Last week’s Zits columns were fantastic.  I have always liked Zits, and this is just one more example of how fabulous this column is.  On Monday, we saw Jeremy and his girlfriend kissing.  Jeremy is a bit…over-enthusiastic:

On Tuesday, Jeremy’s girlfriend comes to talk with him about the quality of their kissing relationship.  She manages this in an open, honest, if somewhat awkward way.  We should all  be as straightforward as Sara is, when talking about this touching topic.  This is an example of a real girlfriend-to-boyfriend conversation about sexual activities that it would be good for more teenagers to see.

Sara moves on to trying to show Jeremy exactly what she means, and while it doesn’t work out exactly as she planned, she is utilizing a generally effective approach to teaching a partner a new approach to the physical aspect of their relationship:

Showing patience while remaining clear is so important…

And even more patience…

But sometimes it takes a good friend to make the point with a sledgehammer that a partner is not being able to make gently…

Letting our partners know what we like and don’t like sexually (including kissing) is important to a sexually fulfilling relationship, but not something many teenagers or adults often see examples of.  In media images and romance novels alike, the sex just seems to “work” without negotiation or verbal indicators.  In real life, there are often bumps, preferences that one’s partner isn’t aware of, and other mishaps that call out for a good, frank conversation.

But these conversations can be awkward, especially if you and your partner aren’t used to having them.  Moving through that awkwardness to a place where you can talk about your physical relationship is hard because based on the sexual relationships we have seen examples of we expect that if we really care about a person, our physical relationship will fall into place.  Which is, of course, silly.  People have very different sexual preferences, and there is no reason to assume that a partner knows or understands those preferences without at least strong hints, and potentially a conversation, with you.  Jeremy’s prior kissing partner may have really liked his wet, sucking technique.

Making that first move to telling your partner what you want more of and less of in your physical relationship can be the first step in creating an even more fulfilling sexual relationship.  But how do we learn to do this?

While I can have people role play these conversations all I want in my classes, seeing examples in comic strips, movies, music, advertisements, and all the other media images can have far more impact over the long run than several exercises in a classroom.

The problem is that almost everything worth talking about - certainly anything related to sex and sexuality - is probably nuanced.  Scare tactics are black and white.  So too much of the conversation is left out, and the wrong impression can be easily taken away.

The most recent version of this conversation is about a viral video created by Leicester Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership.  YouTube keeps taking the video down and it keeps getting put back up again, so here’s one version of it that’s currently available.  If it goes down again, you can go to the hey-babe website, click on the iPhone icon on the bottom of the screen, and watch the Hey Babe - Be Aware, Be Educated video.  And if you’re reading this via e-mail, come on over to my website and actually watch the video!

Now, a couple of things about this video.

First, the birth scene is totally stupid.  Anyone who has ever seen or participated in a birth knows that it takes a long time - it’s not something that suddenly happens on a field with a crowd of screaming people around, because most the screaming people would eventually get bored and wonder off and the rest would chill out.

Second, if the birth process is so horrible that young people are scared into using condoms, their beliefs about birth will be so mutated that if they ever decide they do want to give birth, they might be scared away from doing in naturally (i.e., in the way that is most healthful for both mother and baby).

Third, I’ve shown a lot of young people real birth videos.  Generally they’re pretty amazed by these real births that show loving, gentle births.  Generally they feel pretty firmly afterward that a birth is not something they want to experience any time soon - even if they acknowledge they might eventually want to.

I think it is highly telling that YouTube took this video down.  There are lots of real birth videos up on YouTube that are far more graphic than this one, but far less sensationalistic.  Here’s one example of a real, powerful birth video I often show in classes (it’s particularly cool because it shows the placenta being born towards the end):

Far more graphic, far less sensationalistic, and YouTube keeps it up.  Now, while I may or may not agree with YouTube on any given topic, I am solidly in their court on this one.  Sensationalistic education has got to go.

I remember in drug education in Middle School my class being told that if we took drugs, we would become addicted and die.  Apparently the teacher was under the very incorrect assumption that no one in the class had ever done drugs - or did not know anyone who had done drugs - because otherwise I hope he would have chosen his words more carefully.  We knew that smoking marijuana a couple of times, for example, did not a drug addict make.  The teacher did not bring nuance into his education - so since we knew some of his information to be plain wrong, we collectively ignored everything he had to say.

