Are You Ready?
by Ruby and Willem

Your friends are doing it. Your date wants it. Even your body says "go for it."

But what about your mind?

Jumping into the sack before your brain catches up to your body will surely cause you grief. At best, it can result in bad sex. At worst, it can leave you dealing with a whole bunch of nasty problems— awful feelings, unwanted pregnancy, infections.

So don't do it. Keep it in your pants. Keep your legs crossed.

Frankly, a web page can't decide for you if you're ready or not. Neither can anyone else—the only person who can know when the time is right is you.

It is an intensely personal decision that you should make only after some soul searching. Some questions are obvious:
— What if pregnancy occurs?
— What if we contract a sexually transmitted disease?

Much trickier are the emotional questions:
— What does sex mean to me?
— Is the person I'm dating the right one? In fact, how would he/she respond if I wanted to continue the relationship, but without sex?
— Am I in love?
— How will it change my relationship?
— How will I feel afterward?

So you've thought it all through, listened to your heart, and made your decision — it's not the right time to have sex.

An excellent choice. It's totally cool to say No. It's the best way to avoid pregnancy and infections. It's also the best way to prepare for a happy sex life when you're ready to say YES in the future.

Now here you are, ready to say, "No". What you need next is the courage to follow through with it.

Play the scene in your mind a few times. Imagine saying what you feel, "I'm not ready," or "Let's just do this instead." You don't have to explain your decision. You don't have to get angry or defensive. Just speak from your heart.

It's easy, right? Maybe for some people. They're lucky enough to have the confidence to say and do what they feel. I'm not that strong. Instead, I find that I can be clear in my head when I'm by myself, but when I'm sitting next to my partner, a hundred silent pressures make me nervous and tongue-tied.

For a long time, I couldn't say "No." I was too afraid of disappointing my partner. Its not like my rational mind said, "Okay, he wants sex and my feelings don't matter." It's more that one thing would happen and then another thing, and soon it was harder to stop than to move ahead. My mouth just had trouble forming the words, "I don't want to."

But giving in to sex that way left me feeling awful. I was letting myself down, and I didn't really know why. It turns out that there are a lot of reasons people have sex when they don't really want to:
— trying to stop feeling lonely or unhappy
— to hold onto someone
— wanting to be more popular
— to avoid close, caring relationships
— needing to prove that they're straight
— hoping to find the fireworks they see on TV or in the movies
— to get back at their parents
— because they're drunk or high
— because they think that the first time doesn't matter, so they just want to get it over with

In the end, here's what I've learned:
Good things happen when you start being true to yourself, especially about sex.