4 tips for keeping conversations about relationships and sex going during the teen years

  By Shannan Younger [Y]ou fulfilled your parental duty of informing your child about the birds and the bees. You’ve used proper terms for your child’s anatomy, you’ve explained exactly how babies are made, you’ve talked to your kids about the importance of protection. Now what? To answer that question and give advice for how …

Trans Writer E. Parker Phillips Finds Poetry in He/r Fluid Identity

By Liz Tracy [A]t a Yale writing workshop in 2003, one of E. Parker Phillips’ college classmates said Phillips’ erotic poem reminded them of a Calvin Klein ad. Phillips, who identifies as genderqueer and uses “s/he” and “he/r” pronouns, doesn’t remember the poem itself, only one line from the work about a lesbian sexual awakening: …

LGBTQ kids are missing out on sex education—and it’s up to schools to change that

by Ana Valens [L]ast year, California officially mandated LGBTQ history lessons in public schools, vowing to teach “the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” and their impact on both the state’s and the country’s history. This was a victory for LGBTQ rights, because it’s a rarity; in most states—in all but nine to …

Have you ever had ‘unjust sex’?

Unthinkable: Examples include ‘women being pressured – not quite to the point of outright coercion – to have sex, or to have sex without contraception’, says philosopher Ann Cahill By Joe Humphreys [U]ncertainty surrounding the boundaries of ethical sexual activity is not confined to boozed-up young adults or American presidents. Among academics there is discussion …