Worried your partner might have a bisexual history? Why?

Myths about LGBTQ sexual health need debunking – and healthcare professionals are part of the problem By Phoebe-Jane Boyd “Use a condom, the pill, or get an IUD – avoid pregnancy” was the drill from sexual health practitioners who came to speak at my comprehensive school in Kent. There wasn’t much detail or thought beyond, …

Talking With Both Daughters and Sons About Sex

By LISA DAMOUR Parents play a key role in shaping sexual decision-making among adolescents — especially for girls. A 2016 review of more than three decades of research found that teenagers who communicated with their parents about sex used safer sexual practices. Likewise, new research from Dutch investigators who studied nearly 3,000 teenagers found that …

Caught in the modesty bind: Why women feel shy to consult doctors for their sexual well-being

By Aditi Mallick “I was 17, when I first got sexually intimate with my boyfriend,” says Kriya (name changed), a 23-year-old IT professional from Hyderabad, while speaking to The News Minute. “Later we were very scared, as it was the first time for both of us,” she recalls. She missed her periods that month. The …

Women with HIV, after years of isolation, coming out of shadows

By Erin Allday Anita Schools wakes at dawn most days, though she usually lazes in bed, watching videos on her phone, until she has to get up to take the HIV meds that keep her alive. The morning solitude ends abruptly when her granddaughter bursts in and they curl up, bonding over graham crackers. Schools, …

Inside the fascinating world of a feeder fetish

By Mamamia Team “I wanna enjoy every single pound,” says Tammy Jung, “and every inch of me that grows.” Tammy Jung is a ‘feedee’ or a ‘gainer’. That is to say, she engages in Feeder Fetishism. Feederism is a sub-category of fat fetishism, where individuals harbour a strong or even exclusive sexual attraction to people who …

4 Steps To Having Open And Honest Talks About Sex With Your Kids

If you don’t, let me tell you who will… By Lori Beth Bisbey Many parents find it difficult to talk about sex and intimacy with their children. No one ever taught them how, and it’s understandably uncomfortable. But like anything else, as a parent you need to figure out how and when to discuss sex and intimacy with your child …

The Vulnerable Group Sex Ed Completely Ignores & Why That’s So Dangerous

By Hallie Levine [W]hen Katie, 36, was identified as having an intellectual disability as a young child after scoring below 70 on an IQ test, her parents were told that she would never learn to read and would spend her days in a sheltered workshop. Today she is a single mum to an 8-year-old son, …

Vaginismus: solutions to a painful sexual taboo

Many women use terms such as ‘failure’ or ‘freak’ to describe themselves By Teresa Bergin [V]aginismus is a very common but rarely discussed problem. Most women I see with this difficulty will not have discussed it with anyone else, not even female members of their own family or girlfriends. The silence that surrounds the issue …

A graphic history of sex: ‘There is no gene that drives sexuality. All sexuality is learned’

Changes in sexuality over time have made the modern family what it is. What next? Homa Khaleeli asks the authors of a groundbreaking graphic guide, The Story of Sex By Homa Khaleeli [P]hilip Larkin famously announced that sexual intercourse began in 1963 (“Between the end of the ‘Chatterley’ ban / And the Beatles’ first LP”). …

Dating experts explain polyamory and open relationships

By VALERIYA SAFRONOVA [T]o start, they are not the same thing as polygamy (that’s when you have more than one spouse). They are also not maintaining secret relationships while dating a person who believes he or she is your one and only (that’s just cheating). Polyamorous open relationships, or consensual non-monogamy, are an umbrella category. …

Apple’s Health App Now Tracks Sexual Activity, and That’s a Big Opportunity

By Lux Alptraum It’s no secret that Apple has a fraught relationship with sex. Since the debut of the iOS App Store, the company’s made every effort to keep its wares “family friendly” (read: porn free), often employing a very, very broad definition of what, exactly, constitutes porn. But as iOS has moved more and …

Sex education is not relevant to pupils’ lives, says report

International study finds schools’ teaching about sexuality out of touch, moralistic and unwilling to accept some students are already in relationships By Denis Campbell Sex education in schools worldwide is so “out of touch” with pupils’ experiences that they find it irrelevant and switch off, research of young people in 10 countries including the UK …