The same tendency towards absolutes and scare tactics can be true in sexuality education.  When young people hear that unprotected sex leads directly to pregnancy and STDs, they proceed to ignoring everything else the sex educator has to say because that sentence lacks nuance.  Rather, unprotected sex CAN always lead to pregnancy and STDs, but it does not always.  But every time you have unprotected sex might be the time that it does.  And are you willing to take that risk right now?

Birth can be an amazing and powerful experience.  It can also be a degrading and powerless experience.  Suggesting that for teen mothers birth is the second is short-sited and disrespectful.  I am disappointed that a group of my colleages thought this approach was a good idea.

Dear Students,

When you want to talk about some of the more delicate issues in your own sexuality or your children’s sexuality, it is fine for you to say that these issues actually belong to your friends or your friends’ children.  I’m really fine talking in those terms.  I will go out of my way to say “your friend” rather than “you.”  I know the pain that comes with feeling embarrassed or ashamed that you or your children made a certain choice, but you still need to know the answer to the question or talk through the next steps.

Regardless of whether you choose to own the actions as your own, I promise you that there have been other people who have come to me with the same issue, that I will not be shocked or think any less of you, your children, your lovers, or your would-be-lovers.  Mistakes and misjudgments happen everywhere, all the time, and the stature and grace with which you move forward is often far more telling than what happened in the first place.

But even though all of this is true, I will still know when we are talking about you and your loved ones versus the times when you really do have a question about a friend.  I will know from the shaking of your hands, the occasional leaked tear, the unbearable pain in your voice, and from when you say, “My friend doesn’t have any friends - none - who will listen to her or support her.  My friend just doesn’t know who to turn to.”

Some of you know we are playing a kind of a game, and we both enter into this conversation about your “friend” willingly to ease the discomfort.  Some of you really think you are fooling me, think that I believe your friend made these choices rather than you making them.

But you aren’t fooling me.

Because here’s the thing: Even knowing that you made these decisions, I still want you in my classroom and I still think the world of you.  In fact, I deeply respect the fact that you have been able to reach out for help, and I will do everything I can to help you move forward.

Love,

Karen

The Unitarian Universalist Church contacted me back in March to let me know about an up-coming advocacy event for comprehensive sexuality education.  After a number of e-mails, a delightful young woman agreed to write a post for me describing her experience with the training and the advocacy.  I hope you enjoy her story:
Hello! My name is Nicole. I’m a sixteen year old living in the Philadelphia area. For as long as I can remember I have been heavily involved with my Unitarian Universalist church. Recently, I’ve been able to act on an interest of mine which is sexuality studies and the existence of comprehensive sex education in the lives of today’s youth. I’m very happy to be writing this guest post and would like to thank Karen for the opportunity. If you have any questions feel free to contact me or check out the links included below.

In late 2008, with the support of my parents and minister, I applied for the Sexuality Education Advocacy Training program. I was accepted and in March, it was with excitement that I (with an adult from my own Unitarian Universalist church) found myself in a group of about forty other people, including staff members (from Advocates for Youth, Unitarian Universalist Association, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Youth, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and United Church of Christ), varying in age, faith, sexuality, and background. Together we, the participants of the fifth installment of Sexuality Education Advocacy Training (SEAT), created a community of individuals with a faith based passion for comprehensive sexuality education. The program, spanning over four days, worked to build the skills so that we, youth, young adults, and adults, could become more eloquent, effective, and prepared advocates for comprehensive sexuality education. The third day was the highlight of the experience, when we went to Capitol Hill for lobby visits with senators and congressional representatives, an experience that was new to myself and many others at SEAT.

Backing up a bit now; I come to SEAT from a Unitarian Universalist background. About a dozen years ago, when I was four, my parents started to attend the UU church in Media, PA and we haven’t left since. Our faith and our church community are deeply embedded in our lives. My mother, Rina, is the administrator at our church and my father teaches Religious Education regularly. When I was in fifth grade, I experienced the Our Whole Lives (OWL) program for the first time. OWL is a comprehensive, age appropriate sexuality education program developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ. I don’t remember much specifically from fifth grade OWL, but later when I was in seventh grade it was an experience that really struck me as something remarkable.

