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The Virgin Suicides (by LittleThunder)
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“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all...”
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The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.—BB King
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Tweeted by another organization today, from 2010:
This is one of a long line of common phrases in sex education and sexuality messaging people, including people I think of as allies, use that I deeply dislike, like “preventing teen pregnancy.” Let me explain why, working backwards.
“You should wait for sex, but if you can’t…”
That’s usually followed by “then you should have sex using safer sex and contraception.” Or — and usually addressing both those things — “then you should at least be responsible.”
In some respect, that’s fine. Now, not everyone needs contraception, either because they don’t have a partner with a radically different reproductive system than them or they’re not having the kinds of sex that can create a pregnancy, so that doesn’t always make sense. But for people choosing to have any kind of sex, we’re 100% on board with the sentiment that all of us — no matter our age — should be engaging in sexual practices supportive of safeguarding everyone’s best health, and in alignment with whether we do or don’t want or are or are not ready for a pregnancy. This statement often tacitly or inadvertently defining all sex as opposite-sexed or as intercourse isn’t okay, but overall, on the safer sex and contraception bit? I’m right there with you.
The “if you can’t?” Not cool. We all can elect not to have any kind of consensual sex, sparing masturbation we may unknowingly do in our sleep, something that happens sometimes. Some people also do have earnest impulse control disorders, but those are disorders, and do not occur in the vast majority of people of any age.
If we have consensual sex it is completely within our control, whether we’re 13, 26 or 63. There is no “can’t wait” when it comes to consensual sex. To suggest there is is not only incorrect, as we have free will, it can also be rape enabling. It backs up those who excuse rape by saying they (or rapists) couldn’t control themselves, that just they couldn’t help it, that when they feel sexual they cannot stop themselves and every kind of garbage of that ilk that is an absolute, and highly convenient, fiction. People always can hold off on sex or decline sex unless someone is being sexually assaulted or abused, in which case the person doing the abusing is in control of what is happening, but the person being victimized is not because the other person or group has also taken control of that person in some way. If we are choosing to have sex, that choice in and of itself is one of responsibility, and if we’re bearing our own and our partner’s consent in mind, one is already being responsible.
Some folks say “don’t” instead of can’t. That’s far better. There most certainly is a “don’t want to wait,” but there isn’t a can’t. Nearly everyone can. It’s just that not everyone always wants to. Not only is that a more truthful framing, it’s one which makes clear that active consent and decision-making, and owning your choices, is of great import.
This “can’t” stuff also plays into the way people often misrepresent teen sexuality: something out of one’s control or will, as about “raging hormones” (hormones with apparent superpowers that can compel the body to move against one’s own will); as a burly, untamable, and usually masculine beastie that picks young folks up by the feet and shakes them until they don’t have two pennies of sense left to rub together. I’m not about to argue that when sexual feelings first start to develop and flourish that they don’t often feel heady, even unwieldy: they sure can. But that doesn’t make them unmanageable or make any actions one may take stemming from them out of a person’s control.
Read the rest at Scarleteen here.
On a work trip I took a few weeks ago, I was at a higher end hotel that is patronized mostly by older professionals. I stayed there a few days and took particular notice of how cordial the front desk staff was. Smiles, stupid jokes, holding the door open, the whole shabang. On the day of my departure, I approached the desk and requested a shuttle to the airport. I was shocked to be met with a scolding and condescending lecture about how the shuttle was not available because I had not notified them in advance (regardless of the fact that when I was being picked up from the airport, they did not require a shuttle reservation). With a finger wag and a frown, the staff told me that I would have to make another arrangement. As I walked to the other side of the lobby to call a cab, I faintly overheard one clerk make a comment about irresponsible kids.
Irresponsible kids? How is it irresponsible to assume that I just need to ask for a shuttle when that is what I did on my way in? And even if it was irresponsible of me, it is not the front desk’s job to scold me for my mistake as if I am their child and not an adult customer. I expect the same courtesy that was being given to all of the other guests, every single one of which was visibly older, who visited their hotel.
Read the rest from the awesome Laci Green here.
… I reminded people of the similarities between [young people’s] and adult sexuality: both groups are challenged by performance pressure, the desire for validation, insufficient information, and inadequate communication skills. Both groups want sex to provide closeness, pleasure, feelings of being special and desired, and a chance for self-expression.
But when it comes to sex, young people are a repressed minority. They suffer from the systematic withholding of sexual information, health services, and products. They don’t own their own bodies (or images of them), and special laws criminalize their sexual expression. We’d be shocked if anyone suggested these restrictions on the sexuality of any other group in society, such as Blacks, Jews, or the deaf.
The influence of politics on science and women’s health was once again on full display late last year. In December 2011, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of Plan B One-Step’s over-the-counter (OTC) status. It would have been the first time emergency contraception (EC) would be available without a prescription for women of all ages. Instead, it was the first time a HHS secretary overrode the FDA’s decision to approve a medication.
While Secretary Sebelius’ decision to intervene and block Plan B One-Step’s OTC status was shocking on several fronts—given the mounds of scientific evidence proving EC as safe and effective for adolescents and this Administration’s pledge to scientific integrity—those of us at the Center for Reproductive Rights saw it as “déjà vu all over again.”
We’ve been battling the FDA’s politicization of EC for over a decade—trying to hold the FDA accountable in federal court for treating EC differently than any other medication.
Read the rest over at RH Reality Check here.
