How old were you when you started thinking about sex? A recent survey of African American youth conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy andEssence magazine is illuminating the attitudes young people have about sex and relationships. While much of the survey’s results will sound familiar — I can remember having some of the same thoughts and feelings as a young woman – one finding might just be the key to helping our young people make wiser decisions for their health and futures.

It’s a simple fact of life just as natural as breathing: every 28 days or so, a post-pubescent female will shed her uterine lining if she has not become pregnant or otherwise caused her cycle to go on hiatus. Attitudes toward menstruation have varied throughout the years. In early Native and South American cultures, women retreated to “moon huts” together where they sat on mossy grass to soak up their blood and recycle it back into the earth. They meditated and made major community decisions while there. In ancient Rome …

I wasn’t compelled to write anything about the No Wedding, No Womb shenanigans but I’ve seen two posts today about marriage, children and Black folks that made me want to share my own point of view. One piece from Clutch Mag focuses on the “single mother syndrome” in the Black community. You can read the piece for yourself but a few assertions therein stuck out for me: (1) More black children are born to unwed mothers because of poverty and lack of access to competitive job market; (2) If women …

This post has two parts: (1) an update on ella™ and (2) barriers to access for men.
Last Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was approving the sale and use of ulipristal acetate (UPA), a new form of emergency contraception (EC) to be sold under the name ella™.  Already available to and used by women in Europe, UPA has been determined to prevent pregnancy up to 5 days after unprotected intercourse. Emergency contraception has been available in the US, most popularly under the name Plan B. …

Right now, emergency contraception, or the “morning after pill”, (Plan B, Next Choice) is available to men and women from a local pharmacy like Duane Reade, Walgreens, CVS  and Rite Aid, as well as from their doctor. If you’re over 17 years of age, you can walk right up to the pharmacy counter and ask for EC. If you’re under 17, you can still get EC from a drugstore, but you need a prescription to do so. The medical community has concluded that there is no scientific reason why teens …

Sexting is the act of sending provocative or nude photos primarily via mobile phone. That’s your basic topless shot in the bathroom mirror and the faceless crotch pic in your inbox. Let me say that I hate the word “sexting.” I feel like it’s one of those words that sparks all kinds of inquiries and studies into the mind of the American teenager. Parents, educators, social workers, and others who have even the most remote connection to young people all want to know about the latest phenomenon taking over teens’ …

One of the common excuses to not wear a condom is that they’re too tight and they hurt. While that’s not much of an excuse at all (don’t fall for it), the supposed reasoning is that the condom is too small or too snug for your guy’s junk. But what about those with the opposite problem of having a penis too small for most condoms?
To be sure, no one wants to cop to having a small penis. Apparently, this poses a problem for condom companies who know it would be …

I don’t understand some people’s fixation over what’s gay or not. Not necessarily WHO is gay, but what. What inspired me to write this was a trip last weekend to the Kanamara Matsuri, also known as the Festival of the Steel Phallus in Kawasaki Daishi, Japan. A brief summary of the festival is necessary, I think.
Kanamara Matsuri is a Shinto festival that has, over the years, grown into a spectacle combining the sacred with the silly. According to the Japanese magazine Metropolis, the festival dates back to the Edo period …

Swiped from The Curvature, Cara writes about limited condom access at CVS stores. We’ve all seen condoms locked up behind the counter or out in the aisle somewhere. Like Cara says, I don’t buy condoms at places I need to ask permission to get inside the case. It’s a rubber, not the Hope Diamond! Anyway, it sucks but it’s not hard to believe that communities of color are getting hit with the lockup more so than others. Read the blog below and then click the link at the bottom to …

Donwill posted this up last month but I just got around to watching it. Glad I finally did because it made me chuckle. Granted, it got a bit weird toward the end but hey, who am I to judge? No nudity but “balloon animal” sex is depicted so if that’ll get you in trouble at work sucks for you. Should have an office instead of that lame cubicle anyway.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RbFdFgrsUE]