During the 7th grade OWL program, my classmates and I were distracted by the astonishing fact that we were getting our sex ed at church, two things that in the outside world seemed incompatible. As the program continued, I began to really appreciate what I was being given. My contemporaries outside of OWL weren’t being given knowledge so freely and in a responsible, caring environment. With my church group, I was going on field trips to Planned Parenthood, while my school friends were struggling to figure out the whole sex thing all on their own.

It was then I realized that not everyone is freely and eagerly provided information about the changes in their lives as I was in OWL. I was profoundly lucky. Once sex ed began in school, I found that I disagreed with a lot that was said in classes and noticed that some topics weren’t cover in my public school’s health class. In fact, the whole subject of sex didn’t seem to come up in class, instead sexually transmitted diseases and viruses seemed to be the focus and limit of the curriculum. This serious gap in knowledge began to bother me. As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person and the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. My OWL experience taught me that sexuality is an inherent part of life. It is those three truths, from my faith and from my experience in comprehensive sexuality education, that leads me to my passion for making education on sexuality more readily available and to do whatever I can to help with the current dissatisfactory sex education system found in many schools today I’ve had such a positive experience at my church with OWL that I even elected to assist kindergarten and grade one OWL when the number of trained teachers was limited within our church. So, when the notice about the Sexuality Education Advocacy Training program, SEAT, came across my mom’s desk on the way to the church bulletin board, she sent the information along to me.

SEAT was a great experience; it was a really dynamic group of people caring about comprehensive sexuality education from a religious stand point.  While some attendants were Unitarian Universalist like myself, there were other youth, young adults, and adults from United Church of Christ and Reform Judaism communities. Our faiths were represented not only in the attendants, but also in how we spent our time. Saturday night, we participated in a Havdalla service, marking the symbolic end of Shabbat. The following Sunday we went to a UU church to hear a sermon from the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Sunday’s service theme was comprehensive sexuality education advocacy, helping to bring our faith to lobbying the next day. After the service, we got a chance to talk with a leader from each faith, getting their thoughts on how religion and sexuality education can work together instead of be incompatible, like so many of those speaking loudly for abstinence-only education may say.

Much of our time was spent doing identity, sexuality education, and anti-racism/anti-oppression workshops that helped to reinforce our belief in the importance of comprehensive sexuality education in schools. My favorite was on the very first night, we all did a “Circles of Sexuality” activity, which for me served as a reminder what comprehensive means. The idea of holistic sexuality, under the sex ed programs we are talking about, includes five categories – reproduction, sensuality, intimacy, sexual identity, and sexualization. After being given descriptions of each category, each participant received a card with activities written on them like: “reading a book about sexuality”, “going to the gynecologist for the first time”, “dressing up for sex play”, and “outing someone to their friends and family.” We were invited to place our card with the section we felt it belonged to. Later, as we reviewed where all the cards were placed we were allowed to remove and replace a card we felt strongly about – inviting conversation about how interconnected aspects of sexuality actually are.

All of our work through the weekend was moving towards preparing us for lobbying Monday, actually advocating for comprehensive sexuality education and the Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act on Capitol Hill with our senators and congressional representatives. The REAL act would create a federal funding stream for comprehensive sex education for the first time. Highlights of the program include that it would be age-appropriate, medically accurate, secular, and would stress the value of abstinence while acknowledging that some people choose to be sexually active in their youth. Programs federally funded through the REAL Act also would provide honest information about contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases while encouraging family communication about sexuality.

Lobbying was a new experience for many of the attendants, myself included. I was nervous about my appointments, but was surprised how easily they went, especially with the support system that was built over the weekend. Sunday night, after our group lobby preparation, I hunkered down and started writing my speech for my appointments. We were advised to lobby from our personal experience. I choose to approach it from my experience in OWL. I also talked with the staff people about the contrast between a comprehensive sex education and what my school friends were receiving. I was also able to express because of my experience as a teaching assistant in the Kindergarten/Grade 1 OWL what age-appropriate sex education means – for instance, we are definitely not teaching young children how to have sex. Lobbying from my heart and my own history helped make Monday’s appointments go smoothly. I strongly recommend that anyone with a passion for an issue lobbies their representatives.

