sex education

North Dakota's 2011 "Abstinence Within Marriage" Sex Ed Rule May Only Clarify that Orgies AFTER Marriage Are Still Off Limits

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Tue, 2012-01-31 23:45

Via Daily Kos, and the Huffington Post the Guttmacher Institute noted that in 2011 the state of North Dakota, restless with the prospect of abstinence only before marriage, decided to take things a little further (emphasis mine.)

A new requirement enacted in North Dakota mandates that the health education provided in the state include information on the benefits of abstinence “until and within marriage.”

Source: Guttmacher Institute

Wowzie, huh?  Sounds almost too good to be true, eh?

Well, to be fair it's only mostly true, as a little bit privacy sacrifice to Google reveals.

According to the Minot (North Dakota) Daily News last April

Rep. RaeAnn Kelsch, R-Mandan, the chairwoman of the conference committee, said the phrase "before marriage" could lead students to think they're sexually unrestricted after getting married.

"This sends a much stronger, louder message, and probably more true to the facts," Kelsch said. "Once you're married, it doesn't mean that abstaining from outside issues goes away, and children should be taught that."

Source: Minot Daily News

I'm not positive this is better.  It would indeed be ludicrous for anyone to seriously advocate abstinence within marriage.  And it doesn't look like that's what Kelsch was advocating in her wording change.  (Another story reports that her committee met 12 times to hash out the wording of that one sentence.  So it's not surprising that it might sound a little muddled.)

Instead it sounds like maybe Kelsch thinks North Dakota's children are too stupid to realize that "abstinence in marriage" implies "and monogamous within marriage."  And so she felt it was important to spell it out.

I dunno.  I assume she knows North Dakotans better than I do.  And so perhaps she's responding to some spate of post-marital swinger orgies.  My guess would be that instead she's instead just signaling conservative "credentials" in a state that's already so right-wing conservative there's just not many other directions left in which to express "concern."

So again, probably not as ridiculous as it can be made out to be... but still pretty seriously ridiculous.

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Since Most Girls Get it From Boys, and Most Boys Get it From Girls, a Suggestion for Reporting on Adolescent HPV Myths

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2012-01-09 20:18

I'd like to suggest one small edit to Reuters health and science reporter Julie Steenhuysen's otherwise commendable article on young people's misunderstanding of HPV vaccine protection, based on one of her own previous, equally commendable article on HPV vaccine recommendations for boys.

Some adolescent girls adolescents who get the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer wrongly think they no longer need to practice safe sex, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The study, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, shows the need for better education about the vaccines and their limitations.

Merck's Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix vaccines protect against strains of the humanpapilloma virus or HPV that cause cervical cancer. Gardasil also protects against some strains of the virus that cause genital warts.

But neither vaccine can prevent other forms of sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea or human immunodeficiency virus or HIV that causes AIDS.

And HPV vaccines can only prevent HPV infections; they do not treat active infections.

Most girls young people who get the vaccine know its limitations, the researchers said, but the vaccines are recommended for all girls young people aged 11 to 12, and overestimating their effect could increase a young woman's person's risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases.

Source: Reuters

Given all the hype, and given how recently the vaccine has been recommended for boys it's understandable that people are still thinking mostly in terms of HPV vaccines and girls. But the fact remains that boys as well as girls are at risk of HPV-related cancers (it's linked to penile, throat, and rectal cancer, for instance.) And it further remains the fact that (statistically speaking) by definition boys are as likely to receive HPV and other STIs from girls as girls are likely to receive them from boys. That's sort of how heterosexual disease transmission works.

Finally, call me a rebel here but while I understand the researchers surveyed only adolescent girls and so it would have been inappropriate for them to extrapolate... it's a safe bet that a comparable survey of adolescent boys would find they're at least as likely to make the same mistake.

So if it was me, while composing educational outreach materials on the matter I'd drop the adolescent boys or adolescent girls language and just make sure I was trying to reach adolescents, period.

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Julie Sunday on Teen Sexuality, Teen Pregnancy, and Access to Birth Control: The Titanic as Metaphor

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2011-12-28 15:54

Sex educator Julie Sunday offers the following pithy summary of an analysis by Professors Kathrin Stanger-Hall and David Hall of state sex-education policies and rates of teen pregnancy and birth.

Sex education matters, yes, but access to services is more important. Teens do not have sex for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy--they have sex because sex is fun. If adults and policymakers want teenagers to use birth control, they will--but we have to teach them how to use it and help them figure out how to get it instead of erecting [heh] insurmountable barriers to keep them from avoiding pregnancy and spreading STIs.

