So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do once I graduate with this masters degree in sexuality studies. In thinking about that, I start to wonder what the ‘do’ would look like. Do I want to go for a PhD? Some sort of post grad fellowship? Or try and start working in the field? Keeping in mind each of these potential avenues, and the fact that they are of course not mutually exclusive or related in any linear sense, what role does ‘sex ed’ play in each of them? In each of these capacities, I think that I want my place in them to reflect a need for sexuality education to also occur outside of the K-12 classroom.

When I think about pursuing a PhD, I think about being both a product of sexuality education and the ways that with a PhD, and the research and teaching I’d be doing, how I could influence and change the field of sexuality. I’ve been living and doing sexuality education in one way or another for my whole life, and this is the point where I can potentially have more of an influence on the current conversations around sexuality education. As a naïve grad student, I do hope that I can have some positive impact on the academy, and translate that to the future of my own ways of teaching, writing, and researching.

What about a fellowship of some sort, a program...

When I was nine, I was pretty sure that “oral sex” meant talking about sex out loud. When I was ten, I didn’t get kissing so I tried it with a girl from Baptist church camp. And when I was fourteen, I argued with my friend Molly about what exactly you blew on during a blow job.

I looked for the answers to my questions about sex in Penthouse forum and Judy Blume books – but I sure could have saved myself a lot of confusion and contradictions if I’d known just one person who wasn’t afraid to talk straight to me.

Now that I’m all grown-up, I’m absolutely resolved that the young people in my life – my kids, my friends’ kids, my nieces and nephews – will know that at least one person in their life is there for them. Me.

I’m not alone. Maybe you’re like me – the “Cool Aunt” – or perhaps you had someone while you were growing up who wasn’t ashamed to have frank, open conversations about sex, and was happy to give you honest answers to questions you were embarrassed to ask other people.

So – we’re launching our First Official Cool Aunt Count to help us find out how many there are, what role they play, what resources they...

This summer, as well as this Summer Institute, is flying by. It seems only yesterday I was teaching my last class in Everett, MA and packing for San Francisco. As a community health educator, I seek to bridge the space between research and practice.

Inevitably when meeting someone, I am asked, “what do you do?” and often my condensed answer is “I teach sex ed.” The range of responses I’ve received have been from the bewildered – “How can you do THAT?” – to joyous – “I’m so glad YOU’RE the one teaching them” and everywhere in between. Sexuality, as well as the teaching of anything sex-related, evokes a strong emotional response. I wonder, if chefs receive the same questioning: “How many years of ‘training’ – wink wink – did you have to get?” and “Do you teach Kindergarteners how to put on condoms?” Food, like sex, is a natural, human need. Studying sexuality, in my mind, is similar to studying food or sleep. Yet unlike our sociocultural relationship to food, sex has become taboo, almost a fetish.Explaining my role to people working on sexual and reproductive health involves some jargon: “I direct a DPH-funded, evidence-based, school-based, teen pregnancy prevention program combining class discussions with service learning.” What does this mean? To parse that sentence: I’m the only one working on this...

You know a movement has arrived when Oprah Magazine picks up on it.

In the July issue of Oprah, there is an article called "Adventures in Adult Sex Education" written by Amanda Robb, gorgeously/hilariously illustrated by Zohar Lazar.

To summarize, there is an emerging movement in this country, on the part of adults, to "go back to school" so to speak when it comes to learning about sex in an adult, non-trivialized way. 

The article describes the phenomenal Our Whole Lives (OWL) curriculum of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)-which aims to educate youth through older adults about sexuality as a lifelong human experience.

As Janet Hayes, the public relations director for the UUA says in the article, "Your sexuality doesn't end after you stop having babies or get divorced or after you turn 60. It is who we are in our core."

Our core indeed. And this is what we have been advocating and doing from NSRC since 2002.

Michael Tino, the Unitarian Universalist minister who co-wrote the OWL curriculum perhaps hits the nail in the head best, "You can have the best high school sex ed in the world, but critical issues aren't going to be...

True or False: Young people in the United States are more likely to learn about sexuality sitting in classrooms than anywhere else. If you said true, think again. Mounting evidence from researchers, media professionals, service providers and policy advocates suggests otherwise. Are we now experiencing a paradigm shift in the geography of "sex ed"? Absolutely, and thankfully, there's no going back.

