Dan Savage is my Hero

So I’ve been thinking about this whole “what should I blog about” thing. I really have and I’ve even written down a few things. I doubt that any of them are going anywhere as they’re either lame or I honestly don’t have a lot of interest in blogging about them. However, it has got me to thinking about what I would actually like to blog about.

And what is it that I usually blog about my dear readers?

Come on. You know this.

Welp, I s’pose that there are two major topics of my blog: mental health and sex and sexuality. This time my dear readers I’m thinking sex, in specific Sex Education and it’s been on my mind lately.

Why?

Why Not?

I honestly couldn’t really say as to why but it’s been there, sitting in the background whispering at me. “BJ… BJ… Have you really forgotten about me?”

My answer, as always, was a resounding - NO. No I have not. How could I? You know at one time, I thought that I was going to be a sex educator. It was a dream, a goal, something that has largely become unattainable in the immediate future but always there in the background. It is still is. I know what I would do if I won the lottery and money was no option. I would be designing some awesome sex education curriculum with the help of many pre-teens, teenagers, their parents and experts. (Remember this is an ultimate dream and realistically I realize that this would be mostly improbable. A girl can dream though, alright?)

I wrote a 20 page term paper on sex education in the USA in my third year at the U of A. I got a B and the professor said that if I had done it on Canada I would have probably got an A so I generally know what I’m talking about. I did the basic research… and I’ve done more since then. I could take that paper that I wrote then and make in Alberta centric (Education is provincially legislated, not federally) and I could make it better.

So basically… that’s kinda what I’m doing here but more fun and interesting injected with a heavy dose of personal opinion and speculation. It’s how I roll, yo.

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Sex Education: Education about human sexual anatomy, reproduction, and intercourse and other sexual behaviour

It seems kinda obvious, right? I would include sexuality in the definition personally; however I suppose that it’s covered under “other sexual behaviour.” I would also include discussions about gender as it can be rather different from the sex of a person. For instance:

Sex: either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions.

Gender: Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture

See? I would classify sex as a biological term and gender as more philosophical term. Sex exists in a “dichotomy with exceptions” (Shhhh… It’s not hypocrisy*) and gender is more of a spectrum.

*Yes, I am pseudo-ignoring the existence of hermaphrodites and intersexed individuals. I’m sorry. I mean no offense or otherwise. But I as far as I know they are genetically one or the other – XX or XY and that their gender may or may not match their genes. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I can take it, I’m a big girl. Also, I’m a life-learner, it’s important to always correct your misconceptions.

It is important to realise that there is this difference between sex and gender otherwise you’d be missing a whole subset of sex education. Your sex is only one part of it, your gender is the other and together they walk hand in hand to create your sexuality and sexual identity.

Anywhoozle… Back on track we go.

There are two basic types of sex education programs with most schools laying somewhere between them. There is Comprehensive Sexual Education and there is Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Sexual Education. Personally, if I could convince everyone to go with a true Comprehensive program that is supported in school and at home I would be the happiest person in the world and I truly believe that many of the problems that we have as societies with respect to sex and sexuality would disappear… but that is definitely a pipe dream and it sure ain’t gonna be happening in my life time or the next.

Any ways, comprehensive programs start in kindergarten and continue through high school teaching children, preteens and teenagers age appropriate sexual education. It covers everything from body image to actual sexual mechanics. I would imagine that there are very few truly comprehensive sex ed classes out there. More’s the shame.

Abstinence Only programs are a giant load of hog wash. (I said there would be personal opinion, ok? I warned you. You can’t get mad at me now. You made the choice to keep reading.) HOG WASH! They teach that sex is only for marriage. They do not teach about contraceptives, STIs, masturbation or alternatives to sexual intercourse like mutual masturbation or oral sex. (See More and More.) They are restrictive and make me really mad. They treat sex like it is something that is bad and dirty. Please don’t tell me they don’t. Because the only “good” sex is marital sex in these kinds of programs and that any other sex is “bad.” You are never going to change my mind on this because there is NO WAY that all the sex I’ve been having since I was 19 is bad sex. (Well, some it was but because of one little rule that I always follow and not because it was pre-marital sex.)

BJ’s Good Sex Rule: Sex is good if a) you feel good about it when you’re doing it and b) you still feel good about it later. If you regret it later then it wasn’t good sex, it was bad sex. Deal with it. You made a mistake learn from and move forward.

Gods! It makes no fucking sense to me AT ALL. I’ll admit my bias here, I will. But I just cannot see how an abstinence only program is valuable. I mean look at the facts here, teenagers are giant hormone factories running on concentrated horniness and all because they’re coming into their sexual maturity. Their bodies are changing into becoming adult bodies and whether you want to admit it or not human beings are sexual creatures. The fact that I didn’t have sex until I was 19 seems mostly anomalous when I talk to other people in my generation and really the only reason I didn’t have sex at 17 was because my little sister peaked in my door. (Damn you MA! That probably would have been a HELL of a lot better than my “actual first” experience which sucked giant balls. *sigh*) I swear if I have kids and they have to sit through an Abstinence Only program I might just exercise my rights in Bill 44… *sigh* Or I might just let them sit there and ask the questions that I would expect them to ask and make the teacher squirm. *evil grin*

I mean sex education is so much more than no sex until marriage and sex is for procreation only. Doesn’t it just seem stunted to you? To limit what sex and sexuality are to that narrow of a focus? Doesn’t it?