Teen sexuality is like the Titanic--the ship is definitely going down. We can either play music and pretend we're not sinking or provide life jackets and get the people off the ship already. Considering that the House's recent budget proposal included renewed funding for the terrible, horrible, no good very bad Community Based Abstinence Education program (Read: federal government gives money to religious organizations to provide "education" in public schools and make cheesy PSAs), this country is still letting the ship sink without enough lifeboats for everyone.

Source: How to Have Sex in Texas

It's an interesting, sort of back-handed twist on the Titanic metaphor but I think that's about right.  The idea, incidentally, isn't to make birth control and sex safety materials available so that teenagers (or anyone else) will have sex, it's so that those materials will be available if or when they do.

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Holly Pervocracy on the Very Enjoyable Elephant in the Sex-Education Policy Room

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2011-09-07 18:30

Happy belated blog anniversary for Holly Pervocracy, who kicks off year number five by reminding us that when it comes to even progressive sex education there's still a rather enjoyable elephant in the room:

When I had my first sex ed class, they told me that the man would get an erection and put it in the woman's vagina. (They did not tell me about other configurations, which is kind of a shame considering how much those other configurations have become a part of my life. It's like taking an Auto Shop class that has a moral stance against any discussion of the radiator.) What they didn't tell me was why people would do such a thing. To have kids, okay, and... peer pressure? Low self-esteem? Media glamorization? Dealers?

By the time sex ed rolled around again, I'd gone through puberty. (And gotten an Internet connection.) I understood quite well now. And I also understood that the teacher, being post-pubescent and married herself, probably was also familiar with those funny feelings that make you want to do the baby thing. And yet those funny feelings didn't come up at all in sex ed class this time either. In a room full of people who more or less all knew full well what it feels like to have a boner or get wet or masturbate or have a wet dream, we spent an entire semester pretending to wonder why people would do such a thing. Peer pressure, perhaps...

This stalwart denial of the bleeding obvious is still following me around as an adult. Almost every discussion about sex--even the ones by the "good guys"--seems to footnote pleasure if it doesn't ignore it altogether.

Source: The Pervocracy

Yup. Because when we're finished impounding sex by overloading it with various social, political, evolutionary-psychology, and (heaven help us!) economic overtones it's almost an afterthought that we mostly do it because unless you're outright doing it wrong it feels really, really good.

And yes, as a matter of fact there really are a lot of ways to do it wrong -- not least thanks to the myriad elements we overload it with -- but if only we had some kind of well-developed social institution, maybe one that begins with "educa" and ends with "tion," that we could begin giving people in age-appropriate measures that would help them not only avoid doing it wrong but actually doing it right.

Nah, that's crazy talk.

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The Two Rules of Desire and How to Have First-Time Sex Instead of Just "Losing" Your Virginity

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2011-08-19 09:38

An anonymous guest-blogger at Em & Lo has written the best, most useful useful and myth-busting sex-related post I've read in a very long time.

As a 21-year-old virgin I thought sex was going to be the most overwhelming, painful, awkward, terrible, awful experience ever.  Why did I think this?  Because friends, magazines, and blogs all over the place said so. Not so! Yes, cashing in your V-card is a big deal: your first experience can set the tone for how you approach and engage in sex for years to come. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t stress and fret about the impending deed for weeks or months (or even years!) beforehand like my boyfriend and I did. If you follow these 10 prep rules, then when you’re ready, you can relax and just do it

Source: Em & Lo

You really, really want to go read the post for details on the ten prep steps she recommends but here's the simple list:

  1. Make sure you’re with a partner that you trust completely
  2. Admit it’s your first time
  3. Share your expectations with each other.
  4. Get your protection lined up beforehand.
  5. Speak up in the moment.
  6. Related to #5: Even if you think it’s a stupid question – ask!
  7. Be sensitive to your partner’s concerns.
  8. It’s okay if you laugh!
  9. Lower your expectations.
  10. Help the sex feel great.

Again, each item makes sense enough.  Her explanations make them even better. Go read them.

What I love about the post is that any one of those items, let alone all ten, dismantles almost everything that makes stereotypical virginity "loss" disappointing or worse.  More to the point, if you use any (or preferably all) of your 10 items first-time sex can become the beginning of something new rather than the end or “loss” of something irreplaceably valuable.

