I am moderating a panel here at SX called Negotiating the Parent/Teen Over Social Networking.  There will be two teens (one younger, one older) and two parents (with different perspectives on how, when, etc. teens should be online and on social networking sites), and me to moderate the discussion and add the data and research on the topic.  It should be a great time, so come join us on Tuesday at 3:30 on the 3rd floor of the Austin Convention Center in room 10AB.

If you’re just coming to say hi for the first time, you might be wondering a bit about what I do - and maybe why I am at SXSW Interactive.

I work as a parent consultant and as a sex education teacher.  I consult with parents of children and teenagers on how to integrate sex education into their home lives.  I teach classes and teach students individually from middle school, high school, and college, on a very wide range of sex education topics including gender, boundaries, communication, safe sex (including, but not limited to abstinence), and so much more.

If you’re here looking for some of my perspective on sex education, here is my rudimentary approach:

I believe that…
…parents have to talk to their kids about sex.

I believe that…
…everyone has sex, and should therefore know about sex.

I believe that…
…sex is not all bad, even for teenagers.

You can read a more in-depth discussion of these points on my This I Believe page.

I am at SXSW Interactive because I do business online.  I find that SX allows me to talk with people who are knowlegable and experienced about the online experience, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk with them about what it means to do business online.  Additionally, I feel a deep responsibility to stay up-to-date with online and social media and what and how young people are accessing and interacting within this evolving medium.

If you have any questions about any of these topics or more, please do not hesitate to e-mail me (karen.rayne@gmail.com), follow me on Twitter (@karenrayne), or leave a comment below.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Our technical definition of gender is “a psychological awareness or sense of being male or being female and is one of the most obvious and important aspects of our self-concepts.”  This sense of gender identity is generally well established by 3 years old.  This understanding is much more nuanced, and reflects an understanding of typical societally approved gender roles, including clothing choices, career choices, and a wide range of gender-specific emotional and social interactions.  Most young children are aware of the approved gender dynamics in their society regardless of whether their parents work against these stereotypes.

We also talked about what it means when a person feels that their gender and sex don’t match.  Most of my students have some awareness of what it means to be transgendered - but only in the broadest outlines and most without any actual personal experience with people who identify as transgendered.  I would love to have a panel of people who are transgendered come in to tell their stories and answer questions, but so far I haven’t been able to realize this goal.  So I’ve tried a variety of approaches to help my students understand what it means to be transgendered a little bit better.  This semester, I played the following recent clips from the Dr. Oz show.  I particularly like them because the transgendered people highlighted in them are children.  There is a simplicity to children and their approach to many things - including gender - that I think allows my students to be less skeptical about the feelings and motivations of people who identify as transgendered.

One point that my students always have questions about - but that is only briefly addressed in these clips - is that gender, in the technical way we have defined it, is not linked to sexual orientation.  The terms relating to sexual orientation that we are used to hearing - gay and straight or heterosexual and homosexual - are difficult to use in specific conversations about what it means to be transgendered.  Instead, the technical terms androphilia (being sexually attracted to men) and gynephilia (being sexually attracted to women).  These terms can be used effectively regardless of the person’s gender, which makes them quite handy once we venture out of the realm of binary gender.

But this still doesn’t take us a long way towards understanding exactly what’s going on.  We can address the reality that these children - and transgendered adults - are living in by letting them express themselves and identify their gender in whatever way feels most natural to them.  But what about a deeper understanding of why this come about?  What twists or turns sent these individuals off on this track that is so different from the majority?  There are some indications that genetic factors and prenatal hormone levels may be associated with being transgendered.  There are also some indications that home life, family of origin, and other social factors may be associated with being transgendered.  As with most parts of being human, it is probably a complex interaction between biology and sociological factors.

My classroom conversations generally end here.  Or rather, this is where my explanation ends.  After this point we talk as a class, so that the students are able to hear each others’ thoughts and reactions to what is generally a new and often challenging topic.

I have found, however, that the explanation doesn’t satisfy me personally.  There seems to be something much deeper at work within individuals who identify as transgendered than can be explained by “a complex interaction between biology and sociological factors.”  So some time ago I turned to philosophers to see what they had to say on the matter.  I didn’t find much, but one explanation has stuck with me and continues to at least partially inform my understanding of what it means to be transgendered.

