It would go a little like this.

A college freshman walks into the university clinic with a sore throat. Before they can even sit down, a poster on the bulletin board spells their doom. One hookup after a party last week, the chart suggests, has “exposed” them not just to that person, but to everyone that person has ever hooked up with—and everyone those people have ever been with, and so on. By the end, our hapless freshman is linked to thousands and thousands of strangers, all strung together like some far-reaching epidemiological conspiracy.

The nurse leans in and asks, “How many partners have you had?” The freshman, now wide-eyed, stammers out something like a number. The nurse glares toward the poster. Stick figures and arrows snake across it, multiplying every word. “How many partners have you had?”

The more you admit to, the grander the imagined outbreak. The chart leers. “For the love of Saint Pete! What have I done?!?!”

The message lands hard. Our enlightened freshman swears off casual sex forever and walks out of the clinic resolved to keep their “number” as close to zero as possible. And in so doing, maybe—just maybe—they’ll avoid an STI forever.

Yeah, no.

The sexual exposure chart, pinned on boards in clinics and university health centers across the country and perhaps beyond, has long haunted how we think about intimacy and connection.

The sexual exposure chart, pinned on boards in clinics and university health centers across the country and perhaps beyond, has long haunted how we think about intimacy and connection. Born of failed abstinence-only and sexual risk avoidance education tactics, it frames sexual intimacy as a (math) problem—a chain of contamination rather than connection.

Considering it at face value, the chart’s math just doesn’t math. The truth is, real-world networks are rarely perfectly exponential. Sexual networks overlap, especially in some communities. Worse yet, the chart doesn’t report actual disease transmission probability, and it completely erases protective factors like regular testing, condoms, PrEP, and DoxyPEP. By portraying risk as an endlessly expanding web, it exaggerates danger and obscures reality.

With “data” like these weaponized and dressed up as medicine in the very clinics where many young people may first seek care on their own, it’s no wonder, as reported by Vice, that young people today are more likely than older generations to ask—and judge—each other by their “body count” (i.e., number of past sexual partners). And so, what’s packaged as supportive health promotion festers into a suffocating subtext conditioning us to surveil ourselves and shame each other.

Beyond its tawdry relationship to facts, the sexual risk exposure chart is a good reminder that data visualizations are never neutral; they’re cultural artifacts with agendas of their own. This particular overused artifact obscures joy, pleasure, and connection while centering danger. It legitimizes stigma and a particularly narrow view of morality in the sterile language of epidemiology. Now, I don’t purport to know Mark Twain’s thoughts on today’s hookup culture, but charts like these must have been what he meant when he said there are “three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Of course, many young people will eventually unlearn this unasked-for baggage, forgetting the chart in favor of healthier, more affirming visions of sexuality. But this will take time—years, even decades. What damage will the sexual exposure chart—and the broader cultural obsession with body counts—cause in the meantime?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how sexual health messages often backfire—repelling people who will go to great lengths to avoid guilt, shame, and embarrassment away from the very clinics designed to help them. And as far as data visualizations go, there may be no greater backfire-r than the sexual exposure chart.

That’s why I think it’s high time for us, as a field, to tear these charts from our bulletin boards and confront their harmful, misleading, and self-defeating messages head-on.

That’s why I think it’s high time for us, as a field, to tear these charts from our bulletin boards and confront their harmful, misleading, and self-defeating messages head-on. That means acknowledging the damage done by past scare tactics, rejecting “body count” discourse as regressive junk science, and affirming that sex can be safe, pleasurable, and human. That’s why, to promote two clinics in Baltimore, we created a series of visuals to call out just how bananas the sexual exposure chart truly is—and set the record straight: It’s not about how many people you hook up with, it’s about how you hook up that matters.

If there’s one thing I want to be known for while working in sexual health, let it be #AnalAugust. Perhaps truly celebrated by no one but me, this not-too-serious “health observance month” promotes two sexual health clinics in Baltimore, Maryland. For two years now, we’ve created some cheeky creative in late summer that covers all things “butt stuff,” from sexually transmitted gut infections to extra-genital STI testing.

With any luck, this fuller, more robust content will leave young adults feeling more confident, better prepared to ask for the services they may need, and aware of two queer-affirming clinics in their community.

