sexual

Wrenna Shows You Hers (and mine, and yours, and hers, and hers, and...)

If you’ve been reading Scarleteen for a while, you might already know that for many years now, we've heard from a good deal of young women who are deeply ashamed of and disgusted by these parts of their own bodies.

We take this very seriously, and have always wanted to do everything we could to try and help dispel all kinds of body shame or hatred, including that of the vulva. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to go ahead and take the risk of publishing some photos of real-person vulvas, because we’ve found something we think is beautifully done, very much needed, and that we think can be of great benefit to many of our readers, whether they have vulvas themselves or not.

Sp[ace] Exploration: What Sexual People Can Learn from Asexual Communities

Asexuality saved my sex life. No, seriously -- I mean that. I will declare it from the middle of a courtroom, with one hand on Our Bodies, Ourselves. Asexuality, as much as sex-positive feminism and far more than any amount of "hon, you just need to get laid already," helped me to access a confident, positive, and excited relationship with my sexual self.

What Is Healthy Sexual Development?

Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy.

At a recent conference I was part of in London, Alan McKee presented Healthy sexual development: a multidisciplinary framework for research. What McKee and his colleagues determined to be the core parts of healthy sexual development had me jumping up and down in my seat with joy (literally: I may have disturbed my fellow attendees with my bouncing). It summed up the things we try to support, encourage and inform our users with and keep core at Scarleteen so well, and so much of what I think -- after many years of thinking hard about and working with these issues, and being fully and broadly immersed in them with a very diverse population -- truly is central to healthy sexual development.

I'm delighted to have permission to excerpt and reprint this framework here.

Am I Stupid for Loving a Guy Who Only Wants Sex?

Cede101
asks:
So there is this guy that I really really like. I don't know how to get to him without having to put myself out there. He says he cares but then when we are with our friends he won't even talk to me. When we are alone he is always by me but wants to do anything other than talk, it seems like he only wants sex. We messed around once but I don't know what to do now....

Normative Sexual Development and Your Child

This is a guest entry from Dr. Ruth Neustifter -- who we know here at Scarleteen as Dr. Ruthie -- for the month-long blog carnival to help Support Scarleteen. Can we get your support?

I remember it very clearly. I was a senior in high school and we were all noshing together in the lunch room when Darla, who was two years my junior, blurted out that she had seen her boyfriend naked and that they were planning to have sex soon. It would be her first time, although we thought he probably had more experience. ”I sure hope it gets smaller before it goes in, because my hole isn’t that big!” she declared and we all laughed together.

I'm into my friend and want to fool around with her, but will she do it?

Samuel F.
asks:
I'm 15, and I have a close female friend of the same age with D-cup bra size and very good looks all-around. She hasn't shown much visible interest in sexuality, but we haven't talked very much about it at all. I've been wanting to see if she'd want to fool around. Is that really way too much for friendship or could I somehow get her to do it willingly?...