How do I go about getting proper sexual equipment?

[LightUpTheStage]

Hello!

So I'm 15 and I've never had sex but HAVE had... a lousy sexual education. I'm also uncomfortable talking to my parents about sex for various reasons, and there isn't anyone I want to have it with immediately (I have a crush but I don't see her very often [haven't spoken to her for close to half a year at this point] and I have a long way to go in getting closer to her), but I want to be prepared to jump right in once I (and, of course, whoever my partner may end up being, which I understand won't necessarily be my current crush, though I'll be crushed [insert mirthless laugh] if it isn't) feel it is right. I'm very kinky (which has led to a lot of anxiety on my part about finding someone who I find romantically appealing but still shares my kinks [hypnosis, mostly], since the kind of romantic relationship I'm looking for is more stereotypically romantic than the typical image of kinky relationships, but that's not the point of this post), but I feel like I'm decent at educating myself about kinks. I'm more concerned about basic sexual safety - a lot of the kinky things that I might want to do don't necessarily involve penetration (I actually find completely naked bodies kind of repulsive, which is weird because I'm super horny as a person), but we might want to do penetration/other stuff that requires protection of some sort and I have no idea where to procure that without my parents knowing, or even how to find out about different kinds of protection aside from condoms or the merits of various condoms because, again, my sex ed sucked. Please send help!

[Latha]

Hi there, LightUpTheStage- welcome to the boards! I’m sorry your experience with sex-ed has been poor, but I think it’s great that you’re taking charge of your education and trying to be prepared! Before I get to your actual questions, I want to mention some things:

On kinky relationships: Despite that image you mentioned, people can and do have loving and romantic kinky relationships! It is definitely possible to meet someone who is romantically appealing and shares your kinks, especially once you get a bit older and have a bigger dating pool and more freedom of movement.

On that weird feeling of repulsion: I don’t think this is an unusual experience. Just to toss an idea out there- a lot of us grow up in cultures that are uncomfortable with sex and nudity. It’s not difficult to pick up on those ideas, which could contribute to that feeling of repulsion. It is possible that this feeling could reduce if you have more positive experiences with bodies and if you consciously try to appreciate them.

Now, to address your questions:

1. My advice on how to procure condoms depends on the kinds of resources you have. If you can order things and recieve them without your parents’ knowledge, you could get condoms online. If you can go out on your own, you could buy them at a store- one that is farther from your home may keep you from seeing anyone you know. Despite what some people believe, it is legal for minors (even those under the age of consent) to purchase condoms. However, stores, as private entities, do reserve the right to refuse service for any reason- so they can still refuse to sell condoms to you. I think people are less likely to do that in more progressive areas, so use your judgement! Remember, you are doing the responsible thing, so there is no reason to feel ashamed.

There are ways for you to get free condoms- if you live in California this website should help you learn where you can pick them up- or in some cases, how to get them mailed to you.

2. Regarding different kinds of protection (you’re in the right place to learn about that!), I think that there are two types that we need to think about- protection from STDs, and protection from pregnancy.

You can protect yourself from STDs by using internal or external condoms, and getting the HPV and Hepatitis B vaccines if you haven’t gotten them already. Once you become sexual active, it is important to regularly get tested for STDs

For information on different ways to reduce pregnancy risk and their merits, check out our Birth Control Bingo series.

You may also want to read Can I Get Pregnant, or Get or Pass On an STI From That? to learn about the risks various activities pose.

3. For a great breakdown of different types of condoms, check out Your Map to the Condom Aisle

I hope this helps!

[LightUpTheStage]

Hi!

Sorry I didn't reply for a hot second there, my life is pretty hectic. Here are some replies for ya:

On kinky/romantic relationships: I was of course aware that people DO have kinky "traditional" romantic relationships (I put "traditional" in quotes because I know that those relationships aren't inherently better per se, they're just what I feel like having, and my definition of "traditional" is more of a feel thing that isn't necessarily confined by societal restrictions), it's just that images hammered into us by society are hard to shake, and I worry that it'll take longer to find somebody I like because of that (especially since I don't want to use dating apps and would rather just MEET someone, and people tend to not just telegraph their sexual interests to everyone they meet), and that I would essentially be throwing darts at a wall until I happened to meet someone with my niche interests, which would be especially hard for me since I develop romantic interest very rarely but when I fall for someone, I fall HARD (see how I mentioned I've had a crush on someone for close to a year now despite not speaking for half a year) and get very attached. Even harder seeing as it seems to me like teens tend to be less (openly) kinky. In my ideal world (which I know is magical Christmasland and is insanely unlikely, but I'm pretty damn insane), I would meet my soulmate and we would start dating in high school and stay together for the rest of our exceptionally long lives.

