Being Amber Rhea

Be sure to take a look at the round-up of excellent posts at Ren’s site, of everyone who blogged for sex education yesterday. I’m about 1/3 of the way through and will probably be reading off and on for the rest of the day. So far, though, my conclusion is: why aren’t we in charge of running sex ed in this damned country??

Sassywho summed it up the best:

Only in America can sex be used to sell everything from dust mops to music, and dissected ad naseum at dinner parties yet we can’t provide our children with adequate education in healthy sexualities.

Also, Jack wins for this (which should really be a “duh” concept but, sadly, for many people it isn’t):

Another part, as an addendum, of sexual education that I want to discuss is the aspect of consent and how crucial it is to human sexuality. A non-consenting person who does not wish to have sex should NEVER be placed in the position where they must have sex. This includes coercion, badgering, cajoling, plying with alcohol or other drugs, and shaming to create an uncomfortable environment for that person to where their unwillingness to have sex is seen as a flaw, one to be remedied. THIS ACT IS RAPE. No, fuck off if you don’t think so, it’s rape. And our children need to know this. And incorporate this into their understanding about sex. Sex is not something that is taken, it is something that is shared. One does not “give” sex to someone else, and the fact that our culture readily incorporates this idea into its memes is why it is a rape culture. I cannot see otherwise.

My sophomore year at NYU, I took a human sexuality course. (The actual title was, “Sexuality and the Human Experience.” I know… how collegiate!) For the most part, it was a great class - knowledgeable professor with a clear passion for the subject, lots of good discussions, laid-back atmosphere.

But, I will never forget, early in the semester we were given diagrams of male and female genitals and reproductive systems, and we had to label the various parts of each. Pretty basic, right? Well, apparently not. I remember the guy sitting next to me having a really difficult time with the female anatomy. He kept nudging me and asking questions. “Is that the clitoris?” “Wait, what’s this called?” And so on. I was incredulous. I kept thinking, “Wait a minute… you’re in college - you’re an adult - and you don’t know this stuff?”

And I wept for the future.

But later, I thought, well… really, why is it that I know any of that stuff? It’s because I took responsibility for educating myself. The schools I went to sure as hell didn’t teach it. “Sex ed” in school, for me, consisted of three basic themes: 1) You’ll bleed every month, here’s why; 2) the biological mechanics of reproduction; 3) STDs are disgusting and awful and the most terrible thing that could ever happen to you, and we’re going to show you photos zoomed in 100 times to completely freak you out!

We never did the put-a-condom-on-a-banana demo. After we were told repeatedly, “DON’T HAVE SEX UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED!!!” a quick afterthought was dropped in to the effect of, “But, if you do, use a condom.” But we weren’t taught how to use a condom.

The clitoris might as well not exist. And my god, there is no such thing as masturbation.

Given these circumstances, it’s really, really fortunate that I’ve always been the type of person who loves learning, and likes to educate myself as fully as possible about any subject matter that I take an interest in.

It’s fortunate, too, that we had cable TV. Because honestly, I got way more sex education from MTV than from school. This isn’t a wring your hands kind of moment; in the early 90s, MTV didn’t suck like it does now. And it had excellent shows like “Sex in the 90s” where I learned about real-world shit like being a single mother with AIDS (dire example); or the fact that lesbian and gay folks don’t have special gay germs that you can catch (upbeat example). This was back when everyone was still kind of freaking out about AIDS, so it was a common topic on MTV, with plenty of benefits and specials and whatnot, all stoically narrated by Kurt Loder.

In addition to MTV, there was a brief period of time when we were somehow getting free (read: illegal) HBO. I would stay up late and secretly watch “Real Sex” with the volume turned way down. I learned about various sexual practices and heard from actual adults who partake; in particular I remember an episode about a bunch of hippies in a lodge in the woods or something, having some kind of tantric orgy.

Contrary to Republican hysteria, no, all this information did not make me run out and fuck everything that moved.

Instead, it made me feel more safe than I had previously.

So, to review: The “sex ed” I received in school was paltry at best. Sex was never mentioned by either of my parents (and, somehow, I knew better than to ask). I educated myself.

And this was before the abstinence-only revolution, and toward the tail-end of the AIDS panic that started in the mid 80s.

So what the hell are kids learning now?? It really scares me.

