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You seem to be asking two separate questions here: 1) If it’s okay to have an open relationship now, and 2) If it’s a wise idea to sleep with someone who dumped you because you wouldn’t sleep with them. Let’s hit #2 first, since it’s pretty easy. For real? For real you want to sleep with someone who…

Was her partner ever treated when she was? Standard procedure when one person is diagnosed with Chlamydia is for a healthcare provider to make clear that all current or recent partners are informed so that they can also be treated at the same time. Some healthcare providers will even just provide…

The answer to that question depends entirely on the parents in question. Parents are people and many have sexual desires just as do folks who don’t have children. Just like anybody else, folks who are parents may have more or less sex of any given type throughout their lives. In general, we do know…

Unless you’ve been charting your fertility (see our article Get with the Flow: All about FAM for more information), it’s not really a good idea to think that there’s any “safe” period in your cycle where you have less need to worry about pregnancy. Not everybody ovulates on Day 14. Especially in…

Your girlfriend is being VERY sensible, whether you may happen to believe it or not. People with vaginas have a LOT at stake when they become sexually active. They are more prone to infections than people with penises. And yes, they can get pregnant, which is a very taxing process for her body…

It feels good. The species would have a little trouble propagating if we didn’t enjoy mating. By nature, sexual pleasure is the incentive that encourages us to make more of ourselves. That’s quite good for the species – so much so that I think humans may have done too good a job of it. But…

Today the Centers for Disease Control released a study concluding that approximately one in four women between the ages of 14 and 19 living in America are infected with at least one sexually transmitted infection, such as HPV (human papillomavirus), genital herpes, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis. The study also determined that the rate of infection was higher in African-American women than Caucasian women.

I’d like to suggest that you try a little experiment… Next time you get out of the shower, skip the deodorant/antiperspirant. Go about your daily life for several hours and then take a quick sniff of one of your underarms. I can almost guarantee the results of this experiment. You’ll likely find…

You’ll probably be surprised to know that this is a pretty common question with an answer that may be unexpected based on what we’ve been taught about how things “should” go. The first thing you really need to understand when you’re thinking about this is that the vaginal canal itself is not…

Some people can take longer than others to adjust to hormonal birth control. In fact, that’s why you’ll usually hear that you should be ready to deal with some weirdness for the first 1-3 months when you start hormonal birth control. Remember that with the pill you’re essentially adding lots of new…

The Papanicolaou test, more easily pronounced “Pap smear,” is a test that checks to see whether there are any abnormal growths on your uterine cervix. Your clinician takes a small brush or swab and sweeps a sample off the tip of your cervix. The lab checks the sample to see if there are any abnormal…

Dear Kiwi, Unfortunately a lot of people are in your situation. It may take some time for you to be able to fully embrace your sexuality. For now, why don’t you go over the pros and cons of sex as YOU see them. Write them out. Think about why you want to have sex. Then think about the ramifications…

You know, while five years isn’t a big age difference between people who are, say 35 and 40, it can be a lot bigger between people who are 15 and 20. Think abut it like this: at 20, your boyfriend has literally already lived 25% longer than you have, just a little less than you’ve outlived someone…

With most sexually transmitted infections, it would be highly unlikely for a person to have one who has not had any kind of sexual contact – with genitals, hands or mouths – to have one. We call STIs – sexually transmitted infections – what we do because that is usually how they are transmitted…

Mood changes are certainly one common side effect of the pill, and they’re worse for some people than for others (and younger people can get hit particularly hard with those effects). I hear you on how you’re feeling: way back when I was on the pill, and I was one of those who got whacked really…

Any kind of sex between people of the same gender is as normal as sex between people of different genders as far as I am concerned. In other words, it is normal – and has always been relatively common – for people of all genders and stripes to have sexual intimacy or to explore sexuality together…

There’s nothing about having a menstrual period which makes it impossible or even difficult for someone to have any kind of sex. In fact, because there are extra fluids present, plenty of people find some kinds of sex – like vaginal intercourse – more pleasant during menses. People can also…

Why would you want to be friends with someone you feel afraid of and who is harassing you? Who you fear may become violent if you take any action to stop his harassment? That’s not the way friends treat each other: this guy is not your friend, and clearly has no interest in being your friend. Sexual…

We don’t condemn or dismiss any kind of relationship model around here. What model is right for any given person or couple is highly individual, and depends on what the people involve want and need. There’s no one right kind of relationship for everyone, and we’ve talked about casual sexual…

Vibrators cannot “desensitize” anyone in any permanent way. There have never been any findings through sound research which have shown that vibrators or other vigorous stimulation of the clitoris do anyone harm or change anyone’s anatomy or sexual response permanently. Sure, they can kind of numb…

Sounds to me like you could use some good, old-fashioned vulva reclaiming. And it’s so not just you that does, I swear. Let’s start by tossing out terms like “va-jay-jay.” Seriously, when television writers – on a medical show, of all things – have to be cute about it you know we’re living in a…

This is as fine a place to ask as any. :) You know, this is the case with most people with any kind of emotional maturity who knows that people are more than two-dimensional and sex is about people, not appearances or our ideas about people based on appearance. Of course, we can look at someone in a…

Why do you feel bad about using emergency contraception? Just like condoms, how it works is to prevent a pregnancy, and emergency contraceptive pills (Plan B or the Morning-After Pill) work the exact same way any combination hormonal birth control works, it just only needs to be taken after the fact…

A lot of people don’t realize that there are changes to the vulva during puberty. The labia and clitoris so expand some, and in addition, because of the rest of your body growing and changes in your body composition, the mons of the vulva tends to pull back, which can result in the inner labia…

Virginity, in and of itself, is a societal concept not a medical one. Certainly there used to be the thought that as long as a woman had a hymen, she was a virgin (and unfortunately some people still subscribe to this belief). However, a hymen is just thin, flexible folds of mucous tissue that…