Much of sex education is fear-based. How does this approach hinder sexual development?
Do you think speaking openly about sex from an early age leads to a healthier and safer sex later in life? If not, why?
Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.
Video edited by Tiye Massey.
Some children are very lucky to have one or more parent or relative they can have an open dialogue about sexuality with. Public schools and certainly religious-based education do not address key issues having to do with sexuality.
What are the main topics you thought were missing from your own sexual education?
Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.
Video by Tiye Massey.
Here’s another video from the I AM: Trans People Speak project of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition. Please be sure to check out their website for more information and videos of transgender individuals telling their own stories in their own words.
Mycroft identifies as an interfaith leader, a writer and artist, a life partner, and a transgender person. Mycroft experienced discrimination when it came time to do co-op work in the field as part of his college program. People would not even consider hiring him, because he is transgender. It was an eye-opening, shocking experience for him. One of the positive experiences that came out of this was it called him to be a leader in the transgender community.
How did you become a leader in your community? Was there one particular experience that changed the way you recognized and expressed your gender expression and/or sexual orientation? Can a bad experience bring unexpected rewards, financially, emotionally, educationally, spiritually? Do you have any advice for other people just coming to grips with their sexual orientation or gender identity? Is there any advice you wish you had been given at an earlier age?
We want to know what you think or hear your own story. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express yourself. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.
How did where you were raised affect what you were taught about sex, and the kinds of conversations you had about sex? What role did religion play in what you were taught or what you talked about? How have you overcome any negative ideas about sex — or even just ignorance about sex? Who should have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that young people receive an education in sexual matters that may affect their relationships and their health?
Your answers are important to us. Write them in an essay, a poem, or a song, or express them in an original work of art or a response video, and we will thank you with a free VenusPlusX t-shirt.
Video by Tiye Massey.
TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps
So like my family is very traditional. They’re Muslim and they’re South Asian. They grew up in Pakistan and came here in 1980. And they never talked to us about sex because they they only spoke to us about marriage, and said that you, when you reach a certain age, you’ll get married, and then you’ll have kids. So sex was never really spoken about, it was more like they were more concerned like about the type of relationship that I would have. I mean there’s a real disconnect between reality and what my parents taught me, and what my parents taught my siblings and my brother. I remember once I was trying to explain to my little brother what a period is. And my aunt, my mom’s sister, got really upset and she said that, ‘That’s just because you’re American, that you’re, that you’re talking to him about that.’ I’m like no, I think I think he should know about it. I think he should know that this is what many people experience. And it does directly impact him because he lives with four women.
BREAKING NEWS? Abstinence-only education is a failure and causes huge problems. Every society suffers without health and sex education, including the safety of contraceptives.
We also have to cope with our “politicians” often counter-productive actions.
When do you think sex education should begin for children? what age? at home or from friends or at school? (Only after marriage??)
How can sex education and age of consent vary so widely state to state? where the trail of abstinence only sex ed leaves a trail of higher unwanted pregnancies at earlier and earlier ages?
What’s your experience holding elected and appointed accountable? Should we have a national bill of rights that provides for the mandatory health and sex education of all minors?
Send us your thoughts, comment, make your own video or write a short essay, or send us your visual ideas that express the ideals of sexual freedom, and we’ll thank you with a free VenusPlusX t-shirt .
Video by Tiye Massey.
TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps
So you take abstinence-only education in the United States. That is a huge problem for sexual freedom in this country. I feel that we can’t really be free sexually if we’re not informed, and abstinence-only education has been demonstrated not to be effective. All the research indicates that it’s not going to prevent people from having sex and… So they’re going to be just as likely to have sex and when they are, they’re not going to be as apt or as knowledgeable about contraception and all the relevant information. So, for example, Hillary Clinton came out a couple years ago, I want to say 2008? She said, “Abstinence-only education doesn’t work, we know that it doesn’t,” and then she pours a few more million dollars into these programs and you’re just like “What??” (laughs) So yeah, we should be criticizing moves like that, and then we’ll get to where we want to be with sexual freedom.
You might be surprised by Mariana when she talks about her Catholic father’s approach to her sexuality and sex education, and how the result has been that she is generally more responsible than her peers. You will agree how cool it has been for her to receive her Dad’s trust and guidance in place of absolutes or prohibitions. She also recalls being 8 years old and thinking she wanted to be a boy, just because life seemed so much easier, but as an adult those gender differences have practically faded?
Parent or child, what do you think are the best ways young people can be guided. Does gender still exist for you? Can you imaging a gender-free future?
Send us your thoughts — and we’ll give you a t-shirt for sharing them with us! A short video, an essay or a poem, or even an image or original artwork you think sends the right message.
