illness

Support from the Start: How to Talk About Disability With A Disabled Partner When You're a Nondisabled Person

Disability may feel scary if you’re new to it - there is a lot of language involved to learn, maybe more medical information than you feel capable of handling, or you might have a fear about possibly being cast in a caregiver role more so than a partner. All of these fears can be dispelled or addressed through ongoing, healthy communication. In my experience, disclosure is an ongoing conversation and there is no single “correct” way to do it, but there are ways that our partners can be stronger allies.

Body Talk: Listening To and Learning From Your Chronic Pain

For those of us with chronic pain, living our lives with other people -- be that with sex or something else -- can be tricky. Why was I often having such a hard time communicating such basic things? I realized that some of the survival strategies I used to get through the day were coming back to bite me. Over time, I developed some strategies for re-learning how to listen to myself.

The STI Files: Mycoplasma genitalium

Mycoplasma genitalium (sometimes called Mgen) is a bacterial infection spread through sexual contact. Although it's pretty common now, it isn't diagnosed and treated as often as it should be.

Partners in Pain

How do you navigate a relationship when one or both partners are dealing with pain?

An Infection Getting Worse and Worse: Can I Just Wait it Out?

Meghan_Hoover
asks:
I am 15 and I just had sex for the first time last Friday. It was unprotected but he did not cum. The next morning I had pain. The pain continued through Saturday and Sunday. I thought the pain was from having sex for the first time, but it's now Monday and I realized stinging while I pee, cloudy with some blood in it too, in addition to constantly having to pee and never feeling empty....

Sex And Disability: Starting the Conversation, Finding the Resources

As an educator and advocate of healthy sexuality, who also has some disabilities, I think it’s pretty important for people to have accurate information, but also to see themselves and their experiences included in the conversations we have about sexuality. So, I’ve put together a list of resources that put people with various kinds of disabilities smack dab back in the middle of the conversation.

Got an Infection? Some Take-Care Basics.

Over the last few weeks, I have been sicker than sicker than sick. I managed to pick up whooping cough, which, combined with other health issues I already have, made my blood pressure dip to a very scary place, to boot. I had already been having some flare-ups from those other issues, so they made the whooping cough worse, it made them worse. Like plenty of uninsured people do, I tried to hold off on healthcare for as long as I could, but eventually had to cave and suck up the big bill so I could get the big meds and also be sure I wasn't, you know, dying or anything.