It's probably no surprise that I've noticed the interplay between the standard narratives about virginity "loss" for women and both of the bogus Two Rules of Desire. Of course sex for the first time is supposed to have all kinds of symbolic value and of course the pragmatic experience for women is supposed to be over on the negative side of the dial! Inside the dominant paradigm that drives the Two Rules, women aren't really supposed to enjoy sex in the first time, the adjustment from "naturally" never having sex to having it is supposed to be about as jarring as a fish getting hooked, and thanks to rule #2 she's certainly not supposed to be enthusiastic -- instead she's supposed to be chastely "submitting" in order to seal some kind of transactional deal for love, support, or duty.

Note: If you were to transpose a few adverbs and adjectives in the blogger's introductory paragraph you've got the corresponding v-card myth for young men.  But what I really like about her list is that each of those items would benefit for men and boys for their first times as well.

And one last thing: That list of 10 ways to make your first time positive is also a list of 10 great reasons why it’s ok to wait. First because why do something when you’re not ready, and second, when you are ready why settle for anything less than making it good for you?

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The BDSM Community is a Great Source for Concrete Advice on Applying "No Means No"

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-06-27 20:19

Note: Still on a happily hectic family vacation on the awesomely laid-back Greek island of Lesvos and so posting and comment moderation will continue to be sparse.  Today or tomorrow we're going to try and get over to Skala Eresou, which in addition to being Sappho's birthplace is also supposed to have an awesome beach.

It's really great to keep spreading the message that "No means no" and as a slogan "no means no" is memorable and effective. But a slogan isn't really adequate for helping people navigate real-world situations: you also need real-world illustrations and examples. Sarah Sloane offers an example from the BDSM community that ought to be part of mainstream Relationships 101.

Keep in mind that you do not need to have a reason to say no – you are entitled to say no for any reason (or even no reason) at all. It’s YOUR decision whether to play or engage in sex. You also do not need to give them a “rain check” or tell them maybe another time unless you want to – in fact, in my experience it’s been worse for me to tell them “maybe” instead of just saying no and leaving it alone.

When I came up in my leather community, I was taught that one of the things that bind us together is a sense of respect; part of that is respect for ourselves and our ability & power to say no, and part of it is respect for the other person that we’re talking with. Honesty – not the blunt, hurtful kind, but the compassionate kind – will be something that both you and the person that you’re being honest with can live with.

Practice saying no – to your mirror, to friends, in writing – and use those practice sessions to feel more comfortable and confident when you say it. When you’re in a position where you’re not sure what to say to the other person, tell them that – and ask them if you can get back to them. Take the time you need to make a decision; it’s a very rare situation to have a potential play session with someone that you will literally never see again, so there’s no need to pressure yourself into deciding. And when it comes down to it, remember that no means no – and if the person in question spends time trying to talk you into it, or becomes defensive, then that should be a clear indication that it’s not someone that you wanted to play with in the first place.

Source: Fearless Press

It's almost a cliché in social theory that minority or alt communities will be more accurately aware of their differences and similarities than will the mainstream culture they're embedded in. And that therefore they may have useful insights that the mainstream culture would benefit from. Cliché or not, the BDSM community really has necessarily invested considerable time pondering issues of peer pressure, consent, and maintaining mutual respect. Of course, Sloan's case demonstrates that, being human beings, BDSM people often need active coaching and sometimes frequent reminders. But, being human beings, everyone else frequently needs those same reminders as well.

Via Viviane's Sex Carnival

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"Everybody Knows" Men Think of Sex More Often Than Women. What We Now Know is More Complicated

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-06-13 14:31

Assuming you're a carbon-based life form you've probably heard the common wisdom that men think about sex more often than women. Common wisdom varies but usually it's every six minutes for men. And while common wisdom is pretty much completely silent on how often women think about sex it's always a foregone conclusion that it's not as much.

Anyway, like a lot of common wisdom that "everyone knows" because it reinforces common... um... stereotypes the actual difference was just too well-known for anyone to bother to go back and check.

Until now. Via Patrick Morgan a preliminary study titled "Sex on the Brain?: An Examination of Frequency of Sexual Cognitions as a Function of Gender, Erotophilia, and Social Desirability" tried to confirm what "everybody knows." And discovered instead that while men do think about it more frequently compared to women they also think about all their other bodily needs (food and sleep as well as sex) more frequently. The upshot evidently (again it's another study conducted by public employees with public grant money that's behind another private paywall) is "it's complicated." Men evidently do body check-ins more frequently than women do, and when they do they think about sex... but they also think about other body needs like food and sleep. Women evidently do check-in less frequently but when they do they think about sex, food, sleep, and other needs in proportions very similar to men.

