or twice a week a user comes to us feeling exactly like you are. I promise, it’s not just you. Over the years, I’ve looked and looked for some kind of study on pervasive pregnancy…

Many people who identify as heterosexual have had some kind of sexual or affectional feelings or interactions with someone of the same gender, especially in childhood or adolescence. When Alfred Kinsey’s data was published in the late 1940’s in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a cultural ruckus…

Hedo’s question continued: While I was working with her and experimenting with what she liked I got a lot of positive feedback and encouragement. It was very clear that she was enjoying what I was doing, which felt amazing for me, too. But after we finished and cleaned up she got withdrawn and…

Over the weekend, we linked to reports on the presentation of a study in our Twitter feed and on our Facebook about the effect of sex during adolescence on academics, such as college goals, grade point average, dropout, truancy and absentee rates. On Sunday and Monday, the piece got a whole lot of media and internet airplay, even though it was clear few, if any, reporting on it had yet looked at the study itself. It’s not news that mainstream media tends to do a poor job reporting on both science and sex, and a poorer job still when young people are involved. Here’s some of what has gone unreported or has been poorly reported:

Last night at dinner, my partner was telling me about a story on NPR that afternoon. I was sure I hadn’t heard it, yet it felt so terribly, completely familiar, as if I had not only heard it once before, but a million times. The NPR story was titled, ” Your Olive Oil May Not Be The Virgin It Claims.”

Fox’s question continued: From what I understand, when a woman gets sexually excited, she secretes some kind of lubrication in her vagina. I presume that for STDs, the virus / germ is present in that natural lubricant, and that the contact with that lubricant is what’s dangerous. But a condom covers…

If I had an award to give each day for great awareness and forward-thinking about potential partners and relationships, you’d get it today, hands-down. Actually, you should just take it for this whole month. Seriously, this is really sage thinking on your part, and so valid per both of your best…