Along the way, we push beyond flat, simplistic sexual health messages (“just get tested!”), to dive into the juicy diversity of queer sex and the literal “ins and outs” of anal STI testing. With any luck, this fuller, more robust content will leave young adults feeling more confident, better prepared to ask for the services they may need, and aware of two queer-affirming clinics in their community.

Something revolutionary happened to me the other day: As I was stretching just before bed, I leaned down and touched my toes. For many people, this is probably not cause for celebration, but for me—who has been historically inflexible to the point that even basic yoga poses are a challenge—this milestone was both surprising and satisfying.

As my giddiness about this new ability subsided, I started to think about how, much like stretching, stepping out of your comfort zone hurts at first. You’re not used to the way it makes you feel, and you’re maybe a little frustrated that you’re not immediately at ease. But as you push yourself little by little, it gets easier, and one day you find yourself easily doing something that was once so challenging.

We all find ourselves in situations where we may need to get uncomfortable in order to stick up for what we believe in.

We all find ourselves in situations where we may need to get uncomfortable in order to stick up for what we believe in. I know I have. Whether it’s at a school board meeting or a brunch with a new acquaintance, a room full of middle schoolers learning about healthy relationships, or a backyard barbecue where a family member asks a perhaps-not-totally-in-good-faith question, the opportunity to wade into an uncomfortable conversation will eventually present itself.

I feel fortunate that throughout the course of my professional life so far, from preventing sexual abuse and assault to supporting teen sex ed, I’ve had a fair bit of practice at talking about difficult and sometimes taboo subjects. The topics my colleagues and I handle in our daily work are nuanced and potentially fraught with misunderstanding, stigma, and even one’s own trauma. So, what have I learned over the years about delving into these tough conversations?

Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable

Within my first few months of working at Healthy Teen Network, I participated in a training where the facilitator encouraged us to name all the slang terms for genitalia we could think of. I couldn’t help but chuckle at how this exercise—incredibly useful and normalized in the context of sex education—would be absolutely unthinkable in another workplace setting. While I’ve gotten used to this candor, I had to remind myself that the folks I interact with outside of my work life might not be.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone isn’t always a bad thing. Yes, it might feel weird at first to talk with a family friend about why your child doesn’t have to give them a hug. You might feel uneasy talking with your parents about the difference between sex and gender. But once that initial feeling of awkwardness dissipates, both parties can start to have an open and honest discussion about topics they might not have approached otherwise.

It’s Pride Month, y’all! In the United States, June is an annual time to celebrate LGBTQ+ communities. It’s also a time when we honor and continue our long tradition of fighting for our rights and standing in solidarity with others who experience oppression.

A big part of my journey as a queer person has been learning the difficult skill of holding both of those things at once: celebrating queer joy while letting myself feel the grief of the heartbreaking, cruel, systemic attacks on our lives.

In recent conversations with sex educators, I heard again and again how their balancing act feels especially precarious at the moment. I know that so many youth-supporting professionals want to celebrate and support the LGBTQ+ young people they work with, but that they are also managing the fear of ever-changing repercussions and trying to protect their own safety—all on top of meeting the normal demands of their jobs. I heard how upsetting and overwhelming it is to feel that their hands are tied, that they have to compromise on how they aim to support young people to stay in the work. This balance is of course doubly complicated for educators who are themselves LGBTQ+ and navigating the personal as well as professional impacts of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and legislation.

As a designer, I know that when we feel stuck is a crucial time to get creative and bring in new perspectives.

As a designer, I know that when we feel stuck is a crucial time to get creative and bring in new perspectives. Because the truth is, no matter your constraints, there is always something you can do to observe the spirit of Pride month.

If you have legislative, administrative, or community support, this is your time to go big! Team up with other supportive adults in your community to start a Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA), bedeck your space with LGBTQ+ youth-created art, highlight LGBTQ+ heroes throughout history, play music by LGBTQ+ artists, or offer to chaperone young people to LGBTQ+ rights protests.

On the other hand, if you’re working within a lot of restrictions, talk about how you can show up with local peers, with friends, even with former young people you’ve worked with who identify as LGBTQ+. Remember that there have been subversive celebrations of queerness for time immemorial, even when folks couldn’t be “out” about it.

As one perspective to get you started, below are three of my ideas for how to uplift LGBTQ+ young people, regardless of the restrictions you’re facing.

A great first step? Learn what your actual restrictions are!

