Rachel Sanoff

Therapists explain how to end something without ghosting, because it sucks, but we all do it.

When romantic partners grow together, it becomes inevitable that they will see each other through life’s most tumultuous and traumatic experiences: death, loss, illness, failures, the list goes on. Often, you will be the first person that your…

Rachel Sanoff is a regular contributor to Bustle and an editor at HelloGiggles. She is LA-based, and her writing can also be seen in Jezebel, the Huffington Post, and The Culture Trip. Rachel’s articles frequently discuss sexual health, reproductive rights, consent activism, and dating/relationship…

Emma McGowan is a lifestyle writer for Bustle, covering sex, sex education, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ issues, and gender politics. She’s Bustle’s sexual health columnist at Sex IDK. Emma is a SFSI-certified sex educator and her byline has appeared in Mashable, Broadly, The Daily Dot, Mic, and T…

Sex is one of the most amazing things in the entire universe, and it is also one of the messiest. Sex is a breeding ground for both pleasure and bacteria — but thankfully, there are a lot of different steps you can take in order to keep yourself as…

Love is beautiful and love is bizarre. Not only are you nervous and overwhelmed by the new object of your affection, but your brain chemistry is literally changing — resulting in some weird, obsessive behavior. What are some weird things you only do…

Your relationship with your mother is one of the most important relationships you’ll ever have — for good reasons and/or bad reasons. Your mother shapes your understanding of the world and your understanding of yourself. She can do that with loving…

Herpes is treated as a punchline in countless American comedies: the worst, most embarrassing thing that can happen to somebody when they have sex — a scarlet letter forever branding you for some horrible decision that you made, preventing you from…

Now, when I say “signs that you aren’t supposed to have a best friend,” I don’t mean “signs that you are supposed to be forever alone.” I’m talking about reasons that you, personally, are not designed to only have one, solitary best friendship. You…

When you begin your first serious relationship, it is important that you pause long enough to recognize that this new partnership is an accomplishment. All relationships require learning, growing, changing, and questioning. But your first serious…

Gender stereotypes negatively inform the way we interact both with ourselves and with the people in our lives, shaping the power dynamics and traditional roles within our romantic relationships. So how can we help our partners get over gender…

Do you have verbal conversations with sexual partners about consent? Have you ever asked a sexual partner if they have an STD? Have you ever been asked? An app called YES to SEX aims to combat campus rape, improve sexual health, and normalize…

Anybody in a new relationship is likely to wonder when they and their significant other will get into their “first fight.” In any romantic partnership, disagreements are inevitable, healthy, and cathartic. But in our culture — influenced by the…

When it comes to sexual orientation, you are probably familiar with heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual identities. But what does it mean to be monosexual? Monosexuality is a term often used in academia as a direct contrast to bisexuality. To be…

The start of a relationship can make you ask yourself a lot of questions. For example, am I actually in a relationship? Are we just ~hanging out~ or is this a thing? There are a lot of moments in any ~more than friends~ situation that can help you…

It’s pretty hard to watch any good sitcom without fantasizing about a workplace romance — whether you’re moved by the ballads of Jim and Pam in The Office, Leslie and Ben in Parks & Rec, or Henry and Casey in Party Down. As these televised lovebirds…

Most of us have known the kind of friend who disappears as soon as she enters a romantic relationship — if we haven’t been that friend ourselves. There are countless reasons why you should never forget about your friends when you’re in a…

In the spirit of tomfoolery and safe sex, the popular condom brand, LifeStyles, pranked the public with the arrival of three new (fake) kale, cold brew, and Sriracha-flavored condoms. Remember when you thought pumpkin spice-flavored condoms were…

Swipe right for friendship? If a newly published survey of 200 students is to be believed, more college kids use Tinder and other dating apps to find friendship than to find romance or casual sex. WayUp, a startup for college jobs, recently…

Can we protect ourselves from getting pregnant before we are ready to be mothers — if we are ever ready to be mothers? A new qualitative study by the Guttmacher Institute asked women their beliefs about whether they can actually prevent pregnancy…