I could write reams about what I think school sex ed should look like. It would involve pretty much dismantling the current educational system overall, for starters. Unfortunately I doubt any real progress will be made any time soon, and I worry about kids having to grow up in such an environment.

There is one good thing though… namely, Heather Corinna’s new book, S.E.X. It could not have been published at a better time. Teenagers (and plenty of adults too, for that matter!) need to read this book. It has the information we all need. Even if the fundie nutjobs manage to get it banned from various libraries, I really hope kids manage to get their hands on a copy, somehow. I feel like we ought to start a blogger fund, to send copies of the book to kids in rural areas! (Only halfway joking there.)

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. Seriously, I could keep going for hours on this topic, but I need to go to bed at some point. To anyone reading this, I say: go buy Heather Corinna’s book, and give it to a teenager!

Damn, I can’t believe I forgot to post about this until now! Anyway, tomorrow, June 4, is Blogging for Sex Education Day! So if you want to participate, put up this image and link back to Ren’s original post where she proposed the day… and write something, anything, about what you think sex education should look like!

Inspired by an excellent post at Laura’s place, I’m going to write what my sex ed experience (or semblance thereof) was like. I figured it would be better to do it here than to take up her whole comments section, since this might get long. Also - Jenny and Niki, if either of y’all remember things differently than I do, please chime in. My memory ain’t the best, especially because I know I’ve blocked out parts of those years. :P

Early on

When I was about 6 years old, I remember asking my mom, “Do you have to be married if you’re pregnant?” (I don’t remember what prompted me to ask this; probably just natural childhood curiosity.) She answered, “You don’t have to be, but it’s a good idea.” I felt very alarmed and thought, I’d better hurry up and get married as soon as possible!! Because, I had no idea how pregnancy actually happened. I thought you just woke up one day and were pregnant, voila.

My parents never talked about sex at all. By the time I was about 7 or 8, I had a book called “So That’s How I Was Born,” but I had asked for it as a present - because I thought it was about babies, and I loved babies and thought they were cute and so on. I didn’t know it was about sex and pregnancy, but thank god they ended up buying it for me, because otherwise I would’ve been really in the dark.

5th grade

This was the first time I had any kind of sex ed. They herded the girls into the cafeteria - or “cafetorium” as it was known; the cheap suburban public school combination of cafeteria and auditorium - and told us about periods. No idea where the boys went, or what they talked about. I remember the lesson only vaguely, but what I remember very clearly is one girl asking, “When do you grown your sex organs?” She was completely serious. Even with what little education I’d had, I somehow had picked up enough to realize that was a ludicrous question. I felt a little concerned that someone my age (10-11) would be asking that. But then again, I didn’t know there was such thing as an erection until 6th grade (happily informed by a loud, obnoxious boy at lunch), so who am I to talk?

Later that year, we had an after-school thing for girls and their moms, also about periods. The woman who led it was personable and not at all nervous, like the school teacher had been. I think she went around to different schools doing this. Also around that time, my mom bought me a book about periods. Everything was very period-focused. I really can’t remember anything else being discussed.

Middle school

Separated us out again by gender, a few times, although I can’t remember much of what was said. Probably mostly periods again, which bored me because I’d already gotten mine by that point. I remember at one point we watched a video called “I got it!” about three best friends who were so excited about getting their periods. Periods, periods, periods! You would think there was nothing else to talk about. We probably looked at a scientific diagram of male and female parts in science class at some point, though I don’t remember specifically when. At some point we also learned the basic mechanics of conception (which I already knew, thanks to my book about babies) - sperm and egg, the whole routine. Blah.

Jenny will remember this: my 7th grade science teacher had this really interesting, sci-fi-looking poster on his wall. It looked like a scene from outer space. Jenny and I asked what it was. He said it was a close-up of the AIDS virus.

Somehow we knew what AIDS was, vaguely. I don’t remember how - honestly, I probably first heard about it on MTV. In the early 90s everyone was still freaking out about it, and fortunately MTV didn’t suck as badly back then, and had a lot of stuff about safer sex. They also had that “Sex in the 90s” show which I stayed up to watch a few times, clandestinely.

In 8th grade we had health class, with a horrible male gym coach as the teacher. It was at least as wonderful as you would think. Same old, same old - periods, diagrams, but now with some talk of STIs thrown in. There were vague references to condoms, but we never saw a real one, much less learned how to put one on a banana (and certainly not on a dildo; heavens!). There was much uncomfortable giggling and trying to disappear into the desk. I don’t remember the clitoris being mentioned in any of the diagrams of female anatomy.

