Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne

I’m really not back on my feet again from the events in Tennessee on Sunday.  So today I am merely pointing you towards a great blog post: Violet Blue wrote a great piece yesterday on RH Reality Check to the next president on how to completely re-vamp sexuality education in America.  Here’s her down-and-dirty what-to-do for the next president:

1. Kill the abstinence programs. Period. Think of them as creationism in schools: optional to include in curricula but privately funded only. Fire the f- out of anyone with a religious agenda in a position of power in relation to public health. We are a nation of many faiths - most of which are not being served with this nonsense.
2. My best friend’s daughter is 5, and brags that she has a boyfriend. Craft programs that are age appropriate so kids understand what they’re doing every step of the way. Take a cue from England, where the Sex and Relationship Education program centers on “All About Us: Living and Growing” videos for 5-7-year-olds, 7-9-year-olds and 9-11-year-olds, with workbooks about healthy sexual relationships for kids (and adults) with learning disabilities.
3. Require all sex ed programs to include practical information about reproduction (including a woman’s right to choose and male responsibilities of parenthood), contraception, STDs and STIs, sexual pleasure, masturbation, consent, homosexuality, sexual tolerance, and gender identity. Kids are dealing with all this stuff; adults need to stop lying to themselves and have honest discourse with kids about it.
4. Set aside federal funding for a teen sex ed counselor to be on school staff at all times, exclusively for hotline-style accurate sex information, and completely confidential. Our kids’ health and futures depend on it. Require that they are tech- and Internet-savvy.
5. Create a task force to research and implement outreach programs that visit schools for presentations on relevant and current sexual issues. This could include the Gardasil vaccination (HPV shot), presentations on transgender issues, workshops on sexual consent, rape prevention and self-defense for girls, age-appropriate sex ed books, religious faith and sexuality, and sexual questions around - yes - political scandals

The entire post is really worth your time.

McCain Women’s Clinic

McCain Can’t Explain Voting Against Birth Control

I generally don’t venture into trouncing one campaign or another in this space. But - you knew there was going to be a but - I can’t go silent in this particular presidential election. John McCain has such a poor record when it comes to voting pro-women or pro-sexuality.

You’ve got to watch this short clip from CNN.

I’m stunned - stunned! - that McCain actually said he would rather not talk about or even think about about whether health insurance companies will pay for birth control. I mean, yah - me too and stuff. But I’m a woman, and I’m in my reproductive years, and so I have to. Just like millions and millions of teenagers and adults in this country.

This is an issue that cuts across age, race, and education. Fight for your daughter’s reproductive choice. Kick McCain to the curb.

I was delighted to read this article in such a “popular” magazine as Time:

Where the ‘Ladyboys’ Are

Monday, July 7th, 2008

By Hannah Beech

Life can be complicated enough for members of the transgender community — the last thing they need is to hesitate between two bathroom doors: Male or female. Luckily for students at the Kampang high school in rural northern Thailand, there’s now a third option. Introduced in May, the symbol on this bathroom door is of a human figure divided vertically, with the blue side wearing pants and the red side sporting a skirt. The Kampang school’s principal says he decided to build the new bathroom after a poll found that nearly 10% of the school’s 2,500 students identify themselves as transgendered.

Buddhist-majority Thailand displays what may be the world’s most tolerant attitude toward what locals call kathoey, loosely translated as “ladyboys.” The term, which does not have an exact counterpart in English, refers to people who are born male but, as one Thai saying goes, “have a female heart.” Kathoeys include everyone from occasional cross-dressers to those who have completed gender-reassignment surgery.

Although kathoeys do face some stigma and bureaucratic hurdles in Thailand — even those who have undergone sex-change operations, for example, are still listed as men on their national I.D. cards — they are also a normal and visible part of society. A Bangkok travel agency I use is staffed by kathoeys, and a cashier at my local grocery store is rapidly transitioning toward womanhood. One of the Immigration Department officers who helped me renew my work visa last year had both an adam’s-apple and lavish mascara. Kathoeys star on T.V. soap operas and grace the catwalks, while an all- kathoey pop group called the Venus Flytrap plies the airwaves. Notable kathoey athletes include a kickboxing champion, who liked to plant kisses on her vanquished opponents, and a volleyball team dubbed the Iron Ladies that won a national championship in the mid-90s.

The Kampang school isn’t the first one to accommodate its kathoey pupils. Several years ago, a technical college in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai unveiled what it called “pink lotus” bathrooms, reserved for kathoeys. Now, Thailand’s Education Ministry is considering whether to introduce similar bathrooms and dormitories on the university level, even though many colleges require “ladyboys” to wear male clothing on campus. (For the most part, kathoey students can, however, choose feminine hairstyles and wear jewelry, nail polish and makeup.)

Some kathoeys say they don’t need specially designated bathrooms, arguing they should be able to use either male or female toilets. Others would rather educational funds go to combating stereotypes that the only jobs kathoeys can expect to excel in are in the beauty or entertainment — read sex — industries. Certainly, career prejudice is a lingering problem: one Thai teachers’ college, for instance, refuses to enroll kathoeys. Nevertheless, Thailand is a far more open-minded place than even the United States. And the tolerance isn’t just a liberal, urban phenomenon. Kathoey beauty pageants are popular in Thai villages; the Kampang school is located in one of Thailand’s poorest and most rural regions. As one Thai hill-tribe creation myth goes, in the beginning, there were three sexes: female, male and an intertwining of the two — just like the image on the Kampang bathroom door.

Today I am thinking about the intensely personal nature of -isms.  Mostly about sexism and racism.

These are the two -isms that we talk about the most. Both of these -isms have been highly visible in the democratic primary.

I realized early on that I had a very personal, very emotional investment in Hillary Clinton. Politically speaking, I preferred others - but they were both white men. As a woman, I am consistently left out of phrases and writings (because “man” is not a gender-free word, and it does not include me). But I don’t talk about that much. I don’t know why, I just don’t. Maybe because I worry that if I voice concerns about gender and women being considered lesser, I’ll be considered self-serving or judgmental or…even worse…an overly-emotional female.  (Even as  I type this, I worry about these comments I can already see my readers’ fingers typing…)

Sigh.

So I don’t talk about gender much. And I didn’t even talk about gender and Clinton very much, even as it was clear that the media approached her campaign very differently than the mens’ campaigns.

Racism and sexism are insidious in America.  And I’m tired of it.  If president, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would do good things.  If president, both would make substantial in-roads against the inherent sexism or racism in America.  And that would be a good thing either way.

But I’m still deeply saddened that my two young daughters won’t grow up seeing a woman leading their country.

I have been thinking a lot about virginity recently.

A sex ed teacher recently asked me how I would respond to a 6th grade girl who asked for the definition of “virgin.” Does “virgin” apply to those who have done a wide range of sexual activities, but have not engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse? Or can “virgin” only apply to those who have not engaged in oral, anal, manual, or missionary-position, heterosexual sex? The essence of her question seemed to be, “Would Monica Lewinsky still be a virgin?” This teacher and her co-teacher disagreed on the answer to the Monica Lewinsky question, and they wanted my professional thoughts so they could present a unified front to the young girl who originally asked the question.

I essentially rejected the basis of the question.

This is a question I get a lot - I get it from parents, from children, from teenagers, from teachers, from grandparents, from non-parent-single-people. Everyone seems to want to know: What is a virgin?

But rather than answering, weighing in on this ridiculous point that carries such extreme emotional weight, I encourage the asker to look inwards and to try and identify why they want to know what sexual acts a virgin-no-longer-makes.

The answer is always this: “I want to know if _________ is still a virgin.” Please feel free to fill in the blank with whomever you so choose. Some of the more common fill-in-the-blank people include: me as I am, me as I once was, my best friend, my boyfriend, my child, my student, my grandchild.

And I scratch my head and ask: “Do you know what sexual acts they have done? Because if you don’t know, then having a definition of virginity won’t help you. If you do know, then why does it matter whether those acts can be defined as virginal?”

Or maybe they want to know the Official Definition for Virgin because one of those people told them “I am a virgin.” But if you have to head for a sex expert for the real definition of virgin, then the likelihood is that the person who said it didn’t know either. So it still won’t help if I give you the definitive definition.

And all of this conversation about virginity brings to mind the very yucky side of a strict definition of virginity, like hymenoplasty (hymen restoration surgery). Judith Warner wrote a fabulous piece about just this thing recently for the New York Times. Here is a quote:

“But there is nonetheless a kind of horror to [fathers who attend Purity Balls with their daughters] obsession with their daughters’ sexuality. There is a dangerous boundary violation contained in their vow “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.” And there is even greater danger to the fact that this particular aspect of the nationwide “abstinence movement” has not been broadly denounced as the form of emotional violence against girls that it indisputably is.”

Warner is basically saying, as I have said in circumspect ways to parents, teachers, teenagers: “Who gives a shit?”

Why do you or anyone else care who is a virgin? Why does this single word have so much power over you? I won’t define the word for you, because I reject the word itself. And so should you.

While I napped this afternoon, the most amazing thing happened…

It takes effect in 30 days.  Read more from the New York Times.  Or, perhaps more fittingly, the Los Angeles Times.

So there is a lot I want to write about today - The Education of Shelby Knox, which I saw last night and heard Shelby speak afterwards, the Miley Cyrus debacle, the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) who are working on the FLDS case, and the hearings on the effectiveness of abstinence-only-until-marriage “sex education” to name four of the top of my head. Regrettably, time is short and my children are sick. So I am going to restrain myself to raving about The Education of Shelby Knox. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow (or the next day, or the next) for the rest. But never fear, gentle readers, I will get to all these pressing topics soon!

The Education of Shelby Knox chronicles a high school student’s search for religious truth and meaning while working tirelessly towards the goal of comprehensive sex education for high school students in Lubbock, Texas. It’s a great movie, with a mixture of funny and emotional moments that’s hard to come by in a documentary. I highly recommend it as a great watch!

