Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

This weekend’s edition of This American Life is a must-listen for anyone with kids or teenagers or anyone who ever interacts with kids or teenagers. Here’s what they talk about:

A raunchy comedian gets booked on a tour…of kids’ sleep-away camps. A middle-aged woman grapples with right and wrong in talking to her teenage daughter about her sexuality. Plus, other stories of adults trying to learn the language of children.

They start out talking with kids about inept adults’ attempts at starting conversations. Scroll down below the picture, and there’s a link for a free download of the episode.

Go take a listen, and then come back and let us know what you think - good and bad - in the comments.

This is just too funny! The original site has the image animated - which is, of course, even funnier.

Zits is my favorite comic strip. Scott and Borgman seem to be able to tap into something about teenagers that appeals to both parents and teens - something very difficult to do. This one is from last Thursday, August 23rd.

On an off-topic note, tonight is the full moon. Step outside and enjoy it with the ones you love.

Yep, here’s a real treat folks. Marvel Comics and Planned Parenthood teamed up in 1976 to publish a comic book on safe sex. The villain is an alien who wants teenagers to pop out babies so he can steal them and take them back to his home planet as slaves. To further his plan, the villain teaches the teenagers of American falsehoods about pregnancy and pregnancy prevention, lulling them into having rampant, unprotected sex. Here’s the villain providing sufficient exposition for the purposes of the story:

Spider-Man manages to save the day just in the nick of time, taking out a whole slew of guards and the evil alien to boot.

The comic is followed by a delightful page that tells the readers about pregnancy, VD (when did they stop using that term?), masturbation, and homosexuality. Only some of the information is still good information – but I suspect this comic had the potential to positively influence young boys in the 70’s.

But really, it’s worth reading all the way through this 18-page gem on Andrew Fargo’s blog.

Thanks to Radikelsey at Fun with Feminism for the link.