SEAT is continuing to affect my life, even after the event. Soon after coming home, I met with the Reverend Peter Friedrichs, my congregation’s minister. We discussed possibilities for bringing my experience at SEAT back to our community. I feel that there are many people within my church and in the general community who would be interested in the topic and may be less informed than they’d like. This fall, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County will be hosting an event modeled after SEAT with the hopes of inspiring, educating, and motivating people in my community to advocate for comprehensive sexuality education. While I am daunted at the idea of spearheading such an event, I am proud and excited to be given the opportunity to work on something that I am truly passionate about.

Thank you.

There has been a lot of talk recently about how Toronto teenagers want more sex education.  They’re asking for it all over the place, apparently, given the number of excited newspapers and blogs who are going on at length about it.  And don’t get me wrong - I am so glad that adults are listening to teenagers, hearing their interests, and responding.  But education doesn’t generally work like that.  We generally don’t sit around waiting for children to decide en masse that they are interested in learning algebra before we realize the importance of teaching the language of representational math.  Sure, if a particular person is interested in something, that’s often a great time to sit down with them and teach it.

But we should not teach sex education because teenagers want it.

We must teach sex education regardless of teenagers’ opinion.

If the country decides to include sex education in our standard curriculum because of teenagers’ expressed interest in sex education, it follows that if teenagers loose interest in the topic, we should stop teaching it.

There is clear pedagogical reasoning for teaching a complete, comprehensive sex education curriculum starting in middle school (younger in some places).  I am frustrated that rather than tending to the logic behind it, the press is being swayed by some research results.  (Again: Please don’t misunderstand me, if someone is asking for information, particularly about sex and sexuality, it clearly needs to be given.  But this is just not the reason to do it on a massive scale.  There are far better reasons for that.)

Two weekends ago I turned 30.  My darling husband threw me quite the party, I went out dancing with friends after, and we started a major art project in our front yard.  Quite the perfect weekend, for me.

Since then, I have been ruminating on age and on these milestones.  I was talking with a dear friend who also turned 30 this year, and I asked her if she thought 30 had significance.  She said it only had the significance we gave it.  Which made me think, at first, that she did not give it any significance.  But when I asked, she said turning 30 did hold importance to her.  We got distracted at that point, and did not go into detail on how turning 30 had changed or influenced either of our approaches to life.

Because 30 does hold significance for me.  Just as 13, 16, 18, 21, and 25 all held significance for me.  I enjoy getting older, seeing what’s next in life.  Children and teenagers often relish getting older because they know what they are waiting for - permission to drive, smoke, vote, date, drink alcohol, high school, college, etc.  Adults often don’t have the same kinds of activities they are putting off until they are a certain age (retirement aside), and so we can loose the joy of aging and birthdays.  But the next year always does hold new things - perhaps not as obviously as driving or college, but interesting and important in their own right.

This year I am relishing being 30 - and 31 is looking pretty good from here too.  My children start planning next year’s birthday party as soon as this year’s is over.  I find myself doing the same thing - next year instead of inviting 100 people over to do a massive art project, I think I’ll do an intimate dinner with just a few very close friends.  It might still be followed by dancing, but only because I’m a sucker for dancing in the same way my oldest daughter is a sucker for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

Every day, regardless of your age, is just one single day.  And as the only day you have today, it is the most important day in your life whether you are 15 or 50.  Or even 37.  So enjoy it!

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed John Styn about his project Hug Nation.  One of  the points we talked about was how critical physical contact is to us humans – in particular how important hugging is. Then yesterday, the New York Times published an article on teenage hug culture: For Teenagers, Hello Means “How About A Hug”.  I find the article to be a banal conversation on the subject that doesn’t honor or respect teenagers as a group or as individuals and glosses over the serious issue of sexual harassment and the need for appropriate responses to sexual harassment.

I read the following portion of the Times article out loud to my husband this morning:

Parents, who grew up in a generation more likely to use the handshake, the low-five or the high-five, are often baffled by the close physical contact. “It’s a wordless custom, from what I’ve observed,” wrote Beth J. Harpaz, the mother of two boys, 11 and 16, and a parenting columnist for The Associated Press, in a new book, “13 Is the New 18.”

“And there doesn’t seem to be any other overt way in which they acknowledge knowing each other,” she continued, describing the scene at her older son’s school in Manhattan. “No hi, no smile, no wave, no high-five — just the hug. Witnessing this interaction always makes me feel like I am a tourist in a country where I do not know the customs and cannot speak the language.”

And his reaction: “Right…because she isn’t a teenager…she doesn’t know their customs…where’s the confusion there?”

Teenagers often have different customs from their parents’ generation.  This is relatively well established - and I’m not sure why anyone is surprised that hugging patterns are different in the same way that musical tastes, media usage, clothing, or after school activities are different.

There seems to be in the Times article and the parents and administrators they interviewed a distaste for teenagers hugging.  There are hugging bans and three second rules in schools across the country.  The dramatic inappropriateness of these rules astounds me.  Teenagers need physical contact in the same way that everyone else of every age needs it – but American teenagers are in an awkward middle ground between getting that physical contact mostly from their parents and getting it mostly from their sexual partners.  And this awkward distance at a time when hormones are raging and they are just truly beginning to acknowledge the pleasure of touch.

The argument for these rules, of course, is sexual harassment, peer pressure, and other ways that hugging can be used against someone rather than in support of them.  Here’s a quote from the Times to prove just that:

“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.

But let’s be honest: Teenagers notice when someone stands out from the group norm.  Maybe it’s because of their clothing, their interests, the way they walk, or the way they hug.  But in fact, we all notice when there is a social norm that someone is not adhering to, regardless of our age, and generally our reaction is surprise - we might even think they’re weird or peculiar.  Perhaps, for example, my male friend in his 30’s (40’s maybe?) with two kids, a mohawk, and a kilt.  People notice him, and I’m guessing they often think he is odd or unusual.  Because he is.  Or what about this new cheek kissing trend that has swept through my community?  The first time a friend’s husband kissed my cheek, I was completely thrown.  Now I walk around kissing cheeks like I’ve been doing it my whole life.  It’s a social nicety that I’ve come to accept and even like.  There will always be social niceties and norms that some people aren’t comfortable and don’t like – and these people will always stand out, regardless of what the norm is.

This is not, of course, to suggest that someone should give a hug or a cheek kiss if they don’t feel comfortable with it.  That social pressure is sexual harassment, and is inappropriate and damaging.

But banning hugs is not in any way a stand-in for sexual harassment education.  Sexual harassment education is a nuanced, in-depth process that takes time and attention.  I recently wrote about sexual harassment education.  I teach sexual harassment education.  Making hugging off limits is not sexual harassment education, and does nothing to limit sexual harassment behind the teachers’ backs or at the grocery store or online or anywhere else where it is so prevalent.  It is not a way to address the problem.

At the end of the Times article, as it seems with all articles about youth these days, we must return to the digital world:

As much as hugging is a physical gesture, it has migrated online as well. Facebook applications allowing friends to send hugs have tens of thousands of fans. Katie Dea, the San Francisco eighth grader, as well as Olivia Brown, 11, who lives in Manhattan and is the younger sister of Gabrielle, the LaGuardia High freshman, have a new sign-off for their text and e-mail messages: *hug.*

While the Times article didn’t mention John’s Hug Nation, the digital connection is clear.  I wonder if the reporter would be surprised to find that John’s community is primarily not teenagers?  I wonder if the Times reporter found many people who are older than teenagers who have very similar hug-cultures in their work places, schools, churches, and other communities?  Because in addition to a clear lack of understanding, experience, or knowledge about the developmental needs of adolescents and appropriate sexual harassment education, this article reeks of ageism.

Some weeks ago, I wrote a little post where I outlined three topics I wanted to revisit in longer posts, but didn’t have the time at that exact moment to write about.  This weekend, someone called me on it and demanded that I write about sexual harassment in middle schools.  (Okay, demanded is extremely harsh - actually Figleaf asked very politely if I still intended to cover the topic, and if not, if I would mind a link to that little blurb.)  So here, finally, is that more extensive post I’ve been meaning to write for some time now.

Here is what I wrote before:

Sexual harassment is prevalent in many middle and high schools - maybe even most of them.  But in two recent classes I led on the topic, the students started off believing that sexual harassment was not present in their schools.  Then I started asking what they thought sexual harassment was, and we talked in depth about specific examples of what constitutes sexual harassment.  By the end of the conversations, all of the students in both classes had reassessed their schools, to say sexual harassment was highly prevalent.  It seems that many young people know that sexual harassment is bad, but they don’t know what it really is, they don’t know why it is a problem, and they don’t know what to do about it when they do see it.  There needs to be major education on this topic that just isn’t happening in many of our schools - and I think I know why it isn’t happening.

