Sorry I missed another week! My life last week: I moved on Friday (and am now a proud resident of Astoria!), went to a funeral on Saturday, and a wedding on Sunday.

Also, my laptop broke, and there was a bug in my room that wouldn’t leave and so I ended up with bug bites all over my body, including on my face.One of these bug bites looked suspiciously like a bulls-eye rash and I spent an afternoon convinced I had Lyme Disease and would be forced to vote for Mitt Romney. I finally killed Bug #1 by smashing my entire body against it while it was perched on a wall. Then I realized that there was another bug because there’s a hole in my screen and bugs are entering at will. That brings us to this morning.

Overwhelmed! Also, a little freaked out by how my hair randomly dried straight on top today…

As always,  I’m doing questions in the order I get them, so if your question isn’t answered… have life problems sooner, okay? You can leave questions here, e-mail them to [email protected], tweet them to me, or leave a question on our Facebook page. (Have you “liked” our Facebook page yet? Do you follow us on Twitter?)

I love the feel of pooping. It feels like if I could poop for a longer period of time I could easily have the strongest orgasm of my life. Does this mean I will love receiving anal sex? I’m scared to try but if I could finally have that orgasm…Also, is it weird to love the feel of pooping? -DF

First of all, I just want to say that this is my favorite question ever. All of y’all out there reading, I dare you to try and top this question.

Second of all, I am not A) your vagina/prostate (which do you have?!) B) your anus C) your brain D) you, so I have no idea if you’re going to love anal sex at all, but some people do think there’s some similarities between those sensations and pooping, so I reckon it’s worth a shot for you. If you have someone you trust to try it out with, go for it! Anal sex is simple if you remember to go slow, use lube, and get some fingers in there first.

Third of all, you’re not weird! I don’t know whether you have male or female anatomy, but either way, there are a lot of sensitive nerves down there. Even if it’s not purely physical and you get off on the smell or thought of feces, well, you’re still not weird! James Joyce was a big fan, and he’s one of the greats of English literature! You do you, DF. Enjoy the fact that you look forward to pooping!

I am a dude. I recently found out that my girlfriend, before we were together, had a lot of one-night stands. We’ve both been tested and are clean and she assures me she always used condoms, but I feel a little weird now. It’s just that I’d always thought she had a similar sexual background to me–had a few relationships but never slept around outside of a monogamous relationship! How should I talk to her about this? -HA

Here’s what you should say:

“Babe, I’m an idiot with my head up my ass and I can’t get over the fact that you like sex and haven’t always had it in the way I expected.”

This isn’t a gender thing, by the way. I think it goes both ways, though I feel like I’d almost never get this question from a heterosexual lady. And I know, I know, it’d be nice if intellect could control feelings so we only feel things we can justify intellectually. But we can’t. I can’t, you can’t, even the people who pretend they can can’t. So here’s the thing–I assume you’re in a monogamous relationship–and here’s the only question that matters. Who is she sleeping with now? You, right? Who else? Nobody? Great! Who cares about the past? When I was in high school I used to wear elbow-length lace opera gloves and roughly twenty hair ribbons to class. That doesn’t mean I will always dress like a weirdo. Our past choices help shape us into who we are, of course, but they don’t define us, and they don’t trap us.

It seems to me like you’ve fallen prey to projection. We all do it, early in a relationship. It’s a heady feeling, falling in (what could be) love. We get to know a person piece-by-piece, but because they’re always on our minds, we fill in the gaps with our own fantasies and hopes and expectations. Most of which get shattered into thirty bajillion pieces, of course. If you still like the person standing there afterwards–the flesh-and-blood bundle of imperfections–that’s the foundation for a strong relationship. If you can’t get over finding out someone’s not what you expected in one insignificant way, well, I wish you luck but I doubt you’ll ever have a lasting relationship.

I come from a super-Christian, conservative family. I’ve always been told not to have sex until marriage…except I don’t believe in God and I’ve had sex. I really want birth control, but I’m only 17, and I don’t think my parents would approve. My boyfriend and I have been trying to pull out, but every month the week before my period I’m a terrible mess of anxiety. I didn’t have sex education in school and I know almost nothing about birth control, which I didn’t realize until I looked online. Are there any at-home methods? -LD

Man, this is why these conservative ‘family values’ are fucked up. First of all, there’s no age limit to buying condoms, and you can buy condoms in most drugstores, grocery stores, convenience stores, or even gas stations. You can buy them online, even. (Here’s a tip for ordering stuff online when you’re still in high school and might not have a credit card: a lot of grocery stores/Target sell Amazon giftcards, which you can pay for in cash–that’s how I used to shop online at your age! Of course, when I was your age Amazon was pretty much books…) I wish I knew where you lived because I could recommend places to get free condoms too.

Please, please, please take a few hours and read every single page on the Planned Parenthood site. It sounds to me like you don’t want to be pregnant at 17, and the best way to avoid that is to educate yourself. If you live near a Planned Parenthood, call them. If you don’t, call them anyway, I bet you they’d be willing to talk to you and help you figure out what to do, or point you to nearby resources.

Would your parents oppose you going on to birth control for medical reasons? I take birth control pills because A) my uterus is not up for rent at the moment and B) I would get cripplingly painful periods. Ever since I was about your age, the first day of my period would come with blinding pain, nausea, headaches, dizziness…I missed a lot of school until I got on the minipill, which make the cramps merely unpleasant. This is really common. I bet you if you polled all the women who read Feminspire, there would be a significant portion of them who had similar experiences!

Tell your parents you’ve been having horrible cramps and ask them to take you to the doctor for them. Next time you have your period, even if your cramps aren’t bad, fake it! Here are some tips taken from my own life to make it convincing: roll around in bed and moan, come home from school/work/whatever early, take a bath and then lie on the bathroom floor with tangled hair and cry pitifully. You can also talk about having extreme, probably irrational anxiety right before your period. I’m not a medical professional, but I’m pretty sure they’d give you a BCP prescription.

Normally I don’t advocate lying to doctors. It might be possible that you can talk to your primary care doctor privately and tell him the truth and tell him your situation and why you really want the Pill, and he won’t be able to tell your parents because of doctor-patient confidentiality. But he might be able to because you’re under 18–I’m not sure how the laws work and do not want to give legal advice. If in your state/country he’s obligated to not tell your parents you’re sexually active,  you might want to just confide in him. Otherwise, maybe try the other thing.

Whatever you do, don’t try any DIY methods you find on the Internet. Herbs and ‘natural’ methods can still hurt you.

Written by Jess Mary Aloe.
Follow her on Twitter, where she recently compared white chocolate lattes to semen.