“If you could talk to your teenage self, what would you tell them about sex and sexuality?”

And so my letter begins:

Dear Kristen,

I know how much time you’ve been spending with certain books lately — the ones with the steamy scenes that Mom and Dad would probably not approve of, if they knew.  Oh, don’t worry — it’s okay with me. …

My friend, sex-positive artist/educator/organizer Nicole Mazzeo, started The Sex Letters Project as a sex education resource. Ordinary people contribute letters about what they wished they had known about sex when they were teenagers. I’ve found the letters posted so far to be very moving, and writing my own letter was a powerful experience for me.

What this project needs now are more letters and more perspectives, so today I am launching the Sex Letters Project Challenge!

After you’ve read my letter, I challenge you to submit your own. You can be anonymous or not, it doesn’t matter to me.  Once you’ve submitted your letter, challenge your friends to do the same.

Admittedly, my motivation isn’t entirely altruistic — I know so many awesome folks, and I am intensely curious to know what you would tell your teenage selves! Of course, the more letters we can send to The Sex Letters Project, the better and more diverse a resource it will be.

My plan is to start challenging friends over social media and email, and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve never tried to Start An Online Campaign for anything before — so I’m a little scared nothing will happen. But I think this is an awesome project worth supporting, and I just have to keep reminding myself that if this challenge does fail, at least the project won’t be any worse off. (If you do submit a letter and feel comfortable telling me about it, I would love to know when it’s posted!)

Go forth, Internet Denizens, to read and write your own sex letters!