Rudolf Steiner, who wrote and thought about many topics and issues, said that each person has two parts: an earthly body and a heavenly body.  The earthly body is each person’s physical body that we know and are well acquainted with.  Steiner went on to say that the heavenly body and the earthly body are of opposite genders, and that this balances us out as individuals.  Steiner does not delve into theorizing further about what it means to be transgendered, but I will take his thesis and apply it.  Perhaps this well organized scheme occasionally gets a bit mixed up - and the heavenly body and the earthly body are accidentally the same gender.  Because we do not have access to our heavenly body, we work on changing our earthly body so that we come back into balance.

I am not saying that Steiner’s ideas are correct - but that I like the metaphor or the image of a gendered balance in each person, and when that balance is thrown off, the attempts to set it right.

I’m interested to hear if others have deeper, philosophical explanations or understandings about the human reality of being the other gender than the sex one was assigned at birth?  I’d love to hear about it!

Dr. Karen Rayne presents a three-session class for parents on how to talk with preteens and teenagers more easily and effectively about issues of sex and sexuality.

Topics include:

• How to gather your own thoughts and beliefs about the moral and ethical aspects of sex and sexuality and pass them on to your children.
• What teenagers need to know about sex and sexuality and how you can teach them that knowledge and those skills.
• Common assumptions about adolescent sexuality and which ones are right or wrong
• What it means when your teenager doesn’t talk to you and what to do about it, and how to keep the talkative teenagers talking!

Materials will be provided to help get the home conversations started.

Dates: March 7th, 21st, and 28th
Times: Sundays, 3:30 – 5:00
Place: Oak Hill (South Austin)
Cost: $100/individual, $150/couple

For questions or more information, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail (karen.rayne@gmail.com).  If you would like to know more about me and my perspectives on adolescent sexuality, take a look at my website and blog (http://www.karenrayne.com).

If you feel this class would be helpful for you and your family, but the fee is prohibitive for you, please let me know and we’ll see what we can work out.

Class size is limited, so please give me a call or send me an e-mail to reserve your space!

Please forward my message on to anyone else you think might be interested.

Cheers!
Karen

———-
Karen Rayne, Ph.D.
http://www.karenrayne.com
karen.rayne@gmail.com

First, some history:

The bulk of this conversation started back in September when Glamour magazine put a photo of a woman with a little, un-touched-up tummy pouch on page 194 (see the original picture over there on the left).

Glamour received such an overwhelming number of letters, e-mails, and comments from readers who deeply appreciated this one picture, that they decided to do a whole spread of what they called “Plus Sized Models” in October.

I wrote my objections to this general trend of calling these beautiful women “plus-sized” on my other blog, The Belly Project.  I was upset and candid in what I wrote, and while I might not be quite as hyperbolic today, I’m still happy to re-state some of what I said back in October:

“So don’t get all high-and-mighty on me Glamour, for suddenly portraying your magazine as breaking the societal standards of beauty that have gripped American women for decades.  This is a stunningly beautiful picture, and I love just looking at these amazing bodies.  But when they amazing-ness of them is qualified – repeatedly – by the words plus, larger, and big, and when the women are described as having confidence “despite” their bodies, I throw-up a little bit in my mouth.

If this is really a conversation that Glamour wants to have, as it claims, here is my opening statement: This is not progress, this is continuing the bullshit while attempting to gain eyeballs and advertisers by claiming progress.  Show me some real progress, and I’ll subscribe to your magazine.  I’ll be your biggest fan and call your name from the rooftops.  But first you have to get real, down here in the trenches, with all the normal people.”

While Glamour has not continued the conversation - with me, at least - other media outlets are taking up the conversation.  Models and body size has risen in the general awareness because - as I’m sure you all know - this is Fashion Week.  In a nutshell, Fashion Week means that high fashion designers put their new designs on models who walk up and down runways.  While there are often a story or two about how skinny models are floating ar0und this time of the year, the current stories are focusing on the plus-sized model phenomenon, since it was already somewhat in the public eye.