Now let’s go into some more depth.  Sexual harassment is really, really hard to talk about.  The stories are painful.  They are intense.  And they are critical to a deep conversation about sexual harassment.  There are a number of key elements to making a class about sexual harassment work that are often lacking in school settings:

1. It takes a class of students who are used to talking about sex and sexual issues with openly with their teacher.  This conversation cannot happen if anyone in the room shirks at using words like “grinding his hips” or “making faces like she’s giving a blow job” and other specific descriptions of sexual harassing behaviors.  But these descriptors are critical to an open conversation about sexual harassment.  Some of my students have told me that their teachers can’t bring themselves to say the words “sex” or “oral” or even “making out.”  If students feel that their teachers (or their parents) aren’t able to use the basic words to broach this topic, the students will certainly not feel comfortable going into the more painful corners of it.
2. Similarly, the students need to be aware of and had decent conversations about stereotypes and assumptions about gender and sexual orientation with their teacher in order to understand and appropriately critique some behavior as sexually harassing.  One example given in a recent class about a boy who taped a tampon to the back of a gay, male teacher.  The students were not initially clear on why this was sexual harassment - but we were able to quickly have a conversation about the perpetrator’s unspoken statement that gay men need female hygiene products because they’re girlie - and they fully understood.  If we had needed to backtrack to the basics of sexual orientation, that point would have taken far more time and the class might have not been able to move much further.
3. The teacher has to be able to hear the painful stories of the students in the class - both from students who have been sexually harassed and those who have committed the sexual harassment - and respond with love and support to both.  A lack of education about sexual harassment is certainly no excuse to do it - and yet in order to learn how to modify one’s own behavior, a young person must feel that they are accepted and supported in this process rather than demonized as “bad.”

There are teachers who can do these things - but they are few and far between.  It is certainly not your average health teacher/coach whose training is mostly in football or volleyball who can manage to create a loving, supportive environment to talk about touchy issues and at the same time call students out on their inappropriate, sexually harassing behaviors.

Over the past weeks, I keep going back to my students not knowing what sexual harassment is.  I wondered about this for some time, baffled about why they were so unclear.

I think we are essentially back to language issues again, with this lack of knowledge about sexual harassment.  My students - by and large - classified rape as non-consensual penetration.  They - by and large - classified sexual harassment as non-consensual sexual contact like slapping someone’s butt or grabbing their breasts or groin area.  But they tended to think that the hands-off, language or body signal based, sexualizing behaviors were bad, of course, but they classified them more as annoying or gross rather than sexually harassing.

And I spent these past weeks looking at my own young daughters and hoping that they will know what sexual harassment is.  Then, several days ago I was reading my 7 year old daughter a chapter out of a Ramona book where Ramona chases a classmate around the playground trying to kiss him.  He runs from her - it’s a game, or at least it’s presented as a game.  My daughter certainly understood it as a game.  So, being the mother that I am, I stopped reading and we had a long talk about why Ramona really needed to stop running after Davey - that continuing to try and kiss someone who has made it clear that they don’t want to kiss you is wrong.  That Davey could have stopped running and told Ramona to leave him alone rather than playing her game.  That there are better ways to play with someone who you like and want to be friends with.  We came up with ideas about other ways Ramona might have approached Davey.  I hope my daughter heard me.

Sex is far too often treated as a game in our society - in our stories, our media, our music.  And when it’s seven year olds at play, it is a game.  But if they learn one set of rules at seven, and then no one comes along and tells them explicitly that the rules have changed by the time they’re thirteen, it’s not all that surprising that they don’t know.  And frankly two sets of rules is a pretty big waste of time - why don’t we just teach our children the good set of rules from the time they’re little?

After these classes, the students were a bit shell shocked.  They felt a bit at-sea on how to deal with these issues.  Because these students are, of course, in schools where they now have far more information and knowledge about sex in general and sexual harassment in particular, they do not feel that they have the administrative or peer support to make any kind of real difference.  In fact, most of them feel that if they stand up every time against sexual harassment, they will be ostracised by their peers and severely punished in their social lives.  I deeply empathize with their dilemma.

After these classes on sexual harassment I saw a more poignant need for high quality, extensive sex education in schools than I ever have before.  While yes, it is critical to have the information about reproduction and condoms and STDs available to students, those topics are in no way the end-goal of comprehensive sex education.  They are critical stepping stones to more, just as life-saving and life-changing topics like sexual harassment and acquaintance rape.