Anyway, it sounds like in absolute terms men do think of sex more often but proportionately don't think about it more than women do. I don't feel a sufficient urge to know to ask someone to send me an ungated copy of the paper, but I am curious how they feel proportional need-based cognitions is a better metric than absolute numbers.

But they must feel pretty confident about it because the abstract ends with

Overall, erotophilia* was a better predictor of sexual cognition than was sex of participant. Taken as a whole, the results suggest that, although there may be a sex difference in sexual cognitions, it is smaller than is generally thought, and the reporting is likely influenced by sex role expectations.”

Source: Discover Blogs - NCBI ROFL

The next question, especially after a relatively small-scale study like this, would probably be whether there's much variation in erotophilia between men and women. But it's always great when someone takes a closer look at what "everybody knows." As Will Rogers said, "It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."

* See Cory Silverberg's definition of erotophilia. It's a psychological term for, basically, comfort and interest in sex.

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I Love My New Old Neighborhood

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2011-05-25 21:30

So I'm walking home from the (almost) corner grocery store on our walkaround neighborhood mains street and I see this sandwich board in front of one the local art galleries.

Photo by figleaf (hey that's me!) Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by figleaf (hey that's me!) Used under a Creative Commons license.

I didn't see who was inside (I could tell the workshop was in progress and that's about all) but I'm pretty sure Teri Ciacchi of Living Love Revolution was leading it. Who knew?

When my friends first started moving to this neighborhood fifteen or twenty years ago the area was pretty decrepit.  Not trendy decrepit, just kind of dumpy.  Now while the economy's taken its toll a lot of the much older generation (<em>my</em> parents' age) that used to keep lackadasical shops full of antique knicknack and used furniture and second-hand audio gear and pensioner's bars have moved while people basically their grandchildren's age have been taking over.  Who knew?

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"Wait Till They're 18 or Older" Is Perfectly Sound Advice For Adults Who Are Tempted to Offer Teens "Hands-On" Sex-Ed Help

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-05-16 16:03

Carlin Ross, writing about the recent "hummer mom" Christine Hubbs' statutory rape case says that setting bail at $4 million seems a little excessive.  I agree.  On the other hand she also says

I've always thought that the older women in a community should teach the young boys/men about sex.  They could learn how to stimulate a woman's body, how to practice safe sex, and come control from a woman with sexual experience.

Her husband is sticking by her side and she has three children.  Tacky - yes.  Predator - I don't think so.

Source: Dodson and Ross

While I happen to enjoy reading Carlin Ross quite a bit I couldn't disagree more, either on the older-instructor point or the not-a-predator one.

On the older-instructor front I actually really, really think older women (and men) in a community should leave their children enough space to develop their own sexual identities and/or skills with their peers in a... well... not quite supervised environment but in a comprehensively informed one.

I mean, yes, it's all well and good to brass on about "snot-nosed youths" defiling girls their age and how it would be better for older men to "beak them in gently," just as it's all well and good to suggest older women do likewise for boys. But really it's probably a better idea to make sure kids develop real peer authority with each other such that neither one is bringing "outside" expertise to their experimentation.

Because, seriously, you don't hear that sort of thing about gay boys needing to be "broken in" in order to work stuff out, nor for girls with other girls. Somehow they figure it out -- even really complex activities -- either on their own or with remarkably small amounts of reading material related to technique.

Once they turn 18 or a developmentally more appropriate 21, I think it's fine for older men or women to offer younger ones an opportunity to refine their techniques. But before roughly adulthood a lot of sexual negotiation and exploration winds up tied with social, identity, and even personality development. Having adults swoop in for "coaching" sessions might be, um, refreshing for the adults, and even educational for the kids, but (as if often the case for a lot of people in retrospect) it's also an opportunity for adults to help "lock in" their momentary partner's sexualities before they've settled. Again, once they've settled -- and that's most often substantially complete between 18 and 21, then again, adult advice would be taken as advice and not formation. And by that age inexperienced adults are still able to negotiate with other adults as effective peers.

On the sexual-predator front no matter what I strongly don't believe in those cases that it would be necessary to offer Xboxes or flat screen TVs to close the deal, as  Because at that point it really would be a deal instead of a sexual exchange.  If you have to groom, intimidate, or otherwise inveigle a 14-year-old of any age into your bed (or in this case to inveigle yourself into theirs) UR Doin' It Wrong.

