Check out Scarleteen: My New Favorite Sex Ed Website

I am sitting in a Starbucks in Berkeley taking time to process the interviews that I just completed with my team (see this entry if you have no idea what I am talking about). I plan to post in a few hours some preliminary thoughts and observations of what it is like to interview the family members of a small town country doctor who chose to perform 5,000 abortions before abortion was legal. I promise to say some interesting things about this that should appeal to all sorts of people thinking through the issue of abortion.

While catching up with email however, I ran across a link to this website: Scarleteen: Sex Education for the Real World. I found this website to be so helpful and thoughtful in its approach to educating women and men about sexuality and relationships that I wanted to link to it here.

I have two young women with me in CA doing this oral history project. Obviously, the nature of this research has opened up important conversations for all of us involved about sex, healthy sexuality, and feeling safe and empowered with your sexuality. Both of these young women are very bright, assertive and passionate about women's issues. Yet, neither are comfortable or sure of how to talk about their own sexuality.

When I mentioned to them, in passing, that they should feel absolutely good about asking their partners for what they want, and telling any potential partners when they do not want to have sex, one of them said: "really, you can talk about these things with your partner?" I realized that she had never had the opportunity to really talk to anyone in an honest and non-judgmental manner about sex. I think it's kismet that someone sent me the above website at the same time. I am linking to it here so that any of my readers, male or female, progressive or more traditional, can get straightforward information about any question you may have about your sexuality and sexual relationships.