I do wonder, though, at the effect on Shelby of having her adolescent life spread rather copiously in the public view. This is somewhat different from the standard teenage starlet, because it’s an actual documentary of Shelby’s actual life over three years. Several blog posts ago, the conversation arose about what’s appropriate for teenagers to have put out there in this very information and media saturated world - naked pictures? a documentary about their life? - before their cognitive processes and judgement have developed to the point where the State deems them able to make full decisions (i.e., either 18 or 21, depending on your perspective).

Shelby herself appears to have flourished in the wake of the documentary, and is now working as a consultant across the country on supporting and expanding comprehensive sex education.

Yesterday I put forward what I have been able to gather about the FLDS events in San Angelo, Texas. I asked for readers’ opinions about the events, and the comments were particularly impassioned and came from radically different points of view. I said I would write today about my opinions and interpretations of the events. I acknowledge that some of yesterday’s commenters, and everyone who agrees with their perspective, are going to disagree with me. There’s no way around that. But I still feel compelled to outline my reaction.

First, I want to point out that it seems that if you (1) distrust the media and/or (2) distrust the state of Texas, you’re going to be inclined to think a horrible thing has been done here. On the other hand, if you’re inclined to (1) trust the media and/or (2) trust the state of Texas, you’re going to be inclined to think that justice is in the process of being served.

So where do I stand on the general trustworthiness of the media and the state?

I believe the media is tied to advertisers - and is really only interested in gathering eyes for the advertisers rather than actually conveying relevant and important information. So I think they over-state and sensationalize everything to increase viewers. But there is generally a grain of truth if you dig hard enough.

I believe the state generally, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services specifically, are made up of hardworking people who are dedicated to doing the best they can to keep children safe. However, these people are generally over-worked, under-paid, and do incredibly hard work. So they absolutely make mistakes, including occasionally over-reacting or under-reacting.

And here’s a bedrock belief that I think guides everything else: Marrying young girls to much older men to produce babies is wrong. This is a form of gender-based slavery (rather than ethnicity-based slavery), and it is wrong. Is it wrong if the FLDS’ religious doctrine tells someone to do it? Yes. Is it wrong if Muslim doctrine tells someone to do it? Yes. Is it wrong even if it was the norm 1500 years ago? Yes.

Was the FLDS compound marrying young girls to much older men to produce babies? All indications suggest that at least some parts of the community were. And that has to be stopped.

Because of the world we live in, it’s most likely the state who is going to step in and demand that the FLDS give their girls enough time to grow up before they become wives and mothers. Is that ideal? No, of course not. But the children must be kept emotionally, developmentally, and sexually safe while it is determined whether and under what conditions they can be reunited with their families.

But here is where I am at a loss. The children who have been taken from the FLDS compound have lived very - extremely - sheltered lives. The foster care system is absolutely not in any way the place for them to live. But where else to go? Not home - not to foster care. This is where my grief at the situation reaches the place where I circle back on myself, not knowing where to turn.

These children need quiet, attentive homes where the daily rhythms are as close as possible to what they have known all of their lives to live in until they are (hopefully) able to go back to their families with an action plan in place. I called the Texas foster care hotline this morning to see if there was a way to become a foster placement for these children. But there is not. I understand - they certainly wouldn’t want to fast track individuals simply to meet the needs of these children because they would inevitably approve people who should not be approved. But nevertheless, this is an extraordinary situation. And I hope the state rises to extraordinary heights meet the needs of these children.

There is so much to talk about in this case - feel free to ask me questions in the comments section and I’ll try to answer as thoughtfully and fully as I can.

I have been thinking, reading, and speaking with more people about the heartrendingly painful events taking place here in Texas. 416 children from a Fundamentalist Church of Later Day Saints (FLDS) ranch were taken into state custody just over two weeks ago. This point everyone agrees on. Almost everything else, it seems, have people disagreeing.

There are some groups, including the ACLU, who see this as a civil rights issue - the freedom (or state imposed lack-thereof) to practice religion.

There are other groups who couch the issue purely in terms of sexual abuse against teenage girls.

There are more and less sensationalistic reports about various aspects of the events.

So after reading what I could, and talking those who know how child abuse cases in Texas go, and thinking about the myriad issues, here is how I see the facts of things:

There are essentially three positions here: the state, the parents, and the children.

The state lawyers are alleging that FLDS pre-teen and teenage girls are put into arranged spiritual marriages with much older men when they are younger than is legally allowed by the state (16 years old here in Texas). There may be girls as young as 8 or 9 who are married, although the state suggests that most of the marriages happen between 12 and 14. These young girls are told that their greatest gift is to produce as many children as possible for their husbands.  The lawyers for the state say that girls this young having sex with adult men, regardless of their marital status, is statutory rape and sexual abuse.

The parents (mostly the mothers) and their lawyers state that the FLDS group is a tightly knit, loving community of families and that there is no abuse of any kind happening on their ranch.  From what I have been able to gather, they have said as little as possible about what ages they allow their daughters to marry and have children.

The children want to go home.

Today I will continue to process these thoughts, read the thoughts of others, and talk with people I think will have additional insights.  I’ll gather my thoughts and reactions and opinions for tomorrow.

In the meantime, what do you think about the FLDS events here in Texas?