---

Incidentally I'd just like to add a quote from one of Ross's commenters, Heather J

[M]y husband was raped by an older woman who had children his age and older. He couldn't say no because she had the power. How can a male be raped you might ask? Oh, believe me, they can. We're suffering the consequences now with me being a take charge, not afraid to get what I want sort of woman in the bedroom and him reverting back to how she was with him. Didn't bother him until his father recently died and it's bringing up lots of issues. Adults need to stay away from kids sexually... all adults... all the time.

That seems about right.  It doesn't matter that boys are supposed to be "ready all the time," nor that they're supposed to be able to "take the lead" with sex partners their own age.  No more so than girls with a good, comprehensive sex education are at an orgasmic "disadvantage" to boys as long as their authority and agency is recognized and backed up to be the equal of boys who are their peers.  In fact, arguments of the form "you'll need to know" or "I can help you with... in a way [your peers] couldn't possibly" are actually pretty effective forms of coercion when employed in a culture where boys are expected to "know" and girls are expected to be left wanting.

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Family Research Council Evidently Thinks It's Safer to Hang (Yourself) In the Closet Than Come Out

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-05-09 15:40

Photo by Flickr user G.I. Folk. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy, ,
Photo by Flickr user G.I. Folk. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Amanda Hess says

Peter Sprigg, a Family Research Council policy fellow who advises Montgomery County public schools on their sex ed curriculum, is encouraging gay kids to identify as straight in order to lower their risk of suicide. Because when gay kids identify as straight, only straight kids will kill themselves. Problem solved.

Source: TDB

What's, well, queer about Peter Sprigg's report is that it appears to take perfectly sound (if strategically incomplete) data, and even some sound intermediary conclusions, but then add a couple of agenda-driven definitions and turn it all into some really batshit-insane, dangerous recommendations.

Fact: Young people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual do in fact have higher rates of suicide.

Fact: The sooner young people begin to self-identify publicly as gay, lesbian, or bisexual the greater their likelihood of committing sucide.

Fact: It's really is common for young people to feel "confused or uncertain" about their sexuality in adolescence.

Fact: Despite early uncertainty or confusion, by age 25 or so most people really have settled on a lifelong and generally far less flexible orientation

Fact: Of those people end up being exclusively heterosexual.

Oh, and

Fact: It actually really isn't a bad idea to wait to become sexually active till you're really sure what your identity and orientation is.  Even if (as Sprigg may have sock-puppeted into a quote) "you are sure you are heterosexual."

Facts, facts, facts, facts.  Most not even terribly objectionable since Sprigg got most of them from an article by Mark L. Hatzenbuehler in the respectable, peer-reviewed Pediatrics called The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth.

But then he turns that into... what?  A recommendation that everybody identify as straight people who just like sex with their own sex.  In other words to be more like former Senator Larry Craig, former minister Ted Haggard, or even better, like the millions of other conservatives who stay in the closet and don't get caught.

But you know what?  There's at least one other fact that Sprigg pretty much necessarily omits...

Fact: The biggest difference between an out gay, lesbian, or bisexual and a closeted one is... a closeted gay, lesbian, or bisexual isn't subject to the kind of harassment, ostracism, and outright violence out ones are.  Not from their friends, not from their families, not from their teachers, not from other people their age, and so on.

Question that perpetually eludes Mr. Sprigg and his ilk: what do you suppose drives a lot of teenagers to suicide anyway?  Gee, I wonder if maybe not only feeling like you don't fit in but being told to your face by that "vast majority" who "will end up being exclusively heterosexual as adults?"  Particularly when egged on by... Mr. Sprigg and his ilk!

Naah, couldn't be.  It's gotta be them gay cooties.

---

What makes me particularly bitter about all this, by the way, is that when I was growing up I was regularly taunted, harassed, and beaten up for "being gay."  Even though, of course, I wasn't.

That said, as far as I know none of the boys and young men from my neighborhood who regularly beat the living shit out of me ever committed suicide.  Although, funny thing, at least two of them died of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

Actually did I just say "funny thing?"  It's really not very funny at all.  Because pretending, for instance, that you're really a straight guy who likes sex with other men, and by lacking credible, comprehensive sex education that Mr. Sprigg's coven deplores, makes it very difficult for men to learn the kind of sex safety practices that best minimize health risks to themselves, their partners, and, often, their spouses.

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