What to do when your teen tells you they have a sexually transmitted infection

By Britni de la Cretaz [B]y now, most parents likely know that not talking about sex with their teens will not stop them from doing it. And, as a parent, you might even have done some reading on how to have The Talk with your kids. Maybe you think you’ve done everything right when it …

High-risk sex, girl-on-girl experimenting linked among NYC teens

By Susan Edelman [N]early half the Big Apple’s sexually active high-school girls have had female partners — and many engage in behavior that endangers their health, an alarming new study finds. Researchers from New York University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine based their findings on a 2013 survey of public high-school students citywide …

The way we teach sex-ed is old and ineffective. Here’s how to fix it.

By Stephanie Auteri [I]n a predictable bit of news, the results of a study released this past September show that students consider most sex-education programs to be out-of-touch, outdated, and lacking in the information that might actually prove useful to them. Among the deficiencies reported by teenagers were a focus on fear-based lesson plans, curricula …

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 …

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 …

How your relationship with your mother can impact your sex life

By Rebecca Reid [A]ccording to a study published in Paediatrics magazine, women and girls who have closer relationships with their mothers are likely to lose their virginity later in life. Of the 3,000 women questioned, 44 per cent who reported having a ‘high quality relationship’ with their mothers also reported having sex for the first time …

Hard times – the ups and downs of the penis

Penises can be problematic. They are powerful, untameable beasts, capable of wielding immense pleasure but also able to cause devastating emotional wounds. And that’s just anal sex by Liam Murphy As well as the obvious physical harm that can be inflicted – skinny jeans have cursed a generation to suffer cock-caught-in-fly related trauma – the magnificent …

Girls Gone Wild: Why Straight Girls Engage In Same-Gender Sexual Experiences

By Jamie Budnick “Straight girls kissing” has become something of a curious and controversial cultural phenomenon over the last 15 years. Madonna and Britney Spears famously locked lips in front of millions during the 2003 Video Music Awards, with Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock following suit seven years later at the MTV Movie Awards. In …

Should we teach teens about BDSM in sex ed?

By Leigh Cuen Could talking to students about BDSM culture help combat rape on college campuses? Psychology researcher Kathryn Klement thinks so. Klement is the co-author of a newly published study out of Northern Illinois University, which showed that BDSM practitioners are less likely to believe victim-blaming myths or sexist stereotypes than the general population. That’s why she believes …

Good News: Porn Isn’t Bad For Your Sexual Health After All

Everyone can calm down now. By Zeynep Yenisey Recently, a British National Health Service therapist suggested that access to porn is “damaging” to men’s health, particularly their sexual health, so naturally the internet freaked out, because porn is awesome and it’d be tragic if it really was unhealthy somehow. The claim came from psychosexual therapist …