NPR ran a story earlier this week about this very thing.  The story was relatively short, and made some good points like this one:

” ‘There is a real disconnect between what the fashion industry considers to be a plus-size model and what the average person considers to be plus size,’ Givhan said, adding that a woman going into a department store won’t be sized out of the most fashionable clothes until she reaches size 16.

And this one:

“But I think what we have to figure out is: how do we celebrate good health without stigmatizing people who are on either end of the spectrum and are still trying to work their way towards middle ground, which is good health?”

But out of nowhere, and unquestioned, comes this statement:

“The fashion industry on one end is showing us these 14 and 15 year old, very thin girls and portraying them as women…”

Wait a minute.  What did you say?  How old are those models again?  Nowhere, in all of my reading about models and body shapes, has there been a clear focus on the age of these models and the influence on social, emotional, and sexual development of these young women.  There is one NYTimes article this week that begins to discuss this issue, albeit without much detail.  Interestingly, this article also has “plus-sized models” as its primary focus.  Here’s a quote:

” ‘What happens when these girls develop and turn into women?’ Mr. Scully asked. ‘What’s going to happen to Karlie Kloss,’ he added, referring to the teenager discovered at a charity benefit fashion show in her native St. Louis and now one of the most desirable models in the business, ‘when she develops breasts?’ “

But while the question alludes to age, it maintains the focus on body size.  According to the Tanner stages of breasts development, on average, young women will have fully developed breasts by age 15.  That’s pretty young for a modeling career to start to go downhill.  The Times article ends with this:

“And no lanky 14-year-old should be pressured to starve herself, to cadge prescription drugs like Adderall or to take up smoking as an appetite suppressant.

‘Girls are told they’re not skinny enough, or they hear, ‘She’s old, she’s boring, we’ve had her, she’s not tiny anymore,’ ‘ Ms. Rocha said. ‘A lot of people don’t take into account the vulnerability of these young girls.’ And the latest crop of models is not made up of ‘adults or even sort-of adults,’ she insisted. ‘They are children. Point closed.’ “

Indeed.  But why is the entire story not about this?  Our society fetishizes youth to a degree that I think a lot of people are not even fully aware of.  Did you know that most cat-walk models are in their very early pre-teen years?  The average 13- and 14-year-old girl already has enough body image issues to carry with her through life.  To add on to these the physical stress of maintaining such a low body weight, focusing exclusively on the physical, and perhaps most of all to be flattered and attended to in the way that models are - all before developing a sense of self identity - must have a substantial impact on the young women involved in modeling.  I worry about them.

First, this YouTube video was recently brought to my attention.  It stars a larger-than-average teenage girl in high school and talks about her struggle with body image and weight and her peers and her teachers.  It’s a fabulous watch.

Now, while I’m delighted by the message and the quality of the video, it essentially talks about a problematic aspect of American culture.  So my search for an inherently positive message or story continued.

Thinking about body image brought me back to thinking about a journal entry from a college student of mine.  We look at Greg Friedler’s pictures of naked and clothed people every semester as an avenue for talking about genitalia, gender, nakedness, assumptions, and body image.  Students often initially have verbal reactions to the range of humanness they see, but by the end of the activity, they’re no longer particularly surprised by anyone outside of the relatively narrow age and body shape category that Americans tend to think of beautiful and sexy.

This particular student, however, seemed to have a harder time letting go of her strong reactions.  A week later, she turned in a short paper to me where she described her experience.  She said that by the end of the activity she knew she was over reacting to the pictures, but she wasn’t quite sure why.

My student went home and thought about the emotions that were brought up as we looked at the pictures.  She said she realized they were deeply tied into her own fear of gaining weight and so she was wanting to cover the pictures up out of fear.  She also said she tends to have this same reaction when she sees people face-to-face who are larger than she feels comfortable with.  She realized that this reaction of hers was unkind to the people who were crossing her path and she’s now actively and consciously working on relaxing out of her fear when she comes across someone whose weight triggers these emotions in her.

I am amazed at this student’s ability to recognize her own issues, think through them, and work to move past them.  If only we could all have this level of metacognition!

And while I do think of this story as fully positive, it still wasn’t quite what I was looking for.  I wanted something idealistic, something that spoke to the highest level of humanity, ethically, morally, and spiritually.  And so I was browsing through the mountains of blogs that I typically read, not really thinking I was going to find much, when lo and behold, I came across a post titled:

Healthy Sexuality is a Human Right

and I had my topic.

