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Part two of a series on vaginal trainers from Caitlyn Tivy, a pelvic health physical therapist and health writer. This part of the series explains more about the specifics of using them.

When I tell someone that I help people with problems related to the abdomen, pelvis, and pelvic floor, I often get a curious look. What is the pelvic floor, after all? How do we care for it and the tissue around it? Here’s a thorough walkthrough of the anatomy of your pelvic floor and perineum and how you can keep tabs on this area of the body.

What does STI testing involve? How do you do it? Where? When? What do you do with your results? We answer all these questions and more to help demystify testing so you can take care of you and yours with less stress and more confidence.

Self-love. Solo sex. Jacking off, jilling off, whacking off. Paddling the pink canoe, pocket pinball, teasing the kitty, testing the plumbing, spanking the monkey, surfing the channel. No matter what you call it—or how goofy what you call it is—masturbation is one of the few things that almost everyone does, has done or will do. Here's some most basic things to know about it.

You've probably seen all kinds of adults writing about teens and sex. Some of that writing is well-researched and thoughtful. Some -- most, sadly -- is hysterical and full of fearmongering and shoddy (or no) research. I was lucky enough to interview an author who belongs solidly in the first category.

For two years, I worked in a bookstore that was aimed primarily at children and teenagers. It was a job I quite enjoyed, but I quickly discovered that when you work near books, people always want to tell you their opinions on said books. That's fine most of the time. But I noticed a pattern when parents or adults would refer to The Hunger Games series. They would express dismay over a child wanting to read the book, wondering what they saw in it, and either implicitly or explicitly stating that they thought the book was not good for youth to be reading. What struck me about these conversations was that ninety-nine percent of the time, the adult in question had not even read the book they were criticizing. They dismissed it, either as inappropriate trash or as mindless fiction without ever actually seeing what it had to say.

Quite a few young people have come to us with this scenario: a parent has told their child that they are open to talking about contraception. But when the young people bring this up with us, they sometimes say that even though that invitation was extended, they don't feel comfortable picking it up and asking for that help, or can't figure out how. I absolutely see what I am sure are usually the best of intentions with this invitation. But I'd like to suggest an alternative that will probably work better.

Our societies are chock full of norms and ideals of beauty, and we all run up against them eventually. These norms and expectations often have a hand in shaping how we feel about our own bodies. When you're a teen and trying to sort out how to feel comfortable in your changing body, these messages can be very potent indeed. So, what can you do - and what shouldn't you do - to help teens feel at home in their own skin?

It's a perennial cliché in nearly every coming of age movie, book, and sitcom. An adolescent or emerging adult character brings home a new boyfriend or girlfriend, who is met with dismay or disapproval by parents. In real life, it's not unusual for parents to not immediately like the partner of their teen, or to feel wary or cautious when it comes to supporting their romantic or sexual relationship. So how do you go about working out whether or not your concerns are valid, and what to do about them if they are?

How do you support a teen as they recover from sexual assault?