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Beezus Murphy's Mom Had an Abortion: An Interview
Parents: worried about sending simplistic messages about sex to teens? Then don't.
My 15 year old son has a first girlfriend who is a year older. My concern is that she lives with her dad only and quite often is home alone. My son has been there twice already and one time I made him leave because the dad was not home. I am besides myself about how to handle this. He said that he is not going to have sex with her but you know how that goes. I know what I was doing at 15....
Accentuating the (Sex) Positive: Discovering Scarleteen
This is an entry from Arianna at Fearfree, one of the many wonderful guest posts in the month-long blog carnival to help support Scarleteen!
I throw around the words “fear” and “silence” often when it comes to sex ed. They’re loaded terms, perhaps, but these words best describe my experiences with sex education: my emotional reaction and everyone else’s approach, respectively. These words describe what I feel is not often expressed in the sex education debate.
How do I talk about my interest in a threesome with my boyfriend?
I've read articles about men wanting to bring another partner, be it male or female, into the game. But as a woman, I'm not really sure how to bring this up with my boyfriend. It's more or less that I would like to bring someone else into our sexual relationship, for sex with both of us, but I'm not sure how to broach the topic or do this. So, I set about asking here. How should I ask?...
What Do You Need to Speak and Feel Heard?
Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but lately I feel like I have been noticing more people who really want to hear and know what young people think. Not who want to assume, presume, project or decide what you think, but who actually want to ask you and hear what you have to say about yourselves for yourselves.
If I'm not delusional in noticing this (always a possibility), I don't have to tell you this is obviously very good news.
Spotlight on Scarleteen: Message Board Bonanza
Have you been to the message boards lately?
If that's a yes, then you know about all the great content and discussions there are to join in on. If it's a no, then there's no better time than now to click over there, check things out, and add your piece!
Want to be a peer sex educator?
In case it isn't obvious from the message boards and our peer-written content on the site, peer-based sex education and support is really important to and at Scarleteen. While I love my job as a sex educator who is an older adult, and think there's a lot of value in my doing this work, at the same time I feel like there's an extra power and a special kind of support with peer-to-peer education and interaction that I can't do.
How to (Un)pack for a Real Discussion About Abortion
The murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller on May 31st has resulted in a lot of conversation about abortion. It’s a topic frequently hushed, or spoken about more around its politics than the actual procedure, the experience itself and the real women who have abortions. So this increased discussion is certainly something potentially positive happening because of something horribly tragic.
However, often in these conversations and news stories, language is used that's confusing or inaccurate, and some statements are made about abortion or women who choose abortion which are false, unrepresentative or misleading. And any of this can come from either “side” of abortion debates or discussions, due to political aims or motivations, ideological ideas or agendas or just out of plain old ignorance.
Is it racist to only feel attraction to my own race?
A friend of mine told me I was a racist because I'm not attracted to people who aren't of the same race as me. I don't really know why this is, I'm just not attracted to them. My friends are from many different backgrounds so I don't think that I am a racist. Is it weird to only be attracted to people that are the same race as me? ...