Bronwen’s Blog

State governments in India have banned sex education, a big problem since countries with high poverty rates (like India) usually have to grapple with high rates of STDs and unwated pregnancy. The Young People's Foundation is speaking out against this decision, and they state their case admirably well.  Meanwhile, an Indian PSA about condoms is so hilarious it has received the attention of Ad Wizards.

One of the many, many reasons I am adamantly against abstinence-only sex education is that it is not an inclusive way of teaching about sexuality.  Telling kids that they should not have sex until their married sends negative messages about 1) people who can't legally marry (because they would want to marry a partner of the same sex) and 2) kids whose parents aren't married for whatever reason.

In a somewhat related vein, today I stumbled across the Georgia Adoption Law Blog.

A bit tangential, maybe, but here’s why I like it: 

 

1) I appreciate anything that tries to make education more inclusive.  This site points out that, for example, having elementary school kids draw a family tree can leave out any kid who doesn't know anything about their roots, and it suggests alternatives that can help a teacher reach the same educational goal without marginalizing anyone. 

 

2) In the midst of the debates about abortion, adoption is an option that allows a pregnant woman to avoid abortion but doesn't force her to raise a child she hadn't planned to have.  There are certainly many down sides to this choice, as is the case with all options in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, but it shouldn't be forgotten--it's the option both sides of the abortion debate can live with. 

 

3) The more we hear about adoption, the more it's normalized.  And that’s important right now.  More and more gay people are living openly with partners and hoping to have families.  Women are waiting longer to have kids and sometimes face fertility problems as a result, or are not relying on partners to help them become moms.  Adoption is a way for someone to realize the dream of raising a child even if they can't do so naturally.

Teaching about adoption makes great sense both for kids who are adopted, and for anyone who may some day face the choice either to put a child up for adoption or to adopt a child.  I'm glad the Georgia Adoption Law Blog reminded me to think about how important adoption information is to a comprehensive sex ed curriculum.

OK, I'll admit it: I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan.  I read about 100 pages of the first book before deciding that it was great but it wasn't for me.  My friends make fun of me for this mercilessly.  They invite me to see Harry Potter movies and then retract their invitations with "oh right, you hate Harry Potter."  Which is so not fair--hate is such a strong word!  I call myself uninterested.

But I was definitely interested to hear the news that J.K. Rowling had outed Dumbledore!

 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/arts/29conn.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

I'm usually against outing someone against their wishes, but I can make an exception in the case of a fictional character.  I don't want to overplay the significance of this, but in my view, every bit of exposure helps.  When I was a kid, there was no chance that Madeline L'Engle (who just died last month) was going to tell us that a character in A Wrinkle in Time was queer.  (Though I always wondered about the kids in Bridge to Terabithia--Jesse with his sensitive nature, Leslie with her short hair, and their totally platonic relationship...hmmm...)  That the author of one of the most popular kids' fiction series ever felt comfortable casually dropping the news that one of her sympathetic characters is gay is a true sign of the times.

Next week:  just what is Dora the Explorer supposedly exploring?

A middle school in Portland, ME is providing birth control to students without letting their parents know.

 

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/us/18portland.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192719614-0eT4ijvnFogmjEivoaRsFQ

 

Some parents are freaking out, but the most important line in the article is this:

 

“It has been shown, over and over again, that this does not increase sexual activity,” said Pat Patterson, the medical director of School-Based Health Centers.

 

Kids are constantly asking me how they can get birth control without their parents knowing.  As countless studies have shown, they’ll have sex if that’s what they want to do; what adults can do is give them everything they need to do it safely.  I hope more schools follow this one.

(Thanks to Anna LeMon for sending me this article!)

 

Hey parents, George W. Bush here.  I’m here to tell you to tell your kids you want them to follow a standard that is not followed by the majority of their peers and by the vast majority of the people in this country.  Tell them you want them to be virgins on their wedding night. Tell them you want it to be more likely that they marry someone—anyone—because their hormones are raging and they just can’t wait any longer.  Tell them to commit to a sex life with one person without actually knowing what sex with that person will be like.  That you want to commit the rest of their lives to someone without knowing if that person is sexually repressed, selfish in bed, impotent, or doesn’t wash their genitals.  And definitely make sure they know that if they’re gay, they’ll have to move to Massachusetts if they ever want to have sex, because that’s the only state where they can legally marry.  (Or, if they’d prefer, they can suppress their feelings, and marry a member of the opposite sex and spend the rest of their lives having sex with someone they’re not at all attracted to until they finally realize they’re living a lie and get a divorce much to the dismay of their children.)