On Wednesday I described an assignment I give to my college Human Sexuality students where they create a media image that incorporates positive sexuality.  I am posting three best projects from my class this semester.  On Wednesday, I posted about the blog Avant Garde Bodies, yesterday I put up sexy advertisements that showed real women’s bodies.  Today, another blog.  This is blog truly shines as an interesting, interactive media image of positive sexuality and body image.  Even if you skip my description of the blog and Claudia’s explanation and motivation behind it, you should not miss this blog!

Claudia Garate created True Beauty - it’s perfectly imperfect as a gathering place for images, poems, quotes, and writings on true beauty and sexuality.  She has this to say about the creation of her blog:

I chose to create this blog for my project on true beauty because everywhere we look there is something telling us how to be beautiful: get shinier hair, softer skin, leaner legs, a harder stomach. Wear this, wear that, eat this, don’t eat that. Get whiter teeth, firmer breasts, longer eyelashes, less wrinkles. It seems like our society has created a pill or product for every part of our bodies to “better” it, which consequently only REALLY tells us that, as we are, we are NOT good enough. It baffles me when I look around at the people I love and while the grand majority of them don’t look like those on magazines, they are absolutely beautiful exactly as they are because in the end, THEY ARE. Beauty is not black and white, despite the Media’s attempts to make it seem that way. Nothing in life is black and white and everything comes down to perspective, just as beauty does. We all see beauty in different things, which in the end only translates into the fact that everything is beautiful, it’s just a matter of perception. I decided to get the word out starting from my friends and family around the world and slowly started networking to people everywhere who were kind enough to send me their picture and what beauty and/or sexiness means to them. Overall, people have really loved thinking about it and writing about it because through that action they realize this truth; I have really enjoyed reading what everyone has to say. We are all different and we all see things differently, but we are all beautiful. We are all perfectly imperfect and that’s what I wanted to show through my blog. What makes a person beautiful isn’t how they look, but how they ARE and what they do. The media always tries to tear that down and get into our heads to sell more and more unnecessary products and I’ll be the first one to admit that as much as I stay away from it, I can get sucked in. This is not the right message to send to our children and it is not the right message to live by.  We see beauty in those we love and “love is blind”– we just have to do a little math and realize that beauty is also blind and it is everywhere.

The posts are all reader-submitted, and they range from only words:

“Sexy is…something about the fact that he thinks about energy saving and global warming makes me attracted to him!- Global consciousness is sexy.” -NS

to images:

But it is the posts that integrate images and words that are the most powerful:

One of the most beautiful souls I know: She always has a smile on her face and love to share with everyone around, hugs aplenty. Her beauty grew exponentially when she took that love and went to the darkest corners of the world, to share the beauty, immerse herself in their beauty, and spread more love.

Yesterday I introduced a project I use in my college level human sexuality classes where students learn how to analyze media images for their sexual content (and the quality of that content) and then create a media image of their own.

The second project is from Heather Haygood.  She created sexy advertisements for gum and condoms that incorporated normal, unmodified bodies.  These are good, sexy pictures.  I have no idea why we can’t see bodies like this in actual advertisements from Trojan or anyone else.  Here is Heather’s introduction to her project:

The motivating factor behind me making my project as I did; actually started with a conversation I had with my boyfriend about 2 months ago. I don’t remember to much of the conversation but we were talking about how girls look in magazines and things of that nature, and what stood out about this is that he, (a mid 20’s male) pointed out to me how disappointed he was with what was being shown to the world and how it isn’t fair to men to have pictures of women who are photo-shopped and made to look completely flawless shoved in their face everywhere they turn (I was so proud). So I wanted to portray a sexual advertisement where the women look like real women; it’s shown that the men find them attractive; even though they aren’t the pin-up sultry seductresses we typically see. We can’t all be 100 pounds, flawless and skin and bones, because if we did, we wouldn’t have much variety to choose from when it comes to searching for a mate. And even w/ my friend who is pretty skinny, if this was a “professional” high end photo shoot, there would have been many things edited about her pictures, but why? There’s no need. She’s beautiful. We all are, flaws and all, it’s what makes us who we are; it’s what makes us unique.

And here are three of Heather’s pictures: