Queering Sex Ed

Queering Sex Ed

By: Rachel Lewis

WGSS 2000

If you grew up in the United States, you probably experienced sex education around the age of 10 or 11. You were young; your body was probably starting to go through changes that you didn’t understand very well. You may have been growing darker hair in new places; you noticed that you smelled worse than usual after a long day on the playground, or that little blemishes would pop up on your once perfectly soft skin. You may have started to be more aware of your other classmate’s bodies as well, opposite sex or otherwise.

When your teacher finally brought up sex education (you knew it was going to happen this year because your older friends tell you), everyone in the class would get jittery. You would then be separated into two separate rooms that divide the boys and the girls. Our teachers then proceeded to teach us about what sex was; a penis goes into a vagina, the penis ejaculates, and a baby is made. They may have discussed the reproductive system briefly, or the differences between boys and girls. This type of teaching is a perfect example of heterosexism: the assumption that all relationships between romantic partners are inherently straight, therefore asserting that heterosexuality is superior to other sexualities because it is the norm. When children are taught that the only way for people to express love for one another through a heterosexual union, they begin to normalize heterosexuality without being able to critically question what love and sex can mean to them on a personal level. By trying a less heteronormative approach to sex education, we allow our children the opportunity to let feelings and urges come from natural places. Denormalizing straight sex would ultimately be more inclusive to children who believe that they are queer, transgender, asexual, etc.

While a majority of the population reports that they are straight, there are still many youths who fall somewhere on the LGBT spectrum. These children are taught that sex is only okay one way, in school or at home. By offering queer sex education to all students, queer kids will not only be able to understand themselves better, but those who do not identify as queer are able to learn about areas of love and sexuality that they may have never been exposed to. According to Teen Health Source, queer sex education would have multiple requirements: inclusive, sex positive, accessible, cis, trans* and asexual inclusive, youth positive, body positive, empowering rather than same-based, and one that accounts for pleasure. With at least 3 states requiring that all forms of “gay” behavior be taught as illegal, immoral, or a hazard to your health, we definitely have a long way to go to queer sex education.

Some may argue that 10-11 years old is “too young” to teach children about safe sex. According to Planned Parenthood, however, young teens that have healthy conversations about sex with their parents are more likely to delay having sex, have fewer sexual partners, and are more likely to use protection. Young children become curious about their bodies, and this curiosity is something that we should nurture.

I for one remember finding little dark hairs under my armpits one day and thinking to myself, “am I turning into a boy?” I had never seen a woman with hair under her armpits before. This shouldn’t be shocking; every single portrayal of women in the media I was exposed to was an image of an airbrushed model with perfect hair/skin/nails. I had never even seen a woman with a lot hair anywhere on her body except her head. I knew what shaving was, but I thought only your legs got hairy, and that in order to be a girl you had to have smooth legs. My leg hair became me worst enemy, then my armpit hair, and finally, my pubic hair. I hated the pubes the most; they were dirty, and I wanted my vagina to be hairless because the notion of hair did not sit well with those I chose to surround myself with. It took me a long time to make the connection that that hair grows naturally, and did not grow for the purpose of me shaving it off. When I finally broke out of that spell of shaving, I remember feeling wind through my leg hair for the first time.

 

 

 

WORKS CITED

 

"Queering Sexual Education." TeenHealthSourcecom Queering Sexual Education Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

 

 "Talking to Kids About Sex and Sexuality." Talking to Kids About Sex and Sexuality. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015WO

Let's "Talk" About Sex, Baby: an Open Letter to My High School Health Class

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby: An Open Letter To My High School Health Class

PART ONE

By: Hayley Michelle Trachtenberg

WGSS 2000

Dear High School Health Class,

So... sex.

I think its time we talk about it.

Actually talk about it.

I know that you think you did, in the 5 weeks we spent together, but in all honesty you have only proven one thing to be true, and that is the fact that "cooties" are real. 

I know you think you have taught me well, and in all honesty, I do know a lot about "cooties". I know that they come in different shapes, sizes, colors, discharges, and other such nasty stuff. I know that they are transferred from sexual interactions, and that the easiest solution to avoiding the infection is to NEVER HAVE ANY SEXUAL INTERACTIONS (*the potential for "cooties" expires  on your wedding night).

However, now that I am free from your class room clutches; I'm a bit smarter than 9th grade me. For starters, I know that STD's/STI's are just a circle, circle, dot-dot-dot away from a vaccination shot (or two) and bahm! You're good to go. Although there are some serious infections, not all of them are deadly and life ruining. In fact, they're more common than I even thought so. And not every sexual encounter is going to lead to herpes. There is such a thing called safe sex. Condoms and other such precautions can be taken to prevent the contraction of "cooties". And, to your dismay, I discovered your dirty little secret:

SEX. IS. GREAT.

Ya. You forgot to mention that part. You could have fit it in somewhere between telling me about the inevitability of pregnancy and the poorly drawn pictures of vaginas.

 Fun fact: vagina's are more than two fallopian tubes and an oddly shaped funnel.

I'm actually a bit shocked that it took me so long to figure out what a vagina really is. I mean, I have one, you'd think I'd know something about it. But you taught me nothing of my own body. The male body, however, I can tell you a lot about. There's the head, the prostate gland, and don't even get me started on testicles! Why, there are nearly 4,000 nerve glands on the penis, with 20,000 nerve endings on the foreskin.

What they don't tell you is that the clitoris has nearly twice the amount of nerve endings than the penis. There are over 15,000 nerve endings in the pelvic area alone. There are labia's and hymens: and they're all different. I didn't learn that until my second semester in college.

And there are still so many things that I don't know about sex!!!

I was always under the assumption that you were supposed to teach me about sex, but I'm not sure if you understand the terms "teach" or "sex".

So sit back and relax high school sex ed; class is about to be in session, and you're about to be schooled.

LESSON #1

Health class, I know that you have to deal with squealing teenagers on the daily basis: but one thing you need to take a handle on is graphic images. During my time spent with you, you were extremely cautious when it came to showing me the outline of a penis. However, when it came to showing me the last two hours of a live natural drug-free birth you were fine with forcing us to look. Health class, you can't scare us out of sex. The anatomy section was.... interesting, but you only looked at it through a purely reproductive lens. As the poor gym teacher teaching your class may or may not know: sex can be for more than baby making.

Therefore, I propose a compromise, health class.

Show me your slides about the ovaries, but don't forget the vulva, and the lips, and the clitoris (please, don't ignore the clitoris). It might help your students to show them what their bodies actually look like.

Websites like www.scarleteen.com/ are picking up where you left off: showing anatomically correct images as well as pleasurably correct images. Its called scarletTEEN for a reason.

Health class: use it.

LESSON #2


Speaking of teens, let's talk pregnancy. (smooth transition…I know). But in all honesty. Teen pregnancy is an issue, which I know is a problem you love to talk about. However, what you don't talk about is that the number of teen pregnancy is significantly lower in places where sex ed is comprehensive. It was a whopping 50% LOWER adolecent pregnancy rate than places that only taught abstinence. And in places that normally don't teach abstinance are places where the demographics are young, black, and in poor rural areas. The more comprehensive classes are for the predominantly white and middle/upper-class areas. I came from one of those classrooms, and look how I turned out. Not pregnant, but still not better off…

Point is: you have a problem. We need to start teaching comprehensive sex ed everywhere, and we need to improve it.

LESSON #3

Sex education is important. One year in the 9th grade is not enough to learn about the body you've have for the past 14 years of your life. For years you've been the butt of the joke with films that star Haley Joel Osment, and enough is enough.

If you start taking yourself seriously, than maybe your students will too.

And just to be clear: serious does not mean scary. You can't just talk about deseases, the pains of pregnancy, and the horrors of puberty. Sex is a lot more than that. But also don't ignore it. It's important to know the consequences, but it can't be that alone.

Talk about sex as it is.

Sex is awkward. Sex is fun. Sex is something people do because they want to.

Talk about consent.

Talk about the enthusiastic YES.

Talk about the fact that all bodies are different.

Talk about the fact that the first time won't be anything like the weird porn you watch.

Talk about the fact that it will get better, if you get better.

Talk about the consequences of not practicing safe sex.

Talk about STD's.

Talk about where to go if you think you have an STD.

Talk about how it's not the end of the world if you get an STD and get help.

Talk about responsible sex.