Moms, dads, instruct your kids to live their lives by the most unrealistic standards necessary.  No need tell them what they actually need to know about sex; since they’ll obviously follow your Just Say No policy—the one that worked so great for drugs back in the Nancy Reagan days—they won’t ever need to know how a condom works anyway.  Sure, you grew up in the sixties, so we all know you had plenty of premarital sex (and used plenty of drugs while you were at it), but a little hypocrisy never hurt anyone.  I mean, look at us—we’re doing just fine! 

 

My friend Ellen Friedrichs has just become the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) Teens guide for the website about.com.  Check it out:  http://gayteens.about.com/

I know Ellen from our days in human sexuality graduate school.  I’d say I learned as much from her as I did from my professors, or maybe more.  I know there will be great information on this site in the days to come.  And already, there’s an interview with yours truly.  : )

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Mitt Romney criticized his Democratic rivals Thursday for not rejecting the inclusion of gay-related issues in sex education for second-graders. 

For the full story:  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_fIpk2Cftto93qi9yaTmcJzi0jQ

So here’s the thing, Mitt.  Second graders don’t care about marriage.  But here’s why young kids need to learn about gay people:

• So that when one of them figures out that they’re gay, they’ll know they’re normal.
• So they will understand why one of their classmates has two mommies or two daddies
• So they can grow up to be the kinds of adults we want them to be—the kinds of people who, as Barack Obama put it when he was asked about this, aren’t “afraid of people who are different.”  We have enough people like this in the world, don’t you think?

 
It cracks me up when people claim they’re not homophobic, but then insist that kids are too young to hear about gay people.  Talking to them about this topic doesn’t mean discussing anal sex techniques.  It’s a part of explaining to them that the world is full of difference, and that difference is to be celebrated and respected.  It’s why, when I was a kid, I learned about religions and cultures and skin pigmentations that were different from mine. 

Lets see how other presidential hopefuls weighed in on this topic:

"Edwards, who has a 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, said he wants his children "to understand everything about the difficulties that gay and lesbian couples are faced with every day," but added that teaching such issues might be "a little tough.""

            Yeah, it’s a little tough.  It’s tough teaching kids algebra, too, but we do it.

"Obama, who has daughters ages 6 and 9, said his wife has discussed same-sex marriage with their children and urged them "not to be afraid of people who are different.""

            How does he always know how to say the exact right thing on this subject?

"Clinton said, "With respect to your individual children, that is such a matter of parental discretion ...""

            Schools are for teaching.  But suddenly when it comes to sex, people get freaked out and want to leave the teaching to the parents.  I guess that’s because we’re concerned about stepping on people’s values.  But values are a big part of other subjects too, like history, and we don’t leave the teaching of that subject to parents.  Besides which, learning to accept that there are gay people in the world just shouldn’t be optional any more—it should be part of a good education.

I thought maybe it’d be a good idea to talk a bit about my work.  I do HIV testing and counseling at a hospital in New York City.  I test men and women of all ages and backgrounds.  Most of them are just testing as part of an annual routine—they’re almost sure they’re positive, they’re just checking.  But sometimes I encounter more complicated situations.

 

Today I tested an adorable 24-year-old guy I’ll call Mauricio.  He was worried he might have gotten HIV by kissing a guy who had the virus, because Mauricio has some sores in his mouth.  I explained to him that you can’t get HIV from kissing, even if you have sores in your mouth.  The only fluids that transmit HIV are blood, semen, and vaginal secretions (and breast milk, for babies).  You can kiss someone with HIV all you want, get lots of their saliva in your mouth, and you won’t get HIV, because saliva does not contain enough HIV to infect another person.  Mauricio asked what if the guy had a little bit of blood in his mouth?  Even then, I told him, the chances are miniscule that it would be enough to transmit the virus.

 

Mauricio had already seen a doctor, who had given him PEP, or Post-Exposure Prophyllaxis.  This is sort of a morning-after pill for HIV.  Someone who feels they have been exposed to HIV—from unprotected sex, or sharing a needle for IV drug use, or a doctor who stuck himself with a contaminated needle—can take a regimen of drugs to kill the virus before it starts to make copies of itself.  It’s very successful, but it means being on HIV drugs for 6 weeks. Not fun, since they have lots of side effects.  Mauricio was trying to figure out whether or not he wanted to keep take the drugs.

