empowerment

Spotlight on Scarleteen: Valentine's Day

The Fourteenth of February is a day that can conjure up various feelings, depending on the person and the context. Often people fall into two V-Day camps: those who delight in the sweet celebration and those who wish it were February 14th that happens only once every four years.

Why I Deeply Dislike Your Older Boyfriend

I feel like he chose you because he thinks you can be convinced he's as good as you're going to get: when the truth is that you are the one who is as good as HE is going to get. I feel like dating someone as smart, gorgeous, fabulous and awesome as you are is something he does in part to make himself feel more important than he actually is. I feel like he thinks it's okay to use you to make others think better of him than he actually deserves. I feel like he chose you because he thinks "getting" you is an achievement all about him, not a partnership about both of you.

Why I Deeply Dislike Your Older Boyfriend

He may be older but he's not wiser, and he's not acting like a grownup. He doesn't want to grow up, which is part of why he's dating people he perceives as not grownup themselves. He also doesn't have the bad stuff that happens to you because of him happen to him to make him want to change: if he was in your shoes, he'd ditch him in a heartbeat.

Vagzilla! (Or, All Genitals Great and Small)

If we're going to think of our genitals as big, any one of us, given the small range between them, we should think everyone's genitals are big. We also need to accept that it's ignorant or misinformed to think, presume or suggest that penises are big but vaginas are small, because we really are all about the same size. If thinking big is better for one sex, it's also got to be better for the other. So, if you or someone else is going to go on about some big penis, you'd best get just as excited about the idea of a big vagina, and make having a big ol'Vagowski just as cool. And if you're all hung up on the idea that the vagina be as small as it can possibly be, or is such a small thing, then you've got to accept that penises are small, too.

Activism 101

Want to step up and start standing up for the issues most important to you? Here's a few basics on how young activists can get started.