Talk about pleasurable sex.

Talk about sex.

Talk.  

Sincerely, 

A girl who knows a lot more about sex than either you or I thought

WORKS CITED

Corinna, Heather. "With Pleasure: A View of Whole Sexual Anatomy for Every Body." http://www.scarleteen.com. N.p., 22 Dec. 2009. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodies/with_pleasure_a_view_of_whole_sexual_anatomy_for_every_body>.

"National Data Shows Comprehensive Sex Education Better at Reducing Teen Pregnancy than Abstinence-Only Programs."http://www.siecus.org/. N.p., 200. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=feature.showfeature&featureid=1041&pageid=682&parentid=478>.

Cultural Implications of Sex Ed: What are they really telling us?

Sex Ed 101: Be a Virgin

by Carli Rosati
WGSS 2000

I think we can all remember our sex education classes – not that there was really anything remarkable to remember. However, if there is one thing that stuck out is this idea of abstinence only education. While this is problematic within itself because it does not give the kind of education that teens really need, it also creates an attitude that is rather obsessed with the concept of virginity. Are you a girl? Yes. Are you married? No. Then you should be a virgin.

So what exactly is this obsession with virginity? Why should teens abstain from sex until married? Well, for girls, it’s going to be painful. Girls are not going to get any type of pleasure from it. In fact, it’s just going to be a bloody mess because your hymen will break. And really, is that an experience a girl should just share with anyone she find attractive? This is going to be a life-changing experience – going in a girl and coming out a woman. Sex should be saved for the right time unless you want to live a life of the morally corrupt.

There is a tremendous amount of consumerism that comes into play with this whole obsession with virgins. Feeney outlines how weddings are based on this idea of virginity: a white dress, a fancy ring. Women even go to the extent to get hymenoplasties, so that they can relive the experience of being a “virgin” on their wedding night with their husbands. There is a huge market on packets of red dye that can be inserted in the vagina to mimic the blood a virgin “ should” have.

These are the myths that are perpetuated in every facet of girls’ lives, and especially within the classroom. Do these even hold up? In Living Myths about Virginity from the Atlantic, Nolan Feeney debunks these myths. Sex does not always hurt. Actually, fewer than half of women bleed during their first time having sex. This myth about the pain associated with the hymen is so deeply engrained that sometimes even gynecologists have a strong misunderstanding about this thin layer of skin.

So what is sex like? Well, it varies. There is really no blanket statement to sum up how all women with different partners and different attitudes towards sex will experience their first time.

The bigger question is: What even is sex? Of course, in the classroom, they only discuss penis-in-vagina, vanilla, cis-gendered, heterosexual sex. But what about all the other ways people have sex without “actually” having sex? What exactly can you do before you are technically not a virgin? What exactly can a girl do before she loses it?

Well the answer to this is: there is no answer. There is no explicit definition of virginity and what it means to lose it. What about oral sex? Anal sex? Or just getting really handsy with a partner? What about masturbation? What about if you are with the same sex? The lines become easily blurred.

Greta Christina discusses her journey on understanding what sex is. Christina has done everything you can imagine, and sometimes, she gained more pleasure from being purely intimate with someone rather than PIV intercourse. She has experimented with men, with women, in a peep show, at sex parties and she still has no idea what her “number” would even be.

One thing that is certain is the way in which this language of virginity puts extreme burdens on women. It is gendered, and really, it’s violent. Feeney outlines the way in which Green explains in her YouTube videos that this language of “she lost her virginity” or “he popped her cherry” is violent. It makes women the passive partner in this sexual relationship, with men having something to gain as being domineering. What message does this send us?

All this talk about virginity and the expectation of women definitely does not promote a sex-positive society for teenagers to explore sex in a happy and healthy way. The virginity complex perpetuates harmful and inaccurate myths. It causes a negative outlook for sex. It does not allow for a dialogue about pleasure. It does not allow for a dialogue about the queer community.

Sex is not something to be feared. Sex is natural. Sex is a choice. Virginity, in itself, is a myth. Let’s promote some positive, understanding and real conversations about things that matter: consent and pleasure.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/living-myths-about-virginity/283628/

Class Sources: Greta Christina “Are we having sex or what?”

Word Count: 751