Bodies

If it’s about a system or a part of the human body and how they work, you’ll find it here. Anatomy, body function and whole systems explainers – about all kinds of bodies, and usually presented through a gender-neutral lens – myth and misnomer debunking, help navigating sexual, reproductive and other physical healthcare: it’s all in here.

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Highlighted content

Articles and Advice in this area:

Advice
  • Jenna Gaarde

This is definitely not a silly question. In fact, many people with vaginas experience the feeling of having to pee from stimulation inside the vagina by fingers, sex toys or a penis. Understanding your body and anatomy can help to explain why you feel like you have to urinate during sex, and also…

Advice
  • Robin Mandell

First of all, you’re completely okay and nothing you’ve described here means there’s anything wrong with you. Nearly all people masturbate or have masturbated in their lives, and most masturbate with the kind of frequency you’re describing. As well, it’s very normal for little children to masturbate…

Advice
  • Jacob Mirzaian

Hi feministconundrums, Genital sensitivity – and sometimes sensitivity of some other body parts, too – is common for many people after orgasm. The length of time after an orgasm that it can or does last varies from person to person, experience to experience and it can often vary with age too. It…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Well, I don’t think vaginas or vulvas (or penises or anuses or mouths or ears or eyes or fingers or kidneys: any body parts) are gross. I think they’re really freaking cool and totally fascinating, whether I’m talking or thinking about my own, or all vulvas or vaginas. But you’re making quite clear…

Advice
  • Johanna Schorn

It sounds like you’re really struggling with these expectations you have for yourself. Let’s see if we can’t help you feel a little better about yourself. First, let me see if I can’t put this in perspective a little by clearing up a misconception. The average time it takes someone with a penis to…

Advice
  • Justin Hancock

Hey, thanks for your question. Lots and lots of guys worry about this kind of thing so it’s great that you’ve had the courage to ask a question about it. You’ve pretty much answered your question already, to be honest, but I’ll recap some of what you’ve said and fill in a couple of blanks here and…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

My best advice is to just try and let yourself go there. I think the safest way to do that, emotionally, would be to first try that in whichever sexual situation you tend to feel safest in, whether that’s alone, in your masturbation, or during sexual activities with a partner. More people than not…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Assuming that you’re engaging in manual sex – hands or fingers engaged with your genitals, fingering being one term for that – to express or explore your sexual feelings or desires, fingering IS sex. Just like intercourse can be sex, just like oral sex can be sex, just like full-body massage can…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

(I’m going to assume that when you say female, you mean person-with-vulva, since it sounds like when you talk about men, you mean people-with-penises. If I went the wrong way with those assumptions, let me know and I’ll have a do-over with this one.) I think it’s not a great idea to try and do this…

Announcement
  • Heather Corinna

If you’ve been reading Scarleteen for a while, you might already know that for many years now, we’ve heard from a good deal of young women who are deeply ashamed of and disgusted by these parts of their own bodies. We take this very seriously, and have always wanted to do everything we could to try and help dispel all kinds of body shame or hatred, including that of the vulva. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to go ahead and take the risk of publishing some photos of real-person vulvas, because we’ve found something we think is beautifully done, very much needed, and that we think can be of great benefit to many of our readers, whether they have vulvas themselves or not.