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Yes, conservative jerk, twice-divorced, serial-deficit-increaser, twice-fathered-children-out-of-wedlock, and former President, Ronald Reagan made a major contribution to sex education and, for that matter, sex: kids (and grownups!) can have much healthier, more natural sex lives: "Trust but verify."

Sure, he was talking about something else. But nevertheless it's still relevant to sex education.

Here's the scoop.

I grew up thinking you're centered and well-adjusted about sex.  And to an extent of course I was.

But in retrospect?  Wow, did I grow up around some really, really terrible influences!  Lately the realization has made me question so much of what I "know" is true.  It's not that everything I know isn't true, but as I reflect on the sometimes deeply suspect influences I was exposed to growing up I find myself really, really, really wishing I'd had some kind of access to second opinions.  And third.  And most importantly varied!  Because, seriously, in my community you could find plenty of agenda-driven Bible thumping opinions, and equally agenda-driven anything-goes-baby "swingers."  But inbetween?  Next to nothing.  And really?  It all works out a lot better if your framework for sexuality to come waaay from somewhere in between and waaaaaaaay less from trying to reconcile screaming extremes.

Ugg.  Too bad for me (and a shocking percentage of the rest of the population that was born in the 20th Century.)

Anyway.

Watching my children grow up I'm... pretty sure they're not subject to the same shame/blame/denial/jpressure/ust-plain-wrong-information I was.  Largely, I think, because it's possible to get corroboration from more than one authoratative source.  Most of which, in turn are "open source" in the sense that they're public information and therefore subject to public acknowledgement, criticism, clarification, and dissent.

• FLASH comprehensive sexuality education curriculum? Check.
• Scarleteen? Check.
• Birds+Bees+Kids? Check.
• RAINN? (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) Check.
• Where Did I Come From?: A Guide for Children and Parents and "What's Happening to Me?" A Guide to Puberty ? Check.
• The American Girl Library, of which I really wish there was either more crossover or else a separate Library for boys.
• S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College? Check.
• Heck, even Wikipedia, which might not always be accurate but which is nevertheless subject to frequent, dedicated, and often spirited fact-checking!

There are obviously more, and yes, obviously not all resources now available are 100% accurate, timely, wise, or helpful...

But the most important item, almost even more important than the actual list above would be

• Peers who are coming of age with at least some exposure to credible sources like those above, and
• Adults who have also been exposed to credible sources like those above.

I can't say how incredibly important this is.  Because with credible feedback from reliable sources, or even the possibility of such feedback, it's waaaaay more difficult for even "well meaning" adults and peers to pump the next generation's heads with really, really bad information.

Here's the problem.  Sex to an uninformed pre- or emerging adolescent is already in-credible, as in "unknown and often difficult to believe."  And for that reason it's hard to separate the in-credible things peers and grownups say that are generally true and equally (to them) in-credible sounding things that are just incredibly, and sometimes destructively false.  Even when they have the very best of intentions.

Actually, maybe especially when they have the best of intentions!

Anyway,

More on the Allen/Broadwell/Kelly/Petraeus (in alphabetical order) kerfuffle from gender-determinism skeptic Echidne says

Take what is currently known (or asserted):  David Petraeus, a married man, had an affair with Paula Broadwell, a married woman.  It is argued that Paula Broadwell, a married woman, sent threatening messages to Jill Kelley, another married woman, to warn her off Petraeus.  Jill Kelley, a married woman,  may have exchanged "inappropriate" e-mails with John Allen, a married man.  None of these people are married to each other.

...

I understand the angle of these stories. It's Petraeus and Allen who are famous and well-known and they are men. But the facts of the case suggest that we should also ask why women cheat, given that all alleged participants in this mess had marital partners. Broadwell, too, seems to have "risked it all" to cheat: her marriage, her career as a biographer and the risk of the kind of public attention she is now receiving. Her position may not look as powerful to us but in terms of her own life the risks she took were huge.

Source: Echidne of the Snakes

Echidne points out what would probably be obvious minus the knee-jerk knee-squeezing twittery: It takes two to tango...

Heck, as she puts it

As I mentioned, I get the angle of these stories. But it takes two to tango, and in heterosexual extramarital affairs both partners can be married. Thus, the questions those headlines ask about men cheating disguise the fact that we should ask similar questions about women cheating.

I mean, seriously!!! So far everyone involved has had some degree of professional credibility and respect on the line. You have to be... well, there aren't a lot of choices here besides being head-up-your-butt invested in misogyny, head-and-shoulders-up-your-butt stupid, or maybe all-but-your-ankles-up-your-butt invested in the cheapest-possible interpretation of "evolutionary psychology" to miss the oh, gee, wow, surprising similarities between the behavior of the various career men and women involved.

Maybe it's because both women and men are, you know, people.

Naah.  The other possible explanations about genes or gender-determinism are so much more complicated they must be true.

Answer? Nobody.

In a great post titled "The Myth of the Boner Werewolf," Cliff of The Pervocracy points out that excuses about "blue balls" and other (mythical!) forms of male uncontrollability make women less enthusiastic about being sexual around men.

There's a pernicious myth out there that the male sex drive is unstoppable and irresistible--that once a man is aroused, he literally cannot control his actions. We tell jokes about "thinking with the other head" and "all the blood went out of his brain" that aren't entirely jokes. We have a cultural narrative in which sexual arousal makes a man into a goddamn werewolf.

And we expect women to tiptoe around this uncontrollable male sexuality. We tell them to watch how they dress, lest they wake the beast. We tell them "some guys can't control themselves"--not won't, but can't. We tell them to be careful what they start, because they'll be expected to finish it. Hell, way too often we outright tell them that they have no right to withdraw consent once sex has started.

My response to myths like this, more and more, is "shit, if I believed that, I'd never have sex with a man again." I wonder if the story would change if more guys realized that saying "if a woman gets me turned on, she'd better be ready to go all the way" is the same as saying "getting me turned on is dangerous, better not take the risk."

Source: The Pervocracy

Anyone here wish women felt sex with men was more risky rather than less? Show of hands here? If not then is it really worth perpetuating the dominant paradigm of men as the obligatory, reflex-driven, and therefore high-risk "sex" class." In exchange for what? A marginally higher chance of receiving grudging pity sex of some sort? Whee!

Note: This post references social attitudes about sexual assault and rape.

If you're ever curious what they mean when they use the term "rape culture," check out the conviction of the voyeuristically homophobic Dharun Ravi and how even cutting-edge opponents of homophobia reflexively latch onto the "irony" that Ravi will likely be raped by his fellow prisoners. For example

CT Native
Wait until he meets his new roomate, Buba. He’ll learn what being gay really means………….
March 16, 2012 at 12:17 pm

...

SkellAlert
Good for him. Now he can watch all the gay stuff in prison. Hopefully Bubba sees him dropping the soap.
Do your time. He is getting exactly what he deserves!. He knew what he was doing, he isn't a little kid. So what if people are gay, if they are happy they are happy, you is anyone to tell them different.
March 16, 2012 at 6:29PM

...

Wherever Dharun Ravi is going, I hope he's shown the same type of privacy and respect that he showed Tyler Clementi. Enjoy prison, Ravi.

Here's what progressive-politics blogger Jill of Brilliant at Breakfast has to say about Ravi's conviction in general and about the treatment people are speculating he will receive when he goes to prison. (emphasis mine)

I was quite frankly surprised when I heard that the jury in the Dharun Ravi case had thrown the book at him. I never expected conviction on anything other than perhaps invasion of privacy in this case. But a jury clearly decided that there was enough of a trail of evidence to demonstrate that Ravi knew perfectly well what he was doing and that what he did was a hate crime. I suppose I underestimated my fellow New Jerseyans.

There is an element of the bloodthirsty mob about some of the reaction to the conviction, what with people commenting on news sites of their own fantasies about what might happen to a slightly-built, nice-looking young man of twenty in prison.

Source: Brilliant at Breakfast

So... this business about rape as extra punishment (with its ridiculously naive corollary that prison without rape would somehow might not be "enough" punishment at all) is exactly what feminists mean when they say "rape culture."

The idea that genitals are weapons, the idea that genitals are instruments of punishment? The idea that having genitals thrust upon you is punishment or (we do call prisons "corrections facilities) correction rather than simple violent assault? The also barkingly naive assumption that any given prisoner (especially young and/or educated and/or middle class prisoners and/or prisoners found guilty only of "white collar" crime) will always be the victims rather than, oh, say, the perpetrators of sexual assault in prison?

That's a big part of rape culture.

The tacit approval of a system that, when we think about it, necessarily encourages, rewards, and approves of prison rapists to the exact same degree it approves of their victims' "punishment?" Oh, and the notion that the routine use of sex as a form of social punishment, control, and revenge on the one hand and (tacit) approval of perpetrators for helping maintain that system of punishment, control, and revenge regardless of whether their victims are men in prison or women just out and about.

That's a big part of it too.

And yeah, as Jill points out it's not just "conservatives" who go for it, it's not just homophobes or misogynists, it's not just religious hierarchies, and, for that matter, it's not just men, period, who are ingrained in the culture of rape. As Jill points out, when it comes to culturally sanctioning the use of sex as an instrument of punishment or torture liberals and progressives can be as invested as the ones we think of as "usual suspects."

So!

It's part of the culture, right, buried (in plain sight!) so deeply that hardly anyone even notices, right? And it's about rape, right? And a nice, simple shorthand way to say it is rape culture.

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Does Dharun Ravi deserve to be punished? Oh yeah. He deliberately chose to entertain himself and at least attempted to entertain others by intruding on a young man's privacy, exploiting the same cultural elements of shunning, mockery, and shame about homosexuality that tragically led his victim to commit suicide.* But the sexual assaults and degradation that Ravi probably really will face have nothing to do with the punishment he has been sentenced to.** And everything to do with rape culture.

* It's worth noting that Dharun was found guilty not of driving his victim to suicide but of the far more ordinary and entirely precidented crimes of multiple counts of invasion of privacy, some counts of intimidating Clementi because of his sexual orientation, and tampering with evidence. ** Remember, as far as both the law and the legal system itself punishment concerns only the duration of sentences, not by atrocities committed against or by prisoners while serving their sentences: if Ravi becomes a victim it will neither shorten nor lengthen his sentence. Therefore there's no reason for the legal system to tolerate such atrocities.