Heather is the executive director of and lead educator at Scarleteen.com, the inclusive online resource for teen and young adult sex education and information which she founded in 1998. She is the author of S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College; a founder of the All Girl Army; director of the CONNECT teen sexual health outreach program for King County through the Cedar River Clinics/Feminist Women's Health Center, and a sexual health consultant for the young women's site orb28. She is also a member of the editorial advisory board for the American Journal of Sexuality Education and a contributor to the forthcoming 2011 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves.
Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in online and print publictions including the anthologies Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape, Viscera, Aqua Erotica, Zaftig: Well-Rounded Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 1 & 2, Shameless: An Intimate Erotica and in the forthcoming anthology Breakthrough Bleeding: Essays on The Thing Women Spend A Quarter Of Their Time Doing, But No One's Supposed To Talk About, and her photographic work has been shown in several gallery shows and publications.
She was the founder of Scarletletters.com in the nineties, the first online sexuality and arts hub for women online, and has the either laudable or embarrassing reputation of having one of the longest running personal journals online. Also a lead plantiff for the ACLU in the case against COPA, in 2007, she was recognized for her activist work in sexuality and sexual health by the National Sexuality Resource Center with a Champions of Sexual Literacy Award. In 2009 she was awarded the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Western Region's Public Service Award and an Our Bodies, Ourselves' Women's Health Heroes Award. Previous to her work in sexuality, Heather was a Montessori and alternative classroom educator for several years. A Chicago native, she now lives and works in Seattle, Washington.
Who is curious about, wants or enjoys receptive anal sex? People who are curious about, want or enjoy receptive anal sex. What does that alone tell us about someone’s sexual orientation? Nothing.
Do “all guys” really always want more sexually than you really want or feel ready to do yourself? No. But even if they did, that doesn’t mean it’ll always be right for you — or them! — to engage in sex you don’t feel ready for yet or don’t really want yourself.
Navigating sex and sexual relationships after assault can be challenging: how do you deal with a relationship that seemed to facilitate healing at first, but now seems to be standing in the way, especially when the roof over your head seems to require it?
How can a young person tell a parent about a possible pregnancy, and why might the possibility of that conversation be a good indicator a talk with a parent is needed anyway?
If and when we want to have sex in such a way where we only think of our own wants and needs, we can always have that easily with masturbation. But once more than one person is involved in sex, more than one person needs to be seen, heard and considered.
Knowing the issues with clitoral versus vaginal orgasms in terms of history and the politics around women and sexuality, how do you rectify when orgasm feels different based on those different kinds of stimulation?
How do you tell a partner that you’re not comfortable with something they want to do, whether you have sexual abuse in your history or not? You tell them you’re not comfortable with something they want to do.
Is it better to be a man or a woman when it comes to sexual pleasure?
How do you get out of an abusive situation and get yourself safe? By doing all you can to get sound help as soon as you can and to leave as safely as possible. It’s so easy to feel stuck in abuse or other unsafe situations, but we can get unstuck.
How can you tell Mom you’ve become a sexual adult without disappointing her? How can you ask her for birth control? How can you disclose being sexually active? And is it okay to use her sex toy eithout asking?
