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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.

Not only have we seen this before, it’s something we see at Scarleteen often. At our message boards, at least once or twice a week a user comes to us feeling exactly like you are. I promise, it’s not just you. Over the years, I’ve looked and looked for some kind of study on pervasive pregnancy…

Many people who identify as heterosexual have had some kind of sexual or affectional feelings or interactions with someone of the same gender, especially in childhood or adolescence. When Alfred Kinsey’s data was published in the late 1940’s in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a cultural ruckus…

Hedo’s question continued: While I was working with her and experimenting with what she liked I got a lot of positive feedback and encouragement. It was very clear that she was enjoying what I was doing, which felt amazing for me, too. But after we finished and cleaned up she got withdrawn and…

Over the weekend, we linked to reports on the presentation of a study in our Twitter feed and on our Facebook about the effect of sex during adolescence on academics, such as college goals, grade point average, dropout, truancy and absentee rates. On Sunday and Monday, the piece got a whole lot of media and internet airplay, even though it was clear few, if any, reporting on it had yet looked at the study itself. It’s not news that mainstream media tends to do a poor job reporting on both science and sex, and a poorer job still when young people are involved. Here’s some of what has gone unreported or has been poorly reported:

Last night at dinner, my partner was telling me about a story on NPR that afternoon. I was sure I hadn’t heard it, yet it felt so terribly, completely familiar, as if I had not only heard it once before, but a million times. The NPR story was titled, ” Your Olive Oil May Not Be The Virgin It Claims.”

Fox’s question continued: From what I understand, when a woman gets sexually excited, she secretes some kind of lubrication in her vagina. I presume that for STDs, the virus / germ is present in that natural lubricant, and that the contact with that lubricant is what’s dangerous. But a condom covers…

If I had an award to give each day for great awareness and forward-thinking about potential partners and relationships, you’d get it today, hands-down. Actually, you should just take it for this whole month. Seriously, this is really sage thinking on your part, and so valid per both of your best…

The more young people are told - usually by adults who know from their own experience it’s not true – that sex outside of marriage, outside long-term, monogamous relationships, or with any more than one partner in a lifetime, will always do them terrible, irreparable harm and make them damaged goods forevermore, the more we get questions about oxytocin, one common staple in that messaging. So, around a year ago, I started excavating.

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.

Heather Corinna, a writer and activist, is the founder of Scarleteen, one of the internet’s best sex ed resources for young people, and the author of S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide for Getting You Through High School and College. Scarleteen, which Corinna started in…

Worried you might be pregnant? Evaluate your risk, find out what steps you may need to take next, check in with your feelings and by all means, breathe. We’re here to walk you through it.

Toni Weschler is the author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is pretty much THE book for people who want to chart fertility.

I probably can’t help you keep erections or ejaculation from happening when you don’t want them to, since that’s just something largely, and often entirely, outside someone’s control. Hopefully what I can do is help you to worry about it less and accept the way your body is right now more. We hear…

Before I say anything else, I want to make sure that you understand that it’s okay for you to simply not feel like having sex, and to decide to not have it for the time being. You say you don’t like sex, and that’s absolutely valid: We don’t have to like it, at any given time or ever. Now, if you DO…

I cannot stand this show. No sense in being shy about it, because this is a bias I cannot hide, as will be apparent in nanoseconds. But. The last episode (“She Went That A’way”) showed something I found very truthful and real about abortion and support with abortion and reproductive choices.

How about considering this in a different way? If and when you do have intercourse, some of what I’m about to say will probably be a big duh; be things you’ll find out for yourself. If you have already had other kinds of sex, you may know much of this already, but just not realize that as things…

The core of what you’re asking about is a biggie, one whole books have been written about. As someone who tends to be verbose, I could certainly write you a book, but I’ll spare you an encyclopedia, aim for a summary and will probably land somewhere in between. Based on what you posted, I don’t see…

Having sex with another person, regardless of their gender or yours, can always pose health risks, especially if you do not use proper precautions to protect yourselves from those risks. In the case of sex with another person with a penis (or with anyone, for that matter), the risk of acquiring an…

Molluscum contagiosum – a bumpy skin infection – isn’t technically an STI, but can be transmitted through sexual contact. The CDC states that molluscum cases in the United States have been on the rise since 1996.

Although I think of myself as South Asian, I was born overseas and have always lived in a Western country. Our family still carries many of our traditional values from back home and we have a large community here. I came out to my parents around 3 years after having my own realizations. The impetus for this was that they had started to look for marriage partners for me.

When you’re reading, interacting at/with or addressing Scarleteen, especially when interacting with staff, volunteers and other readers or users, we ask that everyone please try not to make assumptions about each other. When in doubt, or when you’re curious about someone’s life, body, identity…

It’s up to you to decide if this was sex and if this had anything to do with virginity. What I can do to help you with that is give you some definitions, backgrounds and perspective on those terms, some advice on making sexual choices in alignment with what you really want and feel ready for and…

Meyli’s question continued: Last night, he went out with a couple guy friends, and they went to a fastfood place for dinner. One of the workers, a middle-aged man, touched him (can I say he grabbed his ass?) innapropriately. He was really freaked out by that, obviously anyone would be. It was a…

It’s fine to start on day two. Really, it’s okay to start at any time in your cycle. It’s just that the pill will become fully effective more quickly if you start at certain times rather than others. If you start within the first six days of a period, your withdrawal bleed (the “period” that happens…