High School

In 10th grade we had health class again - Jenny and Niki definitely remember THAT! How about the time we tried to get our lovely health teacher fired for showing a film called “The Jesus Factor” (in public school). How about her routinely saying “prostrate cancer” instead of “prostate cancer,” and us asking whether that was when you couldn’t lie down. Getting Saturday school and in-school suspension for reading. And, of course, ritualistically burning our health notes once the semester was over!

Yeah. I think that pretty much says it all right there.

Still, no mention of sex as something pleasurable. No condom demonstrations. No clitoris, of course. No talk of masturbation, homosexuality (aside from condemning it, in “The Jesus Factor”), emergency contraception, abortion, orgasms, the definition and importance of consent, or anything else. Plenty of talk about periods, which was downright insulting at that point, because we’d all had ours for years. Basically, we learned, sex could kill you.

In 11th grade, after I transferred to a private school, things weren’t much better. We had an assembly in the library and were shown slides of untreated STIs. There was no mention of the fact that, if caught early, none of them would ever escalate to that condition. There was no mention of the various treatment methods, and no specifics about how each was transmitted in the first place. There were just these horrible close-up slides, intended to scare us away from sex. “Don’t have sex before marriage,” they said, and as an afterthought murmured, “But if you do, use a condom.” Of course, they didn’t show us how to actually use one. Also, of course, half the junior class was already sexually active by that point.

And that’s, well… pretty much it.

Is it any wonder a bunch of girls got pregnant when I was in middle and high school?

Fortunately, for whatever reason, me being me, I had taken the initiative round about the time I was 16 to educate myself about this stuff, because I knew no one else would. I was still lacking in some information until I got to freshman orientation at NYU - but nothing horribly important or life-threatening. (I didn’t know what a dental dam was until then, for example.)

And if that was all I got, and it was before the days of “abstinence-only education,” then I really fear for kids nowadays.

As for what I think good, comprehensive sex ed should consist of, well, just read Laura’s post. She’s outlined all of it already.

Scientists are leaving the States because of this BS. (Yes, that’s a feature from Glamour. I know, I was surprised, too!) I wish I could find a link to the article I read in Time a few weeks ago, about the plummeting numbers of scientists in the U.S., many of whom are discouraged by the increasing infiltration of politics into their research. Europe and China will have our heads.

Not sure which part to focus on; there’s so much. Doctors being compelled by law to provide medically inaccurate information? Kids being taught falsehoods that pose as sex ed, while at the same time being deprived of facts that could save their lives? “Christians” stalling the development of a vaccine that could prevent cancer? Wingnuts poking their sticky little fingers into all areas of American politics, spooking legislators in a manner reminiscent of Sunni Muslims?

Ah, how about the incessant crusade to control women’s sex lives through forced childbirth… (emphasis mine)

If it had been left up to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, American women would be able to walk into any drugstore and buy the emergency contraceptive Plan B over the counter (OTC). When the committee was convened in 2003 to review Plan B, a “morning-after” method of birth control that can reduce the odds of pregnancy by 95 percent if taken within 24 hours of unprotected sex, all 28 members agreed that the drug was safe and effective. The vast majority of them also voted to make it available OTC at any pharmacy.

In 2000 alone, the drug prevented approximately 51,000 abortions, according to a Guttmacher Institute estimate.

You guessed it - religious nutjobs put a stop to all that.

I simply do not comprehend this need to micro-manage the lives of strangers.

Let’s daydream for a minute and pretend EC is available OTC. Tell me how that affects your life. And don’t give me some hippy-dippy bullshit about how the moral decay it represents affects all our lives. I can smell a red herring a mile away, and I want a real answer. So consider the simple scenario. EC is available at your local Walgreen’s. You do not believe in taking EC to prevent pregnancy. Now… this affects your life, how?

Don’t buy it. Don’t take it. No one’s putting a goddamn gun to your head. They still sell Summer’s Eve by the gallon even though research has shown time and time again that douching disrupts the natural pH balance of the vagina and can make you more susceptible to infections. So, when I go to the pharmacy, I walk on by.

