Comments on: Que(e)rying Sex Ed

By: How immoral to acknowledge to kids that yes, sex happens « Wallaby

How immoral to acknowledge to kids that yes, sex happens « Wallaby — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:31:41 +0000

[...] November 2009 by Jo Tamar This post is inspired to some extent by Wildly Parenthetical’s post on sex ed – although I’ve thought for a very long time that sex ed should be a normal part of [...]

By: WildlyParenthetical

WildlyParenthetical — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:37:27 +0000

Thanks for that perspective, Anon. I think teachers are placed in a really difficult position, around parental comfort with these kinds of questions. I have real problems, as you can probably pick up from my post, with the idea of PIV sex being set up as the ‘real sex’ and everything else as a derivative of, or even deviating from this ‘real sex’. I get that parents might be uncomfortable about that; I just think it’s so important. I get the question about whether to have the full conversation or not; my perspective would be that there are so few spaces in which kids can ask about this stuff, especially if their parents are awkward or unwilling or whatever, that the full conversation is actually quite important, if they feel safe and happy enough to raise the question… But that’s just my 2 cents :-) And clearly this needs to be covered at university a little more (there’s some great stuff that is going on in education theory at the moment, but there’s a teensy bit of reinventing the wheel, which is just another indicator that interdisciplinarity is kinda important!).

In more political terms, I really really dislike the fact that the ‘lowest common denominator’ of parental comfort winds up winning out. The implication is a) that sex ed is dangerous, or problematic, or going to steal kids’ innocencez, b) that there’s more harm in hearing it than in not hearing it (which is so so so questionable), and c) that therefore those who don’t want their kids to ‘know’ this stuff (let’s be honest, they probably have heard about some of this stuff) wind up with their position mattering more than those who are more than happy to have their kids participating in these conversations. I guess my point is that I totally understand how your anxiety around this stuff can work, Anon, but I also think that these kinds of issues wind up with fucked up dynamics around them, where conservative parents wind up reconfiguring our perception of events as if kids not learning about this stuff is less harmful; which I just don’t think is true.

By: Anon

Anon — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:41:12 +0000

This is a great discussion topic, and I’m fessing up right now that I haven’t read everything everyone has said, so I’m sorry-in-advance if I’m repeating or rehashing stuff said. But I thought my contribution might help… would you believe, I’m even nervous writing this post, and although my head says I’ve done nothing wrong, its such a tricky thing to teach (see: the variety of parent comfort with this topic) that I’m never sure if I’ve done the wrong thing – its nerve wracking.
I teach Yr6 in Victoria and its now ‘the season’ to do the sex ed stuff. It’s REALLY hard! Not the talking about – which I’m fine with, and have no nerves about when it happens – but the knowing when to talk. Because we don’t do reproductive systems as biology, talking about these areas is uncomfortable for lots of the kids. We have a high proportion of Asian and sub-continental kids, who don’t expect to talk about this stuff and, to be honest, there are many heads on desks for some topics around Sex Ed (I tell them to store it for when they really do want to know. There’s a great range of maturity in Yr6 – some still stand to watch the ambulances go by). But this term, with our brainstorming about the topic all sorts of words have come up and they ask “What DOES that word mean?” Sometimes I’ll say “It’s a part of the female reproductive system and will be explained thoroughly in Sex Ed – do you want to know more now or leave it till then?” Otherwise I’ll just tell them. (Sex Ed is provided by Family Planning Vic and includes a parent night. Last year it got really interesting when a parent asked if FPV would say that homosexuality was wrong, and the FPV educator said she wouldn’t. Heated discussion ahoy! YEY!) My class asked me if I knew of any teen pregnancies – at least one story there, including one of emotional blackmail resulting in a Yr8 pregnancy – and I think I said something like ‘Having a baby isn’t the end of the world, but its the end of a world for everyone involved, and its hard and its forever.” Another time, the class was brainstorming about words to do with reproduction and one kid wrote ‘rape’. Then there were others saying ‘can he write that?’ and I said no, he can’t, not because its a rude word but because its not to do with reproduction (or sex really, more about violence). So then a discussion about rape ensued – what IS rape, miss? – and there was a lot of discomfort around. I ended up saying something like ‘I really wish we didn’t have to have this conversation, but really, we get the Herald-Sun everyday; you should be clear about what these words mean.’ So you can see, there are all these tricky questions that come up and I have to choose: do I let/make this become a discussion, or do I do a quick simple answer or do I drop it? Sometimes you decide based on their faces, or how many heard the question, or the potential parent backlash, or your own principles, but not the curriculum, because it doesn’t cover this stuff and they’re about to slip into the next level of Vic curriculum standards/needs. I don’t want to be the teacher who shuts down an opportunity to have a positive conversation about these things, but I’m still figuring out how to phrase it all…
I love the topic, and in 3 short weeks they’ve become much more comfortable talking about all the terms, asking questions and the topic in general. We have big full sized pictures of human bodies (they drew them, so a little inaccurate) with all the parts there and lots of questions to answer about how sperm is made, why its white, why is my period called ‘the curse’, what’s armpit hair for, and other body questions like ‘how do messages travel so fast in my body’, ‘how does my body know where to grow the teeth’.
But they’re not quite ready for an awesome site like scarleteen. So far no one has asked about gay sex, but they will, and I remember last year, when the question about sexual activities got interesting, I said something like “If you can think of it, someone’s done it, and really, if the people involved are adults and consenting, its usually an OK thing to do”. Last year (my first year of teaching Yr6) FPV encouraged traditional sex as a positive thing, only when you’re ready (and described how you’d know), a trusting relationship-enhancing thing – very positive.
So I thought it might help to read about what one teacher is doing somewhere at the moment. Though I should point out, no uni course has told me what to say: I’m using my own judgement and balancing it against: the curriculum, truths, what they’re curious about right now, what play-time conversations are about and how much (re)direction they need, and worrying about how the story is retold to parents (eep!). And I’m learning too, and still training myself to talk the talk of equality and broaden the norms of sexuality, but its hard to always get it right and know when they’re ready to hear it, because for all the wishes of when readiness occurs its really up to their parents to let these conversations happen, whether at home or at school.
(OK, here goes… Submit!)

