Kids
Sexual Health
Check Out Lo’s Org: The Butterfly Academy!

A few years ago, a series of big events occurred, one right after the other, that profoundly shifted my career goals: That perfect storm made it painfully clear that we as a country and a culture are not where we need to be in the sex-education department. Sure, adults need sex ed too, but maybe […]

Confessions
How to Give a Sex Ed Lesson at a Slumber Party

A dad friend of mine, who’d read my recent piece on making sexual assault in the news a teachable moment for kids, forwarded me the following tweet from Andi Zeisler while I was in the middle of my 11-year-old’s birthday slumber party: The 4th-grade boys coming to my kid’s slumber party tonight are really in […]

News
The Harsh Reality of Religion-Driven Sex Ed in America

Pantsuit Nation, the private Facebook group of around 4 million members, was originally created as online camaraderie for Hillary Clinton supporters in the 2016 election but has since morphed into a sort of support group for progressives facing trying times under the Trump administration. The following is a recent post to the group from a midwestern parent who gave us […]

How To
10 Practical Ways Parents Can Fight Rape Culture

The powerful, unapologetic, detailed statement of Brock Turner’s rape victim made public recently touched a collective nerve, resulting in a huge outcry on social media about the rape culture that left him convicted of three sexual assault felonies but only serving 6 months in jail. The outcry, which has already begun to fade, has often […]

News
Teaching Kids They Can’t Say “No”?

Utah excels at socializing male supremacy and female acquiescence. While students at Kanesville Elementary in West Haven, UT, were not required to take part in the Valentine’s Day sixth-grade dance, those participating would be asked to fill out a dance card with the names of students with whom they wanted to dance — anyone whose […]

Books
5 Terms Every Parent Should Add to Their Sex-Ed Vocabulary

Cory Silverberg is elevating in-home sex-ed to an art form, one kick-ass book at a time. His first kids’ book on reproduction, called WHAT MAKES A BABY (for preschoolers through 2nd-graders), combines inclusive language, helpful descriptions, and bright, bold and beautiful illustrations by Fiona Smyth (that get us all nostalgic for “Free to Be You and Me“) […]

Confessions
Talking to Your Daughters About Comfort and Consent

A friend recently wrote us about her real world application of some of the advice Lo recently gave in “How to Prevent a Brock: 10 Practical Ways Parents Can Fight Rape Culture.” We couldn’t be more delighted! Raising conscientious kids with agency — especially girls — is possible in small, everyday ways like this: I wanted to […]

Personal Essays
Confession: Saying “Yes”and Finally Meaning It

KERRY NEVILLE — author of the award-winning short story collection, Necessary Lies, and the forthcoming collection, Remember To Forget Me — writes of the long road toward true consent.   Natalie and I played boyfriend and girlfriend: She was “Michael” and I was “Rebecca.”  We would walk around the block holding hands and when we reached […]

News
Kavanaugh Is a Teachable Moment

These days, you hear a lot of parents bemoan the fact that they can’t have the news on, for fear their kids might hear something sexually inappropriate. That “America’s Dad” Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted 60 women. That the Catholic Church has been a child-rape factory and cover-up machine for decades.  That our own […]

Dream Interpretation
I Dreamt My Husband Had Another Family and *I* Was the Side Chick

Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about sex & relationships. If you’ve got a good one, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg just might tell you what it means! Click here to submit yours (18 and older only for dream interpretations, please). This week, a reader asks Lauri about dreaming of her husband’s love child: Last night I continued to have […]

Pop Culture
When Your Son Wants to Wear Nail Polish…

Show him this! Em’s six year old is a cool, creative kid who occasionally likes to wear nail polish and hair dye. He also happens to be a boy. This — surprise, surprise! — means he’s been teased multiple times at school for it with the refrain “Only girls do that!” It’s a narrow world-view […]

How To
The 8 Rules of Dating a Single Dad

Not too long ago I read an article titled “How to Love a Single Mom.” The author wrote that the intention of her piece was to support “the man interested in a woman with children. To offer him a peek inside her life, to help him understand her better.” And then she listed 5 tips: Be […]

How To
The 5 Worst Places to Learn About Sex…and the 5 Best!

by Sarah Marcantonio THE WORST 1. The Movies Most sex scenes in mainstream movies ain’t exactly cinéma vérité: the male lead sweeps the girl off her feet and whisks her away to bed, clothes fall away, abs are sculpted, sweat glistens, birth control is abandoned, discussions about sexual health histories are never had, and simultaneous […]

Confessions
Confession: How the Kardashians Make Me a Better Father

by Tom Burns for YourTango This is not sponsored by Pepsi. I think Kim Kardashian has made me a better father. Now that’s an old writer’s gimmick where you say something deliberately provocative at the beginning of an article to draw people in and then you immediately walk it back with “Now let me explain…”, […]

News
Did Milo Yiannopoulos REALLY Defend Pedophilia?

Conservative provocateur and all-around asshat Milo Yiannopoulos got disinvited to 2017’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), had his lucrative book deal with Simon & Schuster cancelled, and resigned from Breitbart as an editor — all within 48 hours — over comments about child sexual abuse he made on two podcasts (one in 2015, the other in early 2016) that […]

Personal Essays
Why You Shouldn’t Be Offended by the P-Word Anymore

At Least When It’s Uttered with Love A friend’s middle school daughter wore a hat to school the other day. You know the one: pink, hand-knit, with two points resembling cat ears. An adult at her school asked her to remove it because she found it “offensive.” Later in the day this person, most likely encouraged […]