When are people going to start demanding that this shit be put to a stop, and accept nothing less than scientifically sound healthcare and education? Not to end on a downer, but I am honestly afraid that it might come to what the article mentions…

[M]any women can’t imagine how these lies could possibly have an impact on them, Trussell says. “The first time one of them walks into a pharmacy and can’t get her birth control pill prescription filled, that will have a wake-up effect. Most won’t feel the effects until these rights are gone — they can’t believe there would be a time when these things would be outlawed. I hope their belief is true, but I’m very worried.”

Ya know, it’d be a lot cooler if we were to make sure things don’t come to that.

h/t Bitch Ph.D.

Stupidity of the “Are you fucking shitting me?” variety, from Barrow County (login):

A pair of Apalachee High School parents successfully petitioned the Barrow County school board to ban an essay and classroom discussion that compares the killing of a pig in the novel “Lord of the Flies” to rape.

Early this year, students at Barrow County’s Apalachee High School spent about an hour and a half of an honors literature class discussing an essay, written by author E.L. Epstein, that is included in the book edition they use in the class.

“It’s not the curriculum itself, it’s the classroom discussion,” parent Jeff Smith said. “To make sure this doesn’t happen again, we think that commentary should be pulled.”

The essay doesn’t mention rape, but says “the killing of the sow is accomplished in terms of sexual intercourse.”

And, at the very end of the article, we have the money quote (emphasis mine):

“We can’t do anything about what was done to our daughter,” Smith said. “We can try to do something about the other kids coming up that we don’t want to see put through the same thing.”

“What was done to [your] daughter??” Jesus Hyperbole Christ. At first, I thought I had missed some crucial part of the article that said, for instance, that the girl was a rape survivor and was deeply distraught over reading the essay. But after a second careful reading, I realized that no, this father really does mean that reading an essay was the horrific thing that “happened to” (because reading is such a passive activity) his daughter.

Let’s just hope the poor girl never goes to college, where liberal professors will put guns to her head and force her to read all manner of critical analyses of various works of literature! And, God forbid, she may even have to endure hours upon hours of classroom discussion! The horror, the horror!!

Dumbassitude - 1, education - 0.

This quote from an AJC article (login) about a new “career-oriented” high school in Rockdale County disturbs me:

“Too many kids throughout the state have been going to college when they didn’t need to,” [Mike Lott, Rockdale's economic development director] said. “A career-oriented school like RCA gives them another option for finding a meaningful career.”

I guess he has a point, though; why focus on such pointless endeavors as higher education, when our military needs all the money it can get?

Every time I start to think we as a society may actually be making progress in terms of being less fucked-up about sex (even in the face of the ardent push for fucked-upedness by the Religious Reich), well, something smacks me back down to earth. “Silly idealistic girl,” it says, “with your dreams of a world where talking about sex doesn’t incite widespread wrath and rancor!”

Apparently educating one’s peers about the risks associated with sexual activity is cause for alarm in Noblesville, Indiana:

Senior Kristine May’s unpublished story has become grist for the school rumor mill and prompted more than a dozen parents to call the principal to say it would be inappropriate.

But May and her editors argue that the story contains vital information about the medical and emotional consequences of oral sex.

“I wouldn’t have written it, I wouldn’t have fought for this long if it wasn’t important for students to read,” May said Tuesday at the school.

I’m sorry, did I miss a memo somewhere? Isn’t “information about the medical and emotional consequences of sex” part of the supposed basis of abstinence-only education? Or is it okay to talk about said consequences only in a nebulous, theoretical fashion, but not to mention specific behaviors (e.g., oral sex) and the risk factors associated with them? Because… reminding people that herpes can be transmitted through oral sex might make them want to suck cock?

I really do not understand this logic AT ALL. Someone please explain it to me (she asked, rhetorically).

This just serves as further damning justification of the accusation that the Christocrats are always so quick to haughtily refute - that they’re just anti-sex. Now, maybe I could see some conservative types getting their panties in a wad about a high school newspaper article that says everyone should just go out and blow each other. Hell, I would get my panties in a wad about such an article, if it didn’t contain information about safer sex practices and inherent risks. But an article that, by all indications, appears to be a deterrent to oral sex? Huh? What exactly is the problem here?

