respect
That Guy
Anyone who knows me or who knows anything about me usually knows that my pre-teen and teen years were incredibly difficult. I dealt with neglect and abuse in my family, starting from about the time I was 10. I was sexually assaulted twice before I even became a teenager. I was queer. I was suicidal and was a self-injurer. I struggled to find safe shelter sometimes. Few people seemed to notice, even though after I gave up trying to use my words, I still used my eyes to try and tell them constantly.
I'm 40 now, and in a whole lot of ways, I felt older at 16 than I feel now. Some days, I am truly gobsmacked that I survived at all, let alone with my heart and mind intact and rich.
A lot of why I survived is about having gotten support.
I don't want to spend my life never being satisfied by sex and I am FREAKING OUT.
I've done my reading and I know this problem has been addressed several times... but I still do not have an answer! Until I read this site I thought I was the only girl who couldn't reach orgasm from sex (so thank you!) I now realize I am not, and understand that nothing is wrong with me, but it still sucks! I don't want to spend my life never being satisfied by sex....
Sometimes, knowing is the whole battle.
This is a guest post from Dances With Engines as part of the month-long blogathon to help support Scarleteen!
Scarleteen is written for young people of all sexes and genders. That they manage to do so with so much consistency and dependability is amazing to me. As I become more conscious of my own binary and oppositional language (men do this, women do that, and only men and women), I get more impressed with Scarleteen.
When I recommend websites to my daughter, or to friends with growing children, I am always questioning—is the language and mission of this site going to be inclusive? Is anyone going to be left feeling like they don’t belong or that someone’s wrong with them? I felt like that, growing up. There were so many reasons I wasn’t human, wasn’t visible.
Blaming the Wrong Butthole
I used to be able to have anal sex with my boyfriend. We're in college, we've been together for over three years and have been having anal for the entire time. I never enjoyed it at all, it always also hurt but I let him do it because he liked it. Ever since last summer, I haven't been able to allow him to do it. It just hurts so much more than it used to!...
How do I bring up my sexual limits and boundaries?
I'm 15, and I have my first boyfriend (he's 16, almost 17, with a one year five month age difference between us). I really love him, and he loves me. Yesterday, we were kissing and ended up with us making out and him on top of me. He touched my leg, and my stomach and hip some, but didn't go anywhere near my privates....
I'm so unhappy in our sex life, and he just doesn't understand.
Me and my boyfriend have been dating for almost a year now. We have been sexually active through our relationship and I have been wanting to try something new. It was hard for me to tell him, but I suggested that he at least perform oral sex on me because I don't always enjoy intercourse (and don't usually have an orgasm that way)....
Building Bridges: Sexual Orientation Shifts
Time for another installment of Building Bridges, where we facilitate, then publish a conversation between two people in different life stages who have something with gender, sexuality and/or relationships in common. This time, our intergenerational pair is two women who have had their sexual orientation and identity shift for them during the course of their lives.
Building Bridges: Childhood Sexual Abuse
We hear a lot about generational divides. What we hear much less about are the bridges: how people of different generations can and do connect; how we can support and help one another and each offer the other things of great value.
Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist
Who's Calling Who Compulsive? Calling Out a Common Rape Survivor Stereotype
I was one of several guests on a radio show in Baltimore on Friday. The topic of the show was apparently going to be about sex education and social justice, but turned out to be more like fear-mongering and a whole lot of projections around teen sexuality mixed with focus on parents and teen sexuality.
One of the most troubling things was a statement that rape survivors "compulsively have sex."
This is a very common stereotype. It's one that can be incredibly damaging in several ways. It's also one which has long since been dismantled by rape survivors, people who work in the field as advocates for survivors and educators about rape.