Video by Tiye Massey.
TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps
We’re Catholic, but my dad, he’s really open-minded. Since I [was] like sixteen, he told me, “You know Mariana? You have to… If you have sex, please wear a condom. You can do whatever you want, but use it.” So, (laughs) that’s why I’m so ‘responsible’ in some ways, and I didn’t get pregnant like a lot of my friends did. It’s cool, it’s cool to have this type of education. They don’t prohibit…
I have to say, since I [was] like eight years old, I wanted to be a guy, to be honest. Because for me it was so much easier, you know, like to be a guy than a girl. But then, you know, nowadays, you can be, you can do a lot of things as guys do, and also, guys do a lot of things that girls do. So for me, I don’t know, gender doesn’t exist that much anymore.
Flickr/creative commons
As reported last night by Rachel Maddow (see video below), at the urging of an anti-abortion religious group, the School Board in Gilbert, Arizona, is tearing out pages from a high school honors biology book. It is the first action taken after a law in Arizona passed two years ago that requires all textbooks “to present childbirth and abstinence as preferred options to elective abortion.”
The offending page, which simply discusses that abortion exists as a factual matter, something that is rightly part of the national curriculum for all Advanced Placement and other students hoping to enter college equipped with a complete education and able to compete on a level playing field.
Cutting out this page, retracting information previously available to students, is stupid and exceedingly counter-intuitive (see map below), whether in a biology textbook or in the context of sex education.
In this case, Rachel Maddow comes to the rescue by securing the domain, ArizonaHonorsBiology.com, to make this page available in perpetuity. But what about the next time and the next time after that?
This is similar to what we are witnessing in the state of Texas, where access to sex education is severely limited, and where social studies and history textbooks are being censored or in some cases rewritten to falsify facts (such as wiping out all mention of slavery, that it ever existed).
What will be next? Tearing out pages that mention homosexuality? marriage or cohabitation without children? the achievements of people of color? The answer is: Yes, more page-tearing and book-burning is in our nation’s future if we don’t start paying more attention to elections, starting at the local level.
We bring attention to this especially because it demonstrates the horrible repercussions of the theocratic fundamentalism now permeating American politics and law, retarding our progression towards a fair and just society.
These are not the first or only examples of censorship within our schools, and we are poised to see more of this retrograde behavior wherever right-wing nuts can gain a foothold, from local school boards to congress and possibly the White House itself someday.
These founts of poor decision-making are operating out of fear. They don’t believe women should ever have control over their reproductive health or equality rights, and think they are “protecting children” when they are actually hobbling them.
Complete sex education is the only thing that actually protects teenagers.
Center for Disease Control, 2012
Free access to complete sex education is a human right. To withhold it is blatant child abuse when you consider the actual facts and repercussions.
Research proves that these programs are entirely ineffective. As a matter of fact, unwanted pregnancies and STDs including HIV are more prevalent in areas in the country that limit all sex education to abstinence-only programs. So these misguided lawmakers are not just wrong in purpose but wrong in deed.
Please go the polls on Tuesday (and every Election Day) and vote these people into the dustbin of stupid history.
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More on sex education here.
In Part 1, I spoke of faults in pro-circumcision rhetoric and attitudes that condone genital cutting. Now we will examine some evidence in favor of circumcision.
“Circumstraints” are used to immobilize infants during a torturous process: circumcision.
Image by James Loewen
The trials in Africa, conducted from 2005-2007 and often referenced, have been shown to use poor methodology. Brian D. Earp, who has written rigorously on this topic, familiarizes us with others who have done extensive research:
While the “gold standard” for medical trials is the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, the African trials suffered [a number of serious problems] including problematic randomization and selection bias, inadequate blinding, lack of placebo-control (male circumcision could not be concealed), inadequate equipoise, experimenter bias, attrition (673 drop-outs in female-to-male trials), not investigating male circumcision as a vector for HIV transmission, not investigating non-sexual HIV transmission, as well as lead-time bias, supportive bias (circumcised men received additional counseling sessions), participant expectation bias, and time-out discrepancy (restraint from sexual activity only by circumcised men).
Other studies research HPV, urinary tract infections, and other conditions, indicating that circumcision helps with them. However, they tend to be insufficient to recommend circumcision, and the alleged benefits negligible due to already existing treatments. For example, urinary tract infections are uncommon in males and easy to treat, and standard safe-sex practices such as maintaining bodily hygiene and using condoms are far more proven than circumcision in terms of effectiveness.
