#smarttart

Pictured: Choose Your Own Consensual Adventure & Smart Tart  zines

Here at eLEEP, we get all stirred up about all things health literacy, and this time we lucked out! We picked up some great reading material at Cambridge's first annual New England Zine Fest (presented by Boston's bostonhassle), and were astounded and thrilled by the amount of sexual health literacy being independently created and produced right here in Boston! 

These real people writing about real sexual health information, options and experience transcends that of the textbook "Sex 101" spiels and diagrams—speaking out about healthy sex from personally learned healthy understandings that no textbook can touch on.

Health literacy and its relevance in the media is understated and sometimes dated, but these inventive zines are a great way to spread the word of sexual health in a creative and enticing form.

Take pleasurepie for instance, whose "Choose Your Own Consensual Adventure" zine let's its reader choose their own journey from the very beginning: "You're making out with someone. Things are getting steamy. You're really turned on. You want to have sex. Continue..." From there, readers are free to choose their own "adventures" with the help of some great sexual health information and advice.