Actually, I bet I do know what the problem is. The article probably doesn’t contain enough judgement about those dirty sluts who dare to have oral sex before marriage. It must not have enough explicit verbiage telling students that it is NOT okay to have oral sex, that it is just plain WRONG. It probably says something like, “If you have oral sex, use a condom or dental dam to reduce your risk,” instead of, “Don’t have oral sex!!!”

Somewhat tangentially, I agree with figleaf that we should drop all the bullshit taboos surrounding STIs and change the “S” from standing for “sexually” to stand for “socially.” Then maybe we could stop wasting time with judgement and categorization, and focus on actual prevention.

The following is a report from one of my correspondents in the field. (Edited slightly to remove identifying details; names changed to protect the guilty.)

So I call my cousin a couple of weeks ago and we’re chatting about how weird our family is and somehow he’s skirting the issue of sex before marriage. Now, I’ve been pretty sure that he’s been sexually active for a couple of years, but this isn’t exactly something that you just TALK about, especially in my family where it just DOESN’T HAPPEN. Clearly.

So, my little baby cousin is getting a lot of action. He tells me that he doesn’t see that there’s anything wrong with having sex, or having sex with a different person every weekend. I tell him that my view is that as long as no one is getting hurt and that he’s living in a way that he’s truly happy with, I’m totally fine with whatever. (Hi, like I care how many people anyone fucks.) So we’re establishing that this is all okay, judgement free zone, etc. And then I (stupid, naivé, child of the 80s that I am) mention something about as long as people are being SAFE, I couldn’t really care less.

He laughs.

Excuse me?

He LAUGHS.

I do my best not to COMPLETELY flip out and fight back my major maternal instincts and go into prime educator mode. Now, you can fuck as many people as you want. You can fuck however you want. You can fuck whomever, however, whenever - I don’t care, but you MUST use a condom.

I spend the next 45 minutes having a SAFE SEX TALK with my EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD COUSIN because NO ONE has ever talked to him about this shit. You CANNOT imagine my fury. In WHAT instance is this my role??? I am equipped for many things, but having a sex talk with an 18 year old is NOT one of them. I’m sorry, I’m not READY to do that kind of parenting yet. Two year olds are about my speed at this point. Having to explain to an 18 year old boy why it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that you use a condom EVERY time - this I am not prepared to do.

I DID it, but what the HELL.

THIS is the problem with conservative Christian “teachings.” All he was EVER taught was “no sex before marriage.” Okay. You know what, if those are your values, FINE. You teach them. As parents, you have the innate right to teach your children whatever fucked up (or not fucked up) beliefs you may have. HOWEVER, how can there NOT be an “if” clause? Because, guess what people, your Christian kids still have sex. Maybe not all of them, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT. If they DO, they need to understand WHY it’s important to be safe about these things.

I’m still floored by this. Clearly, he’s enough younger than we are to have not been COMPLETELY freaked out by AIDS. He grew up in a time where everyone knew what it was and what the parameters were - there was no terror factor involved. REGARDLESS, is he assuming that ALL of these girls he’s fucking are on the pill? And that they REMEMBER to take it EVERY day? There is more than one way to fuck up your life.

The best part (and the most telling for my value system) was when he told me how he’d been talking to my sister the week before and had sort of mentioned this, but she’d started to get pissed off / judgemental, so he stopped telling her. She “didn’t want to hear it” so he didn’t tell her. Now, my sister probably has a pretty good idea that he’s having sex, but NOTHING else. Great. Exactly WHAT does that accomplish with your high Christian morals? By NOT judging him, I had a MUCH more substantive conversation with him and HOPEFULLY stood some chance of making him think about using condoms.

Why is it that the states (and countries) that seem to have their shit together* are always so goddamn cold?

Maine Becomes the 3rd State to Reject Federal Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Funding:

“We thank Maine’s Health and Human Services’ Public Health Department for having the courage to refuse these funds and putting the wellbeing of our young people ahead of a political agenda,” said Nicole Clegg, director of public affairs for the Family Planning Association of Maine. “The refusal of these funds sends a clear message that Maine values and respects its youth,” Clegg continued. “With the support of SIECUS and others, we continue to advance public health policies that have been proven to reduce teen pregnancy rates and promote healthy behaviors among youth,” Clegg concluded.

Now let’s hope more states will pull their heads out of their asses and follow suit.

* Ed. note: This should not be interpreted as me knocking Georgia, because even though it clearly has its faults, I do love living in Georgia. I plan to write a post about that very subject at a later date.