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Well, for women 18 and older. Minors will still need a prescription to obtain emergency contraception in most states. Despite the restriction, this is a step in the right direction that was a long overdue. For more information about emergency contraception and how it works, check out this article on…

The vaccine, Gardisil, is only approved for women and girls right now but its maker (Merck) is looking into its use in boys and men. Hopefully it will be available to males soon since they can also be infected and transmit the virus to their partners. A few things have to be cleared up yet, such as…

It’s hard enough to stomach this administration’s claims of a “War on Terror,” when fighting that war (as if that wasn’t ironic enough already) involves taking water and work away from civilians, and thousands of deaths and injuries for Iraqis and American soldiers alike. But when, today, the Supreme Court negated federal protections for abortion clinics against violence, when the Bush administration supported a “pro-life” group with a validated history of a wide scope of clinic violence, including bombings (again with the irony), all one could really ask oneself was…

Studies, and reports on them, like this amaze me. Of course, the pro-life blogs and sources are all over this already like white on rice. Of COURSE a lot of women suffer long-term trauma with abortion, and of course it’s longer-term than miscarrying (pity they didn’t also include women’s…

At least once every couple of days, someone posts or writes into Scarleteen reporting that vaginal entry – usually intercourse or manual vaginal sex, and usually (but not always) with cisgender male partners – is painful, uncomfortable, or unfulfilling for them. Whatever sort of vaginal entry we’re talking about – with fingers, a penis or a dildo, with partners of any gender – not only doesn’t have to be painful, it really shouldn’t be. More than that, any kind of sex shouldn’t be about a lack of pain, but about the presence of pleasure.

Today, a Scarleteen user (thanks, puppysrcute!) posted the following at the boards: What do you think about this? To which, I replied: That, in general, we don’t have the long-term, solid data to have any idea if this is wise or damaging to women, and until we do, I’m not (and Scarleteen by association) going to endorse it, even as an option for women who do simply want to choose it as preference, not as doctrine or by pressure to do so.

Teen pregnancy and parenting are hard, so if you’re thinking about trying to make it happen, here’s some food for thought.

I don’t believe it! Who saw it coming? How could this happen? (Yeah, I’m no more convincing with playacting than the administration is.) In a completely unsurprising turn of events, following Bush’s failed (though one has to wonder if it wasn’t supposed to) attempt to bring the conservative-but-not…

The biggest part of the battle with relationship problems isn’t fixing them so much as it is recognizing that there ARE problems, what they are and being willing to address them and work a little to seek out healthier patterns of behavior.

Hanne Blank is not a virgin. (She’s almost 37 and she’s been living with her life partner for nine years – we just thought we’d get that out of the way.) But she is a historian, a writer, and an expert on virginity, having written the first-ever history of the subject, “Virgin: The Untouched History.”

we hear everybody talking about puberty, attributing everything from the development of breasts to being in a crap mood on Tuesday to it, but what is it, really?

To: National Desk Contact: Ted Miller of NARAL Pro-Choice America, 202-973-3032 WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ – NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s leading advocate for personal privacy and a woman’s right to choose, said Americans are outraged that the Bush Administration will allow…

There’s a reason for taking things slowly, for putting off intercourse, or taking it away from center stage that often gets overlooked. I’m not talking about slowing things down for religious or moral ideals or social pressures. Not slowing things down to prevent STIs and pregnancy. Not even slowing things down for legal reasons or because of your age. I’m not talking about Just Say No, and I’m not talking about not having sex at all. I’m talking about PLEASURE.

If an average woman feels guilty about an abortion, due at least in part to numerous negative and pervasive cultural influences – including those which both idealize motherhood and which demonize abortion – but largely interpersonal or very immediate messages and influence, how might an “average” woman feel if at least half a nation, in 1973, made her the poster child as the most known “babykiller” of all time, and she was since held historically in that regard?

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - A woman angry with her 12-year-old daughter for having sex forced the girl to drink bleach and sat on her until the child died, a police detective said. The girl’s 9-year-old brother was forced to watch the attack, Detective Warren Cotton testified Thursday in a preliminary…

Next time somebody loftily tells you that differences between the sexes are grounded in biology, you have my permission to slap them with a judicial case. And I mean that literally: just print out the late-December ruling in the Harrah’s makeup case, roll it into a hefty tube, and take a swing at their head.

As you may or may not know, most miscarriages are about the human body being incredibly smart and humane: miscarriage, especially early miscarriages which often go unnoticed by many women (to the point that they’re assumed to be normal periods, and the women were unaware they were even pregnant), is basically the body’s way of naturally terminating births which will generally just not result in full-term, live or healthy births.

NAIROBI, Kenya – Promiscuity and other risky sexual behavior must change to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Saturday. Young Kenyans, including an 11-year-old girl, had a frank discussion with Powell about promiscuity, resistance to condoms and the cultural…

Under the proposed legislation called The Federal Refusal Clause, HMOs and insurance companies could refuse to provide any abortion services, information or referrals to abortion services

What’s going on here? While all the articles on this study seemed to avoid mentioning the issue of doctors persuading female patients to have cesarean deliveries, not to mention the yuckiness that the general practices and enviornment of hospital births tend to be, one has to scratch one’s collective head.

Doctors say these women request the procedure because they are afraid of having “old looking” vaginas. Doctors Loftus and Young say feedback from male partners is the number one reason women request the surgery. “The most common reason we hear is that they have had a negative comment made by a male…

“In a community hall in South Africa’s largest informal settlement, Soweto, about 20 men and women are seated in a semi-circle, talking about sex and gender roles. Working in groups, they have just completed two lists, one beginning “I’m glad to be a man/woman because … ” and the other, “If I were…

Because most HIV infections are transmitted across mucosal surfaces – the vagina and the rectum particularly – scientists have been concentrating on microbicides to prevent transmission. The research has intensified in recent years because of promising theories like the one behind PSC-RANTES and…

Last April, Scott Bloch, appointed by President Bush after serving as associate director of the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, ordered the removal of sexual orientation as a protected category on the office’s website as well as its removal from all training materials from his office. He announced that he was initiating a review of the legal underpinnings of the long standing policy while calling on his staff to catch up on the large backlog of other discrimination complaints not yet investigated by his office.