Sex Education: a Reflection of Community Attitudes Towards Female Bodies
I remember the boys and the girls of our grade being split up into different classrooms.
I remember the assignment I handed in: a very detailed chart of every STI symptom, cause, and treatment.
I remember being completely overwhelmed by the logistics of a dental dam (to be honest this one still evades me.)
I remember our female PE teacher telling us girls to yell “Fire!” and not rape, if we were ever being assaulted.
I remember all of this, because from the age of 10, until I graduated, I had a school that gave me a lot of information on sex. I liked all the information. It helped me make sense of things. I also liked getting it from a reputable source, basically any adult other than my parents. Sure, I had the Internet, but we weren’t sophisticated enough with our Google searches in the early 2000s, and I still shared a computer with my Mom in the living room, so I wasn’t going to go and “Ask Jeeves: Can I get herpes from kissing a boy?”
Perhaps I’m a bad example, since sex education, the Canadian drug prevention program, D.A.R.E., and all the many other educational/scare tactics, worked so incredibly well on me. I didn’t do drugs and I didn’t have sex in highs school. Sure, I made up for it later, but for the most part I steered clear of anything that might mess up my future, at least until the part of my brain that made rational decisions had formed a little bit better. It doesn’t work that way for everyone, not everyone listens, but the thing that has always eluded me, is the concept that simply shielding young people from information, will make the problem go away.
We have all of this science, all of these studies, and then just literal common sense, that tells us that teenagers are just dying to figure out all the ways they can make their bodies feeling fucking awesome. When they figure it out, they’re like lab rats that will keep pressing the cocaine button over and over again, instead of pressing the food button, and will literally starve themselves to get another hit.
Abstinence only “education” tells kids, “We know you’re horny, but just don’t be. Ok? Oh, and God watches when you masturbate.”
I mentioned that I received pretty extensive sex education, and despite leaving high school incredibly well educated on all the perils and pitfalls of sex, I also left pretty fearful of sex. It was something I wanted, but the sex I learned about, just didn’t feel worth it. Perhaps my father is letting out a huge sigh of relief, and the school I went to will receive an anonymous donation in the mail tomorrow, but I can’t say I’m in support of this approach either. Both tactics address the topic of teenage sex with fear. Whether it’s fear of God and an afterlife of burning in hell, or the fear of having itchy junk for the rest of your life, both approaches attempt to scare young people into keeping it in their pants. They ultimately fail to admit that for many, teen sex is a common milestone, and there are many ways to pass that milestone safely and consensually, and oh yah, sex can, and should, feel really fucking good when with the right partner.
I began to wonder what these different approaches to sex (or abstinence-only) education say about how our communities view female bodies. This likely won’t come as a surprise, but states that have abstinence-only education, also have the highest rates of teen pregnancy. Across the country, teen pregnancy rates have gone down 41% between 2006 and 2014, and yet Texas, a staunch abstinence-only state, has a teen pregnancy rate of nearly 2–3 times the national average. Now keep that thought in mind when you remember that the Supreme Court will be ruling on HB2 this summer. HB2 is an anti-abortion bill from 2013 that has already led to the closing of 22 of Texas’s 41 abortion clinics. If you’re a woman from a low-income family, good-luck finding a clinic near you, accessing the healthcare to pay for an abortion, and then hopefully your doctor won’t have their life threatened for doing their job.
We already know that only 38% of teen mother’s graduate from high school, and 2% get a college education before they reach 30, which ultimate leads to lower income expectation, and children of teen mothers are also more likely to also get pregnant in their teens. Research done by the National Bureau of Economic Research, showed a correlation between states with high teen pregnancy and higher levels of income inequality, and that women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely to “keep their baby”. Researchers Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine, with the University of Maryland Population Research Center and Wellesley College, argue that this stems from a “culture of despair”,
While the current US election climate and HB2 has sparked more national discussion on accessible healthcare for women, the conservative right has been succeeding in making the public think that every abortion clinic is like a sketchy doctor with a rusty knife, and Pro-Lifers are Baby’s Dad from Dirty Dancing, here to save the day. In reality, almost all abortions involve absolutely zero cutting, and take 5–10 minutes. Nobody would deny that it is important to protect safe and effective medical procedures, but the anti-abortion bills that have stripped away the legitimacy of Roe V. Wade, are not about women’s safety, they are about eliminating access, and limiting a woman’s right to choose. When we know all of this, how is it possible to not infer that there are oppressive forces at play? Culturally, economically, and politically, women are continuously pushed into becoming mothers, and not breadwinners. It is no longer acceptable for us to be bystanders, when faced with the reality of what is happening all around us.
Does Silicon Valley need to start hiring more women and minorities? Of course! Should we be pushing for more diverse executive led companies? Damn straight! But we would be remiss to think that we can solve some these problems without addressing where they begin, and this means giving our young men and women all the information. Women’s bodies are consistently up for debate, they are for us to scrutinize, for us to shame, for us to ponder when choosing a presidential nominee, for us to lust after, or to reject. Women’s bodies are the victims of our disapproval, they’re what we blame for boys getting bad grades, and even for their own assault.
If female bodies are so often the topic of our discussion, then why is it so difficult for us to talk to young people about them, in a way that is healthy and productive?
