What to know about internalized homophobia

Internalized homophobia occurs when a person is subject to society’s negative perceptions, intolerance, and stigma toward people with same-sex attraction. They then turn those ideas inward, believing that they are true, and experience self-hatred as a result of being a socially stigmatized person. by Zawn Villines Internalized homophobia happens when a person consciously or unconsciously …

How I Have Sex

— “I Can End Up Feeling Nothing Even When All the Right ‘Spots’ Are Touched” By The Swaddle Team The first time I remember thinking about sex was at the age of 15, when I started dating my first boyfriend. As teenagers, we were curious about this and started thinking about it more when there …

How Do We Date and Have Sex When Vaccinated (or Not)?

By Dharushana Muthulingam One year into lockdown measures in the U.S., life remains radically altered for most people. There have been 526,000 deaths in the U.S. and 2.6 million deaths in the world due to COVID-19. There are also multiple highly effective vaccines against virus. Rollout is slow, uneven, but steadily continues, and with it, …

How to Overcome Religious Shame in Your Sex Life

By Lindsey Ellefson If you were raised to see sex and sexuality as a source of shame and embarrassment, you might notice that such feelings tend to linger, no matter how educated, open-minded, and open-legged you consider yourself today. If you come from a religious background, it’s probably even worse. Fortunately, many religious leaders and …

We Need to Talk About the Lack of LGBTQ+ Representation in Sex Ed

By Delilah Gray When I was in high school, none of my teachers ever mentioned LGBTQ+ safe sex and relationships, especially not in my sexual-education classes, which were meant to be the one place I could learn about these things. And as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, that deeply bothered me. In a 2013 …