After taking a brief hiatus (moving in the middle of the semester is fun!) my blog post series making a case for sex education is back. In this post, I’d like to talk about the widespread ignorance and disgust around bodies – especially women’s bodies – that could easily be remedied by universal evidence-based sex education. […]
the case for sex ed
In Nonconcordant Arousal Lies Freedom (The Case for Sex Ed Part 8)
New to this blog post series? Check out the rest of my blog posts making a case for sex education for all. Okay, let’s say you have acquired some basic knowledge about sex (no thanks to the efforts of those trying to keep young people in the dark). You’ve probably learned that hard penis and wet vagina = […]
Teaching Relationships Empowers Everyone (The Case for Sex Ed Part 7)
In this installment of my The Case for Sex Ed blog post series, I’m going to address how teaching the basics of equitable relationships as part of a sex education curriculum can improve the lives of teens and everyone. When we talk about relationships there’s a tendency to assume that we mean sexual and/or romantic […]
We Could Reduce STI Stigma & Improve Public Health…But We’re Not (The Case for Sex Ed Part 6)
Defining stigma, and then discussing its associations with sexuality, are important steps in furthering sexual health. This is number 6 in my “The Case for Sex Ed” blog post series; click here to check out the rest. In Bruce Link and Jo Phelan’s article, “On Stigma and Its Public Health Implications,” they describe the ways in […]
How Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Erases Consent (The Case for Sex Ed Part 5)
We’re now onto part 5 of my blog series The Case for Sex Ed! You can read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 here. RoleReboot blogger Lynn Beisner beat me to the theme of this post with her post On Josh Duggar And Why It’s Time To Do Away With Abstinence-Only Sex Education. But there are […]
We Need to Disentangle Gender From Sex (The Case for Sex Ed Part 4)
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 […]
Because Teaching Sex Ed Is Not Encouraging Sex (The Case for Sex Ed Part 3)
Time for another post in my series on why we need sex education! Feel free to catch up on part 1 and part 2 if you haven’t already. While perusing my Twitter feed, I came across Rebecca Zamon’s Huffpost Canada blog supporting the new Canadian (specifically Ontario) curriculum for health and physical education. Why? Because, among other […]
A Body-Literate Society (The Case for Sex Ed Part 2)
In continuing my series making a case for sex education (see part 1 here), I’d like to make the point that we need sex ed in order to ensure that we live in a society where everyone knows how their bodies work. This includes anatomical functions like puberty and pregnancy, STI transmission, orgasm, and much […]
Cognitive Dissonance & Abstinence-Only Education (The Case for Sex Ed Part 1)
I’m kicking off a new blog post series called “The Case for Sex Ed.” In it, I’ll devote each post to a facet of the larger argument in favor of comprehensive, evidence-based sex education. This first post is about the cognitive dissonance inherent in abstinence-only educational programs (not to lose sight of the fact that these […]