Welcome to my blog post series making a case for sex education (you can catch up and read part 1 here, part 2 here, and part 3 here). In this post I’ll analyze how concepts of gender and sexual activity intertwine in contemporary American culture, and how accurate sex education can help.* Since I just […]
teaching
Syphilis in the Social Sciences Classroom
A lot of the work I do as a sex educator is in the college classroom. I haven’t taught a Human Sexuality class yet, or done a campus Sex Week yet, but in designing and teaching classes in anthropology, gender studies, and folklore programs, I emphasize many basic themes and topics in sex education, such as […]
And Then I Brought Up Flesh Hooks.
One of the topics I discussed with my fall 2013 college-level class on non-monogamy is BDSM and kink. I deliberately introduced the topic at the end of the semester, when we’d already studied sexual and gender configurations around the world, past and present, with an eye toward how gender, sexuality, and relationship models inform one […]
Why I’m Silent About My Sexuality (For Now)
This is a topic that weighs heavily on me and is not easy to write about. I’m massively in favor of providing shame-free sex education, of oversharing as a political act, and of creating sex-positive learning environments. And yet I feel unable to talk about my own sexuality publicly or in print. In a way, this […]
Clear Teaching Principles and Sex Education
At sex ed colleague Kate McCombs’s urging, I began to brainstorm ways to apply the clear teaching principles articulated here to sex education. I’ve spent way more time in the university classroom, typically teaching folklore and/or gender studies classes, than I have in the sex ed classroom, so some of this will speculative. If nothing […]