Re: repulsion to naked bodies: What exactly do you mean "have more positive experiences with bodies and [...] consciously try to appreciate them"? It's not like there are any teen orgies in my area I can attend.

Re: protection: Thank you, I'll check out those resources soon. Can you provide a map or something of what places are considered more "progressive" in the ways you describe?

[Sam W]

Hi LightUpTheStage,

You know, when we're thinking about kink being a part of a relationship, something that can help is to keep in mind that plenty of people who don't define themselves as kinky still engage in--or are happy to experiment with--sexual things that most people would consider kink (and that's before we get to the part where "kink" is such a broad category that it means wildly different things to different people). So you wouldn't necessarily be trying to find a person who both matched your romantic preferences and one who matched you on the kink front; you could very well find a person you're romantically interested in and, once sex is on the table, see if they're open to introducing elements of whatever kinks interest you into the mix.

I'm not quite sure what Latha was getting at with the idea about bodies, so I'll her in our volunteer channel to ask. But something I wonder is: do you have a sense of where those feelings of revulsion come from? Is there something specific about bodies or nudity that repulses you?

As far as progressive areas go, that's one of those things that's always shifting depending on whose moving in and out of the area and who's in power and things like that. I will say that in California, a general pattern is that more urban areas tend to be more progressive, and more rural ones tend to be more conservative.

[Latha]

Hi LightUpTheStage, sorry for the confusion!

When something makes me feel uncomfortable or repulsed, I like to try and see if I can find things to appreciate about it. I've noticed that my instinctive feelings of repulsion often go away if I do this for some time. You don't need to attend a teen orgy to do this with bodies. Say you notice yourself feeling repulsed when you see a naked body, in media or in real life. If you feel comfortable, take a moment and find something to appreciate about it. After some time, your feelings of revulsion may decrease.

I'm not familiar with the nuances of political life in California, so I can't give you specific advice about places that are progressive. Along with what Sam suggested, I think the TeenSource website I mentioned may help you. All the places listed on that website will give free condoms to people aged 12-19, so they're definitely progressive.

[LightUpTheStage]

Hi!

I'll reply to Hypatta first: I was being facetious with the "teen orgy" comment, and I'm not exactly sure HOW to try to appreciate things about them, but thank you for the clarification!

To Sam: Sure, good point, but (and I hope I don't sound ungrateful or contrarian), that's kind of exactly what I'm worried about. That I'll have to find someone I like, get into a romantic relationship, and THEN bring up kink that might seem startlingly out of left field, and then when that DOESN'T work, break up, rinse, repeat, potentially for my entire life. Do you have anything to say specifically about that?

[Heather]

Hey there, LightUpTheStage.

I think it might help to know that it's actually pretty common when dating to have a lot of misses compared to the number of real matches we have. We also are not at all likely to be able to fit all of who we are and what we want in any kind of relationship into a few text exchanges or dates (and if we did, we'd also potentially miss out on just first finding out if we even like to just hang out together).

This is part of dating: being willing to spend time getting to know people and to find out, over time, what kind of fit we have (or don't) with them, what kind of relationship we might want together, and what the places are where we connect and where we don't. There are ways that that process can be made more or less maddening or frustrating, IMHO, and a lot of it has to do with coming to people to meet them as whole people, and then seeing how you each feel about each other, rather than having a very specific type of role or relationship in mind, and seeing who fits into that or not. Know what I mean?

[LightUpTheStage]

Thank you. That means a lot. That's a good way of thinking about it. Do you have any tips for dealing with attachment problems?

[Heather]

Can you be more clear about what you mean? Do you mean that you tend to get attached to people you are dating before you've really built something to be attached to?

[LightUpTheStage]

I mean that I haven't started dating yet, but I tend to get really attached to people I like (both romantically and just platonically) - see how I still like someone despite not having seen them for six months - and I worry that I'll accidentally end up "lovebombing" or seeming clingy or whatever. I don't think that I'm going to do that, I'm fine with giving my partner space and only seeing them every so often, but I feel like I'll seem too... affectionate, I guess? When I like someone, I like them a lot, but I worry that if I'm overly sappy people will think that's... weird. Sappy isn't "in."

[Heather]

I've been sappy my whole life, so here's a sappy fistbump for ya.

I first want to make clear that lovebombing is actually part of abuse: it's a lot more complicated, and is also about control and manipulation, not affection. We can talk about any concerns you have about emotionally abusing people, but from what you've posted so far, I'm not seeing any real cause for that concern. Similarly, there's nothing weird about still liking someone even if you haven't seen them in months. In fact, the older you and everyone else in your life gets, the more you often will go that long or longer without seeing friends or family, and it's not like it'd be weird to still like them if you saw them less frequently.

