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.
Feeling awful about having contracted a sexually transmitted infection? Here’s the nitty-gritty on the stigmatization of STIs and people with them and how to deal.
Are you supposed to moan when having sex? If so, is there a technique to what you are saying or do you just do it?
Does vaginal intercourse hurt? Feel like you’re the only one in the whole wide world who doesn’t think it’s the best thing ever? Here’s a reality check and some places to get started to ditch sexual pain and find pleasure instead.
Gender and gender identity are complex and diverse: there’s not just one way of being a girl, being trans gender, and those also aren’t your only choices. So how do you figure out where you’re at when the little boxes don’t seem to fit?
What does it mean to be good at sex? Or, better still, what things tend to make it most likely for people to have sexual lives, experiences and relationships they really enjoy?
If you’ve been faking orgasm and want help on how to come clean and have a talk about it that’ll lay the groundwork for a better sex life that’s about and allows for what’s real, we’ve got you covered.
A range of alternative options for managing menstrual flow and a little unpacking for someone worried about not having a first period yet.
Whatever it turns out your sexuality and relationships are like, whatever it turns out you want from them, they’re about much, much more than your abuse.
Having a child with someone doesn’t increase your chances of having that person stick around.
Like any celibate person would admit, sometimes I get these truly surreal urges for sex. I want to stay true to my decision to stay premaritally celibate. Any suggestions?