Yesterday I attended a Guttmacher Institute webinar entitled, "Where Do Young People Learn About Sexual Health?: Education Beyond the Classroom." Panelists included Guttmacher Institute's own Senior Research Associate, Dr. Rachel Jones; Dr. Kate Ott, Associate Director of the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing; Jennifer Weidenbaum, Associate Director of Girls, Inc NYC; and William...

The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act sponsored by Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, and Representative Barbara Lee, D-CA, was reintroduced recently to the applause of pro-sexuality education organizations across the nation.  Originally introduced in 2007, the bill proposes to provide funding for "medically and scientifically accurate information" as part of "comprehensive sex education" that is "age-appropriate" and promotes "abstinence as the only 100% effective way to prevent sexuality transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy."  Of course, I am not against these things and support any kind of funding that allows states and organizations to choose alternatives to abstinence-only programs.  However, I hope the sponsors, co-sponsors, and committee members seize this incredible opportunity and encourage the use of language and frameworks that go beyond merely preventing disease and unwanted pregnancy to promoting healthy sexuality across the lifespan. 

In reading some of the blog reactions and news posts regarding this Act, I was struck by a couple of similarities between the anti-sex ed groups (or "pro-abstinence-only" depending on who you ask) and the pro-comprehensive sex education folks. The most common issue I noticed was the use of the word abstinence. On one side, we are told again and again that the only...

The National Abstinence Education Association has picked today as "2009 Abstinence Day on the Hill." Abstinence on the Hill? That'll be a trick. As organizers bring carloads of youth to the Capitol, to sing the praises of abstinence (literally--there will be dancing, bands and some sort of 'drama teams'), a few thoughts:

On Monday, Barack Obama issued a Presidential Memo to  restore scientific integrity in governmental decision-making. He decried the past goverment's "false choice between sound science and moral values" and said that science must inform our policies. Barack Obama has made the connection; now it is time for the ab-only folks to make it, too: science shows that abstinence only education doesn't work. Want proof? Read the overview from our Fall 2008 Sexuality Research and Social Policy issue, which published articles from Doug Kirby, John Santelli and others showing that abstinence programs have been a failure. Can I boil it down for you?

If science must inform policy, and science shows that abstinence-only education doesn't work, then our abstinence-only policies must be defunded and something new put in their place. So stop right now and

We've been working hard here, scouring the internet in a desperate attempt to find the best moments in cartoon sexual literacy history.

After hours of heated debates over whether the South Park evolution clip was appropriate (not so much) and a few too many work day laughing fits, we bring you the best that cartoon sex education has to offer, the "New and Improved Edition"

For Timely Political Inclusiveness: American Dad:

Favorite quote:

We are RED and we are GAY. We like each others' butts and big tax cuts.

For envisioning an America that provides comprehensive age appropriate sex education for all school age children: South Parks and The Simpsons

Favorite quote:

Class in order to explain why your hormones will soon make you an easy target for every smooth talking Lothario with his own car and tight jeans, I will now show a short sex education film.

Favorite quote:

No we can't...

I always find it interesting when proponents of abstinence-only education start espousing things like ethics, parental-child communication, character, and "a healthy dose of self-respect" when talking about the elements of "holistic" abstinence education programs like K-Lo, or Kathryn Lopez, does in her article in the Washington Times today.  Ms. Lopez's support for these programs is based solely on ideological and religious points of view rather than any thing grounded in scientific evidence.  Of course, she is a "conservative columnist" according to Wikipedia, not a journalist, and she has no background in health education or public health (her undergraduate degree is in philosophy and politics). 

K-Lo inaccurately describes comprehensive sex ed programs as handing out condoms and promoting teen sexual activity and repeats the same old tired argument that teen sex is the problem that results in unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. She also provides "evidence" in support of abstinence-only programs from the Best Friends evaluation, a report that used logistic regression...

The election is over and I’ve been thinking a lot about something that happened back during the primaries.  I’m sure you will all remember it.  This relatively unknown governor of Alaska was thrust into the limelight as the vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party.  Remember that?  You might also remember that shortly after she accepted the nomination (I think it may have been at least a couple of days) it was revealed that her oldest daughter, who just happened to be seventeen, was pregnant, was going to keep the baby, and was going to marry the father.  Do you remember that part? 

Things got a little crazy at this point.  Some people started calling this Alaskan governor and her family, as well as the rest of the RNC, hypocrites due to their undying support for “sex education” that espouses refraining from ANY sexual activity prior to marriage and frowns upon teaching young people about methods of birth control.  Meanwhile, the republicans started shouting back about how supporting this young couple during this time was the Christian thing to do. Then, the liberals called the conservatives...