I think it might help to think about when liking people is really about liking them -- and we have to know someone to some degree to do that -- and when it's more about projecting feelings we don't actually have yet, or being attached to the idea of who someone is or what our relationship with them can be. Do you know what I mean?

I think there are some small things a person can do to basically keep things at a reasonable pace, rather than trying to move into something deep or committed faster than is healthy or feels safe for everyone. Off the top of my head, those are things like: being mindful about how often you're texting or otherwise contacting someone, making/leaving space between initial dates, asking someone what level of communication or time spent together they want and checking in about that from time to time, and making sure that when you meet someone new you like, you're still spending most of the time you did with friends, and on things you do that are important to you, rather than tossing those things aside to get all-encompassed with the new person. Is that helpful?


Btw, if someone isn't into you being sentimental, or corny, or sappy, or earnest, or affectionate, it may also just be that isn't a right person for you! In other words, there's nothing wrong with any of those things. They just aren't for everyone -- like any other traits.

[LightUpTheStage]

Thank you for the sappy fistbump! Let me go wash my hands. Typing is hard with sticky hands.


...


I'm back!

So I didn't actually know that lovebombing was abuse, I had just heard from a friend about a former relationship that they (not their partner) had engaged in lovebombing in. Maybe you can tell me more, or about multiple definitions of the term if they exist? Maybe we're just not hip with the lingo (I am notoriously bad at modern slang).


That comparison to friends and family was really helpful! Thank you! I love hearing about new ways of thinking about the world.

I don't think that I'm just projecting an idea onto my crush, because while the idea of them in my head is... fun, I guess, and all, it's incomparable to the rush I get whenever I actually interact with them. Seriously I feel like my depression would be all but cured if I just interacted with them regularly.

Thank you for the tips about being mindful about how often you text somebody etc.! Can you talk more about that, since I have run into problems of texting or talking to people too much with platonic friends and so it's something I often worry about?

[Heather]

Ha!

So, here's a link that describes lovebombing and other behaviours common to emotional abuse in relationships: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/abus ... onal_abuse I can't say whether your friend's behaviour was abusive or not, but I think this piece can give you (or them) some context to determine that.

That rush that you're talking about? It probably literally *is* associated with helping with depression, because it's probably the rush of neurochemicals known to help us with that, namely, endorphins, serotonin and dopamine. In fact, the way most modern antidepressants work is by blocking neural pathways that would usually absorb serotonin that our bodies made so that, instead, we get another round of it.

If we're getting that rush when we don't really know someone well yet or at all, it often is more about crushing, and the feelings we get with crushing -- something that again, is often more about us than the other person -- than about, say, something more complex, like love or longtime affection. Does that make sense to you?

I am happy to talk more about how to have healthy boundaries with other people. I do think that with what you're describing, the easiest route is just to ask someone what level of communication they want. You also can let others do more initiating than you do, and create little systems for that. Like, maybe for everyone one text you send first after a silence, you let them send the next first two, if you follow me.

You can also fill more of your time with other things so that you just have less time to be making that contact in: learn something new, find a game you like to play, always have a book handy to read, etc.

[LightUpTheStage]

Hello!

I'm not friends with abusers. I mean, I don't really have any IRL friends anymore (at school at least), but the friend I was talking about was really sweet so I figured that she was just over-affectionate without realizing the harm they caused.

You're right about depression. Granted I suppose I don't know for certain I would have that rush if I saw my crush right now (the idea that I wouldn't still like them kind of terrifies me), but I THINK I would. I don't dispute that I'm crushing on them rather than in proper love with them. Rather, the point that I was trying to make about my crush is that, invariably, my actual interactions with them are so much BETTER than the idea I have of them in my head. I don't spend hours alone swooning over them, and I can barely even remember what their voice sounds like (it has a certain je nais se quo that I just can't replicate in my head), but I know it's infinitely more beautiful than whatever I THINK I remember. It always is.

My issue with the "oh, just do more other things!" take is that I'm a VERY social creature and I really need connection (not that I really ever get it), so while I TRY to do that, that solution doesn't really work for me. Also, I already repeatedly ask people if I’ve offended them and that often just weirds them out. Also, people never send a first text, which in and of itself makes me afraid I’m largely unloved.

[Heather]

What if some of the other things you can do can also be social?

Like, what about:
• volunteering for something that involves other people
• joining some kind of team, be it sports, gaming or something else
• connecting with some kind of queer youth group/community?

I also want to weigh in on how it can feel to always feel like the initiator. I can relate to that, too, I feel like it's often been that way for me for pretty much all 5+ decades of my life. I also get reading that as others not having an interest or investment in you. But I wonder: do you think it's also possible you're just more of an initiator than others? Sometimes when that's the case, we can tend to draw people who aren't, because we do that when they feel more afraid to.