 

As we talked more, Mauricio explained that this was further complicated by the fact that he has a boyfriend, who he has been with for 6 years.  He was worried that if he was infected, he could infect his boyfriend, too.  He has been cheating a lot, he admitted.  He wanted to know why he has been doing this.  I suggested he might be feeling restless.  “I’d already been around the block when I met my boyfriend,” he said, “so I thought I had that out of my system.  But maybe you’re right.” 

 

After a while Mauricio said he felt better, and that he would take the prescription for PEP and think more about whether or not to take it.  I gave him a hug and we said goodbye.

 

I know Mauricio will be fine.  He doesn’t need to take the the drugs.  I think he knows that too.  He might take them anyway, for his peace of mind, so that he can feel absolutely certain that he didn’t ruin his whole life with a few kisses, and that he won’t infect his unsuspecting partner.  Sometimes the drugs are medicine for the body, but maybe more often they’re medicine for the mind.

 

 

From One News Now, July 23, 2007:  Dean Nelson, executive director of the Network of Politically Active Christians, is calling Obama's views on sex and abortion out of touch with those of mainstream Americans. This remark follows Senator Obama's recent address to Planned Parenthood in which he stated that sex education for kindergarteners, provided it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do." Obama also affirmed his healthcare proposal would include universal abortion coverage.

What Nelson doesn’t seem to know is that most “mainstream Americans”—parents especially—want their kids to have comprehensive, medically accurate sex education in school.  According to Planned Parenthood, “approximately 82 percent of Americans and 75 percent of parents want their children to receive a variety of information on subjects including contraception and condom use, sexually transmitted infection, sexual orientation, safer sex practices, abortion, communications and coping skills, and the emotional aspects of sexual relationships.”

And according to a SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US) fact sheet, “only 7% of the voting public say they do not want sexuality education to be taught at all as part of school curriculum.”  Good news for Obama, too:  “More than 6 in 10 voters would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports comprehensive sexuality education.”

Even more frustrating than this article are the readers’ responses that claim that Obama is “not being guided by Christianity,” or not “Biblically-minded.”  Is he running for president, or Pope?

 

 

 

If you’re looking for a reason to vote for Barack Obama (other than how incredibly cute he is) here’s one:  his views on sex education.  Mitt Romney, and everyone who has responded to this conversation in the last few days, have had a great time imagining scenarios in which 5-year-olds are taught how to put condoms on cucumbers.  Ann Coulter had a blast suggesting that this is all part of a “long line of liberals” who aim to teach sex ed to kids whose school days still include nap time.  But anyone smarter than a kindergartener can get behind what Obama was really talking about.

Sex education is about more than birth control and abstinence pledges.  It should be a lifelong process, and it can begin as early as age 5.  Kids need to know about inappropriate touching.  Telling them that there are parts of their bodies that no one should touch will help them identify a good touch from a bad one.  And when young kids ask, as they often do, where babies come from, teachers should have appropriate, science-based answers that don’t mention the stork.  This should be common sense, but if there needs to be a bill legislating such a thing, then so be it.  Let the right wing keep on kidding themselves that Obama is a pervert and that liberals are crazy enough to tell small children about anal sex.  We’re already neglecting to educate teens in the age of HIV and “oral sex isn’t really sex.”  Let’s not also neglect young kids in the age of internet predators.

I know what you meant, Senator Obama.  You can talk to me about sex any time you like.

 

 

A few days ago in Colorado, House Democrats passed a bill that requires school sex-education programs to be based on -- get this -- science.  What a concept.  Republicans are upset, claiming that sex ed programs should be based on parents' morals and values.

I'm all for parents teaching kids about sex, but too many of them don't.  They're too embarrassed, they try but their kids would rather eat tin foil than listen to their parents talk about sex, or they're in denial -- sure, more than half of all teens have sex before they get out of high school, but not my kid.  The truth is, we rely on schools to teach kids just about everything else.  Why is sex so different?  Of course parents want to pass along their own values, and no one is stopping them.  But there's a lot to know about sex, and if kids don't learn about it in school, most of them are going to find out about it on the internet, or in the locker room, or while they're doing it.

Studies show that both abstinence-only education programs (which pretty much amount to "just say no") and comprehensive sex education programs (which promote abstinence and also discuss how to prevent pregnancy and STDs) can have some success in convincing kids to delay intercourse.  But sooner or later--and probably sooner--kids are going to have sex.  When they do, the ones who learned about condoms will use them, and the ones who were told not to have sex because condoms fail will not.  It's that simple.  We've been in denial about sex education for too long.  I hope Colorado is not the last state to knock some sense and science into their sex ed curriculum.