identity
Scarleteen Confidential: How “Men Suck” Messes Everybody Up
Messages parents or guardians have given our users about gender come up frequently, and often problematically. As feminists and queer activists, we address gender stereotyping often in our content and conversations around women and gender nonconforming people of many stripes (or polka dots, whichever one prefers), and we know the weight of it all too well. But gender stereotyping is not just everybody’s problem, it’s a problem for everybody, and that includes for men, and the problems, for everybody, many gender stereotypes about men create.
Undoing Sexual Shame
Parental Controls
I have been in a monogamous relationship with someone my age for two years. We have been sexually active for a year now. My parents are religious and conservative, and believe strongly that there is no place for sex outside of marriage and I shouldn't be committed to my boyfriend until I have graduated college, which I am attending now....
On Belief
I am tired of disbelief.
I am tired of skepticism.
I am someone who does, genuinely, believe in the value of looking at things with a critical eye, of being cautious, of acknowledging that there are two sides to every story.
But I am tired of it when it comes to people who have been, or are being, harmed or made vulnerable.
Straight, Gay and Everything in Between: On Sexual Fluidity
In an episode of the Mtv show 'Faking It', the main character Amy expresses being interested in a boy. Since this comes on the heels of Amy confessing her love for her female best friend at the end of the first season, many viewers felt frustrated and confused. Wasn't Amy a lesbian? Had she not just come out? What was she doing making eyes at that boy?
Unlearning Unlovability
He Doesn't Want Sex Anymore. I Do. Now What?
My partner and I have been dating for over a year now and have just begun to hit some rough patches. We used to have a lot of (what I thought was) really great sex. Then one day he told me that all that sex had been only mediocre for him. I was mortified and also ashamed because it felt like maybe he had never really want to have sex with me, he was just doing it because he knew I wanted to....
I Feel Bad for Being Straight
I have a weird identity problem that nobody I know seems to share. I have lots of LGBTQ friends, and it seems like lately it's a bad thing to be straight. I identify as mostly hetero, at least for now, but my friend group almost looks down on straight relationships, the way that many bigoted communities view LGBTQ people....
Connecting with WOC and Sexuality
Ever since puberty, I found my body to be a site of shame, something I desperately wanted to escape.
A transplant to predominantly white Catholic schools on Long Island, I was immediately deemed ugly. I had an older sister, but we were close enough in age that we were navigating puberty around the same time. As second-generation daughters of immigrant parents, we were on our own as far as navigating the personal and social meanings of our bodies.