YTH

YTH is the partner of choice for those in search of new ways to advance the health of youth and young adults through technology. Learn more at www.yth.org

[ythorg]

Want to create an app for social change? Check out our new infographics that will give you the tools in protecting users privacy, tech ethics, and data collection! bit.ly/1z7eklk

[erinmckelle]

[buzzfeed]

Viola Davis’ Screen Actors Guild Award acceptance speech was amazing. [x]

[condomdepot]

Even after those condoms expire, you could still use them for masturbating or use them on your sex toys. Just don't use them for sex.

That’s very true! However, you would still want to use lots of lube and check the condoms for damage before using them, especially if you’re using them to cover a porous or potentially toxic toy. even if they’re not being used between two bodies, they can still break!

[sandandglass]

Jamilah Lemieux on The Nightly Show

[mysharona1987]

[arrtpop]

Azealia Banks tears up talking about black culture appropriation and racism. [x] 

[attndotcom]

Well said.

[teesadutta]

Tech companies Google and Apple have recently been criticized for their lack of diversity in the workforce. Here to talk about it is our own Sasheer Zamata.

[bedsider]

We talked about having sex for a while before we actually did, and when we felt ready, we went to buy my birth control pills together, at the pharmacy. No prescription necessary. Given that we lived in Bangkok (yes, Thailand), we could do this. I remember us grinning at each other, feeling connected and moved by a small ritual that came before a deeper, sacred rite of passage.

Remma Zaman, from “What It Was Like to Grow Up with the Pill OTC" via Shape  (via bedsider)

[jessehimself]

[think-progress]

The US rank is bad | Follow ThinkProgress

[ocadvsa]

[loveisrespect]

What is Sexual Coercion?

If someone makes you feel obligated or forced to do something you don’t want to, you may be experiencing coercion. By definition, sexual coercion is “the act of using pressure, alcohol or drugs, or force to have sexual contact with someone against his or her will” and includes “persistent attempts to have sexual contact with someone who has already refused.”

Think of sexual coercion as a spectrum or a range. It can vary from someone verbally egging you on to someone actually forcing you to have contact with them. It can be verbal and emotional, in the form of statements that make you feel pressure, guilt or shame. You can also be made to feel forced through more subtle actions. For example, your partner might:

Make you feel like you owe them — for example, because you’re in a relationship, because you’ve had sex before, because they spent money on you or bought you a gift, because you go home with them

Give you compliments that sound extreme or insincere as an attempt to get you to agree to something

Badger you, yell at you, or hold you down

Give you drugs and alcohol to loosen up your inhibitions

Play on the fact that you’re in a relationship, saying things such as: “Sex is the way to prove your love for me” or “If I don’t get sex from you I’ll get it somewhere else”

React negatively (with sadness, anger or resentment) if you say no or don’t immediately agree to something

Continue to pressure you after you say no

Make you feel threatened or afraid of what might happen if you say no

Try to normalize their sexual expectations — for example, “I need it, I’m a guy.”

In a relationship where sexual coercion is occurring, there is a lack of consent, and the coercive partner doesn’t respect the boundaries or wishes of the other.

[wastebininferno-blog]

I don’t usually share stuff like this but since its happened to me with a close friend who just badgered me until I eventually gave in and it bothers me all the time I figure maybe I can help some one else even if its just figuring out whats happening

[bedsider]

[bitch-media]

At the start of the year, I vowed to read 50 books by people of color. The idea came from an interview withspeculative fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson, who talked about how books by people of color tend to be overlooked by publishers and readers alike. If you just find books to read by browsing the most popular shelves at the bookstore, it’s easy to fall into reading books primarily, if not solely, by white authors. Of all the children’s and YA books that made the New York Times bestseller list last year, for example, only nine percent were by authors of color.  

After 11 months of voracious reading, I’m happy to announce that I met my goal (with a month to spare)! I have now read 54 books by people of color this year. (By the time this article is published, that number may be actually 55, depending on how quickly my library holds arrive.) Of the fifty-four, most (37) were by women of color. 

At first, it wasn’t easy. I rely on my local libraries and budget cuts have left shelves looking a little threadbare. Searching for books by authors of color sometimes proved challenging. But, as the year went on, I often ducked into the library looking for ONE book by a writer of color and walked out with four. Reading all these books by people of color made the absence of people of color and/or other cultures more conspicuous in novels by white authors. I started to think more about how whiteness is often written as the norm and I noticed when physical descriptions were absent from books altogether.

I decided to compile my whole list of 50 books—hopefully it’s a resource to other people seeking out writers of color.

Check out Victoria Law’s list at BitchMedia.org

[attndotcom]

Well said.

[gurl]

5 Crazy, Surprising Facts About Your Uterus

You probably don’t think about your uterus all that much, right? I mean, you know that it’s in there hanging out with your fallopian tubes, your ovaries and your cervix, but otherwise it’s nothing more than that thing you’ve seen in diagrams of the female reproductive system. Fair enough, the uterus isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, but it’s a little more fascinating than you originally thought. Yeah, seriously.

Whether you’re into medical oddities or old school ways men blamed women’s organs for everything, you’ll find something to WTF at with these five surprising facts about the uterus.