Now, I am NOT saying that comprehensive sex education is perfect. Far from it Sex and sexuality is such an encompassing thing that I do not believe that there is one way to teach it but I just feel that it is the better approach. It actually makes the effort to teach children something instead of telling them what not to do. Isn’t that what education is about? About arming people with the information to go out into the world prepared as best as possible to make their own mistakes intelligently? I think that’s what education should be about anyways.

Sex Education should be about arming teenagers with all the information about sex and sexuality so that they can go out and make informed and intelligent decisions. It should be about teaching children that we’re all different, we all look different and that’s ok. We should be teaching them that all those beautiful people they see on TV have been airbrushed out of recognition.

As I stated earlier education is provincial legislation. Each province in Canada is responsible for creating its own curriculum and legislation in regards to education. There is no federal education, minus the First Nations, curriculum. Guide to Education produced by the Alberta government has their Human Sexuality Education Policy on page 19. It states:

… school jurisdictions and accredited private schools in providing Grades 4 to 9 Health and Life Skills and Career and Life Management shall ensure that the human sexuality component is offered to all students…

That’s right people sex ed starts in Grade 4 up here in the great white north, well at least in Alberta it does. That means that we have a comprehensive sex ed program. *smiles* It makes me happy, but it doesn’t make everyone happy. Here, this is why you shouldn’t vote for The Alberta Social Credit Party, specifically see Policy 5.6.2 *shudder* It’s terrifying really.

I’ve spent some time reading over the curriculum for both courses: Health and Life Skills (HLS) and Career and Life Management (CALM) and they have some really good things. That being said, I’ve also been through these courses and they are anything but comprehensive. The first time I received sex education in school was in grade 6, they segregated the boys and girls and it really sucked. We learned some anatomy and that we’re gonna be going through puberty soon and what puberty was. Now, that being said, I was the kid who started budding the in summer before grade 4 and by grade six I already had a small C cup, it was a little late for me. It’s a damn good thing that my parents, especially my mom, where willing to talk about it with me or I’da been like – Oh FUCK… What is WRONG WITH ME?! (I wish that more parents were as awesome as mine. That being said mom had to field some really wonderful questions like this gem from my sister, MA, “Mom, what does it taste like?” I’m sure you can guess what it was in reference too. Also… my sister was a precocious youth. She asked this question when I was 8-9ish and she’s 16 months younger than me. Good times, that.)

Grade 7 and 8 were better… our teacher was young. He let us laugh uncomfortably at the words Penis and Vagina, we had an anonymous question box that actually worked well and it was a class that I actually enjoyed in the grand scheme of things. Grade 9 was a bloody gong show again… sexual segregation that definitely didn’t need to be done. It’s not like we haven’t seen the other body parts in wonderful diagrams with each other people. It’s not like we hadn’t asked embarrassing questions before. I really didn’t like the way the teacher did it that year. Grade 11, in CALM was when we got it again. It was sadly lacking again but at least we were all together again and laughing, though less uncomfortably so at the words penis and vagina, and this time around the teacher let us use slang. In fact we had to come up with as many slang words as we could. It was a great exercise to help us get more comfortable with what we were really talking about.

In all these classes, each really only one day a piece, all I remember learning about are these things: anatomy, reproduction, safer sex and that’s that. No discussion about gender, sexuality, sex, alternatives to sex, pressures to have sex, date rape, asexuality (yes, there is such a thing), body image, sexual expectations, etc, etc, etc. I s’pose it could’ve been there but I really don’t remember it. Especially when it really mattered like in CALM, we had one bloody day were the health nurse came in and talk to us about how to use a condom and what STIs were.

Wow.

I really hope that it’s got better since I was in high school. I should ask my cousin, she’s in grade 12 right now. I’m sure she’d LOVE that conversation…

Me: Hey, NK… How was your sex ed classes? Tell me about them, I’m curious.

Cousin: Ah… Hell, no.

Not that she’d actually say, hell no. Or at least not that I’ve ever heard her say it but I really doubt that she would feel comfortable enough discussing that with her 10 years her senior cousin. I know I certainly wouldn’t have at her age. My mom, yes, my cousin who I barely see… definitely not so much.

Yah, definitely not so much.

Hey, NK… if you ever read this and you ever want to tell me about how the sex ed classes are nowadays I’m totally willing to listen and I’ll be as non-awkwardness inducing as possible, I swear. Or you know, not. I’m entirely too open some days and I’d probably say something unintentionally that would scar you for life. I apologise now, just in case. Oh… also… try not to read the archives, trust me, you do not want to know that much about me, I swear. I don’t mind, I’m completely comfortable with my so-called perverseness, I just don’t think you’d be so.

Anyways, through my research I found a great website by the Alberta Government… I’ve only just started going through it but so far it seems really interesting. Check it Out.

Finally, as I am running out of steam, I leave you with the words of Dan Savage, one of my heroes, on How NOT to tell a child about Sex. I could write a whole blog about how Dan Savage is awesomeness incarnated but I would really rather let him speak for himself. If you don’t know who Dan Savage is… it’s time to crawl out from under whatever rock you’ve been hiding under and start reading this and maybe listening to this. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, hell I’m not even sure I do, but I’d say 90% of the time I’m on the same page.

So… Yah… How NOT to tell a child about Sex… Take it away Dan…