By: WildlyParenthetical

WildlyParenthetical — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:41:09 +0000

(Did you know, Ariane, that Foucault made just that argument? ;-)) Well, I think one of the things to keep in mind is that treating sexual assault like any other assault might actually raise the conviction rate, for a few reasons (less shame, less carry-on about ‘her past’, less likelihood of the police refusing to take a report (esp. from sex workers, which is a real issue), less likelihood of a woman’s morals being on trial instead of a man’s actions… there are definite benefits. I have problems with it because there’s a measure of ‘harm’ associated with, say, being punched, which is allegedly ‘purely physical’ (as in, I’m really not convinced that only that physical element is what is being prosecuted in any other assault case, because the emotional content of being harmed against your will matters too, but it’s what people will continually come back to, and they will likely in turn say that rape doesn’t (always) involve physical harm). And in this possibility, the thing to remember, too, is that there are actually lots of different kinds of assault laws, with different levels and kinds of harms, and sexual assault is, legally, one amongst many. So in that respect, theoretically, we could be in that situation now. But of course we’re not. :-/

But all of this feels a little problematic to me, because as Su pointed out, we’re slipping very quickly from ‘talking about sex as about any other topic’ to sexual violence. These are two very very distinct things. Yes, teaching kids about appropriate and inappropriate touching is likely to reference sexual assault/abuse in some way, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the only, or even the main conversation we ought to be having about sex. Or, to be clearer, when I was asking why sex was special, I was asking why we set aside certain conversations, I was talking about the pleasure/negotiation around it and that side of things; I certainly don’t mean to say it’s not ’special’ (well, it makes me light up like Christmas morning!) but that it’s not clear to me why it’s set aside as a topic of conversation. I’m also not sure that allowing or enabling people to talk about sex all the time means that rape is simply equated to other forms of assault? I might be missing a step?

Sorry, feeling a little fuzzy today! Need my coffee!

By: su

su — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:44:01 +0000

To me one difference between sexual assault and much common assault is the instrumentalizing of the victim. Common assault seems somehow more interpersonal in that there is a desire to hurt someone. Sexual assault seems more about using the victim as a means to some end, sexual gratification, the restoration of a feeling of dominance, demonstration of masculinity. There are probably layers of nuance I am missing. I can imagine crimes of violence that also instrumentalize the victims. Silence of the Lambs used that idea of impersonal violence didn’t it? Interesting that it seems to increase the horror factor. I know that one of the most horrible experiences I have ever had as an adult was when a partner picked up my unwilling hand and tried to force me to do something. I found it just as violating as some of the early stuff that to an outsider would have a bigger “Ick” factor.

And now I’m aware that I am centering violence and assault on a thread about sexual pleasure. Bloody patriarchy.

By: Ariane

Ariane — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:46:21 +0000

I’ve been thinking about WP’s discussion of sex being “set apart as something special” and questioning why we do this (it being a significant part of us and access to it being required to be “fully human” according Nussbaum /snark), and how that interacts with abuse.

If we were to accept sex back into the fold as something that can be discussed by everyone all the time, that we accept that kids* experiment with in their own way on their own terms inevitably and isn’t a source of shame for anyone to want to enjoy it, any more than enjoying a good tickle is shameful, would that mean that sexual assault would also not be set aside as something special (from “ordinary” assault)?