Finally, one would expect worldwide statistics and medical consensus to be different. It appears that many health organizations again, do not find existing data sufficient to support routine circumcision. And while correlation is not causation, places such as Africa, where circumcision is prevalent, do not seem to see any real effect on STD rates, for instance. Circumcision is not the solution it’s made out to be, and misinformation is not a substitute for safe sex education.
Click here for Part 3, where we will examine circumcision further, and give our final comments.
“As many as 11% of U.S. women ages 15-44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used a “morning after” pill at least once, or 5.8 million women. Half say they used it because they feared their birth control method may have failed, and the rest say they had unprotected sex.”
The report also found that only 14% of sexually experienced females ages 15–19 had ever used emergency contraception, compared to 23% of women ages 20-24 and 16% of women ages 25–29. Moreover, the report showed that emergency contraception was most common among women 20-24, the never married, Hispanic and white women, and the college-educated.
So what’s with this fear that if the morning-after pill was available over-the-counter for girls under the age of 17 without prescription, that there would be a flood of 10 and 11 year olds buying it along with “bubble gum or batteries?” In my opinion, if they are old enough to have sex and have babies, they are old enough to have access to reproductive services, contraception, and especially the information provided by comprehensive sex education that is necessary for them to make healthy, responsible decisions about their sexuality and behaviors.
Federal Judge Edward R. Korman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York seems to agree with me. In April (2013), Korman’s ruling in Tummino v. Hamburg reversed a prior decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS). In 1999, Plan B became the first emergency contraceptive approved for use by prescription. In 2006, the FDA approved it as an over-the counter drug for women over the age of 18, while requiring a prescription for minors and subsequently allowed 17-year-olds to obtain the drug without a prescription, which was overturned by the HSS in 2011 (see previous article).
Magazine cover depicting headlines for MTV’s “Teen Mom” series, demonstrating how American society exploits the struggles of teen mothers for humor and profit. The media should be trying to reinforce teen’s sexual and reproductive rights, including access to reproductive services and comprehensive sex education, not mocking the experiences of teen mothers in a sitcom reality television show.
Many have argued that the controversy over emergency contraception is based in politics, not science, where it should be. Nonetheless, this ruling has sparked hope in many, including Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit against the FDA and HSS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: “This landmark court decision has struck a huge blow to the deep-seated discrimination that has for too long denied women access to a full range of safe and effective birth control methods. Women all over the country will no longer face arbitrary delays and barriers just to get emergency contraception.”
Now we who support the sexual rights of youth and access to comprehensive reproductive services must wait to see what unfolds next, as the Justice Department reacted to the ruling by stating, “The Department of Justice is reviewing the appellate options and expects to act promptly,” according to spokeswoman Allison Price.
For more, see Part 1.
Creative Commons Image Provided by: Flickr
In Part 1, I shed some light on the current human rights challenges we face, and in Part 3 I offer a call to action, but here is a more in-depth look at two countries that are particularly interesting — Uganda and Sweden. What do the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 tell us about these places?
This country has been on the map for a while now for it punitive laws against people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT). And, this year, since this report’s publication, Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act, referred to as the Kill the Gays Bill by the civilized world, was enacted, coming down hard on LGBT people, with long sentences, even for just knowing and not reporting a “known homosexual.” Here is how some of conditions in 2013 are summarized.
LGBT persons faced discrimination and legal restrictions… LGBT persons were subject to societal harassment, discrimination, intimidation, and threats to their well-being, and were denied access to health services… Police in Kampala arrested British theatre producer David Edwards Cecil for staging a play police alleged promoted homosexual activity…
Things in Uganda have gotten far worse, and the passage of the “Kill the Gays Bill” shows us that there are no signs of improvement. The bill was preceded by laws from the colonial era, crafted by British authorities to punish the unnatural sex observed among the locals, and Uganda is still under the choke-hold of western influence, with many of their most influential citizens promoting this awful doctrine. We must continue speaking out against these vicious attacks on freedom, avoiding the “out of sight out of mind” mentality which can muffle our efforts. It’s time to push back.
Human rights in countries in the Nordic area are often considered a gold standard. When it comes to issues such as sex education and equality, many will not hesitate to praise this region. The praise is apt enough, as the region has been ahead of the curve for some time now. For example, all Nordic countries allow some form of same-sex marriage. However, it turns out that even Sweden, a Nordic country, has its issues.
During the year there were isolated incidents of societal violence and discrimination against persons perceived to be gay. The NCCP* reported 850 hate crimes in 2011 based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
This shows us how deeply the roots of bigoted culture run. One of the world’s greatest models of progressiveness has these problems. We still have a very long way to go.
Click here for Part 1, and Part 3, your part in the fight for freedom in all its forms, including sexual freedom. *Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention