[theory] Liberal, Sex-Positive Sex Education: What's Missing

[theory] Liberal, Sex-Positive Sex Education: What's Missing I originally wrote this in 2009, then reposted it in 2010 as part of a group drive by sex- positive bloggers to solicit donations to Scarleteen.com. Scarleteen is an amazing sex education site run by the equally amazing sex educator Heather Corinna, and it can always use donations! You should totally go investigate that site -- after you're done reading my work, of course. When I first published this piece, the sex-positive film director Tony Comstock commented on Twitter, "I think that post of yours might be one of the most important things written about sex-positivity in the last 10 years." I was really honored by that, because he does excellent work. My parents occasionally read my blog, and I also got some interesting feedback from my mother. She wrote to me: " Speaking from where I sat when you were growing up: I wish I could have taught you what you eventually learned on your own. But I felt there was this unchallengeable wave moving and I didn't have a place to stand to counter it. I kept thinking I was leaving you to learn the hard way exactly what I learned the hard way, and was still learning, and was despairing of ever learning." I wrote back: "For what it's worth, I remember you trying to stem the tide with small comments, and I think that those comments later helped me center myself in a place where I could reach my own conclusions rather than blindly sleeping around." I hope it made her feel better, because it's true. I'm not a parent, although someday I would like to be... but I think one of the hardest things about parenting must be knowing that your kids will learn terrible things from the surrounding world, and the best you can do is try to be there while they process those lessons. KOK ok Liberal, Sex-Positive Sex Education: What's Missing I am fortunate. I was born in the eighties and I received a great sex-positive upbringing. The public school I attended taught students how to use condoms; middle school health education included a section on sexually transmitted diseases. My parents didn't throw their sexuality in my face -- but they were almost always matter-of-fact, understanding and accepting when they talked about sex. (I'll never forget how, at age 12 or so, Mom sat me down and gave me a long speech about how it would be totally okay if I were gay.) I was raised Unitarian Universalist, and the Unitarian Sunday School teen program included a wonderful sex education curriculum called About Your Sexuality. (I understand that the sex-ed curriculum has been changed and updated, and is now called Our Whole Lives. I haven't delved deeply into the Our Whole Lives program -- maybe it addresses some of the issues I'm about to describe.) So I think I'm in a good position to describe the problematic signals we face in liberal sexual education. Yes, I've experienced the overall sex-negative messages that drench America, and they're terrible -- but so much is already being said about those. I also received lots of sex-positive messages that are incomplete, or problematic, or don't quite go the distance in helping us navigate sexuality -- and I think the sex-positive movement must focus on fixing them. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_018460