Oddly, I have more personal difficulty (at an emotional level) accepting the first part than I do the second. However, that isn’t relevant to the philosophical position, which is interesting, I think. If we consider that there may be all sorts of good reasons to keep sexual assault as a special case (and given our current society and the prevailing tendency to apologise for and accept sexual assault in all forms, I think there are plenty), does that mean we can’t stop viewing sex as something special?

Or, on the other hand, would accepting sex as just another form of pleasure that we mostly keep behind closed doors (I don’t think too many people would argue that sex in public should be as acceptable as tickling, would they?) make the need for keeping sexual assault special obsolete? Or is the fact that we mostly keep it behind closed doors be enough to call sexual assault special without people still concluding that sex is special and separate?

*I suspect all kids experiment with sex at least on their own, I don’t know what proportion of kids experiment with other kids, because I only have anecdata to add to everyone else’s anecdata, but there exists one kid who didn’t experiment with other kids. :)

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:34:23 +0000

In terms of resources, one of the LJers I read had an interesting discussion of leading a discussion of sexuality and disability in the OWL curriculum and how she modified the resources:

http://rivka.livejournal.com/401048.html
http://rivka.livejournal.com/401467.html

(A couple of things to note: the author identifies as a PWD, and LJ is a bit of a different space from blogs and the atmosphere of the comments may be different, as they largely know each other personally in some sense.)

By: Al_Pal

Al_Pal — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:16:26 +0000

Wow. Fantastic post. I learned a lot of great things at University, in a course on Human Sexuality, including trans* and asexual.
I remember 8th grade science class having a movie on AIDS, The Ryan White Story. This was 1990-1. We had a required, one semester, Health Class in HS, which covered all sorts of health issues, not just sex. I remember watching And the Band Played On for that class. :P

It would be awesome if sex ed was more comprehensive! I’ve seen an episode of the Midwest Teen Sex show. Great stuff! :D

By: yvonneL

yvonneL — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:56:29 +0000

What a fantastic discussion. I’m so with Su and Ariane. Though there are many points made by many posters.

I have to say I’m very concerned about child sexual abuse being even remotedly related to ’sexual education’. Sexual abuse is as far removed from ’sex’ as is a physical beating is to dancing a waltz. Both involve movement and touching, even vigorous movement and touching, but are obviously not related.

It is an issue that is really difficult I suppose, because the fact is that the majority of children abused are abused by people who are known and familiar to them. How does a child deal with learning that something wrong is being done by somebody they love, or at least are told they should love? Who do they tell? How can children, even children not abused, not learn to view sex as something probably dangerous when it is associated with ’sex ed’?

Maeveblog’s parents remind me of my own (born early last century!), I realize how lucky I was when I talk about these issues with others.

Wildly P touched on that issue with her comments on consent, I found so deeply, deeply disturbing with Arndt’s message that it wasn’t quite necessary for wives to ‘want to have sex’ in order to enjoy it. There is this peculiar idea that a person might not really know whether or not she/he might want to engage in that most intimate of acts, sexual intimacy with another.

If there is this reluctance, indeed difficulty, to acknowledge that an adult is perfectly entitled to own the right to give permission to be intimately touched how can we then hope to teach this to young children?

By: PharaohKatt

PharaohKatt — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:53:36 +0000

While I agree, I just wanted to point out that this often *isn’t* how we treat adults. I don’t ask before I hug my partner, or my mum or dad, or indeed various friends.

This is definitely true, but there are reasons for that. The first is that you’ve built up a rapport with these people as far as hugging goes. It is well established that I can hug my partner without asking, and He can do the same to me, and that’s fine. Children are like that as well. It doesn’t take long to figure out the ones who want lots of hugs, and those who you have to ask each time.

The other point I’d like to make is that often we do ask if we can hug someone through the use of body language. When I hold out my arms to a friend, they know I am asking for a hug. When they then hug me, they are accepting the hug. Again, children are the same. They know what various cues mean, and will respond to them.
Of course, if you held your arms out to a friend for a hug and they said “not today”, then it would make sense to not hug them (and in the case of my friends, ask them if they were ok). The important thing is the respect behind it.

And indeed there are situations where if I’m responsible for a child’s safety, I’m going to hold their hand even if they don’t want it held – around cars, for example, even though I agree with the general principle that they ‘own’ their bodies.

Oh, absolutely. I think this comes up less in a childcare environment because we often don’t come across those situations, but when they arise the child’s safety is most important.
There are times when I have had to move children without their permission. For example, if one child is hurting another child, I will immediately remove the child doing the hurting and then comfort the victim. Or, if a child needs to be disciplined (not punished) sometimes they sit in the thinking chair. They get warnings “If you do that again you will have to sit in the thinking chair” and then they get choices “I told you not to do that again. Go sit in the thinking chair.” If the child doesn’t, then we say “Either you sit in the thinking chair, or I will put you in the thinking chair”.

But yes, I definitely see your point :)