The blog is a good one called Bitch Ph.D., and the post is a typically well-done analysis of an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times called Sex Ed in Washington.

I’m going to leave the politics and issues in both of these pieces for another time because - well, they’re not very idealistic and positive when it comes right down to it.  Instead, I’m going to pretend like I only read the title of the bog post.

When I talk with students about the legal issues around sex and sexuality, the focus is often exclusively on what we cannot do - we cannot have sex without consent, we cannot have sex with people of certain ages, we cannot marry someone of our own gender, we cannot pay for sex, etc.  When I ask my students what CAN we do, they are often flummoxed.  They generally hammer something together about we can have sex with a person within a certain age range who says they want to.  At this point I generally have them read the US Bill of Rights.  This document protects our basic rights, but says nothing about sex or sexuality.  I ask if we have similar inalienable rights around sex and sexuality that are an inherent part of our pursuit for happiness.  Generally it is agreed that there are.  Of course we spend some time talking about what those might be, but ultimately I ask the students to read the Declaration of Sexual Rights. I was going to merely link to this, but I think it’s important enough to put the whole text here:

Declaration of Sexual Rights
Sexuality is an integral part of the personality of every human being. Its full development depends upon the satisfaction of basic human needs such as the desire for contact, intimacy, emotional expression, pleasure, tenderness and love. Sexuality is constructed through the interaction between the individual and social structures. Full development of sexuality is essential for individual, interpersonal, and societal well being. Sexual rights are universal human rights based on the inherent freedom, dignity, and equality of all human beings. Since health is a fundamental human right, so must sexual health be a basic human right. In order to assure that human beings and societies develop healthy sexuality, the following sexual rights must be recognized, promoted, respected, and defended by all societies through all means. Sexual health is the result of an environment that recognizes, respects and exercises these sexual rights.

1. The right to sexual freedom. Sexual freedom encompasses the possibility for individuals to express their full sexual potential. However, this excludes all forms of sexual coercion, exploitation and abuse at any time and situations in life.
2. The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of the sexual body. This right involves the ability to make autonomous decisions about one’s sexual life within a context of one’s own personal and social ethics. It also encompasses control and enjoyment of our own bodies free from torture, mutilation and violence of any sort.
3. The right to sexual privacy. This involves the right for individual decisions and behaviors about intimacy as long as they do not intrude on the sexual rights of others.
4. The right to sexual equity. This refers to freedom from all forms of discrimination regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, social class, religion, or physical and emotional disability.
5. The right to sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism, is a source of physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual well being.
6. The right to emotional sexual expression. Sexual expression is more than erotic pleasure or sexual acts. Individuals have a right to express their sexuality through communication, touch, emotional expression and love.
7. The right to sexually associate freely. This means the possibility to marry or not, to divorce, and to establish other types of responsible sexual associations.
8. The right to make free and responsible reproductive choices. This encompasses the right to decide whether or not to have children, the number and spacing of children, and the right to full access to the means of fertility regulation.
9. The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry. This right implies that sexual information should be generated through the process of unencumbered and yet scientifically ethical inquiry, and disseminated in appropriate ways at all societal levels.
10. The right to comprehensive sexuality education. This is a lifelong process from birth throughout the life cycle and should involve all social institutions.
11. The right to sexual health care. Sexual health care should be available for prevention and treatment of all sexual concerns, problems and disorders.

Sexual Rights are Fundamental and Universal Human Rights

Adopted in Hong Kong at the 14th World Congress of Sexology, August 26, 1999

My students are often astounded.  They get very quite, imagining how their world might be different if they had those inalienable rights secured by our government.  And here is where my idealism rests for today.  That sometime, somewhere, sexual rights will be held to be as important and relevant and inalienable as our rights to privacy, religious freedom, and the right to fair trial.

How would your life have been different if you had had these rights?  Feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section here, but if you don’t, at least take a minute to ruminate on it.

But before I review the book, I feel compelled to ask: Why another one for girls?  First, there are so many more books for girls out there than there are for boys.  And, while we’re on the topic, why even specify what gender the book is for?  I’m just confused by this trend.

Okay, back to The Body Scoop for Girls, by Jennifer Ashton, M.D., Ob-Gyn (with Christine Larson).  There are issues with the book in many places, but I’m going to skip over them and come to the point.

Chapter 9 is called Never Tell Your Boyfriend You’re On The Pill.  Dr. Ashton lists this as the first in her five “simple rules for a healthy sex life”.  Here’s what she has to say about why she includes this rule:

Yes, you heard me right.  I’m telling you to lie to your boyfriend.  Because, I promise you, if he knows you’re on the pill or another form of birth control, he won’t use a condom every time.  And you always need to use two forms of birth control - one to prevent pregnancy (see my list of options at the end of this chapter), plus condoms to avoid sexually transmitted infections.

So, as I advise all my patients, don’t tell your boyfriend you’re on the pill or other birth control.  If he asks why you’re not, tell him you get migraines or you have a clotting disorder, so you can’t take birth control hormones.  Yeah, it’s a white lie.  So what?  What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

. . . . Seriously??

Dr. Ashton is saying it’s okay (1) for girls to lie to their sex partners about their sexual and reproductive health, (2) that it’s okay for girls to have sex with someone that they don’t trust with their sexual and reproductive health, and (3) that the decision about whether to use a condom or not is the boy’s decision, not the girl’s.  I deeply reject all three of these points and am rather affronted that anyone would agree with her initial statement.

And Dr. Ashton’s other four simple rules for a healthy sex life?  I’m not so into them either.  Here we go:

2.  “Tell your mother (or father) when you’re sexually active.”  Dr. Ashton, that’s just not always possible.  Talking to some adult, somewhere?  This probably is possible.  But parents just aren’t always the most sane people in the world, particularly when it comes to their children’s sexuality.  In fact, some parents make their children’s lives just downright hellish when they find out their children are sexually active.  Or kick them out.  Or other very, very bad things.  This is a rule Dr. Ashton might use with judgment in her practice - assuming she knows the parents of her patients well enough to judge whether she thinks they will be open to the idea - but she should not simply print it in a book as a generalized rule.

3.  “If you want to engage in adult behaviors, you need to act like an adult.”  True, absolutely true.  And while Dr. Ashton points out that this includes potentially awkward conversations with a potential partner about pregnancy and STD prevention, which are of course critical, she also says it includes “seeing a gynecologist regularly - complete with stirrups, speculum, and regular pelvic exams.”  And this is just a basic scare tactic, which is hardly helpful when you’re trying to help teenagers gain a healthy, happy sexuality for the rest of their lives.  It’s also more likely to scare teenagers off from gynecological exams than from sex.

4. “Never do anything you don’t want to do.”  Yes, yes, yes.  This short section is relatively straightforward and fine.

…and, drum roll please…

5. “Don’t date guys more than a year older than you.”  We can debate this rule another time, particularly the rigidity of the “one year” part.  But what I truly dislike is the story that accompanies this rule, which is about a 15 year old dating an abusive 25 year old.  Rather than suggesting that teenagers date within a very narrow age range, how about teaching them how to recognize an abusive relationship and reach out for help in getting out of it?  A friend responded to this section by saying, “It totally explains why XXX was abusive, though, doesn’t it?  I mean, he was one year and 27 days older than me.”

To be fair to Dr. Ashton and her co-author, I haven’t read the whole book.  But I object so strongly to the parts I have read, that I feel confident in not recommending it.  If you are looking for some age-appropriate reading material for high school students about sex and sexuality, I recommended S.E.X. by Heather Corinna some time ago, and it’s still the best thing out there.  Oh, and it’s for all genders too.

There is a recent meme floating around in the flotsam of the great wide Internet that seems to be causing much inappropriate hilarity.  Here’s the basic gist: A teenage girl (her age isn’t clear) gets her brother in trouble with their parents for some beers hidden in his room.  In retaliation, he rummages through her room, finds her “hook up list,” scans it, posts it to Facebook, and tags everyone mentioned in the list.

You may notice on the list (to the left) that in addition to names, Katie included what acts she’d like to engage in with each boy, and she’s tidily crossed off and dated the boys with whom she has already hooked up.

After posting this to Facebook, and tagging many, many people, Chris got quite a response.   The comment thread shows quite a range of responses from Chris, Katie, Katie’s (apparent) friends, and the boys Katie listed.

Feel free to read through these if you’re include, but the thing to take note of is Katie’s level of distress (pretty high) and Chris’ utter dismissal of her distress (the last comment in the stream).

All over the Internet comment streams are being inundated with “HAHA!” and “ROFL!” and people who try and say this is a bad, bad thing are being slammed.  One comment said, and I’m generally paraphrasing, “I’m a mom of a teenager who is probably about Katie’s age and I know I should be upset, but this is fucking hilarious.”

No, it’s not fucking hilarious, folks, it is, in fact, an extreme example of sexual bullying.

I suggested in one comment stream among friends that this could easily lead to Katie being sexually harassed, abused, and raped and was dismissed out of hand.  But see, what if Adrian decides that he’d rather like to finger Katie?  It’s not so far fetched for him to suspect that Katie would enjoy that, is it?  So let’s say Adrian and Katie are at a party together in a few months, Adrian’s a bit drunk, and he pulls Katie into a backroom with him.  Katie may have changed her mind - she may have decided she doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of these boys ever again - she may just not be in the mood - it doesn’t really matter why she doesn’t want to be fingered in this hypothetical event.  But as far as Adrian’s concerned, Katie has already given consent, even given a public request.  So what’s the problem?  And as long as they’re at it, well, Katie was giving other boys blow jobs, why not him too?

This is hardly a far-fetched scenario.

Was Katie wrong to tell on her brother?  Maybe, maybe not.  We don’t really know her reasoning - maybe she was concerned about Chris’ alcohol consumption for true and legitimate reasons - maybe she was getting back at him for something else entirely.  It doesn’t really matter.  Chris took this sibling rivalry to a whole different level that is, in itself, an attach on Katie.  Even if Katie is never raped, even if she were theoretically never harassed by anyone else (I say theoretically because she is already being harassed in the comment stream), Chris has violated Katie’s sexuality.  He has taken control over a very private matter and, by leaving the image up on Facebook, is refusing to relinquish control over Katie’s sexuality.

This is a pretty terrible state of affairs as they stand.  My heart truly and deeply goes out to Katie, though, when I realize that she has very little recourse for responding.  Given her parents’ reaction to Chris’ alcohol (3 months grounding), I seriously doubt that she will engage her parents for help (which Chris points out in one of his comments).  Does Katie have any other adult to go for help?  I hope so.  But I doubt it.  By reaching out to an adult for support, she would be necessarily admitting to a level of sexual engagement that few teenagers have adults who they trust will react with dignity and understanding rather than blame and recriminations.

Most teenagers probably do know one or two adults who would be able to handle a teenager engaging in sexual activities of this sort and be able to help the teenager move through this painful time with love and trust.  However, many teenagers don’t know who these people are.  Adults who are fine talking about sex - even with young people - often don’t bring up the conversation on their own.  Adults leave the conversation unspoken for so many reasons - they don’t want to expose the young person to ideas they didn’t have on their own (HA!), they don’t want to make the young person feel uncomfortable, they don’t know if the young person’s parents would have a problem with it, and so on and so on.

But if the adults don’t start the conversation, how are teenagers supposed to know who is willing and able to have the conversation?

Was Katie too young to be engaging in mutual masturbation and oral sex?  Certainly, a list of this sort suggests that Katie had an idea of what sexual activity means that doesn’t include a deep connection.  But this question - and the many similar ones that are brought up by this train of events - doesn’t really get at the nugget of what really must be addressed first, and strongly, here, which is that sexual bullying harms people.  Katie needs help and support with this crisis now, and conversations about healthy sexuality later - maybe much, much later.  Far too many adults get this backwards.

Oh, and by the way, the boys who were listed here and tagged here are also being bullied.  So far I’ve only seen congratulatory comments about them, but I highly suspect they might be just as mortified and want the list down just as much as Katie.

There are a few gay dance clubs that I’ve frequented at one point or another since I started dancing two and a half years ago.  The important thing to know is this: There’s a new-ish club in Austin that I went to for the first time tonight without a (gay) man on my arm.  I went, instead, only with a female friend.  We went to dance, and I assumed it would be much like my other nights there - no cheesy guys hitting on us, just good dancing.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Apparently two women dancing together in a gay bar scream “HIT ON ME!” in a way I never knew.  This is most fascinating to me because in all of the times I’ve been at this particular club dancing with a man I was only hit on once.  Tonight I found myself asking over and over again - do you know this is a gay bar?  Some did, some didn’t.  None seemed to jump to the conclusion that my friend I might be gay.

So what’s the deal here?

Why if there is no man present do men persist in the belief that one is welcome?  Even in a place, of all places, where cross-gendered dancing might happen, but generally only on a friendly level, not on a dancing-as-a-prelude-to-sex level.

I have had too many AISD graduates crying in my classrooms and my office about sexual abuse that they never felt comfortable reporting to their school officials, or sometimes even their parents, to let this go by without comment.

First, by saying, “Well, it might have happened once, but it’s not common,” is hardly consolation to the individuals involved in this case, but instead continues to label these young people as different and weird - of being different in a bad way, which is often particularly painful to young people.  Second, the research is clear: The vast majority of sexual assaults, abuse, and harassment is not reported.  So the absence of reporting does not mean that there is not a problem.

I teach community college classes that draw heavily on students from the public high schools in the surrounding area, and what I know from my students is that sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment are not uncommon.  Now, perhaps it is uncommon for a middle school student to sexually assault another student during class time.  But saying that this is “an isolated incident” is whole unwarranted.  To go on to say that there were no reports of sexual assaults in AISD in 2008 and that the only ones besides this one in 2009 have been dismissed (the implication being that this was the only example of sexual violence in AISD in 2008 or 2009) is a vast misrepresentation of reality.

The reality of the situation is that preteenagers and teenagers are sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by their peers.  Burying our heads in the sand and saying it’s rare is not a fix - or even a band-aid - but it continues the harm of the victim by making them standout as freakish.  Our children need education on how to recognize sexual abuse when it happens, how to stop it, how to get help, and how to support each other through the process.

Ideally we would live in a culture where this sort of thing never happened.  But we don’t live in an ideal world, and pretending we do isn’t going to make it so.  The only way to reduce sexual abuse is by bringing it out in the open and having the extraordinarily painful conversations that it requires.

“Fat women all hate prostitutes.  The skinny ones are fine with it because they’re not threatened.”

The mind is simply boggled.  When I suggested that perhaps he was making a generalization, he staunchly held to his argument.  He said, in fact, that he could tell me which of my students were okay with prostitution and which ones weren’t with 98% accuracy just by looking at them.

When I suggested that he was simply stating a layman’s opinion rather than a research-based assumption, he went on and on about how all of the women he’s met have fallen into those two categories (i.e., fat = anti-sex-workers; skinny = pro-sex-workers).  This man was clearly talking out of rear end rather than his mouth.

But it’s not an uncommon thing to hear someone making obscene judgments about other people based on their physical appearance.  Gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, parental status, even beliefs about prostitution, are apparently openly obvious by simply looking at someone from across the room.

It is just not that easy.  If it were that easy, everything about our lives would be radically different.

Even people who we think we know to some degree - for example, the parents of our children’s friends - often will surprise us when we sit down and have an open and honest conversation about topics relating to sex and sexuality.  We cannot make the judgment that other essentially good, interesting, intelligent, engaging adults will come to the same conclusions as we do - particularly about our children’s (and more specifically, their children’s) sexuality education or sex lives.

Plenty of parents think that young people should wait until they’re in college - or married - before they have sex.  Plenty of parents think it’s appropriate for young people to experiment sexually as teenagers.  I know from talking to many, many parents that you just can’t tell which perspective any given person has until you ask them.  Religion, education, age, and gender are all relatively un-useful indicators.  Maybe on a population-wide basis you can make an educated guess, but without an honest conversation all you’re doing is guessing.

The man I spoke with this morning said to me, “I’m going to look this up in the literature, and if you’re wrong, I’m going to know that you are angry and unhappy.”  Don’t be that guy.  Rather than making assumptions about other people, ask them.  Especially when other people’s children and sex are concerned.