Amid an onslaught of legislative debates targeting LGBTQ+ rights, many educators and other youth-supporting professionals are holding back on talking about crucial political and social issues. This chilling effect extends far beyond actual existing censorship laws and restrictions. A recent survey by the RAND Corporation found that 55 percent of teachers who weren’t under any restrictions on what topics they could cover still decided to limit what they addressed in class.

If you’ve been feeling tentative about addressing subjects like LGBTQ+ history with young people, it’s time to get clear on what you’re being prevented from doing versus what restrictions you’re placing on yourself.

Good places to start are the National Education Association’s article What Educators Should Know About LGBTQ+ Rights and the LGBTQ+ Curricular Laws map from the Movement Advancement Project. From there, make sure to look into local restrictions as well, as these may have an even stronger influence on many educators’ decisions than state legislation.

After you’ve untangled the fear from the reality, get real about your values and risk tolerance. In what ways are you holding back from openly showing up for LGBTQ+ young people? Do you have enough stability, including legislative and community support, to be bolder in your support?

I was 21 the first time I saw a flavored condom. My college resident assistant casually handed them out in a bowl, like candy. I stared at it, completely confused. Why would anyone need a condom that tasted like a strawberry?

It was a long way from my all-girls Catholic school in Indonesia, where sex wasn’t something we talked about—at school or home. My parents weren’t comfortable with those conversations, and honestly, neither was I.

Now, years later, I’ve been reflecting on how complicated sexual and reproductive health can feel for people like me—Asian, immigrant, and often caught between cultures.

The silence around love and affection

In many Asian families, love is shown, not said. We cook for each other. We cut fruits for each other. We ask if you’ve eaten.

But saying “I love you” out loud? Asian parents would avoid it like the plague.

If you know me, you know I could talk for hours about gaming. From late-night dungeon raids to cute indie romance sims, games have always been more than just entertainment for me—they’re spaces for connection, self-discovery, and, often, reflection. That might sound dramatic, but if you’re someone who’s grown up online (hello, fellow millennials) or found pieces of yourself through digital storytelling, you get it. Working at Healthy Teen Network, where we center youth empowerment, sex education, and healthy relationships, I can’t help but notice the ways those same themes show up in the gaming world, especially when it comes to consent.

Last year, I had the opportunity to take part in several roundtables at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), including the “Educators Summit: Teaching Games with Games,” “Creating Safer Digital Playgrounds Roundtable,” and the very fun, spicy, and illuminating “Melting Hearts and Quenching Thirst Roundtable: Sex in Games.” And over the past year, it got me thinking about gaming and consent.

Gaming and consent might not seem like an obvious pair, but media is one of the first places many young people get messages about relationships, intimacy, and boundaries.

Gaming and consent might not seem like an obvious pair, but media is one of the first places many young people get messages about relationships, intimacy, and boundaries. If we’re serious about helping young people navigate those things in real life, then we have to pay attention to the media they’re consuming. One phrase I’ve heard a lot since joining the field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health is to “meet young people where they’re at,” and gaming is a huge part of that, especially for groups that have historically been pushed to the margins in gaming spaces, like women and queer folks.

So, let’s talk about what happens when games get it right.

At Healthy Teen Network, we stand firm in our commitment to reproductive justice and human dignity for all people, particularly young people, especially in times of global conflict and chaos. Our vision aligns with the World Health Organization’s holistic definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This comprehensive view underscores that health, including sexual and reproductive health, is inextricably linked to political, social, and economic conditions.

The right to make decisions about our bodies and lives is deeply intertwined with broader issues of social justice and human dignity.

As we navigate a complex world, we are guided by the principles of reproductive justice as defined by SisterSong. This framework emphasizes the right to have children, not have children, and to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. It’s a reminder that the right to make decisions about our bodies and lives is deeply intertwined with broader issues of social justice and human dignity.

In times of conflict and uncertainty, it is more important than ever to affirm our commitment to these principles. We stand for the protection and dignity of all people, especially the most vulnerable, and advocate for environments where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, free from violence and oppression.

Our work is driven by the belief that every person, especially young people, no matter where they live, deserves the right to choose their own path and to live in a world where their humanity is respected. We will continue to champion these values in our work, advocating for a future where every life is valued, every choice is respected, and every community is supported in the pursuit of justice and dignity.