boundaries
He doesn't want to have sex anymore: how can I change his mind?
My boyfriend and I have been going out for more a than a year now and we have grown extremely close. We use to have sex regularly and then he just kind of halted it. I want to have sex but he does not want to because of the potential of pregnancy. I suggest using condoms but he still refuses. Is there any way I can convince him to have sex again or will it seem like I am desperate? Please help!...
I want to wait until marriage for sex, but I'm worried no one else will.
Due to moral and possibly religious reasons, I want to wait 'til I am married before I have sex. But as a woman, I am worried that many men will not wait for this length of time and also will not be virgins by the point of marriage....
How (and why) to Root for Team Awkward
I am 15 years old and I have only made out once. I do not know the person I made out with, and I don't exactly remember what it was like. I want to make out with more people, but I am afraid I will not be good at it, I also don't want to embarrass myself with the person I do make out with. Another thing is, what if the person I do make out with tries to do more with me than I am ready?...
I survived sexual assault, then got stuck in a relationship I don't feel good about.
I’m a woman in my early twenties and identify as a feminist. Last November I was raped by someone I had previously considered to be a close friend. However, the assault itself isn’t what I am writing about. I’ve read many of Scarleteen’s wonderful articles on sexual assault and I am quite comfortable with the idea that what happened to me isn’t my fault....
She just won't stop pressuring me for sex and babies.
I'm in an on again-off again type relationship with my "girlfriend." We get along and everything, but on some things we don't see eye to eye. We've had sex before, and that's kind of the problem. She keeps pressuring me into having sex! You don't really hear it this way with guys, but it's the truth. She knows what she wants, and she wants it now!...
He wants something sexual, but I feel uneasy, especially around past sexual abuse.
I'm 14, and my boyfriend wants me to give him dry sex, I am very uneasy about this because I've been sexually abused before, what should I tell him?...
Letting Go of the Wrong Stuff to Get a Hold on the Right Stuff
I am 22 years old and have been with my one and only boyfriend for over 2 1/2 years now. I love him very much and we get along well, but our sexual life has always had problems....
What Is Healthy Sexual Development?
Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy.
At a recent conference I was part of in London, Alan McKee presented Healthy sexual development: a multidisciplinary framework for research. What McKee and his colleagues determined to be the core parts of healthy sexual development had me jumping up and down in my seat with joy (literally: I may have disturbed my fellow attendees with my bouncing). It summed up the things we try to support, encourage and inform our users with and keep core at Scarleteen so well, and so much of what I think -- after many years of thinking hard about and working with these issues, and being fully and broadly immersed in them with a very diverse population -- truly is central to healthy sexual development.
I'm delighted to have permission to excerpt and reprint this framework here.
Hooking Up Can Be Awkward - Until It's Great
I host consent workshops professionally, and at one point during past workshops, when the audience is generally settled and feeling comfortable opening up, I have asked, “Who here has ever had something silly and awkward happen during a hookup? Even slightly awkward.” Hands have shot straight up and we all ended up getting a good laugh out of it. It just goes to show how awkward connecting with sex can be, whether you're in bed, thinking about it, or just talking about it!
I think a lot of these awkward moments happen because of the conversations we are having around our romance, or, should I say, the conversations we aren't having.