Last summer, when I was half a year into being newly single and telling myself and my friends that I was “just doing me” or “dating myself,” I realized: I wasn’t actually dating myself if I wasn’t putting in the work. Since then, I’ve been working on developing tangible strategies for dating myself. I am sharing these strategies with you, hoping that they may help illuminate the beautiful, confusing, nearsighted path back towards yourself.
Search
- Sam Wall
I chose this question because so many of us are in this crummy, leaking, barely steerable boat right now. Three things in particular jumped out at me about your question, because I'm seeing them in other Scarleteen users, my social media channels, and my friend circles: loneliness, lack of purpose...
- Gabriel Leão
Reproductive health nurse and former Kibera clinic director for Family Health Options, Melvine Ouyo from Kenya recently visited the American Congress to advocate against the Global Gag Rule and talked with us at Scarleteen about how this foreign policy affects Kenyans and controls and overrules women, girls and others with a uterine system.
- Sam Wall
Scarleteen will soon be doing video questions and answers on our Instagram! As so many of us are social distancing, self-isolating or in quarantine, a lot of people are missing out on in-person sex education. Most of what we do is usually online, but we do some in-person outreach (that we aren't...
- Sam Wall
The current pandemic is stressful all on its own. But for many of us -- very much including young people who aren't living independently -- the stress of the situation is amplified by some of the realities of social distancing. It cuts some of us off from our support networks, from friends, from...
- Sam Wall
I'll be honest, Tre: dating apps can be a great option for some people, but you're far from the first person to come to Scarleteen brimming with frustration over your experiences on them. While they can put us in the orbit of cool people who'd we'd otherwise never meet, they can also pressure us to...
- Mary Maxfield Brave
Some tips and a lot of support for thinking through how you might best care for yourself in this new era of social distance.
- Heather Corinna
- the Scarleteam
Just like we do when there's not a global pandemic, all of us here at Scarleteen have been thinking a whole lot about all of you lately. Here are some updates about our services and some extra support we can offer, as well as some helps, tips and words from some of our staff to you to help get you through this.
- Eva Sweeney
What if a partner is nonverbal due to disability? Here are some tips on how to seek and obtain consent and how to generally communicate during sex with a nonverbal partner, so sex can be safe, satisfying and fun for everyone involved.
- Lisa Laman
The options for people on the Autism spectrum looking to go out on a date are few. This lack of options can help to compound problems people on the Autism spectrum already have with dating. Navigating social hurdles, like avoiding over-talking, while being on a date is, on its own, a plenty daunting prospect. Realizing that the options for a backdrop to a date are exceedingly limited is just adding salt to the wounds. Together, these challenges can make a person feel like the prospect of going out on a date at all is far more trouble than it’s worth.
An app that offers sexual and reproductive health information and tools to track what’s going on with your body in one place AND on a totally private and secure platform. The app is especially for people in the United States, but much of the information is relevant to people all over the world. From...
Ipas has offices on four continents. They focus on improving health services for women and girls, increasing their access to services, and expanding their sexual and reproductive rights. They train health workers and conduct research to ensure high-quality, evidence-based care is available. They...
- Meira Harris
Thanks to the advent of medical abortion, we can now learn how to access and administer safe abortion for ourselves. This guide provides accurate information and resources about how to access and use safe abortion methods.
- Alice Oshima
Part two of Alice O's exploration of mainstream porn to help increase your sexual media literacy. Includes information about sex positions, orgasm, consent and communication, boundaries, birth control, safer sex and more as they exist (or don't!) in mainstream porn, and how this can or should all go in real-life-sex to compare and contrast.
- Jaclyn Friedman
First, let me say how awesome it is to get your letter. I recently started a whole new organization -- called EducateUS -- to convince more people to want to take action for sex education the way you already do, and to help people like you who are already motivated and looking for ways to get active...
- Alexa Karczmar
Do you really need that pelvic exam? Here's a quick primer of how to figure out if you do and how to talk to your healthcare about it, including if they say you do when you think you don't or just don't want one.
- Meira Harris
Safe, legal, affordable, and uninhibited access to abortion is a global issue and necessity. Read more to get a current, international, intersectional picture of both the existing access and the existing barriers.
- Al Washburn
- Archie Bongiovanni
Say hello to our new zine, F*ck Me!, which, like everything else at Scarleteen, is free for anyone and everyone who wants it. F*ck Me! is a flight of super-helpful fancy that can help you -- or your intimate companions, your platonic friends, your students, the people who come into your clinic, your...
- Alice Oshima
A clear-eyed, in-depth exploration of mainstream porn that can: amp up your sexual media literacy so you can better suss out what's really going on with and in porn, fill you in on how it may or may not -- and sometimes just plain shouldn't -- match your expectations or experiences of sexuality offscreen, and tell you more about its politics and behind-the-scenes realities.
- Paige Alexandria
If you're a young person, you may not know it, but you can probably access methods of birth control without your parent's permission, and even for free! Here's a starter guide for those in the United States, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa and India.
Point of Pride offers an Annual Transgender Surgery Fund, a Free Chest Binder Donation Program, a Free Trans Femme Shapewear Program, an Electrolysis Financial Support Program, and other community-building support initiatives for trans youth and adults. They offer support to all fifty states and...
Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. It offers a variety of supports for trans and gender-nonconforming people looking to navigate legal issues and other challenges...
- Archie Bongiovanni
Queer Flagging 101 is an introduction to what flagging is and how you can use it, plus a few resources for where you can explore the topic in a little more depth!