Sex ed

[elettaria]

One of the things which I sometimes end up lying awake thinking over at unholy o'clock is what I think sex education should be like. Mine was somewhat mixed. My parents didn't really bother, unless you count my mother muttering a few things just before I turned 22. My school was a case of "blink and you miss it", and I think I was off ill that

Comments

[17catherines]

I like your syllabus. My school talked a lot about peer group pressure and STDs and the reproductive system (and the boys did have to sit through a session about menstruation), but that was about it.

I really wish someone had told me earlier that a simple 'No' should be enough - no justification required. It was only when my second lover made it very clear that just because we were alone and semi-clad in a darkened room didn't mean we actually had to do anything that I started to figure that one out. (Which was a good thing because I had, indeed, ended up there in one of those situations where there doesn't seem to be any appropriate time to discuss what one wants up until that point.) My first boyfriend certainly didn't share that opinion.

[elettaria]

Yeah, I reckon that the consent and power-related stuff should be something like a quarter or a half of the syllabus. And people also need to be comfortable with the idea that just because you've gone up to a certain point with someone, you don't have to go further. Plus not feeling obligated to. The last episode of the West Wing has a joke about a girl at school "putting out" and it gave me the creeps. Anyway, talking about sex with a partner is a surprisingly hard thing to learn. I've only really got good at it in my thirties

[voxwoman]

A most excellent syllabus, indeed. I had sex ed in the 60's and 70's. The menstruation class when I was in 4th or 5th grade and something in "health" class in high school (my most prominent memory of that extremely awkward class was the gym teacher drawing a giant U on the blackboard and saying "this is a condom").

I learned much, much more from the feminist books "Our Bodies, Ourselves" (first printing!) and "Getting Clear" that I acquired in high school. (there was no internet at the time). My mom didn't sit down with me to talk about anything, but she didn't hide from questions.

[elettaria]

I've heard of Our Bodies, Ourselves, it was pretty revolutionary from what I know. But not Getting Clear. What were they like? I'm sure I've heard that there were issues with the first one, but I can't remember offhand what they were. I know racism was a big problem in second-wave feminism (and still is, alas), was it that?

I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility the other year. I don't use the Fertility Awareness Method for contraception, I just find it handy for keeping an eye on my irregular cycle and PMS. Plus it's quite cool to learn more about how your body works and how to interpret it. What is less cool is that she was vehemently anti-IUDs, making them sound like they were pretty much bombs being put inside your uterus, and printed a lot of similar nonsense on other topics. I think it was originally written quite a while ago, and those sections never got updated. We really don't need leading feminist books on how to handle your sexual body running myths about one of the most useful methods of contraception ever.

[voxwoman]

OB,O was very revolutionary. I didn't think that it was racist, but sometimes, being white, I'm less aware of it than a PoC would be. It seemed to me to be racially balanced. I'll have to go look at it (I have the second edition, I think, nowadays, with the old 1971 cover on it

[elettaria]

It might not be racism, I'm just trying to think what the common problems in second-wave feminism were. Possibly it's a great book all round, and I'm thinking of a different book

[eye_of_a_cat]

This includes the wonderfully effective long-term reversible methods which really need more love (well, apart from Depo Provera, which is evil

Heh, I loved Depo and it was perfect for me. Like you say, though, different methods suit different people, and that's definitely something which needs to be taught better. My school's sex education wasn't too bad but I still spent a long time believing that contraceptive options were basically condoms or the pill, with everything else as this vague other option that existed on paper but that nobody actually used. And that's partly the wider culture as well, I suppose - if you get one school sex education class telling you about other contraceptive methods, but you never hear about them again anywhere else and nobody you know uses them, they won't really seem like an option.

Talking about pleasure, not just the mechanics of sex and pregnancy, and working to counteract the guilt culture still so common in our society.Argh yes. It is very depressing that we are sending teenagers out into the

[ephemera]

I approve of your syllabus a great deal :) (also on the goodness of reading poly relationship advice whether or not you're poly - I'm not, but still - many useful concepts and approaches!)